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Big Bang Theories & Andromeda Collisions: #500 - Your Questions Answered in Our Milestone Episode · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello again, thanks for joining us and welcome. This is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Believe It or Not Episode five hundred of Space Nuts.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Can you believe it?
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And what have we got in store for you today?
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely nothing. We didn't have time to organize anything, but
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we will be answering audience questions. It's a Q and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: A episode. We have got a few remarks.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: That have come in.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I always scared of remarks, but anyway, we'll deal with that.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We've got a question about Big Bang theory. We've got
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: another question about the collision with Andromeda, cold welding. I've
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: never tried it, but I'm willing to give it a go.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And a question from Mike, who's asking all of us
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: about our favorite upcoming missions.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: That'll be fun.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It's all coming up on this episode five hundred of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts fifteen Channel ten nine Ignition Space Nuts two.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Space Nurse when I recorded Neil's good and.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Joining us for this auspicious occasion, or it's just another episode,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: whichever way you want to look at it is. Johnny Horner,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Hello, Johnny, good evening, how are you going good?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And Professor Fred what's an astronomer at large?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Back in the chair.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: Hello, Hello Andrew, and.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Nice to be Buck. It's the answered help. Obviously, it's
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: all right. It'll come back to you. You've had plenty
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of time to forget how we do this, but it'll
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: come back good and properly again. Yes, it reminds me now,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: who was it? Graham Garden who was with the Goodies? Remember, yes,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I do. He was on another TV shoe show once
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and they were I can't remember what the circumstance answers are,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: but they were all doing pick up pick up lines
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: at nursing homes, and Gray of Garden went, hello, who
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: am I.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: It was? It was the radio show.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I haven't a clue.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: That's what it was, which is fut brilliant stuff, brilliant stuff.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: You probably did that stuff up on YouTube or somewhere
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: these days.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Very funny, very funny radio.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Now I want to start off with not so much
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a question but a comment that was in.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: An academic conference. This is more of a comment than
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a question.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, my guys, I'm Michael from Glasgow, Scotland. Thanks for
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: your great show.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: That was the comment.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: No, thanks for your great show, which I've been listening
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to for several years. Now here's my thoughts on a
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: subject much discussed. We know that words are powerful, the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: powerful equals energy, and that energy equals matter. My theory
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is that dark matter is the mass equivalent of all
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the bad one liners, dad jokes and awful puns that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Andrew has collected.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: And shared the years.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Dark energy is simply the rest of the universe trying
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to get away before he delivers the punchlines. Should I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: collect a Nobel Prize or a coat? On my way out?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Wishing you and you.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Were nearest and dearest the best for well the festive season.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: See how long it's taken me to get to this
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: one and for twenty twenty five Michael. Thanks Michael, great comment.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and just watch my boot on your
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: way out.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I think that it actually a good one.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It allows me to segue into a fabulous British author
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: who is dearly missed, in the form of Terry Pruptchett.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Sir Terry Pratchett, who, when he was knighted, forged his
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: unsold out of Star Metal, which is kind of awesome.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And Prutchet was an incredible author and incredible visionary, but
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: he came up with this very similar concept. There's a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: bit in Guards Guards, which is I think the eighth
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of the Discworld Books, where the librarian of the Unseen University,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: who is an orangutan for various reasons, is trying to
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: go back to figure out who's stole a book. And
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: there's this beautiful paragraph about how collections of books and
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: collections of knowledge distort space and time, and perhaps he says,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: you know, the relevant equation is knowledge equals power equals
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: energy equals matter equals mass. A good bookshop is just
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: a genteel black hole that knows how to read this
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: space into polyfractal l space in which everywhere is also
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: everywhere Else. Basically goes on to allow the librarian to
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: travel back through the hidden shells of l space to
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: work out who had committed the heinous act of stealing
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  Speaker 2: a book, which is clearly a crime far more important
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: than murder or anything else that the what she's dealing
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: with at the time. Fabulous books, but he often had
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: science the inflected humor in there, and yeah, it's lovely
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to be able to reminisce and think back to him
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: thanks to what's a fabulous comment.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: I think he also invented my wife salta ego Granny Ogg. Yes,
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: because Manny Argue is the person to whom I'm married
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: and accuse. Yeah, choose a step Granny.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: I perhpoually got sat on my desk.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Here the first real discworld best book that has been
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: come out other than for Terry Pratchett, which is put
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: together by his daughter Rihanna, which is tifpity Akin's Guard
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: to Being a Witch. And yeah, Granny weather Ax and
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Nanny Og feature prominently in the.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Beautiful cover art there.
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  Speaker 1: So yes, Okay, now we have get in commission for that,
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  Speaker 1: so well you might so to our first question, is
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  Speaker 1: there any conclusive evidence that the Big Bang did not
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  Speaker 1: occur in an already existing universe? I love your show
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and never miss an episode. Keep up the good work,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Joe from Washington. So is there any conclusive evidence that
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  Speaker 1: the Big Bang did not occur in an already existing universe.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I've got you on record as saying when I've asked
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the question what was there before the Big Bang? And
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you said nothing? Well, you answered it, but your answer
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: was nothing.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Well, just I'm going to throw this one direct to
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  Speaker 4: John T and see why, he says in answer to it,
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  Speaker 4: my answer is that we don't know.
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  Speaker 3: That.
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  Speaker 4: Our best theory for the way the universe works is
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: general relativity, and general relativity says that time started with
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: the Big Bang and so there wasn't a universe there before.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: But that theory is challenged by people who think there
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: might be a multiverse, and by quantum mechanics who think
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  Speaker 4: that you've got to have time before the Big Bang
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: for quantum mechanics to work, and so it's all a
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: bit messy. But there's there's no evidence. In fact, really
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: there's no evidence either way.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: When will But we're a bit back to more Pratchett,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: aren't we. In the beginning there was nothing which exploded
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the hard part for this, And again I'm not a cosmologist.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I think our wonderful colleagues down the hill at the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: University of Queensland would be well placed to also fail
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: to answer this question, but they's straight from a position
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: of much more knowledge than I have. But I take
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: on this is that space and time are inherently of
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the universe. So when people ask me a question that's
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: related to this, which is what's outside the universe or
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: what's before the universe in the framework that our cosmological
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: friends have come up with those questions of meaningless, because
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: you can't be outside the universe couset. To be outside,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you need to be in some where that is spacial,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: so you're actually still in the universe. The idea is
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that if everything in the universe when you rewind t
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: back ends up in exactly the same place, but that
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: place is everywhere all at once, then having that been
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: something that is already in existing universe outside that falls
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: into that same philosophical problem. And it's where I think
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: cosmology and philosophy blur together, because if the Big Bang
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: creates space and time, then the concept of outside the
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Big Bang is the same as before the Big Bang,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and it becomes meaningless.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: It's like a divide by zero error. What that probably.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Means is I don't understand the theories as well as
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I should do. But it also probably means that our
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: theories are not yet at the final evolution of them,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: because there are questions we still can't answer. And this
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: is something we see with kind of the literative nature
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  Speaker 2: of science, is that you get a theory that explains
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: everything you can observe and everything you can ask that
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  Speaker 2: does a really good job for a real long time,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: until you get better at studying the universe and you
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: start to find the cracks. And I think this is
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: one of the questions that's illustrating cracks that we haven't
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  Speaker 2: explained yet. So we can give you our best imagination
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: of what it could be. But the reality is, as
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Fred says, we just don't know. That's why people are
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: doing the research. You know, if we knew the outro already,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: it wouldn't be researched, it wouldn't be worth doing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had questions about this many many times over
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  Speaker 1: the years, and even people with their own theories. Could
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  Speaker 1: the Big Bang be the result of a previous universe
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  Speaker 1: collapsing in on itself, so the gnab gibb creates a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: big bang? That one's been tossed at us and a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: few other thoughts. Look, yeah, I don't know. Answer sits
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: pretty well with me at the moment, because how could
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: we possibly figure it out? That's another question a.
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  Speaker 2: Lot that hurts my head as well, because I occasionally
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: come up to this. We know an incredible amount about
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: the universe, and we've worked a whole heap out with
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: a couple of kilos of mushy goo mushy carb and
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: it's amazing what you can work out. But the still
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: more to learn. And that's a good thing because otherwise
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't be implanted.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a very good point, come to think of.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not employed anything.
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  Speaker 4: Is So the cracks are interesting, I mean, and perhaps
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: it's just worth highlighting what led to the idea of
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: multiverses in the first place, which are one is the
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: fact that it's what's it called, I can't remember the word.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I'm jet lagged.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: Anyway, and the fact that we seem to have a
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: universe that's fine tuned for life to exist. That's what
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: I thought. It was anthropic, but my brain said, no,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: it's something else anyway, that's all right, And you know
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: that that's what led people like Martin Reese, who I
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: think coined the term multiverse to this Toronto Royal to
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: to postulate that maybe there are other universes out there
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: that are not fine tuned for life to exist, and
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: the one we live in happened to be the only
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: one that has that is. And the other thing that
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: intrigues p is, you know, the fourth fundamental forces of
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: nature that weak and strong nuclear forces them, electromagnetic force,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: and gravity. Gravity is hundreds of billions of billions of time,
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: weaker at times, weaker than the others, any of the others,
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: and so some have suggested that maybe gravity leaks out
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: into whatever the void is between our universe and nextdoors universe,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: which I think cosmologists.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Call the bulk.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: I've got a feeling doctor who called it the void,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Is that right? I can't remember anyway, it's the space
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: between universes, which must exist in a higher dimension. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: we don't know about high dimensions yet, but if we
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: did find out about higher dimensions, then we might start
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: thinking of answers to this exact question.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: I doly never know.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: One day, maybe somebody will make a breakthrough and we'll
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: know exactly what happened.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: But I'm not holding them my bred. Okay, thanks Joe.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Great question, as always is. Yeah, it's one of the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: more regular questions we get on space, and it's about
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the Big Bang right up there with dark energy and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: black holes and dark matter. Question two, with the collision
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of Androboda and the Milky Way some four and a
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: half billion years from now.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: It's in my diary.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: How close to each other. Will it take the two
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: galaxies to start affecting one one another and to add
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to that, will solar systems likely collide or is there
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: so much space between everything that that part won't happen.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Thanks guys, Dan from the Gold Coast in Australia up
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: in Queensland, not far from you, Johnty. I, yeah, this
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: is a good one. I think we've talked about the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: slow motion effect that's going to be the collision. But yeah,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: are they are they going to affect each other before
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: it happens or are they maybe affecting each other already?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly, absolutely, And it's a matter of how big an
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: effect you want the effect to be before you recognize it.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: If you think the diameter of the Milky Way is
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: usually scopt has been about one hundred thousand light years,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So that means something that is on the edge of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: our galaxy that is nearest to Andromeda is about fifty
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: thousand light years from the middle of the Milky Way
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: and about two hundred about two point five million light
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: years from Andromeda roughly, So Andromeda is a lot further away,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: but Andromed is.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: A bit more massive.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: What that means is that Andromeda is exerting a force
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: on those stars in the Milky Way, but it's exerting
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: a differential force across the Milky Way, so the stars
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: up one side of the Milky Way feel Andromeda pulling
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: more strongly on us than the other. So that means
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: that there will, in a very realistic sense, be a
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: tidal effect on our galaxy caused by Andromeda at the
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: distance away that it is now. Now whether we've actually
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: detected that yet or not is another matter, because we've
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: got a lot of words going on with our galaxy.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It's got other galaxies interfering with it as well, like
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the many satellite galaxies we've got. So I think the
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: answer is that they will already be interfering with each other.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They'll already be affecting each other. But it's likely that
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the scale of that at the minute is too small
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: for us to readily detect. But it doesn't mean that
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: it isn't happening. I guess much the same way as instantaneously,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the gravitational pull of the Moon is affecting you, but
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: you don't ever notice it because it's such a small effect.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: As they get closer together.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: That becomes a bigger and bigger effect, and they will
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: start to noticeably distort each other before they're physically in contact. So,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: if you were on the outside looking at the disks,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: there are stars from our galaxies further out than the
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: disc they're's not many of them, so you don't see them.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: But they will start distorting and affecting each other long
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: before they are physically coming into contact. But then when
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: they do, everything in them is so spread out in
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: space is so big that it isn't like planets will
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: collide with planets and stars with stars. I think I
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: saw someone worked out statistics at some point that said
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: if one star from Andromeda colydes with one star in
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: the Milky Way, that would be unusual. And our galaxy's
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: got four hundred thousand million stars, Andromeda's got about one
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: thousand thousand million stars. But especially is just so big
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: that they'll pass through each other without physical collisions. The
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: gas and dust will collide, will get a starburst event,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: so loads of new stars will form. It will be
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: interesting times, but the Earth is unlikely to be hit
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: by an Andromeda Earth.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Ah, all right, yeah, it was an interesting thought. But
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: if the stars are going to miss each other, then
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the solar systems are not going to collide either, are they,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And that'll just and I think you did describe it
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: as as sort of a slow motion ballet type of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: an event.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Three.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: That's right, because the two objects kind of spiral around
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: one another because before they merge to become milk commoda
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: milk confider or commoda.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And then everything gets very boring a bit after that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: star gets rid of all the gas and dusts and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the galaxy just quadreens up as a pretty amorphous blob
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: of doom.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dead cass. The sky will be very different though,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: weren't it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Well, Eventually it'll start off being a lot more dramatic,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and Romda will get quite big in the sky.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Then the Milky Way will.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Get noticeably distorted but noticeably brighter with old star formation.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But then when it all dies down, you'll just end
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: up with instead of the Milky Way, kind of a
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: morphous blobby. You know, half of the sky is a
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: big blood because our galaxy will end up as a
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: big spherical galaxy with very little star formation like Mess
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: eight sevens the archetypal elliptical galaxy, and that is essentially
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: galactic Synesians so that's when the milky Way goes off
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: into a nursing home complaining about how as good as
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: it used to be.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and it also the theory that beauty fades
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: with age, so.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: That's probably where it's coppy.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Speak for yourself, Andrew, FREDI daw is an exception. Okay,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: thank you, Dan. I hope we adequately answered your question.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: This is space that it's Andrew Dunkley here with Professor
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Fred Watson and Professor John T. Hornader Space Nuts. Next
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: question on episode five hundred comes from Sean. He's in Oliver,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: British Columbia, Canada. I just became aware of the concept
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of cold welding, where the same kinds of metal fuse
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: together in the vacuum of space. I'm hoping you can
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: talk a bit about that. It seems to me that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: it is a critical process in planet formation, and I'm
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: wondering if the role this I'm wondering about the role
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: this may play after a star explodes and all these
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: newly formed elements clumped together. Love the show, miss Fred
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and Johnty is a great addition to the team. Well,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you're lucky, Sean.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Because they're both here.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So cold welding. Have you heard that term before, either
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of you?
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting one. I mean, I've seen little video
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: clips to do with this, and it is to do
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: with blocks of metals. So my understanding and Fred can
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: correct me when I'm wrong, and I think it is
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a when rather than an if in this case. But
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: my understanding is it's with lumps of metal in particular.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: So lumps of water ice walk cold well to the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: same degree, you'll get some degrees stickiness between them. But
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: with lumps of metal, this sink can have such a
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: strong effect that you don't even see a join. There
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: is that degree of agglomeration of sticking together, and it's
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to do with how metals behave and how free the
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: electrons are to move, which is part of what allows
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: the metal to be incredibly conductive. It means that metals
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: can essentially stick together incredibly strongly because of the electrons
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: moving freely between them. That's kind of mild dose understanding
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Now, why that is.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: A too critical for planet formation is metals are wrong
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: a small part of that. So if you've got two
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: lumps of metal come together very very gently, they would
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: kind of cold well together but they will kind of
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: be tending to bounce off each other unless they have
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: something causing them to stick. So if they hook together
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a bit, this could help them agglomerate into a single piece.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: But I don't think it would help the much bigger
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: scale solid material stuff that's going on to do with dust,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: grains and ISOs. So I don't think called welding works
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: if you're in a situation where you don't have that
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: mobility of the electrons, where you don't have that conductivity essentially.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: So that's why I don't think it seems to be
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: a critical process in planet formation, but I suspect it
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: will have happened at times in planet formation and since
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: for example, if you've got and this is quite an
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: extended series of events that will cause this, but you
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: get asteroids form that become large enough to differentiate, so
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: they get high in their interior. The metal sinks, the
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: rocky ce flows like we've got on the Earth. So
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: you get a core on a mantle on the crust.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Then you smash them apart. That's how you get the
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: different types of meteorites we get that have been processed,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: so you get the evolved material, get the stony meteorites,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: the stoney irons which come from the mantle core interface,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: and then you get the metal meteorites. And the biggest
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: object like that is possibly Psychic that we know about,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: which is a mission going to at the minute. If
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: you did that and then you shattered that enormous metal
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: asteroid psych but you shattered it fairly gently, so the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: bits still came and bucketed against each other, they could
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: then cold well back together, which gives you almost this
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: image of the kind of terminator style asteroid that you
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: cannot destroy. And that's the kind of scenario where I
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: could see this happening. But in general, I think it
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: would be a very niche area that wouldn't happen often
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: in planet formations, so it wouldn't be that critical. I
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: don't know, Fred, if you want to add to that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: or if you have additional thoughts to do with it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: No, Yeah, you've absolutely nailed it, John T. The only
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: thing I was going to is that certainly in the
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: process of planet building, it's going to be hot welding.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: It's basically just metal chunks of metal fusing together, if
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: that you know, if you fusing together because they're mixed
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: up with the dusty and silicate stuff and the ices
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: it's it's and so those collisions actually heat the material.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: If there are metallic components, they will fuse, but it'll
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: be mixed up with all that other stuff until as
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: exactly as John Ty says, it differentiates and all the
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: metal sinks to the middle and gives you a solid
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: core if it cools down. And maybe I think your
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: analysis of what happens after that is right as well,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: that if you get something smashing into into a a
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: protoplanet or more likely planet ism or the smaller stage,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: then you might get lumps of metal literally on contaminated metal,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: if I can put it that way, that could cold fuse.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: I think it's not an important process in the whole
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: scenario of planet formation.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Where it is important, though, I think, is spaceflight, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: it's important. That's something you want to avoid now, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: if this is why you would paint your metal surfaces.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you think about the arm that used
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: to come out of the Space Shuttle to grab onto things,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: when that falls up, you don't want it welding itself
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: solid so it can't move anymore. And I guess that's
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: part of the reason you pent all those things. So
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: it's something people have to be very aware of with
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: spacecraft design in vacuum space.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So his second part of the question about exploding stars,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: super and ov, what are going to call it creating
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: all those elements? Those elements could clump together, but as
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you say, not a critical process in ment formation.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this will be a very small and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: minor thing. I wouldn't rule it out happening occasionally, particularly
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: when you get to the size scales that you know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: long the thinking of individual molecules, but you're thinking lumps
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: of stuff. But when you're not big enough for the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: lumps of stuff to become molten when they hit each other,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and when those lumps of stuff hit each other very gently,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: so they just nestle up together. And you know, if
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: you can have two bits of metal that nestle up
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: against one another, then this will happen. But that's going
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: to be a very minor part of the process, if
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: it's significant at all.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Okay, very good, thanks Sean.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Great to hear from you, I hope all as well
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: in British Columbia.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Great space nuts.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: We've got time for one more question. It's an audio
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: question and it's sort of an open ended question which
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: will become self explanatory. It comes from Mike.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: Fred and Andrew Hi. It's Mike Cupit a from the
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: northwest of England in the UK, and I have a
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: little bit of a wishy washy question for you if I
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: many now, you guys have always a firm that spacexploration
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: is slow. You can't start a mission and expect it
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: to yield results for a week or two. Everything you
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: doused to take years. However, there seems to be an
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: awful lot going on at the moment, just off the
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: top of my head, without even scratching the surface.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: We're trying to work.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: Out what's going on with dark matter and dark energy
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: and what it actually is and what's causing it. We're
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: talking about saying or pre permanent move based. We're talking
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: about manset foot on Mars. We're talking about the search
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: for sort of extraterrestrial life within our Solar system and
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: further afield. It's just absolutely mind blowing. Now, my question
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: for both of you, if that's okay, if you had
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: to pick one field of research or one mission that
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: gets you more excited than anything else, the favor of
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: your favorite thing that's going on at the moment, What
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: would it be and what you hope it yields in
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: the next sort of ten or fifteen years. What do
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: you think the results going to be a lot of
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: what you guys say absolutely astonishes me, just absolutely my mind,
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: and I'm sure a lot the only one book. I
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: just really want to know what blows your mind?
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: What gets you excited?
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much for the show. I don't think
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: I've ever missed a single episode. I think you've been
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: absolutely brilliant. I hope it never stops. Thank you very
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: much for your work, and yeah, keep it up.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Mike.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Love that question, and I love these open ended ones
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: where they throw it back at us and Mike, it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you a lucky day because we've got two people here
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that can shed a bit a lot on what they
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: think is their favorite upcoming mission. Can I go first,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: just so we can get the lame stuff out of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the way.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I actually wrote.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Down three things that excite me obviously Artemis two that
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to me sort of takes me back to my childhood
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: watching the Apollo missions, and so I'm really excit about that.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I'm very this is not so much a mission as
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: something that I'm really looking forward to that you and I,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: all of us have spoken about in previous episodes, and
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: that's the.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Commissioning of the Vera Rubin Telescope.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: But my favorite, which we've already talked about in the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: last episode or two, this is the one I'm really
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: excited about, is the Europa Clipper mission. I think we've
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: already mentioned it today. I'm excited about that because of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the potential that the possibility they may be able to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: confirm the existence of life on an ice moon in
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: our Solar system. I hope they can. That's my big hope, Mike,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that this mission will without doubt be able to nail
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: down the fact that we are not alone in the universe.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: We might be sharing it with a couple of germs
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: on an icy planet or an icy body, or maybe krill.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's the fact that we have
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: been discovering more and more bodies in our Solar system
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that have oceans is extraordinary, and we spoke about one
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: in the last episode Callisto, and now we're going out
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: there to see what we can find. That that really
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: gets me ramped up. I can't wait to see how
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: this goes. I'm really really hopeful that they will be
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: able to go Yep, we found a frog and it'll
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: be ribbitted. Yes, it's film a lotted noise about that.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So that that's the one for me, Mike, that is
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the one rope And you said it and I can't
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: remember that the European Space Agency.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Shoes was Jupiter Simons Explorer, which is what I'm watching
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: with interest because I was one of the first little
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: meetings when that was being plumbed buck in two thousand
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and for just after I sat in my first ever
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: post stock and I ended up needing to borrow ten
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: euros from a really senior scientist to get a taxi
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: because the cash point wouldn't give me money or something
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: like that. So it was an interesting experience for me.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Excellent, all right, So that's mine, Johnny.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: What do you I've got a couple.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's worth mentioning juice because of that personal
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: connection to it, even though it's a very brief personal connection.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: The fact that twenty one years after I was at
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: that meeting, the thing is still on its end, hasn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: got there yet, tells you how long these things take
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and what a big part of people's lives. They are
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: the two that I wanted.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: To flag up. I talk a lot about very Rubin.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: We talk a lot about things like the Rosnell and
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Franklin Land are going to Mars, the Icy Moons Explorers,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: both of them going out to Jupiter. But the two
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: that catch my eye are the Comet Interceptor mission. So
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: you know, my first love has always been comets and metias,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: and this is a mission that was proposed in the
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: aftermath of the interstellar objects we so entry. So mau
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Mao and Borisov, a team of researchers put together a
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: very basic thing saying, would it be awesome if we
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: had a spacecraft sat in a holding orbit ready to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: go when we find a comic that's interesting to actually
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: go visit it. Now, in the past, we've been to comets,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and we've been to the ones that we could predict coming,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: so we knew in advance we could trundle off there
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: and captain because we have plenty of warning. And that
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: means we've seen comets that are old, comments that are evolved,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: that have had a lot going on, and in reality,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: probably comets that have their origins in the edge with
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Copper Belt beyond Neptune. We've never really been able to
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: visit an oat cloud, comet, a comic coming in for
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the first time, or an interstellar object. And so this
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: mission was devised, which is hopefully going to launch in
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty nine, possibly on the same spaceship as Aeriel,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: which is a planet characterization mission that europe are putting
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: together that is also going to be awesome, and then
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: it's going to hang out there in space part there
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: until the right object is discovered. Now, thanks to Vera
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Rubin will get much more notice of the right object.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: We'll probably find in to seller objects by the dozen
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: rather than just two that we've ever had. And this
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: thing will be there ready to go, so even when
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: it's launched, we won't know where it's going. And then
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: we'll sit and we'll wait and the right thing will
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: be discovered and then it will jet off to intercept it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that's just a fabulous step forward in technology.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: The other one is the Dragonfly mission, which is scheduled
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to launch in a few years time. We'll probably get
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: to Saturn in the mid twenty thirties, and it's says
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: seem to go to Titan. Now, Titan's the only other
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: object in the Solar System than the Earth that experiences
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: rain and weather in that sense, so it probably feels
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: very much like the previous caller from the northwest of
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: England like their day to day life. To be honest,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: it's gray and overcast and there's a lot of stuff
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: falling from the sky. Titans are really bizarre place. So
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: on Titan you've got the water ice is harder than granite,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: so the rocks are made from water ice. But you've
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: got rivers and oceans and rainfall made of liquid methane
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and liquid ethane. And it's a fascinating world. And the
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: only time we've ever touched its surface was the Huygens lander,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: which landed with a little penetrometer spike on the bottom.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Confused colleagues of mine who were at the Open University,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: who were the first to handle the day to big said,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: when all these drop tests of different materials that the
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: surface of Titan could resemble, and none of them worked,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: and then they thought, try Creme broulet, And that's what
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: it was, because it's got a firm, crisp top and
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: then a soggy bottom. Essentially that's the only time we've
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: ever spent there, and that was a very brief fleeting
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: touch on the surface. Whereas Dragonfly is going to be
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: something comparable in size to a golf cart that is
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: a quad copter, but with eight rotors instead. So I
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: think that makes it an octocopter, which sounds like something
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: out of a bad sci fi movie, you know, helicopter
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: with quentacles, and it's.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Gonna fly around.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: It'll have this huge radioisotope generator and during the day
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: it will fly around, take observations, visit new places, check
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: out what's happening, search for things like the possible evidence
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: of life in this totally alien place, send back weather
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: reports saying you've got I've gone to another world and
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: it's raining here as well, you know, welcome to Manchester.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: And then at night it will land and it will recharge,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and the nights on Titan takes seven earth days to
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: complete recharge from the radio astop generator and then be
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: ready to go the next day. So for however long
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: this mission lasts, we're going to be getting live weather
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: reports from another planet, and we're getting live images from
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: a place we've never really visited before, exploring it's going
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: to be absolutely breathtaking. And the technology challenge of this
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: is bonkers because this environment where you're going to build
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a quad copter that will have so many moving parts
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: that can fly, is one hundred and eighty degrees below freezing,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: So you talk about cold welding, those kind of things
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: are a problem. A lot of the materials we use
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: on Earth won't work, they'll be too brittle. So there's
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: huge technological challenges for this, but it's in development. I
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: think it's currently scheduled to law two or three years
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: time from now. We'll have a mystasted seven year crews
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: to get there, and then we'll fly fly back and
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: you'll be able to get a live weather report from
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Titan another world on which it runs. So I'm very
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: excited about that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. Yeah, that sounds really exciting. Fred.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite or upcoming mission that tickles your fancy?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Okay, two things day, isn't it interesting?
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: We can't settle on.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: One, No, we can't know. Well, they're both close to
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: my heart actually for different reasons. So one's got its
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: feet firmly on the ground. Costs much less than a
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: space mission. One sixth of the cost of the James
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Web Space Telescope, but many many times bigger. And that's
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: the ELT, which is taking shape on Sarah Amazonas in
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: northern Chile, and the way they're progressing with it is
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: just astonishing. It's looking like a finished telescope. Now it
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: hasn't got its seven hundred and ninety eight mirror segments yet,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: but it will have. So the ELT, the extremely large telescope,
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: the European Southern Observatory's flagship instrument, which we still expect
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: to come onstream in twenty twenty eight, and that will
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: be you know, a date to look out for and
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: we'll cover it in Space Notes, John T.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You have I was just going to flag up with that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: The numbers with that actually bond. So we're in Australia
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: where we've got the biggest telescope in Australia is the
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Youngle Australian Telescope, which has a primary mirror of three
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: point nine meters diameter. The ELT's mirror will be thirty
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: nine meters in biometers, so the primary of this telescope
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: is ten times a diameter, so that's one hundred times
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: a collecting area. The secondary mirror of this telescope is
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: bigger than the mirror on the Angle Australian Telescope. The
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: tertiary mirror is still three point nine meters, So the
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: third mirror on this thing is nearly as big as
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: the biggest mirror on the big telescope in Australia, just
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: to put into perspective how big it is.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: So yeah, that actually the thing that blows my mind,
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: because of course I was the astronomer in charge of
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: that telescope, so I know it's enclosure very well. But
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: the mirror diameter of the ELT is three meters bigger
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: than the diameter of the dome of the Anglo Australian Telescope.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: And it is a very generous dome, it is. It's
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest domes.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: In the world.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Looking at at the moment of the progress, because yeah,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it spanning, it's an amazing to quite you fraid, it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: an amazing piece of kid.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the fact that having walked around that catwalk on
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the edge of the observatory, I'm thinking that that catwalk
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: is smaller than the mirror is going to be in the.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: It's mind blowing, isn't it. So yes, So that's to
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: come twenty twenty eight, we'll see first light. It might
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: happen before that with a fewer number of segments of
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: the mirror, but looking forward to that because it will
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: pretty well revolutionize all aspects of astronomy. It's gonna you know,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: it's got the whole textbook of astronomy to basically rewrite.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure it will something.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: A little bit more sorry timed with Vera Rubin, because
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Vera Ruben.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Will find stuff and then the ELT.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Will want it. Family and as atenship synergy there.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: That's correct, and that highlights what I was about to
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: say that you need, what you really need is a
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: survey telescope to find the really exciting objects. And that
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: was the symbiosis between the United Kingdom Schmidt telescope, which
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: is what brought me to Australia in the first place,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: and the Angle Australian telescope. They work perfectly well together,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: one with a wide angle camera and the other with
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: the capability of homing in on the details of the
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: objects that were being discovered. And it's the wide angle
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: aspect that excites me. With my final mission that I
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: think is going to be very important, and what is
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: brilliant is that that launches in three days time. It's
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: a spacecraft called sphere X, and sphere X is an acronym,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: as you might guess, each short for spectra photomata. For
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: the history of the universe, epoch of reionization, an ice
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: is explorer. It's a bit convoluted, but that's what it is.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: It's a relatively small telescope. It will go into orbit.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: But what it will do, because it's basically a wide
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: angle telescope in the infrared, it's like a wide angle
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: James Web telescope. It will take images of a billion galaxies,
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: one hundred million stars, and ten thousand asteroids. And that
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: is in order to look at the three particular aspects
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: that this spacecraft is being launched for. One is the
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: the cosmology questions, the big questions, how did the universe begin?
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: In particular, was the epoch of inflation. That's that time
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: a gazillient of a second after the Big Bang, when
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: it became ten to the fiftieth times bigger than it
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: was a gazillion of a second ago. Was that real?
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: We have every reason to believe it was, because it's
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: the only way we can make the theories work, but
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: this spacecraft will measure the geometry of the universe in
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: such a way that we will get insights into that process,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: the inflation process. You will also look in detail at
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: the evolution of galaxies, the way they string out along
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: the filaments of the cosmic web. But coming closer to home,
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: it will be looking for ices, for carbon containing organic molecules,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: all of that stuff which is really designed to look
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: again at the question that we all have on our
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: lips at at the moment, I have done probably for
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: the last four hundred years, we alone other living organisms,
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: because we'll see the building blocks of life in detail
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: and see where they are not only in our own galaxy,
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: but probably in galaxies beyond. So this Friday, sphere X
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: launches and we might have some answers before well before
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very exciting, very exciting, and best of all, sphere
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: X gets off the ground a day before SpaceX, So
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: that's thank goodness for that. Yes, that brings us to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the end of episode five hundred. Look, we had big
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: plans for a very exciting special guest, but here in
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the studio I said, no, so what can you do?
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: But all jokes aside, though, I want to say special
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: thanks to our sponsors who have been on board with this,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: some of them for years. I especially want to thank
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the audience for backing us up for for so long. Fred,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you know as well as I do. When we started,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: we didn't think we'd last a few weeks. We really
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: didn't believe that it would make up and we've been
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: enjoying a very long ride at the crest of a
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: couple of waves on the various platforms out there that
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: are well known, sometimes number one or number two on
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the iTunes Science list. So we couldn't be more thrilled
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: with that kind of success. And that's because of you,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the people who download us week in week out, despite
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Apple updates. And I give him a hard time, but
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Hugh Drury, who is the brains and the brawn behind
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: not only this podcast but several others in the stable
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that you'll find on bytes dot com. Hugh's a tireless
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: worker and I'll often get emails from him from one
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning because he's sitting in on a conference,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: or he's or he's learning something, or he's putting the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: final touches on a show.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: He does a fabulous job.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: And I did say once before I'd never say anything
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: nice about him again, but he deserved it.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: He works so hard.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: But it could not be done without the likes of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Johnty Horner and Professor Fred Watson.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Thank you both.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I'm glad we could all be together for episode five
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: hundred too. I know, I am in awe of what
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you do and it's such a thrill for me to
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: be able to team up with you guys every week
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and talk about this stuff that has just got people
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: around the world thinking, wondering and coming up with ideas
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that they throw at us about you know, could this
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: be the answer to black to dark matter or dark
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: energy or black holes or whatever, and emails from people
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: saying we've published this paper because we listen to your podcast.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: That happened while you're a way, Fred, but I.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Sent you the I mean that just you know, that
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: is probably one of the greatest thrills that I could experience,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: that we have inspired people like that. So I'm so
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: so happy to be a part of it. And you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: five hundred down, many many more.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: To come, I hope. Thank you, Thank you so much, gentlemen, appreciate.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: And thanks to you Andrew, the man with the silken
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: voice that keeps this icing running and does the world
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: for probably the universe's worst dad jokes thrown in for nothing.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Without them, they'd be nothing.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Well done, Andrew, and thank you jain Grone.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure, and congratulations Buff. It's a great achievement.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you Joddy, and thank you for filling in for
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: these last several weeks and we look forward to getting
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: you back on again real.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Throon appreciate it sounds good.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large and Professor John dy Horner,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: from me Andrew Dunkley, thank you again and we'll look
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: forward to your company. On the very next episode of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts hie Byepauts.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.