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Artemis Adventures, Interstellar Toilets & Unveiling Second Generation Stars · Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello again, thanks for joining us on another episode of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Space Nuts.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: My name is Andrew Unkley. Great to have your company.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Hope you're well.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Coming up on this episode and by the time you
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hear this, Artemis two should be on its way to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the Moon. But more importantly, we're going to talk about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: their plumbing.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's very interesting.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about CSIRO involvement in the mission and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: NASA's announcement about a moon base.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It'll have toilets too, more.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: News on the ISS crew evacuation in January, and some
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: real astronomy with the discovery of a second generation star.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: What is the second generation star? We'll tell you in
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a second.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Fifteen seconds guidance is Internal ten nine ignition sequence Star,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Space Nuts NY or three two one spacenutes.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: As when I reported Bill's good.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And he's back for more, he is Professor Fred Watson,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Astronomer at Large.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Hello Fred, Hello Andrew, and back for more.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, and very excited because of where we are in
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: the story of human exploration in the Moon.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is very exciting, all these years after the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Apollo missions, and it looks like systems are go.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Touch wood. I've got a wooden table.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But yes, by the time people hear this should be
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: well on its way, so we keep our hopes ever
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: positive for Artemis too. Let's get straight into talking about
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the mission launch aside. There's a lot of cooperation that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: goes into missions like these, and that was the case
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: with Apollo and many other missions, space Shuttle missions, etc.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Since then, and this is no different. There's a lot
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of involvement and our very own CSIRO, the National Science Agency,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: is involved.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Indeed, it is via NASA's Deep Space Network, which is
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: actually managed by the Jet Propulsional Laboratory in Southern California,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: part of NASA, but that is going to be responsible
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: for communication with the Orion spacecraft, which is the vehicle
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: that's taking the Artemis.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: Two crew around the Moon.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: They will be responsible for that those communications while it's
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: not in lower Earth orbit, in other words, while it's
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: sort of on the way to the Moon, going round
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the Moon and on the way back, and so it's
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: The Deep Space Network has three facilities, one at Goldstone
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: in California, one near Madrid in Spain, and one near
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Canberra in Australia, and that's at Tidbinbilla. It's quite a
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: major communications center. The tid Bimbila Deep Space Network Station,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: a place we've visited several times and has some fantastic equipment,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: including some very big dishes, that is going to be
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: part and parcel of the Artemis two mission. So it's
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: great that Australia is playing an enabling role in that,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: because the reason why you have three of these stations
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: more or less equidistant around the Earth is that as
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: the Earth turns, there will always be one of them
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: which can contact any given spacecraft, except if that spacecraft
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: happens to be Voyager two, which can only be communicated
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: with by the Tidbinbilla facility. Because it is in the
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Southern Hemisphere sky.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: That is interesting, isn't it. Yeah, it was so far
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: away now you can't really. Yeah, the angles are all wrong.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's right.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Angles are wrong for them, Yes, it is so that
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: for the other, for the two Northern Hemisphere stations, it's
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: below their horizon permanently. So yes, so we Voyager two,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: of course carries no humans. It's a robotics. They're doing
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: well if they're still there after microbes. Yeah, there could
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: be microbes, and in fact they almost certainly will be microbes,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: and it probably playing cards in a corner somewhere, waiting
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: for some suitable solar system to come along in about
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: five billion years time.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something to think about, isn't it.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: That's right, Yes, it's of colonizing the universe.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose back to the CSRO involvement, and if
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you look, if anyone's seen that great Australian movie The Dish,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I'll know that the park's radio telescope was very much
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: at the center of communications with the Apollo eleven moonwalk
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and relaying a lot of that radio traffic from the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: lunar surface.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: So we've got a history of it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Indeed, I mean.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It's a very funny, very funny feel a lot of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: creative license. But ye, in fact, you know it really
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: really put Parks on the map, didn't it.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, where it should have put Tidbinbiller on the map,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: because they did most of their work. Apparently it's always
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: been a bone of contention because Tidbinbiller and in fact
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the dish that they did, in fact, it wasn't at
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Tidbinbilla then it was a place called Auroral Creek if
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I remember rightly, which is also near camera. But the
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: dish that was used there for the Apollo missions was
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: actually it's not used anymore, but it was recited to
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Tidbinbiller so for the Deep Space Network. And yes, I
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: don't think I mentioned in my intro there that the
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: the CSIRO operates. That's that facility on behalf of NASA,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, terrific people, and yeah, they do a lot of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: work in silence. They do obviously publish their findings, but
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: or they work or whatever it is they're doing, but
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: people tend not to really notice them much, which is unfortunate.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I thought that was I thought that was going to
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: be a pun there because they a lot of them
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: have to do with radio silence, to do with protecting
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: radio astronomy facilities.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: That's one of the things. But you're absolutely right.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: They are the unsung heroes in many ways of the
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Australian scientific world. It's the National Science Agency.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Indeed, so that's one aspect of this particular mission with
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the Australian communications involvement.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the toilet. What's going on with the toilet.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you asked me about that. The main thing
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: is that believe it or not, there is one on
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the Apollo Capsule, which is what the artemists two crew
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: will be riding to and around them own in. It's
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: got this private enclosure in the Apollo capsule itself.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Apparently it's accessible.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Through a hatch in the floor of the spacecraft, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: floor doesn't matter when you're when you're in zero gravity.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: It's not big.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Apparently, it's about the size of the restroom on a
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: small passenger jet, and it was actually built by Lockheed Martin,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: who built passenger jets as.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Well, I think.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Still unlike the Apollo missions, in which three male astronauts
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: had to virtually improvise over their more or less ten
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: day trips to the Moon and back. This basically this
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: toilet facility has echoes of the toilet facilities on the
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: International Space Station. It's referred to not as about through
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: but as a hygiene bay. It's got a door. There's
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: a hinging door in the floor of the the floor
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: of the Orion capsule through which the astronauts can access
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: this hygiene bay, and you can either shut the door,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: or if you need a bit more room, there's a
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: curtain that you can use. One of the quotes I
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: love from actually one of the astronauts who's talking about
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: their mission coming up. You would float over to the door,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: open up the hinging door and float on in the
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: idea of floating.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Into your floating in it's okay, But floating out.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: That's what might float out with you. That's they worry.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: But that's all taken care of by a fan apparently,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: so and squishing things down. Okay, I think actually I
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: think it's a I think it's a polythene bag. I
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: think it's a fan on the International Space Station, but
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: not not in the in the Oriyan capsule.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: As long as you don't have to waffle stomp it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, that sounds like, yes, I can sort of. You know,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: that countries up a picture in my mind that I'd
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: rather not have.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: That's what we're doing.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: That's what you do when you take your dog to
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the dog park. You end up with something like.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Possibly sad.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But this is interesting because back in the Apollo era
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: they didn't have anything remotely exotic like this. They had
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: plastic bags apparently yep.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And sort of slip on facilities that would only work
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: for a male and yep.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So that's all right, Thankfully they've caught up with the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: times and.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Hopefully that all works.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there is another subtlety, Andrew that might be of interest,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and that is, and we've talked about this before, the
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: urine on the International Space Station, which is an everyday
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: product by its inhabitants, is actually recycled in a bid
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: to make the International Space Station as free from as
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: sustainable as possible, I guess is the way to put it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: They recycle that and use it for drinking, which is extraordinary.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Why don't we do that on Earth? Well, you can
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: do it in space, But I do remember in the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: early days of the International Space Station they didn't do that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: They used to dump the urine into space. And I
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: can't remember which astronautic was who made that famous quote,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: there's nothing more beautiful in space than a urine dump
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: at dawn, which is when the low angle of the
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: sun catches all these ice crystals, which is what they
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: are now. That is what they're going to do on
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Orion because the mission is short in that they don't
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: need to go through the recycling process that can carry
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: enough water with them, and so they will they will
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: maybe see a urine dump at Dawn who.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Now, okay, could be interesting. I'm not sure that they'll
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: broadcast it. They're broadcasting quite a bit though, which will
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: be fascinating. So we'll be able to keep an eye
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: on things, just certain things we probably don't want to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: keep an eye on. But while we're talking about the Moon,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: there is one more story that's that's making headlines, and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that is an announcement by NASA for a Moon base.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: That's correct, really, yeah, they've obviously been behind closed doors
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: making a lot of plans and now they're ready to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: go public.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: A lot's changed actually in the last month. We've got
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Apollo three being the not the first landing on the Moon,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: but an exercise in low Earth orbit, which will test
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: out the capabilities of both the SpaceX and the Blue
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Origin versions of the Lunar Lander. And then Artemis four
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: will be the landing process itself, the lunar landing hopefully
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty eight. But the other big announcement, exactly
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: as you've said from Jared Isaac Munday, NASA Administrator, the
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: boss of NASA, is the idea of an point and appropriation.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: That's the word of twenty billion dollars over seven years
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: in order to build a permanent moon base on the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: lunar surface. And that's a change in philosophy because it
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: was not seen as being artemis was seen as more exploratory,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: with only the very later stages of the Artemist program
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: settling anything like a permanent.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Base on the Moon.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: But it looks as though over the next seven years
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: that money is going to be spent on actually setting
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: up shop on the Moon for perhaps long term, maybe
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: permanent habitation, teaching us how to live on an alien world.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: One consequence of.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: This is that the the project to have a mini
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: international space station in orbit around the Moon, which was
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: called the Gateway spacecraft that has been put on pause,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: which probably means it's dead, I would guess, even though
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: some of the main contractors have put a lot of
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: effort into it, and in fact, I think most of
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: the Gateway already exists, but it's being put on pause.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: It may one day be re you know, re invigorated
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to take to be useful for astronauts visiting the Moon,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: but at the moment it's on hold.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Fair enough to.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I guess putting a permanent base on the Moon is
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: going to be divisive to a lot of people don't
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: think that's a good idea, But if Nessa doesn't do it,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: somebody will.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: That's correct, yes, and we know who it will be,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: probably probably, Yeah, all right.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Those stories are all available via the NASA website. You
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: can also read about the CSIRO through their own website
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: c csiro dot au and the Space Toilet. Well, I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: think that's probably on every website of the popular press,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: but you can read about it on space dot com
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: as well. There's a Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Professor Fred Watson.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Space Nuts. Now, some time ago.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: We did a story about a crew evacuation on the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: International Space Stations Station involving an astronaut, fifty nine year
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: old Mike Finkey. At the time, it was pretty scary,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but they got him back to E pronto, and there's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: been a bit more information released about what transpired. However,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: we still don't know exactly what happened to him.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: We really only found out very recently that that's the
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: identity of the astronaut who caused that evacuation back in January.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Might think he as you've said, or think he apparently
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: suffered some kind of seizure. We're not sure what I
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: might just quote. This is actually a fizz dot org article.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: It's probably quoting NASA material. He was just eating dinner
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: on January the seventh, after getting ready for a space
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: walk the next day.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: When he could not talk.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Suddenly lost the ability to talk and said he remembers
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: no pain, but his anxious crewmates of quoting here jumped
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: into action after seeing him in distress and requested help
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: from flight surgeons on the ground. Fink said it was
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: completely out of the blue. It was just amazingly quick,
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: and said he the episode. Sorry, The episode lasted about
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: twenty minutes. He felt perfectly okay afterwards and still does.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Has never experienced anything like that before or since.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Things that have been ruled.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Out are a heart attack and probably some other, you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: stroke type symptoms, things of that kind.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they ruled out choking, Yes, yes, but yeah.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of theory going around as to what
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: it could have been, Whether it was something to do
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: with his physiological response to being in space for so
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: long because he's been up there a few times. One
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of the suspicions is a clotting issue.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: One of the other.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Suggestions is some kind of issue in the spine that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: might have affected him, but it's all theory. They don't
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: actually know at this point what happened.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: One thing that is being done is checking NASA, checking
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: the as thoroughly checking the astronauts. Oh sorry, the medical
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: records of other astronauts who've flown on the International Space Station,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: because it's the total number now is probably five hundred
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: or so. I can't the number of people have been
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: into space, just to see whether there's any other related instances,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: anything similar to.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: This in any way.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: The you know, the there is an issue here, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: once again quoting from fizz dot org, the astronauts said
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: he can't provide any more details about his medical episode.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: The Space agency wants to make sure that other astronauts
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: do not feel that their medical privacy will be compromised
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: if something happens to them, which is completely fair enough. Yeah,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: he's apparently he's stopped apologizing to everybody after he was
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: ordered to stop by Jonah Isaacman, the NASA boss. This
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't you, this was space, right, His colleagues assured him.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: You didn't let anybody down.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: No, we're human.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: These things happen, and you've got to remember what a
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: hostile environment space is it's not friendly, and it won't
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: be the last time something happens to somebody in space,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I don't doubt, because more and more and more and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: more people are going to end up in space doing whatever.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: There'll probably be a McDonald's up there one day. But
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: things will happen. It's just whenever you expose yourself to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: a hostile environment, something's got to give occasionally. And the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: good news is he's alive and well and it seems
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to be okay now. But what happened, how it happened.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I suppose they'll just keep investigating and maybe come up
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: with an answer at some stage. I think the sad
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: part for him is that he may well be grounded now.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's apparently it's still hopeful of flowing again, as
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: I'm sure all astronauts are, but yes, he might be grounded.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: That's right. It might just be seen as a step
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: too far.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: What surprises me, Andrew, is that we've found out anything
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: about this at all, because NASA was completely silent about
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: who was involved and what the issue was. It wasn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: an emergency, but it was something that they felt they
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: needed to get the astronauts onto the ground quickly.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: What I didn't know.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: As well is that there's a portable ultrasell machine on
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the PlayStation.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they've got some gear upby got some gear up there,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: that's right.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which probably was handy, so it would have ruled
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: out a few things immediately. But yeah, the good news
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: is he's back in the land of the living. Well,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: he never left, but we still don't know what happened.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But if you want to read about it, you can
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: find that story at fizz dot org. This is space
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Space Nuts.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: All right, our final story, Fred, is a real astronomical
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: story with the discovery of what they're claiming is the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: second generation star. So look straight up, what is the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: second generation star?
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Well, the first generation star will be one of the
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: first generation of stars formed in the universe. So after
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: the Big Bang, the universe was well, it was a
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: hot plasma for quite a while, cooled off, leaving basically
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: called hydrogen and some helium and a few other trace elements.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: But it was the hydrogen collapsing on itself in clouds
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: that led to the first stars being formed.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: So that will be the first generation of stars.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: The second generation would form as a result of the
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: first generation of stars coming to an end or more
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: gas clouds collapsing. But the trace thing is, and this
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: is how astronomers are suspicious that this object. By the way,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: it's called pick two five zero three, which I quite like.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: It's in a what's called an ultra faint dwarf galaxy,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: one of the galaxies in orbit around our own Milky
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Way galaxy, and it's a very faint galaxy. Indeed, it's
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: what gives away its second generationness, if I can put
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: it that way, is elements which are found in its
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: atmosphere which would have been produced by super and over
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: explosions of first generation stars. So a super and over
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: explosion is when a star collapses at the end of
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: its short life. It's burned up all its hydrogen fuel,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: it's been generating other elements. It collapses, there's an explosion,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: and a lot of debris spread into space. Some of
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: that forms the next generation of stars. This is a
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: process that's still going on today, this process of enrichment
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: of the what's called the interstellar medium, the gas between
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the stars. So that enrichment of that, you know, of
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: that second generation star formation region included chemicals that could
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: only have been produced in a first generation star explosion,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: and it's all about the ratios of iron and calcium
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: and things of that sort.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, well that answers my next question.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So I guess the question that follows that is this
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: has made news obviously because this is not something we
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: find every day.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Is it a rare find?
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: It is very rare.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's not unprecedented. I think there's at least one
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: more hypothesized second generation star in a dwarf galaxy. This, however,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: is particularly old. So the second generation probably you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: went over a period of time, a few hundred million
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: years perhaps, but what we're seeing here is something that
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: happened right at the beginning of that process. So the
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: observations were well, the star itself was discovered in Chile
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: on a telescope not that different from our angle Australian
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: telescope here in Australia. And it's something that people who
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: do stellar astronomy astronomy looking at stars and studying the stars,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: they are always interested in looking out for these what
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: are called very metal poor stars. Now, a metal two
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: an astronomer is anything other than hydrogen and helium. It's
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: all the heavier elements. So you know, carbons are metal,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: and silicons are metal, oxygen things of that, So oxygen's
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: are metal too. Yes, sounds completely counterintuitive, but it's an
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: old terminology that came at the beginning of spectroscopy astronomical
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: spectroscopy in the eighteen eighteen sixties seventies. We've called them
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: metals ever since, even though by you know, our normal terminology,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: they're not metals. But so stars which don't have much
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: of iron or calcium or oxygen or anything like that
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: are called metal poor and the search for metal poor
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: stars is a very active area of stellar astronomers, involving
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: some of the scientists I know very well because I
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: used to work with on work with them on similar projects.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So what general star would our sun be?
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: We don't know the answer to that, but it's it's
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: the Sun's atmosphere is at a fairly high level of
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: enrichment in terms of you know, what it's telling us
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: about the gas climate when it was born four point
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: six billion years ago, so it would be a late
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: generation of stars, and I guess I don't know.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: It's a good question.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Andrew, we're probably talking about dozens of generations rather than
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: just four or five or something like that, since the
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Big Bang amazing.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: We don't want to be too old, because if it's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: too old, then you know, it might give up the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: ghost sooner than we want.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: No, that's right, it's already doing quite well. It's at
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: an earlier stage in it's life than I am in mine.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's probably the way to put it.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I think for most of us, if that's the case.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, all right, very interesting news a second
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: generation star. You can read all about it at Sciencenews
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: dot org, or you can find the paper which is
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: available at Nature Astronomy. It's called Pick two five oh
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: three if you want to check it out. That just
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: about brings us to the end. Fred, Thank you so much.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: That's very exciting show this week. We might have a
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: little more exciting one next week.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Lots and lots and lots of things to talk about,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and lots of amazing things happening yes here and beyond.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: So yeah, good one, real good one. Thanks Fred.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: We'll catch you on the next episode coming soon. Thank you, Andrew,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: See you then, Professor Fred. Wat's an astronomer at large
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and not forget to visit us online.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Or on social media.
• 26:47
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• 26:51
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• 26:55
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• 26:59
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• 27:02
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• 27:06
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• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: All available at Space nuts podcast dot com or space
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: nuts dot io.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: And thanks to here in the studio.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Who couldn't be with us today Being an ex radio man,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: he thinks he's a first generation star. It just makes
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: him very slow. He couldn't get here in time. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll see
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you on the next episode of Space Nuts.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Bye Byepacenuts. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.
• 27:41
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• 27:45
  Speaker 1: This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.