This episode of Space Nuts is brought to you with the support of NordVPN...a must for when online privacy matters. Check out our great New Years deal by visiting www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts (https://www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts)
Space Nuts Episode 493: Asteroids, Cosmic Debris, and the Origins of Life
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this action-packed episode of Space Nuts as they delve into the fascinating world of asteroids and their implications for life on Earth. From the potential threat of asteroid 2024 YR4 to the surprising discovery of a Tesla Roadster masquerading as a space rock, this episode is filled with intriguing stories and scientific insights that will captivate your imagination.
Episode Highlights:
- Asteroid 2024 YR4: Discover the latest findings on asteroid 2024 YR4, which could come perilously close to Earth in 2032. Jonti explains the ongoing observations and calculations that are helping astronomers refine its orbit and assess the potential threat it poses.
- Not an Asteroid : A new discovery reveals that a supposed asteroid was actually Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster launched into space. Andrew and Jonti discuss the implications of misidentifying space debris and the need for better tracking of objects in our solar system.
- Osiris Rex Mission Insights: Learn about the groundbreaking results from NASA's Osiris Rex mission, which brought back samples from the asteroid Bennu. The findings suggest that asteroids like Bennu could have delivered essential building blocks for life on Earth, including amino acids and nucleobases.
- Solar System Dynamics: Jonti discusses a new study exploring how a rogue planet may have disrupted the orbits of our solar system's planets, providing insight into the unique characteristics of our planetary system compared to others.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/about)
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Introduction to the episode and topics
02:15 - Discussion on asteroid 2024 YR4 and its potential threat
10:30 - The Tesla Roadster misidentified as an asteroid
18:00 - Insights from the Osiris Rex mission and its findings
26:45 - Richie planets and solar system dynamics
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
NASA's Osiris Rex Mission
https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
Asteroid 2024 YR4 Tracking
Tesla Roadster in Space
https://www.space.com/tesla-roadster-asteroid
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/25463871?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 hi there thanks for joining us this is
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 Space Nuts my name is Andrew Dunley your
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 host great to have your company once
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 again coming up on this episode oh boy
00:00:09 --> 00:00:10 it is jam-packed with rocks we're
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 talking rocks of all shapes and sizes
00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 and one of them that might not even be a
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 rock uh but uh our first story will
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 focus on a rock that is heading our way
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 and in 2032 according to the popular
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 press we're all doomed but everyone else
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 who looks at it scientifically is saying
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 well maybe not uh another new asteroid
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 has been discovered uh
00:00:34 --> 00:00:36 and it can steer
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 itself we're also go to look at um some
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 rock samples uh we're talking Osiris Rex
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 uh yep some new information from that
00:00:44 --> 00:00:48 little Mission and a massive visitor in
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 our deep dark past may have Disturbed
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 our planets how so we'll tell you all
00:00:52 --> 00:00:56 about it on this episode of Space Nuts
00:00:56 --> 00:01:01 15 seconds guidance is internal 10 nine
00:01:01 --> 00:01:05 ignition sequence start Space Nuts 5 4 3
00:01:05 --> 00:01:10 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 Space Nuts as the nuts
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 reported feels good and Fred Watson is
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 still away chasing U beautiful Skies
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 I've seen some of the photos Fred's
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 taken of the Aurora Borealis uh during
00:01:21 --> 00:01:25 his sojer North and spectacular photos
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 they are so uh covering for Fred is
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 Professor johy Horner professor of
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 astrophysics at the University of
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 Southern Queensland Johny hello hey how
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 are you going I'm good welcome again
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 it's good to have your company thank you
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 it's always good to be the subs yorman
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 so yes yes it's funny how that worked
00:01:42 --> 00:01:43 out isn't
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 it um will we get straight into it
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 because we got a lot of rocks to sort
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 out I used to have a rock collection but
00:01:50 --> 00:01:54 nothing like this our first story
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 focuses on the atlas survey and they've
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 spotted a rock that um might be a threat
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 in years ahead now I need to make a
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 confession I spotted this story uh the
00:02:06 --> 00:02:07 other day when I was reading through
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 some science information and if I spot
00:02:10 --> 00:02:11 something that I think's worth talking
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 about on Space Nuts I'll I'll send it to
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 Fred and in this case I said it to you
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 and said look I don't know if this is
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 kosher or if it's the popular press
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 going nuts but it's on a very U well
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 resected platform the conversation so I
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 think it's got some credibility uh jonty
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 emailed back and said yes I'd love to do
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 this story I was the
00:02:34 --> 00:02:38 author I didn't I didn't I didn't read
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 who the author was but from now on I'm
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 going to do that very embarrassing for
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 me but um yes but yeah I I I gave it
00:02:46 --> 00:02:47 credibility because it was in the
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 conversation if it was on um one of the
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 other platforms that shall remain
00:02:52 --> 00:02:56 nameless I might have been dubious but
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 not that that being said I think you
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 know in the time to come when this
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 Rock's getting closer the popular press
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 will do the Doomsday stories for sure so
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 what what is yes what is the story
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 behind this one I will just flug up
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 briefly actually the conversation is a
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 very good reputable place because it's
00:03:17 --> 00:03:18 introduced it's an Australian initiative
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 initially that was introduced more than
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 a decade ago to address the fact that a
00:03:23 --> 00:03:24 lot of specialist journalists were
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 getting laid off and therefore there
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 were growing problems with Fidelity of
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 information in the mentry media you know
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 stor is getting misinterpreted and
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 scientists as a result getting quite
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 anxious about talking to media and the
00:03:37 --> 00:03:38 conversation was set up with an
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 editorial team who were professional
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 journalists whose job it is to get
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 articles written for them and just help
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 the authors write the articles but the
00:03:46 --> 00:03:47 people who write the articles are
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 discipline experts though I won't say
00:03:50 --> 00:03:51 much about it because it's not what the
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 podcast's about but it's worth checking
00:03:53 --> 00:03:54 out for people because if you see an
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 article in the conversation it's written
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 by somebody who's an expert in that
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 field and therefore should be giving you
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 the true story not necessarily the hyped
00:04:03 --> 00:04:04 story so
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 iate I'll give you an example of a hyped
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 story that I read this morning and this
00:04:09 --> 00:04:10 has got nothing to do with astronomy but
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 a certain well-known soccer player is in
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 court and all the popular press are
00:04:16 --> 00:04:20 dumping on this person because of a
00:04:20 --> 00:04:24 supposed Ral racial slur she's actually
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 facing charges of breaking a
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 window yeah there's a few things in that
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 so I come from the I've been following
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 this as a football fan and it's drunken
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 reprehensible Behavior but a lot of
00:04:35 --> 00:04:36 people get drunk thing is in the UK
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 though if you are recorded saying
00:04:39 --> 00:04:40 anything that is racially motivated
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 particularly saying it to police
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 officers that's kind of unwise and
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 that's what's led to all of this yes so
00:04:47 --> 00:04:48 it's led to a lot of interesting
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 coverage and a lot of very interesting
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 discussion on football forums around the
00:04:53 --> 00:04:57 CL yes indeed but um yeah uh I just
00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 thought it was a good example of them
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 chiming in on
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 you know the juicy bit but leaving out
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 the fact that the arrest occurred as a
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 consequence of malicious damage that was
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 alleged yes and then the additional
00:05:09 --> 00:05:13 charges are be layering the arrest Yes
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 again very off topic we've been doing
00:05:15 --> 00:05:16 this 30 second we've already gone on two
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 tangents so it's going to be a good good
00:05:19 --> 00:05:23 episode so the atas survey and this this
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 rock that may or may not be hurtling
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 towards Earth at some time in the not
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 too distant future this is a story of an
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 ashro that goes by the name
00:05:32 --> 00:05:36 2024 yr4 so these things always get
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 essentially a barcode that tells you
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 exactly when they were discovered so the
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 2024 means it was discovered in 2024 the
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 first letter always tells you which
00:05:45 --> 00:05:46 fortnite of the year it was discovered
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 in so a would be the first two weeks B
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 the second two weeks in this case y
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 means it was the last two weeks so this
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 was discovered on the 27th of December
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 interestingly two days after it had a
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 close encounter with the Earth we saw it
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 as it was going away from us which tells
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 you how hard these things are to spot
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 yeah we've now got just over a month
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 worth of observations of it and it's
00:06:08 --> 00:06:09 kicked off as a story in the last week
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 or so because those observations have
00:06:12 --> 00:06:13 allowed us to work out the orbit of the
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 object goes around the Sun just over
00:06:15 --> 00:06:19 every four years which tells us that in
00:06:19 --> 00:06:20 eight years time it's going to come
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 perilously close to the Earth and within
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 the level of uncertainty of the orbit
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 there is a chance of it hitting the
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 Earth and if you go on the NEOS um Earth
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 impact monitoring site for this object
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 you can actually check that probability
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 out day by day and every day it's
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 changing so when I wrote that article
00:06:39 --> 00:06:40 for the conversation last week it was
00:06:40 --> 00:06:44 one in 77 chance over the weekend it got
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 as low as a 1 in 50 chance and as of
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 today as we record it's about a one in
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 71 chance and the reason that numbers
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 going up and down so quickly is because
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 we're getting more observations so the
00:06:56 --> 00:06:57 the headline for this in a lot of the
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 media has been you know
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 the Global Security protocols have been
00:07:03 --> 00:07:04 enacted I can't remember the exact
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 phrase but everybody's at Panic stations
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 and it's not quite that bad but what's
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 happened is uh astronomers around the
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 world have been alerted to this they've
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 been told that this is a target of
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 priority so all the telescopes around
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 the world that can look at it are making
00:07:19 --> 00:07:20 extra time in their schedules to do so
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 and get a lot of data and what that data
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 lets us do is refine our understanding
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 of the orbit to better predict it
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 forward in the future and every 24 hours
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 they're run an updated fit for the orbit
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 that gives you the parameters you see
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 online and that gives you this impact
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 probability and what the impact
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 probability is really telling you is
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 that on the date at which the impact
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 Could Happen which is the 22nd of
00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 December
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 2032 how big is the area in which this
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 asteroid could be at the time it would
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 hit us compared to the area of the Earth
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 so if you've got a 1 in 70 chance it
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 means the area of Spacey asteroid could
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 be in is 70 times bigger than the
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 cross-section of the earth facing it
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 roughly yeah now we know the time of
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 impact very very accurately because it's
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 as this object moves across our orbit
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 but exactly where it'll be left right up
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 down is the uncertain bit and that's why
00:08:13 --> 00:08:14 there's this
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 uncertainty now we're not going to know
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 unless we're very fortunate that this is
00:08:19 --> 00:08:20 definitely going to miss or definitely
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 going to hit in the next few weeks I
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 think that's unlikely it should be
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 bright enough for us to follow with
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 telescopes till about April and then
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 it'll be lost even with the biggest
00:08:30 --> 00:08:31 telescopes in the world and that's part
00:08:31 --> 00:08:32 of why there's the urgency for these
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 observations now it'll then fly past the
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 Earth again at a distance of about 8
00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 million kilometers so a heft distance
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 away in 2028 and part of the reason to
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 get all these observations now is to
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 know exactly where it will be in 2028 so
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 that we can do better followup there
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 with more prep and the key observations
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 in 2028 will be radar observations so
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 bounce radar waves off it get the signal
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 back and that eight gives you an
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 incredibly accurate position for the
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 thing which really helps you refine the
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 orbit but it'll also allow us to figure
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 out the size and the shape of the object
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 with real accuracy and with those
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 observations in 2028 I think by then we
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 will know for definite whether it's
00:09:14 --> 00:09:15 going to hit or whether it's going to
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 miss but we'll also be able to predict
00:09:17 --> 00:09:18 where it's going to hit down to an
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 accuracy of maybe 10 or 100 kilometers
00:09:21 --> 00:09:22 so that's what those observations in
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 2028 will yield and what we're doing at
00:09:25 --> 00:09:26 the minute is laying the ground work
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 essentially so that's about ground okay
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 so it's going to be another few years
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 before we can get enough data to be more
00:09:35 --> 00:09:36 accurate about
00:09:36 --> 00:09:40 2032 and how big is this thing well
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 there is one possibility we might get
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 data and be sure sooner than that and
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 that's if we find a prediscovery image
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 but nobody's managed that yet so if this
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 thing goes around every four years it
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 will have been past as every four years
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 in the past as well so there's a chance
00:09:54 --> 00:09:55 it might have been picked up and not
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 noticed before and as soon as you get
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 that information that hugely improves
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 the orbit so that could rule it out or
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 rule it in very quickly in terms of the
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 size we honestly don't know but it's a
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 caveat done know so what we measure with
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 this object is the brightness of it in
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 the sky which is related to how much
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 sunlight it's reflecting back to us so
00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 if you imagine two objects that are
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 identical sizes and one of them is more
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 reflective more shiny then that one will
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 look brighter to us it'll reflect more
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 light our way now for this object we
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 know how bright it is but we don't know
00:10:30 --> 00:10:34 how reflective it is and so therefore we
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 can estimate the size based on a guess
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 at how reflective it is but we don't
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 know so we have a range of potential
00:10:40 --> 00:10:44 sizes we think it's between 40 and 100 m
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 diameter with the most likely size being
00:10:46 --> 00:10:50 55 to 60 M but we won't know for sure
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 until we get those red our observations
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 in four years time all right so what
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 kind of damage would a rock that size do
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 there's two scenario
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 basically we have scenario one which is
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 the most likely is that this is a rocky
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 rubbly object like the thing that
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 exploded over chel abinsk in 2013 or the
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 thing that exploded over Siberia in 1908
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 and the majority of near Earth asteroids
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 are these kind of rubble piles because
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 Rocky objects are more common than metal
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 objects if it's one of these Rubble
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 piles it will not have the strength to
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 get through the atmosphere intact and so
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 it will fall apart and detonate probably
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 somewhere between 10 20 30 kilometers
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 above the ground it'll probably get
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 deeper into the atmosphere than the
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 chubin impacted because it's bigger
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 essentially blow up nearer to the ground
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 and that will create an air burst event
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 now the amount of energy dumped into the
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 atmosphere will depend on the mass of
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 the object the size of the object
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 essentially it is roughly and because of
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 how wide that size range is this is a
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 very rough estimate it's comparable in
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 size to the thing that happened that
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 exploded over tongus in
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 1908 that is probably the biggest impact
00:12:02 --> 00:12:03 on Earth it's certainly the biggest
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 impact in recorded modern history but
00:12:06 --> 00:12:07 probably the biggest impact on a time
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 scale of a thousand years or so that
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 leveled an area of trees in Siberia of
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 about 2 square kilometers which is
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 equivalent to the area of Greater Sydney
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 so he'd characterized that as being a
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 city killer it's a kind of thing where
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 if it hit over a city everybody in that
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 City would have a really bad day now
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 what the tungus event showed us is that
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 Earth is mly empty space we hang around
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 as humans and we all gather together so
00:12:34 --> 00:12:35 what that means is that an object like
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 that hitting the Earth most of the time
00:12:38 --> 00:12:39 wouldn't cause any problems because it
00:12:39 --> 00:12:40 would hit over the ocean or it would hit
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 in the wilderness but the flit side of
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 that is if the tusar event had happened
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 two hours later it would have happened
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 over St Petersburg and millions would
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 have died wow so that's the kind of size
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 of object we're talking about here if on
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 the flip side it turned out that it's an
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 iron object the fragment of a core of an
00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 object in the ashro belt that got big
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 enough to differentiate out into
00:13:04 --> 00:13:05 separate layers like the Earth has a
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 core mantle and a crust and then was
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 smashed apart there are objects out
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 there like that and the best example of
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 the effect of something like that is
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 found in the Arizona desert it's called
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 meteor crater or the Barringer impact
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 crater and I visited there a few years
00:13:20 --> 00:13:22 ago before Co and it's really
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 spectacular you're talking here about a
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 hole in the ground about, 1400 MERS
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 across couple of hundred meters deep a
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 crater and that crater was formed 50
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 years ago by the impact of an iron
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 meteorite about 50 m in diameter so the
00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 same kind of size scale as the object
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 we're talking about so if this thing is
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 a solid metallic object which I should
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 stresses the less likely option it would
00:13:46 --> 00:13:47 make it through the atmosphere intact
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 because it's stronger it' hit the ground
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 and carve out a big crater if it hit the
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 ocean it will carve that crater into the
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 water causing them water to slush around
00:13:57 --> 00:13:58 and probably causing tsunami around the
00:13:58 --> 00:13:59 coast
00:13:59 --> 00:14:03 MH but it's still counted as being
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 something that will be locally damaging
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 rather than regionally or nationally
00:14:07 --> 00:14:08 damaging so it's something to watch
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 something to be really interested in but
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 I'm not losing any sleep over the fact
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 that if it hit us it will be a huge
00:14:15 --> 00:14:16 catastrophe because I think that is very
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 unlikely unless we're very unfortunate
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 yeah okay so too early to say but we'll
00:14:21 --> 00:14:25 be able to um get more data together in
00:14:25 --> 00:14:26 a few years maybe sooner if somebody did
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 get an image of at at some stage but uh
00:14:29 --> 00:14:33 that hasn't been determined yet okay uh
00:14:33 --> 00:14:35 we'll revisit that story at some stage I
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 am sure while we're talking
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 asteroids let's get on to this this
00:14:40 --> 00:14:44 story which uh uh made me laugh and and
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 this is um an asteroid that was
00:14:47 --> 00:14:51 discovered in January of this year but
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 it turns out that it's not what they
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 initially thought it was yes and and
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 this is a recurring problem now I've
00:14:57 --> 00:15:00 mentioned before that our use of space
00:15:00 --> 00:15:01 is a bit like the wild west that we've
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 not had legislature and planning and
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 organization keeping up with the
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 explosion in our use of space the story
00:15:09 --> 00:15:11 here is that a amateur astronomer I
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 believe detected a new asteroid in early
00:15:14 --> 00:15:17 January and they were quickly scanning
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 through all the old data they found
00:15:19 --> 00:15:23 prediscovery images from 2018 of this
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 Speck of light moving across the sky so
00:15:25 --> 00:15:26 this thing got flagged on as an asteroid
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 it got given an asteroid categorization
00:15:29 --> 00:15:33 of 2018 CX2 I think it was and it was
00:15:33 --> 00:15:34 quickly calculated that this thing was
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 on an orbit that could bring it within
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 150 keters of Earth so it's flagged
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 as a potentially Hazard as asteroid it
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 was only a little bit later that people
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 realized that actually the orbit of this
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 thing matches perfectly with Elon musk's
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 sports car that decided to launch as a
00:15:50 --> 00:15:54 publicity STM back in 2018 um to Tesla
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 Roadster that has been floating around
00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 on this elongated orbit that brings it
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 near the Earth and it got misidentified
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 so they put out a pressure release
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 saying that the C we now know what it
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 was we're retiring that
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 categorization it is not an asteroid
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 don't panic but it's not the first time
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 this has happened it's certainly not the
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 last time it's happen we keep getting
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 human debris and detrius being picked up
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 and identified as asteroids people go
00:16:22 --> 00:16:23 back they go through cataloged
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 observations identify this in previous
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 photos you get an orbit and it distracts
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 a large amount of time from people who
00:16:31 --> 00:16:32 are doing the work looking for things
00:16:32 --> 00:16:36 like y4 for objects that could pose a
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 threat and there's a number of issues
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 around it now part of it is that there
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 is no rules or regulations in place for
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 people who launching to space to keep
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 track of them or to tell anybody else
00:16:47 --> 00:16:48 what they've launched and where the bits
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 are so we've seen these kind of stories
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 in the past for satellites and space
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 observatories we've also seen it for
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 spent rocket casings and things like
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 that now that's a little bit of a
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 problem when you're looking at managing
00:17:02 --> 00:17:03 the impact threat to Earth from
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 asteroids but it's also a problem in
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 terms of other people wanting to send
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 missions out there and Jonathan McDow
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 who's really one of the world experts in
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 space flight space travel and monitoring
00:17:14 --> 00:17:18 these things has made a point that if
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 you're flying on Earth and you're in an
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 aircraft you have to log a flight plan
00:17:22 --> 00:17:23 you have to tell people where you're
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 going when you're traveling as a an
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 aircraft safety thing so that planes
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 don't meet each other not expecting the
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 other one to be there essentially he
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 says and this is a direct quote from him
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 in an article here if you have to file a
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 flight plan for a local flight on Earth
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 you should have to file a flight plan
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 for an interplanetary flight because
00:17:41 --> 00:17:42 you're going to get the same kind of
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 things the airspace is going to become
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 more and more crowded and it's a safety
00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 issue and a management issue but there
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 are just currently no rules and no
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 regulations around this out there and
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 the tracking problem is particularly
00:17:57 --> 00:17:58 important because you got to remember
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 that Massa JPL the astronomy Community
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 as a whole are keeping track of all the
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 objects we know of in the solar system
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 and we currently know of nearly 1.5
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 million objects that they're tracking so
00:18:10 --> 00:18:11 when you find a new object it's not
00:18:11 --> 00:18:13 really straightforward to say well I
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 remember remember Elon launched a car
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 maybe it could be that let's check it
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 out Elon has not been tracking it and
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 telling us where it is so it is a real
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 problem and it's a big enough issue that
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24 people are flagging it up in the
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 astronomy community and it's another of
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 these many facet of that balance between
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 we wanting to encourage the commercial
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 use of space we've seen such incredible
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 innovation in there the reduction of the
00:18:37 --> 00:18:38 cost of launching to space all the rest
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 of it but at the same time you want it
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 to be managed in a way that makes it
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 sustainable and safe for everybody
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 rather than having companies essentially
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 having free reign to do what they want
00:18:48 --> 00:18:49 and so it's a challenging time and this
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 is just another of those issues that
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 talk about transparency versus privacy
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 that talk about the right for companies
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 to do what they want rather than regul
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 but it's an interesting interesting one
00:19:01 --> 00:19:02 you know and at the end of the day if
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 you launch your sports cars into space
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 you should have to track them it was a
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 very expensive exercise but I think he
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 can afford it but um didn't didn't they
00:19:11 --> 00:19:14 lose it at one stage so this is this is
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 basically saying well we found it again
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 yeah well of course they lost it this is
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 something the size of a car that goes on
00:19:20 --> 00:19:21 an orbit beyond the orbit of Mars we're
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 the best W in the world even the biggest
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 telescopes on Earth cannot trap the
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 Tesla rodster in its entire orbit around
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 the sun but nor should they waste their
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 time having to do so when they could be
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 looking for things that pose a threat to
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 us well yeah I think he's got his money
00:19:37 --> 00:19:41 back in in car sales it was it was a
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 brilliant publicity stunt uh he should
00:19:43 --> 00:19:44 have done it on April Fool's Day that
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 would have made it even more fun but um
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 yes okay so now we know it's not an
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 asteroid so they've they've had to uname
00:19:52 --> 00:19:53 it
00:19:53 --> 00:19:56 basically all right um yeah there that's
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 a fun story you can find that on space .
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 and the previous story about that um
00:20:02 --> 00:20:06 2032 Rock uh is on the conversation
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 website written by none other than
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 Professor johy Horner this is Space Nuts
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 Andrew Dunley here with Professor johy
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 Horner time to take a short break to
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 tell you about our sponsor nordvpn and
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 they've got a great New Year deal for
00:20:22 --> 00:20:26 you which I'll get to soon now if you're
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 someone who uses public Wi-Fi then you
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 could be exposed to hackers and I'm
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 talking about places like cafes airports
00:20:33 --> 00:20:37 hotels shopping malls anywhere that
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 Wi-Fi exists for open use basically and
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 let's be realistic there aren't many
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 places that don't offer it these days
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 now you might not be aware of this but
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 there are two ways hackers work they can
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 hack into your device directly or they
00:20:52 --> 00:20:56 can intercept your Wi-Fi data which
00:20:56 --> 00:20:57 could include your passwords and
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 usernames and once they get that all
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 bets are off so what can you do to
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 ensure your safety simple put up a wall
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 known as a virtual private Network or
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 VPN this is software that makes you
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14 untraceable and therefore unhackable and
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 there's none better than
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 nordvpn as a Space Nuts listener we have
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 a special New Year offer available to
00:21:21 --> 00:21:24 you just go to
00:21:24 --> 00:21:29 nordvpn.com SPAC nuts that's nordvpn /s
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 SPAC nuts and click on get the deal and
00:21:32 --> 00:21:33 check out whatson offer through their
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 monthly yearly or 2-year plans and the
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 longer you sign up the lower the overall
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 price plus an extra 4 months free and of
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 course their 30-day money back guarantee
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 and don't forget all their other amazing
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 tools like cloud storage threat
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 protection anti- maware my favorite is
00:21:50 --> 00:21:52 the password manager makes life so much
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 easier all available depending on which
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 plan you choose it's inexpensive simple
00:21:58 --> 00:21:59 to set up
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 and you can use it on 10 devices through
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 most operating systems which is very
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 impressive check it out today at
00:22:07 --> 00:22:10 nordvpn.com SPAC nuts that's
00:22:10 --> 00:22:12 nordvpn.com
00:22:12 --> 00:22:15 sspace nuts and click on get the deal
00:22:15 --> 00:22:18 you won't be
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 disappointed Space Nuts not quite
00:22:21 --> 00:22:24 Professor Fred Watson not quite um it is
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27 Professor johy Horner um Fred's still
00:22:27 --> 00:22:29 away and he should be back in a few
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 weeks uh we're still talking asteroids
00:22:32 --> 00:22:36 JY and this one we've spoken about many
00:22:36 --> 00:22:38 times because this was a really exciting
00:22:38 --> 00:22:42 Mission the Osiris Rex uh Mission uh
00:22:43 --> 00:22:47 that got samples from benu was Beno benu
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 wasn't it and and they they they
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 returned to Earth safely which was all
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 very exciting but now they've had a
00:22:53 --> 00:22:56 chance to you know analyze this this
00:22:56 --> 00:23:00 stuff and it's been rather revealing
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02 yeah so one of the reasons that benu was
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 targeted is the suspicion that it's a
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 fairly pristine object it's one of these
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 near Earth asteroids floating around but
00:23:08 --> 00:23:11 based on observations of it going back a
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13 long time the suspicion was that it's a
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 kind of asteroid you call Cous conract
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 material so it's old and in theory
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 fairly pristine and NASA sent the Osiris
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 Rex Mission there touched down gathered
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 samples gathered a huge amount of
00:23:26 --> 00:23:27 samples more than twice as much as they
00:23:28 --> 00:23:29 were expected to bring back which
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 amounted to them bringing more than 100
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 grams of asteroid material back to the
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 earth now this is the third time that
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38 somebody has visited an asro and brought
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 samples back ACR the Japanese have done
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 it twice successfully before with the
00:23:42 --> 00:23:43 wonderful high booster and high booster
00:23:43 --> 00:23:44
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 missions but this mission to benu
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 brought back a lot more material and
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 it's taken a while for the results to
00:23:52 --> 00:23:55 kind of creep out from that Bey that has
00:23:55 --> 00:23:56 been brought back people have been
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 analyzing it working really hard
00:23:59 --> 00:24:00 um should be said they've actually
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 quarantined off I think 60 grams of it
00:24:02 --> 00:24:05 to be held in storage for future
00:24:05 --> 00:24:06 researchers with better technology in
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 the future just the same incidentally as
00:24:09 --> 00:24:10 the Apollo samples that were brought
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 back by the Apollo missions the Apollo
00:24:12 --> 00:24:13 Astronauts there are some of those that
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 have still not been crapped open because
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 they're preserved for future Generations
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 which I think is brilliant yeah it's a
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 great idea so what they've been doing
00:24:21 --> 00:24:22 with the benu samples is learning more
00:24:23 --> 00:24:24 about them and we've suddenly had this
00:24:24 --> 00:24:27 raft of new results presented over the
00:24:27 --> 00:24:29 last few weeks all discussing the
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 findings from benu and they are really
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 interesting in the context of the origin
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 of life on Earth and how common life
00:24:36 --> 00:24:37 might be in the
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 cosmos now with benu being really
00:24:40 --> 00:24:41 pristine and ancient it's not been
00:24:41 --> 00:24:43 altered it's not been weathered to any
00:24:43 --> 00:24:46 great extent but it's an object that we
00:24:46 --> 00:24:47 know in the past was wet and warm
00:24:48 --> 00:24:49 because it's got clear type of materials
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51 on it and what that tells us is that the
00:24:52 --> 00:24:53 asteroid we call benu was once part of a
00:24:53 --> 00:24:56 much bigger asteroid that was a kind of
00:24:56 --> 00:24:57 environment where temperatures and
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 pressures got hot enough the liquid
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 water for at least some time that's why
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 you've got these clay type materials on
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 it in the an analysis of the samples
00:25:06 --> 00:25:08 that have come back they found a lot of
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 things that kind of reaffirm the idea
00:25:11 --> 00:25:12 that the building blocks for life on
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 Earth could have been delivered by
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 asteroids like benu impacting the Earth
00:25:17 --> 00:25:19 late in the earth's formation so the
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 kind of real headline news story here is
00:25:22 --> 00:25:26 that they have found 14 different amino
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29 acids in the debris they brought back
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 and the reminder is that on Earth there
00:25:32 --> 00:25:34 are 20 amino acids in total that create
00:25:34 --> 00:25:36 all the proteins that we use so they
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 found 14 of them 70% of them in this one
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 set of samples you brought back 100
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 grams of an asteroid and you found 70%
00:25:45 --> 00:25:47 of all the amino acids used in Earth
00:25:47 --> 00:25:51 that's pretty amazing yeah they also say
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 that they've got I think it was all five
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 nuclear bases that are used in DNA have
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 been found in these samples as well as
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 well as a very high level of ammonia and
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 ammonia is something that's often
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 invoked in discussions of the origin of
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 life so this is in theory telling us a
00:26:06 --> 00:26:08 couple of things it's telling us that
00:26:08 --> 00:26:10 these things which are viewed as being
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 part of that primordial soup that gave
00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 birth to life on Earth could have been
00:26:15 --> 00:26:16 delivered from Beyond could have been
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 delivered from asteroids but it's also
00:26:18 --> 00:26:19 telling us that they're common in the
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 cosmos because for us to just go and
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 visit an asteroid and bring back a 100
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 grams and find all these things tells
00:26:25 --> 00:26:26 you they're not rare if they were rare
00:26:26 --> 00:26:28 we wouldn't have found them yet so I
00:26:28 --> 00:26:30 think that's really interesting and it
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 shows the value of going there the other
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 thing though that is buried kind of deep
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 down in the article here that I thought
00:26:36 --> 00:26:37 was really
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 interesting is the other value of going
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 there directly so on Earth there's this
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 weird thing with life to do with
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 chirality so the handedness of molecules
00:26:49 --> 00:26:50 so when you've got molecules that form a
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 spiral they can be left-handed or
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 right-handed which direction the Spiral
00:26:54 --> 00:26:55 goes
00:26:55 --> 00:26:58 essentially now on Earth all life seems
00:26:58 --> 00:26:59 to use the left-handed stuff that's my
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 understanding the left-handed chirality
00:27:02 --> 00:27:04 and historically when people have looked
00:27:04 --> 00:27:06 at meteorites that have been found on
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 the earth and looked at the molecules in
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 them these longchain molecules they
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 found a preference for those meteorites
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 to also contain left-handed over
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 right-handed chirality so there's always
00:27:16 --> 00:27:17 been some suggestion that that
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 left-handed preference comes from the
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 material brought to us but there's
00:27:22 --> 00:27:23 always been a bit of skepticism because
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 the things that you find on earth have
00:27:26 --> 00:27:27 been sitting on the earth for a long
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 time so we natural contaminated so it's
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 why for example if we find a meteorite
00:27:31 --> 00:27:32 on Earth that we don't know how long
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 it's been here and find evidence that it
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 has been altered by water we can't say
00:27:37 --> 00:27:39 that it was altered by water before it
00:27:39 --> 00:27:40 got to the Earth because the Earth's
00:27:40 --> 00:27:42 fairly wet it's the same kind of idea
00:27:43 --> 00:27:44 yeah so that's been a hypothesis
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 floating around for quite a long time
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 but in order to rule out the Earthly
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 contamination side of things you've got
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 to actually get samples that have not
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 been contaminated on Earth and that's
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 what these samples from benu have given
00:27:57 --> 00:27:59 us because gone there and collected them
00:27:59 --> 00:28:00 and brought them back and kept them very
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 clean and very separate from the local
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 environment and what it turns out in the
00:28:05 --> 00:28:06 new results from benu is that there is
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 no preference for the left-handedness
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 you've got an equal amount of
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 right-handed and left-handed material so
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 what that's suggesting is that the
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 left-handed material is a result of the
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 earth rather than it being something the
00:28:20 --> 00:28:21 asteroids are bringing to us if that
00:28:21 --> 00:28:25 makes sense ah yes I get it I get it
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 it's pretty exciting because and and I
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29 think think I said this a week or two
00:28:29 --> 00:28:31 back or maybe the last two episodes that
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 um I I believe the recipe for Life
00:28:34 --> 00:28:36 exists everywhere and it's just a matter
00:28:36 --> 00:28:38 of you know getting the right oven
00:28:38 --> 00:28:41 temperature and boom it flourishes I I
00:28:41 --> 00:28:44 firmly believe uh like we mentioned it
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 earlier there was a time where we just
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 did not know there were other planets
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 beyond our own solar system and now
00:28:50 --> 00:28:51 we've found
00:28:51 --> 00:28:54 thousands it's it stands to reason that
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 the same situation exists for life not
00:28:57 --> 00:29:00 intellig life but life of some kind I
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 mean someone would argue that if you
00:29:02 --> 00:29:03 watch the news he'd wonder whether
00:29:03 --> 00:29:05 there's intelligent life on Earth of
00:29:05 --> 00:29:09 Earth and yeah I'm kind of with you I've
00:29:09 --> 00:29:10 met a very small number of people who
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 think that life is a uniquely Earth
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 phenomenon and they're quite often
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16 biologists and the argument they've made
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 is essentially that life is impossible
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 we're a fluke because no experiments
00:29:21 --> 00:29:22 have ever done have replicated life it's
00:29:22 --> 00:29:25 too hard to generate therefore we must
00:29:25 --> 00:29:26 be learning the universe but if you make
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 life even slightly easier to have happen
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 than that even a tiny little bit there's
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 just so much real estate out there that
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 life must be out there in the universe
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 somewhere else and that's before you
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 bring into discussion things like
00:29:40 --> 00:29:41 panspermia which we talked about in
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 recent weeks which is essentially life
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 having the ability to infect other
00:29:48 --> 00:29:51 places yeah I yeah exactly and uh and I
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 think that situation exists and it's not
00:29:54 --> 00:29:55 just somewhere else out in the universe
00:29:56 --> 00:29:57 there's there's potential for life
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 within our solar system on the ice moons
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 oh the place and he another of those
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 science revolutions we've lived through
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 which is when I was a kid we were still
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 in the domain of life is not going to be
00:30:10 --> 00:30:11 found anywhere else on Earth you know
00:30:11 --> 00:30:12 you don't talk about life elsewhere
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 that's a bit kind of quirk in sci-fi so
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 pendulum had swung very heavily that way
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 but we started to learn about objects in
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 the outer solar system and one of the
00:30:22 --> 00:30:23 reasons that people have always argued
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 that life would be scarce is that liquid
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 water's scarce because at a first pass
00:30:28 --> 00:30:29 the Earth the only place with liquid
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 water we need liquid water for Life Ergo
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 life is very rare but over the last
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 couple of decades what we've realized is
00:30:36 --> 00:30:37 that liquid water is actually everywhere
00:30:37 --> 00:30:39 in the cell system water itself is one
00:30:39 --> 00:30:41 of the most common things in the
00:30:41 --> 00:30:43 universe because it's what you get when
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 you put the most common atoms hydrogen
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 with the third most common atoms oxygen
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 hydrogen is 74% of all atoms in the
00:30:49 --> 00:30:52 universe oxygen is 1% of all atoms you
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 put them together and you get water so
00:30:54 --> 00:30:57 the great great great bulk of the solid
00:30:57 --> 00:30:59 material in the solar system is solid
00:30:59 --> 00:31:02 water water ice but what we found over
00:31:02 --> 00:31:03 the last couple of decades is that
00:31:03 --> 00:31:05 liquid water is everywhere you know we
00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 we talked about Europa which is a kind
00:31:07 --> 00:31:09 of standard Bearer for this in the OU of
00:31:10 --> 00:31:11 solar system but the more we studied the
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn the more
00:31:14 --> 00:31:15 evidence we get that many of those moons
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 have subsurface otions some of the
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 objects like the Centos that I love
00:31:20 --> 00:31:21 these small well couple hundred kilom
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24 scale icy bodies in the ad solar system
00:31:24 --> 00:31:25 they're big enough they probably have
00:31:25 --> 00:31:27 liquid centers at one point there may
00:31:27 --> 00:31:29 even be liquid water ocean buried
00:31:29 --> 00:31:32 beneath Pluto it's just everywhere and
00:31:32 --> 00:31:34 with that much real estate it's very
00:31:34 --> 00:31:35 hard to imagine that we're the only
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 place that life has become
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 established yes um as Fred has said to
00:31:40 --> 00:31:44 us many times the leap to more complex
00:31:44 --> 00:31:48 life forms is is huge but basic life
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 forms very much a possibility I I I
00:31:51 --> 00:31:54 firmly believe that and I think common
00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 sense is starting to send people down
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 that road anyway uh that's a fascinating
00:31:59 --> 00:32:00 story about benu if you'd like to look
00:32:00 --> 00:32:02 it up it's um all over the internet but
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 space.com again is a pretty good place
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 to check it out this is Space Nuts
00:32:08 --> 00:32:13 Andrew Dunley here with Professor johy
00:32:13 --> 00:32:17 Horner and I feel fine Space Nuts our
00:32:17 --> 00:32:21 final story jonty takes us uh to um
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23 another object that passed through our
00:32:23 --> 00:32:26 solar system a long long time ago in a
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 Galaxy not so far away
00:32:28 --> 00:32:32 and it may have
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34 disrupted uh some of our planets now
00:32:34 --> 00:32:38 this got me to thinking um we've found a
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 lot of solar systems in our searches for
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 exoplanets and we've been mystified by
00:32:43 --> 00:32:45 the fact that a lot of them just don't
00:32:45 --> 00:32:46 look anything like ours and we've
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 wondered why in fact ours seems to be
00:32:50 --> 00:32:53 different from most could this be the
00:32:53 --> 00:32:56 reason possibly now I think a Tome we've
00:32:56 --> 00:32:58 learned from the xplanet era so far is
00:32:58 --> 00:33:00 that every planetary system is unique
00:33:00 --> 00:33:01 and it's bit like every person it's
00:33:01 --> 00:33:03 Unique because they've got their own
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 unique lived experience and every
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 planetary system forms from a unique set
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 of circumstances and experiences unique
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 events through their evolution so
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14 everyone will look naturally different
00:33:14 --> 00:33:16 what we've tried to do in cisem
00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 astronomy for basically as long as
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 people have been doing cisem astronomy
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 is understand where we come from so how
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 did the solar system get to look like it
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26 currently does how did it form how did
00:33:26 --> 00:33:29 it evolve now the events that led to
00:33:29 --> 00:33:31 this happened 4 billion years and more
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 ago so we're trying to solve a very
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 distant crime by looking at the clues
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 that are there today so it's a bit like
00:33:38 --> 00:33:39 when you're driving along the highway
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 and you see a little bit of Glass on the
00:33:41 --> 00:33:42 road and a little bit of a ding in the
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 barrier you can infer that somebody's
00:33:44 --> 00:33:46 had a bit of an UPS moment but you don't
00:33:46 --> 00:33:48 know what kind of car it was you don't
00:33:48 --> 00:33:49 know what the story was so you've got to
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 try and piece it together and I'm sure
00:33:51 --> 00:33:53 the accident people will look at the
00:33:53 --> 00:33:55 skid mats and all the rest of it now in
00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 the solar system we have a huge huge
00:33:58 --> 00:33:59 huge number of objects we mentioned
00:33:59 --> 00:34:02 earlier on more than almost one and a
00:34:02 --> 00:34:03 half million objects in the solar system
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 that we know and we see where those
00:34:06 --> 00:34:08 objects are and where they aren't we see
00:34:08 --> 00:34:09 what their orbits are like we see what
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12 they're made of and we have all of those
00:34:12 --> 00:34:15 things as evidence of the processes that
00:34:15 --> 00:34:19 have led to now and there are puzzles we
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 don't have any models of Sol system
00:34:21 --> 00:34:23 formation that perfectly replicate what
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 we see because of this chaos the
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 chaoticity the lots of random events
00:34:28 --> 00:34:31 that can contribute now people have
00:34:31 --> 00:34:32 suggested for a long time that there
00:34:32 --> 00:34:34 could have been a close encounter
00:34:34 --> 00:34:35 between the sun and a passing star or
00:34:35 --> 00:34:38 passing brown dwarf that sculpted our
00:34:38 --> 00:34:40 solar system and a lot of that
00:34:40 --> 00:34:41 discussion has come from the edge with
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43 ker belt this belt of objects beyond the
00:34:43 --> 00:34:46 orbit of Neptune that's like an icy
00:34:46 --> 00:34:48 analog to the asteroid belt and the out
00:34:48 --> 00:34:51 Edge to that is quite sharp and disin so
00:34:51 --> 00:34:53 could that have been sculpted by a
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 passing star scouring the outer edge of
00:34:55 --> 00:34:58 the solar disc away for example we have
00:34:58 --> 00:35:00 discussions of Planet 9 based on some of
00:35:00 --> 00:35:02 those distant objects that are moving on
00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 orbits that are hard to otherwise
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 explain so this is that kind of game
00:35:06 --> 00:35:07 that astronomers are playing all the
00:35:07 --> 00:35:09 time which is how do we explain The
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 Oddities how do we get to an
00:35:11 --> 00:35:12 understanding of how we got to where we
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 are now based on our best models of the
00:35:15 --> 00:35:17 generalities of how planetary systems
00:35:17 --> 00:35:19 form and that's where this work comes in
00:35:19 --> 00:35:22 so we know a lot about the orbits of the
00:35:22 --> 00:35:24 planets and one of the things we know is
00:35:24 --> 00:35:26 that to first order if you draw the
00:35:26 --> 00:35:27 solar system on a bit of paper you're
00:35:27 --> 00:35:29 not far WR the orbits of the planets all
00:35:30 --> 00:35:32 move in pretty much the same plane but
00:35:32 --> 00:35:34 they're not perfectly aligned they're
00:35:34 --> 00:35:36 tilted to one another by a few degrees
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 Mercury is tilted by about 7 degrees for
00:35:38 --> 00:35:41 example with the biggest tilt the orbits
00:35:41 --> 00:35:43 are not perfectly circular they're all
00:35:43 --> 00:35:46 spread out in a specific way now there's
00:35:46 --> 00:35:47 been a lot of studies in the past
00:35:47 --> 00:35:48 looking at the migration of the planets
00:35:48 --> 00:35:50 how they've moved over time from forming
00:35:50 --> 00:35:53 in one place to living in another and
00:35:53 --> 00:35:55 Rena Malhotra who's one of the greats of
00:35:55 --> 00:35:58 cicis and Dynamics was was one of the
00:35:58 --> 00:35:59 first people to discuss this back in the
00:35:59 --> 00:36:02 early '90s when she did work looking at
00:36:02 --> 00:36:06 the orbit of Pluto and inferring from
00:36:06 --> 00:36:07 that that Neptune must have formed
00:36:07 --> 00:36:09 closer to the Sun than it currently is
00:36:09 --> 00:36:11 and then it migrated outwards pushing
00:36:11 --> 00:36:14 Pluto with it and that is now just
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 established scientific cannon that is an
00:36:16 --> 00:36:18 explanation that works it fits with all
00:36:18 --> 00:36:21 the other objects we found out there and
00:36:21 --> 00:36:22 it was incredibly insightful and
00:36:22 --> 00:36:25 Brilliant work 33 years ago when she
00:36:25 --> 00:36:26 first identified this and modeled it and
00:36:26 --> 00:36:29 showed it to be the yes now the reason I
00:36:29 --> 00:36:32 mention Reno Malhotra is that her latest
00:36:32 --> 00:36:35 work is what is the interesting story
00:36:35 --> 00:36:38 today she's looked at the aties of the
00:36:38 --> 00:36:40 orbits of the planets both the
00:36:40 --> 00:36:42 terrestrial planets and the giant
00:36:42 --> 00:36:44 planets and as a question what could
00:36:44 --> 00:36:47 have caused this to answer that she
00:36:47 --> 00:36:50 looked at the idea with her team that
00:36:50 --> 00:36:52 the solar system is moving through a
00:36:52 --> 00:36:54 Galaxy where there are lots of other
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 stars and lots of smaller objects lots
00:36:56 --> 00:36:58 of brand dwarfs lots of planets
00:36:58 --> 00:37:00 and particularly in the environment
00:37:00 --> 00:37:01 where the sun formed there were lots of
00:37:01 --> 00:37:03 other things forming so you have a
00:37:03 --> 00:37:05 higher chance of Close Encounters and so
00:37:05 --> 00:37:08 she said what if there had been a close
00:37:08 --> 00:37:10 encounter well let run a huge number of
00:37:10 --> 00:37:12 simulations I think she run more than
00:37:12 --> 00:37:14 50 individual simulations all
00:37:14 --> 00:37:17 running for more than 20 million years
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 where in each simulation she had the
00:37:19 --> 00:37:23 solar system and an interloper an object
00:37:23 --> 00:37:26 flying through not bound not
00:37:26 --> 00:37:27 gravitationally held by the Sun but just
00:37:27 --> 00:37:30 passing through where you change the
00:37:30 --> 00:37:32 mass of that you go from something the
00:37:32 --> 00:37:33 mass of the Sun all the way down to
00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 something the mass of Jupiter and you
00:37:35 --> 00:37:36 change the trajectory the speed it's
00:37:37 --> 00:37:38 coming through and how close it gets and
00:37:38 --> 00:37:41 how tilted that trajectory is and the
00:37:41 --> 00:37:43 question is can any of these
00:37:43 --> 00:37:46 scenarios provide a result that looks
00:37:46 --> 00:37:48 like the solar system we see today in
00:37:48 --> 00:37:50 other words could this be an explanation
00:37:50 --> 00:37:53 for what we see and the result is yes a
00:37:53 --> 00:37:56 large number of the scenarios led to
00:37:56 --> 00:37:58 systems that looked very Sim ilar to our
00:37:58 --> 00:38:01 own particularly scenarios with less
00:38:01 --> 00:38:03 massive objects penetrating really deep
00:38:03 --> 00:38:06 into the solar system so not a one solar
00:38:06 --> 00:38:09 mass star passing at 100 au but objects
00:38:09 --> 00:38:11 comparably Mass to and a bit bigger than
00:38:11 --> 00:38:13 Jupiter passing through the domain of
00:38:13 --> 00:38:15 the planets and this can do a really
00:38:15 --> 00:38:17 good job of fitting what we see of the
00:38:17 --> 00:38:19 current orbits of the planets The best
00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 scenario they found the one that was the
00:38:21 --> 00:38:23 closest fit to what we observe today in
00:38:24 --> 00:38:26 their simulations was a planet the mass
00:38:26 --> 00:38:30 of eight Jupiters so that's a massive
00:38:30 --> 00:38:31 Planet but not yet a brown dwarf it's
00:38:31 --> 00:38:34 still a a big planet passing through the
00:38:34 --> 00:38:36 solar system with a closest approach to
00:38:36 --> 00:38:39 the sun of 1.69 Au so that's just
00:38:39 --> 00:38:42 outside the current orbit of Mars and
00:38:42 --> 00:38:45 that individual simulation was the one
00:38:45 --> 00:38:47 that resulted in a planetary system that
00:38:47 --> 00:38:49 looked the most like our solar system
00:38:49 --> 00:38:51 now it's not saying that's what
00:38:51 --> 00:38:54 happened but rather it's demonstrating
00:38:54 --> 00:38:55 that this idea this
00:38:55 --> 00:38:58 hypothesis can work to explain
00:38:58 --> 00:39:00 everything we see today now the next
00:39:00 --> 00:39:02 step for work like this is to make
00:39:02 --> 00:39:05 predictions so if this kind of model was
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08 the case if this is what really happened
00:39:08 --> 00:39:10 what will we observe in the coming years
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 that corroborate that what would it
00:39:12 --> 00:39:15 predict and it's a wonderful time to do
00:39:15 --> 00:39:16 work like this because we've got the
00:39:16 --> 00:39:18 Vera Rubin Observatory coming online in
00:39:18 --> 00:39:20 the next year or two which is the most
00:39:20 --> 00:39:22 ridiculous astronomical telescope ever
00:39:22 --> 00:39:24 built it's got a main mirror about 8 and
00:39:24 --> 00:39:27 1 half met across but it's like a super
00:39:27 --> 00:39:29 super fast camera lens except 8 and 1
00:39:29 --> 00:39:32 half met across so it'll image an area
00:39:32 --> 00:39:34 of the sky 81 times bigger than the full
00:39:34 --> 00:39:38 moon every 10 or 15 seconds letting it
00:39:38 --> 00:39:40 survey the entirety of the night sky
00:39:40 --> 00:39:44 once per week forever and ever more wow
00:39:44 --> 00:39:46 detecting objects up to a billion times
00:39:46 --> 00:39:48 fenter than we see with a naked eye so
00:39:49 --> 00:39:50 the predictions are that ver Rubin in
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52 the first year of observation will
00:39:52 --> 00:39:54 detect a number of objects that will
00:39:54 --> 00:39:55 increase the amount of stuff we know in
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57 the soul system by fact of 10 to 100
00:39:57 --> 00:39:59 times so from one and a half million
00:39:59 --> 00:40:02 objects we'll go to 15 or 150 million
00:40:02 --> 00:40:05 objects and that'll be a huge raft of
00:40:05 --> 00:40:08 new information new clues for the
00:40:08 --> 00:40:09 detectives to use to try and solve that
00:40:09 --> 00:40:12 crime to try and fit to the different
00:40:12 --> 00:40:14 models of Planet formation so it's a
00:40:14 --> 00:40:16 perfect time to do work like this
00:40:16 --> 00:40:17 because you can say this is what we
00:40:17 --> 00:40:20 should see with Vera Rubin and if this
00:40:20 --> 00:40:22 model is actually true we'll find a lot
00:40:22 --> 00:40:24 more evidence for it in the coming years
00:40:24 --> 00:40:25 so it's really exciting work and a
00:40:25 --> 00:40:27 really exciting time to be doing it yes
00:40:27 --> 00:40:30 indeed yeah um and just quickly this
00:40:30 --> 00:40:33 object what could it have been just
00:40:33 --> 00:40:35 another gas giant or a brown dwarf
00:40:35 --> 00:40:37 describe it as a rogue Planet so if it's
00:40:37 --> 00:40:39 eight times the mass of Jupiter it
00:40:39 --> 00:40:41 counts as a planet rather than a brown
00:40:41 --> 00:40:44 dwarf now this is I suspect eventually
00:40:44 --> 00:40:45 going to become a little bit of a bone
00:40:45 --> 00:40:48 of contention because of it being how we
00:40:48 --> 00:40:50 classify things so the boundary between
00:40:50 --> 00:40:52 planet and brown dwarf is currently set
00:40:52 --> 00:40:55 purely based on the mass of the object
00:40:55 --> 00:40:56 not actually on how they form but the
00:40:56 --> 00:40:59 idea here is that if you form with more
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01 than about 13 times the mass of Jupiter
00:41:01 --> 00:41:03 the temperature and pressure in your
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05 core will get high enough for you to
00:41:05 --> 00:41:07 temporarily undergo deuterium burning
00:41:07 --> 00:41:12 Fusion to turn deuterium into helium and
00:41:12 --> 00:41:13 that'll be shortlived because it's not
00:41:13 --> 00:41:15 much uterum there but that means you're
00:41:15 --> 00:41:17 something that isn't a planet in
00:41:17 --> 00:41:19 actuality where that line sits depends a
00:41:19 --> 00:41:20 little bit on What You're Made Of and
00:41:21 --> 00:41:23 how you formed but at the minute it's
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 good enough but I still think you've got
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27 an interesting thing of the standard
00:41:27 --> 00:41:29 model of Planet formation is you form
00:41:29 --> 00:41:31 through this thing called cor Recreation
00:41:31 --> 00:41:33 you gather a load of Rocky material and
00:41:33 --> 00:41:35 metallic and icy material first and
00:41:35 --> 00:41:36 eventually get massive enough to Hoover
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 up gas yeah you've then got a model that
00:41:40 --> 00:41:42 is instability where Gast just smushes
00:41:42 --> 00:41:43 together and form something and that
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46 will often form BR dwars and stars if
00:41:46 --> 00:41:48 you find something that's eight times
00:41:48 --> 00:41:50 Jupiter's mass but it Formed without a
00:41:50 --> 00:41:52 core would it not be fairer to call that
00:41:53 --> 00:41:55 a brown dwarf if you find something 20
00:41:55 --> 00:41:57 times Jupiter's mass but it Formed like
00:41:57 --> 00:41:59 juper did is it not fair to call that a
00:41:59 --> 00:42:00 planet and so there's going to be a
00:42:00 --> 00:42:03 friction at some point between a
00:42:03 --> 00:42:05 size-based classification scheme or a
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07 mass-based classification scheme and one
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 that's based on the phenomenology the
00:42:10 --> 00:42:11 kind of formation mechanism the
00:42:11 --> 00:42:13 structure of the object and I'm sure
00:42:13 --> 00:42:14 that'll be discussion that will be had
00:42:14 --> 00:42:16 in a few years when we start finding
00:42:16 --> 00:42:18 more objects in this overlap region
00:42:18 --> 00:42:21 essentially yes and and we should point
00:42:21 --> 00:42:25 out that uh this um paper has yet to be
00:42:25 --> 00:42:28 peer-reviewed but um it uh has been put
00:42:28 --> 00:42:30 in the is it the ariv is that how you
00:42:30 --> 00:42:35 pronounce it so so archive a rxiv now
00:42:35 --> 00:42:37 this is well worth everybody knowing
00:42:37 --> 00:42:40 about actually because most astronomers
00:42:40 --> 00:42:42 and most researchers in all related
00:42:42 --> 00:42:44 fields of astronomy when we get a paper
00:42:44 --> 00:42:46 accepted or when we submit it on which
00:42:46 --> 00:42:48 of those thresholds it is depends on
00:42:48 --> 00:42:49 your subdiscipline in astronomy quite
00:42:49 --> 00:42:52 often we'll put a paper up in an
00:42:52 --> 00:42:54 unformatted not in the journal format
00:42:54 --> 00:42:56 version on the archive so that it's
00:42:56 --> 00:42:57 freely avail able for anybody to
00:42:57 --> 00:43:00 download and comment on um and this is a
00:43:00 --> 00:43:02 resource that's been there for decades
00:43:02 --> 00:43:04 to be honest so what it means is that
00:43:04 --> 00:43:05 even if you have a paper that's
00:43:05 --> 00:43:07 published is behind a pay wall and you
00:43:07 --> 00:43:09 can't get to it the likelihood is you'll
00:43:09 --> 00:43:10 be able to find a copy of it on the
00:43:10 --> 00:43:13 archive for free and my suspicion is
00:43:13 --> 00:43:16 that this paper um has been put up there
00:43:17 --> 00:43:19 it's Garrett Brown Reno Malhotra and
00:43:19 --> 00:43:21 Hanah Ry all of whom are very well
00:43:21 --> 00:43:24 regarded very reputable scientists I
00:43:24 --> 00:43:26 suspect they've put it up there whilst
00:43:26 --> 00:43:27 it is under pay review you to just get a
00:43:27 --> 00:43:29 bit more feedback so people doing that
00:43:29 --> 00:43:31 now get more of their colleagues to
00:43:31 --> 00:43:32 reach out and say oh this is brilliant
00:43:32 --> 00:43:35 have you considered XY Z and it usually
00:43:35 --> 00:43:37 leads to a strong stronger paper in the
00:43:37 --> 00:43:39 end okay so if you do want to check it
00:43:39 --> 00:43:42 out um it's on the archive.org with
00:43:43 --> 00:43:45 website which is spelled
00:43:45 --> 00:43:49 arxiv.org just to confuse us even more
00:43:49 --> 00:43:52 uh orp space.com that's always a good
00:43:52 --> 00:43:55 source of information and that wraps up
00:43:55 --> 00:43:57 another program jonty thank thank you so
00:43:57 --> 00:43:59 much it's an absolute pleasure thank you
00:43:59 --> 00:44:02 for having me oh it's always good always
00:44:02 --> 00:44:04 good and don't forget to visit our
00:44:04 --> 00:44:07 website uh between episodes you can do
00:44:07 --> 00:44:10 that at Space Nuts podcast.com or SPAC
00:44:10 --> 00:44:13 nuts. and U you can listen to Back
00:44:13 --> 00:44:16 episodes of the show you can visit the
00:44:16 --> 00:44:18 astronomy daily Newsfeed and sign up for
00:44:19 --> 00:44:20 that so you can just keep getting
00:44:20 --> 00:44:22 astronomy information on your in your
00:44:22 --> 00:44:25 inbox um there's a supporter button if
00:44:25 --> 00:44:27 you're interested in doing that uh we
00:44:27 --> 00:44:28 would never force you to do anything
00:44:28 --> 00:44:30 like that but if you're interested um
00:44:30 --> 00:44:32 please check that out and thank you to
00:44:32 --> 00:44:35 all those people who have voluntarily
00:44:35 --> 00:44:38 subscribed to Space Nuts we certainly do
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 appreciate your support um that's just
00:44:41 --> 00:44:43 about it oh Hugh in the studio couldn't
00:44:43 --> 00:44:44 be with us today because apparently what
00:44:45 --> 00:44:47 he did was he put on a space and
00:44:47 --> 00:44:49 was last seen heading out of the solar
00:44:49 --> 00:44:53 system in a tesler roadster and from me
00:44:53 --> 00:44:54 Andrew Dunley thanks for your company
00:44:54 --> 00:44:56 we'll see you on the very next episode
00:44:56 --> 00:44:58 of Space Nuts
00:44:58 --> 00:45:00 bye-bye you'll be listening to the Space
00:45:00 --> 00:45:02 Nuts
00:45:02 --> 00:45:05 podcast available at Apple podcasts
00:45:05 --> 00:45:08 Spotify ihart radio or your favorite
00:45:08 --> 00:45:10 podcast player you can also stream on
00:45:10 --> 00:45:13 demand at bites.com this has been
00:45:13 --> 00:45:15 another quality podcast production from
00:45:16 --> 00:45:18 bites.com