Space Nuts Episode 492: Tidal Locking, Solar Mysteries, and Moon Travel
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this engaging Q&A edition of Space Nuts, where they tackle a variety of cosmic questions from our curious listeners. From the complexities of tidal locking in celestial systems to the intriguing heat discrepancies in the Sun's layers, and even how to get to the Moon, this episode is filled with fascinating insights that will deepen your understanding of the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Tidal Locking Explained: Jake from Tennessee asks about the possibility of tidal locking between stars and their orbiting planets. Jonti dives into the mechanics of tidal interactions, using examples from our own solar system, including the Earth-Moon relationship and Pluto's moons.
- Solar Mysteries: Clint from Georgia raises a thought-provoking question about the Sun's corona, which is millions of degrees hotter than its surface. Andrew and Jonti explore the latest theories on how gravitational interactions and magnetic fields could contribute to this phenomenon.
- How to Get to the Moon : Emily from Melbourne wants to know how humans travel to the Moon. Jonti breaks down the journey, explaining the rocket science behind space travel, the challenges of exiting Earth's atmosphere, and the exciting prospects of future lunar missions.
- Listener Engagement: Andrew and Jonti encourage listeners to submit their own questions, highlighting the importance of curiosity in the scientific community.
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 tidal locking and celestial mechanics
10:30 - Insights into the Sun's corona and heat discrepancies
18:00 - How to travel to the Moon explained
26:45 - Listener Ash engagement and questions
30:00 - Closing thoughts and future episodes
✍️ Episode References
NASA's Lunar Missions
Tidal Locking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
Solar Corona Studies
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/
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Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/25385855?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 hi there Andrew Dunley here and you're
00:00:02 --> 00:00:06 listening to Space Nuts Q&A Edition glad
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 to have your company once again uh on
00:00:08 --> 00:00:12 this episode we will be uh answering an
00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 array of questions on very different
00:00:14 --> 00:00:18 topics uh Jake is asking us about tidal
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 lock uh that's not something to hold
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 back the water in the temps River no uh
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 something completely different uh Clint
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 wants to talk about the heat of the sun
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 uh Emily uh sand daughter in Melbourne
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 wants to get to the moon and we're going
00:00:33 --> 00:00:37 to tell her how and Fenton has asked a
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 vast array of questions which could
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 probably fill an episode on their own
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 about the radiation of Jupiter that's
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 all coming up on this edition of Space
00:00:47 --> 00:00:51 Nuts 15 seconds guidance is internal 10
00:00:51 --> 00:00:56 9 ignition sequence start space Nets 5 4
00:00:56 --> 00:01:02 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 Space Nuts asut
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 reported feels good and joining me once
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 again is not Professor Fred Watson
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 because he is overseas looking at the
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 sky up in the northern hemisphere uh but
00:01:13 --> 00:01:14 with us is Professor johy Horner
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 professor of astrophysics at the
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 University of Southern Queensland jonty
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 hello hey how you going I am well we're
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 working on getting you your own intro
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 but with we we're we're in a time of
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 year where all the radio stations in
00:01:27 --> 00:01:32 Australia uh want new jingles and our um
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 Studio producer who does all that work
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 is um is flat out at the moment so we've
00:01:37 --> 00:01:38 been put on the back burner I think but
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 you can understand why all the radio
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 stations want to ramp up how they sound
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 so that they can get new audience I
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 worked in radio for 40 years I'm pretty
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 sure changing the jingle doesn't
00:01:49 --> 00:01:53 actually do much but just my just my
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 observation in proba get it just in time
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 for Fred to get back yes yes I think
00:01:58 --> 00:01:59 that's exactly what I was about to say
00:01:59 --> 00:02:03 they stole my joke never
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 mind but what we'll do right now is uh
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 look at some audience questions I love
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 this this particular um episode every
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 week because uh it's the audience's
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 chance to to get involved and we've got
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 a few audio questions coming up uh but
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 our first one comes from Jake who
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 actually sent this question via Facebook
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 Messenger which we don't often catch
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 because we don't monitor it as much as
00:02:30 --> 00:02:31 we as we probably should but we just
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 haven't got the person power but I just
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 happened to be sort of on my uh iPad the
00:02:37 --> 00:02:38 other day and went oh hang on a minute
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 there's a little one there uh greetings
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 from Tennessee USA it's Tennessee home
00:02:44 --> 00:02:48 of the Titans um I I know that several
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 two body uh systems are in various
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 stages of tidal locking I was wondering
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 if a star or planet with several
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 orbiting bodies can even become tidally
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 locked with a particular one for example
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 can the sun become tidy locked to one of
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 our planets likewise can Jupiter become
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 tidy locked to one of its moons I assume
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 that if such tidal lock can occur the
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 larger body becomes locked with its most
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 gravitationally attractive orbiting body
00:03:17 --> 00:03:21 but if that's the case how are the other
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 orbiting bodies affected love the show
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 and that was a question from Jake Tyler
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 I got a feeling that he's going to some
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 the things he said in the question are
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 the reality yes so there's a lot of
00:03:35 --> 00:03:36 complex to this it's a really really
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 good question now we familiar with tidal
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 loing anytime we look up at the annoying
00:03:41 --> 00:03:42 source of light pollution in our sky
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 that is the moon you know that keeps one
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 face pointed towards us all the time
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 with a little bit of rock and roll
00:03:48 --> 00:03:49 because it's being nudged by everything
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 else it's not on a perfectly circular
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 orbit but it essentially keeps an a side
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 of the moon FES towards it The Far Side
00:03:55 --> 00:03:59 FES away it rotates once on its axis and
00:03:59 --> 00:04:00 exactly the same time it take to go
00:04:00 --> 00:04:01 around the earth essentially so it's
00:04:01 --> 00:04:05 turning as it goes the Earth is slowing
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 down in its rotation as the Moon is
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 getting nudged away there's this tidal
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 interaction between them that I always
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 visualized essentially as being the
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 result of the tidal bugers the moon res
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 on the earth so we get high tide and low
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 tide every day and I view those a bit
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 like brake blocks on a wheel they're
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 kind of applying friction to the Earth
00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 because the Earth is turning under them
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 once every 24 hours or so but those
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 tidle buers are doing one la
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 every 27 28 days because they are tied
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 to the location of the Moon and the Sun
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 so those bulges are dragged Along by the
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 friction of the earth they're pulled
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 slightly away from that line between the
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 moon and the sun which means that they
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 are then pulling a little bit on the
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 moon and causing the moon to speed up
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 which means it moves away so they've got
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 this transfer of energy and momentum
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 between the rotation of the Earth on the
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 orbit of the moon so the Earth's spin is
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 slowing down and the Moon is moving
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 further away now in theory if we could
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 carry on for long enough that would
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 eventually slow the earth rotation down
00:05:09 --> 00:05:10 such that it matched the orbital period
00:05:10 --> 00:05:11 of the
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 Moon there is some debate though a that
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 will not happen quick enough for it to
00:05:16 --> 00:05:17 happen within the age of the solar
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 system that's left but there's also some
00:05:19 --> 00:05:23 debate as to whether that would happen
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 before the moon gets far enough away to
00:05:25 --> 00:05:26 escape the Earth's gravity so in the
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 case of the Earth Moon system it's not
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 going to happen but illustrates that it
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 could so move out further out in the Sol
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 system to Pluto the dwarf planet and we
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 talked about Pluto a couple of weeks ago
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 having this big companion called karon
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 yeah Pluto actually though has about
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 five minutes it's got PL got karon which
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 is huge and then it's got four little
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 ones in Kerberos Nick sticks and Hydra I
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 think they're called and then smaller
00:05:51 --> 00:05:55 ones further out now Pluto and Kon are
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 tily locked Kon spins once in the time
00:05:58 --> 00:05:59 it takes to orbit the center of Mass
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 between Pluto and karon once so it
00:06:02 --> 00:06:03 always keeps the same side facing
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 towards Pluto in just the same way that
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 the moon does going around the Earth but
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 Pluto has also tily locked with karon so
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 Pluto keeps a same face pointing towards
00:06:13 --> 00:06:17 karon all the time so that's a prime
00:06:17 --> 00:06:18 example of the kind of system Jake was
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 asking about a case where the biggest
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 body has locked to the second biggest
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 body and they're both locked together
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 and there are other things in the system
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 when it comes to plant system
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 and when it comes to the more generality
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 of it it gets a bit more complicated so
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 there's a few things going on it's not
00:06:36 --> 00:06:38 necessarily the most massive body going
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 around a star that would be the one that
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 it tidally locked to because the
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 distance is important as well and tidal
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 forces fall off incredibly rapidly as a
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 function of distance much more quickly
00:06:50 --> 00:06:51 than the r squ fall off of the
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 gravitational attraction I think it's
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 either an R cubed or an R to the power 4
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 setup which means that the closer you
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 get to the star the much more strongly
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 you tidally interact now we see this
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 with EXO planets we can see that EXO
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 planets that are very close to the stars
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 are tidally locked the ones that are
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 further away are probably not but we
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 also see it in the form of tidal
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 circularization of orbits so you get a
00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 planet that is flung onto an elongated
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 orbit where the closest point to the
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 star is very near the
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 star because of the degree to which
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 tidal forces varies a function of
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 distance that means the St will interact
00:07:30 --> 00:07:31 much more strongly with the planet in a
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 tidal sense when it's near the closest
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 approach and when it's far away that
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 means that you will get a you'll get an
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 attempt to tily lock the planet so the
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 planet's rotation will be getting mged
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 into a rotation period that matches the
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 orbital period but at the same time you
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 get this dissipation of energy that
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 tries to make the orbit more circular
00:07:53 --> 00:07:54 and that dissipation of energy is
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 happening at the per apps of the orbit
00:07:57 --> 00:07:58 the point of the orbit where it's
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 closest to the South so the result of
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 this is that that orbit gets more and
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 more circular by bringing the Appo apps
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 the furthest point from the Star closer
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 to the star so it ends up being
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 circularized at that closest approach
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 distance and that happens more quickly
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 than the tidal locking process and
00:08:15 --> 00:08:16 that's a result of the fact that the
00:08:16 --> 00:08:19 tidal forces fall off much more strongly
00:08:19 --> 00:08:20 as a function of
00:08:20 --> 00:08:24 distance we haven't yet found any stars
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 that we think are definitely tily locked
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 to their planet now part of this is down
00:08:28 --> 00:08:32 to the m difference so the small thing
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 will tidle lock much more quickly than
00:08:34 --> 00:08:35 its bigger companion that's what we're
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 seeing with the Earth and the moon yeah
00:08:37 --> 00:08:38 but it's not beyond the bounds of
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 possibility and there are suggestions
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 that tidal interactions between really
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 massive planets planets a lot bigger
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 than Jupiter and stars when the planets
00:08:47 --> 00:08:48 are really close in can have a
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 significant impact on the spin of those
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 stars and also the energy dynamics of
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 what's going on in their Interiors not
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 totally my area of expertise I've got to
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 flag that but this is something that
00:08:59 --> 00:09:00 that people are having to think about
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 when they come to looking at ways of
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 measuring the age of stars now there's a
00:09:04 --> 00:09:06 few ways you can do this I've got
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 colleagues at unq who work on asteros
00:09:08 --> 00:09:11 seismology they're looking at how Stars
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 wobble and Wibble ringing like bells
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 that have been struck and you can look
00:09:15 --> 00:09:16 at the different frequencies at which
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 they're wobbling and wibbling to learn a
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 lot about their interior and that kind
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 of study can give you an estimate of the
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 ages that's really quite accurate but
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 it's really resource intensive you need
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 to stare at us s for a long time doing a
00:09:29 --> 00:09:29 lot of
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 observations if you're trying to just
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 get the age of stars in general there's
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 a technique called gyro chronology or
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 Gyro chronology which is essentially
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 measuring the rotation speed of the star
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 and using that to get a first estimate
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 of its age which will have quite big
00:09:44 --> 00:09:45 uncertainties but seems to do a
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 reasonably good job and the idea here is
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 that when Stars Are Born they're born
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 from Material collapsing in which spins
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 faster and faster so typically a newly
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 born star will spin quite quickly every
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 day or two but over billions of years
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 all the m it's losing through the
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 Stellar Wind will kind of act as a break
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 on the St rotation taking away that
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 angular momentum causing it spin to slow
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 down over time so if you know the degree
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 to which stars slow down as a function
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 of time and you measure how quick a
00:10:14 --> 00:10:15 Stars spinning it gives you an estimate
00:10:15 --> 00:10:17 of its age because an old star will spin
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 slower than a young star but if that
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 star's got a really close in Planet
00:10:22 --> 00:10:23 that's interfering with it tily that
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 will impact that process yeah so there's
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 a lot of aspects to this I'm I
00:10:28 --> 00:10:29 appreciate I'm going a little bit off
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 topic from Jake's question but it shows
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 you the complexity of it and it's why
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 it's such a good question because it's
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 something that we don't know the final
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 answer to it's going to depend very much
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 on each individual system for the Earth
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 and the moon we're probably not never
00:10:43 --> 00:10:45 going to get fully Tiddly locked to the
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 moon but we know that when the dinosaurs
00:10:48 --> 00:10:49 walked the Earth the Earth was spinning
00:10:49 --> 00:10:52 quicker and we've had independent
00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 verification of that not only do we know
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 that from the tidal motion of the Moon
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 moving away we can measure the speed of
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 the moon's moving away but also
00:11:00 --> 00:11:01 measurements that have been made of
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 Fossil Beds that show that they were
00:11:03 --> 00:11:07 about 380 390 days a year back in the
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 crous now the Earth orbital period
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 hasn't changed as measured in the number
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 of seconds so how do you get more days
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 in a year you get more days in a year by
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 making the day shorter so that's the
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 direct outcome of that tidal reaction
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 between the Earth and the Moon Pluto is
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 a stage further along that's full opta
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 you've got an interesting case in our
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 soul system of Merc which is trapped in
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 a 3 to2 spin orbit resonance so it's
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 tidally locked but it's not locked in
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 one: one and the only reason that works
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 is that mercury is on an elongated orbit
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 and is also not a perfectly spherical
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 object gets quite complicated yeah but
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 this gets orderer than while you study
00:11:46 --> 00:11:47 it basically and there's a lot of depth
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 to it so it makes it a fabulous question
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 yeah certainly is uh thank you Jake um a
00:11:53 --> 00:11:54 question popped into my head while you
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 were talking you talk about the uh the
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 effect of the moon on Earth's oceans the
00:11:59 --> 00:12:03 you the tides uh would it be too an
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 extreme too extreme a thought to suggest
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 that the um the tides are actually just
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 a slow motion tidal
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 wave you could possibly think of it that
00:12:14 --> 00:12:15 way I never have done before but it it's
00:12:16 --> 00:12:17 an interesting one because the the
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 phrase tidal wave in itself is quite
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 misleading because they're not really
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 waves in the same sense as the waves we
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 see on the beach so this is where when
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 you see disaster movies and you get this
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 toll breaking wave that's not really
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 what a tidal wave is like a tidal wave
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 is a a huge body of water rising and
00:12:36 --> 00:12:37 falling so it's more like the surface of
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 the ocean getting higher or lower and
00:12:40 --> 00:12:41 it's only when it gets really close to
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 the coast that that then breaks I know
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 people who are into geophysics and ocean
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 Dynamics who get grumpy at disaster
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 movies for getting title Wars totally
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 totally wrong but in that sense our
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 tides are very much like that it's the
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 same kind of process of water rising and
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 falling and huge body of water doing
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 that means it slushes around a bit as
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 well a very similar thing and tied into
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 this of course when the moon was closer
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 to us which it had to be in the past
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 when the days were shorter the tides
00:13:11 --> 00:13:12 were higher and more extreme and that's
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 tied into arguments people have had
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 about the origin of Life suggesting that
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 the origin of Life happened in the inter
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 tidal region on the Cur which would have
00:13:22 --> 00:13:23 been larger when the tides were higher
00:13:23 --> 00:13:24 but the tides were happening more
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 quickly as well so the inundation and
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 drying out happened on a quicker time
00:13:28 --> 00:13:29 scale
00:13:29 --> 00:13:33 so the move yeah it's quite yeah it's
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 intriguing it's it's amazing site uh
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 thank you again Jake great question glad
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 I um happened to cross it the other day
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 this is Space Nuts Andrew Dunley here
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 with Professor johy
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 hoer okay we checked all four systems
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 and It Go Space Nuts uh let's go to our
00:13:51 --> 00:13:55 next question uh which comes from Clint
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 hi Fred hi Andrew this is Clint from
00:13:58 --> 00:14:02 Rome Georgia USA love the show Happy New
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 Year my question though comes from uh
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 the sun uh we know the surface of the
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 Sun is around 6 de C but the corona
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 is much hotter millions of degrees I
00:14:13 --> 00:14:14 know scientists are still puzzled with
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 this phenomena but my question is could
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 this be due to the gravitational
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 pullback towards the Sun that is causing
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 some kind of friction on leaving matter
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 that the sun is losing or projecting
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 just a thought I have when reading how
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 the Parker solar probe came its closest
00:14:30 --> 00:14:34 to the Sun earlier uh last year or this
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 year depending on when you're listening
00:14:36 --> 00:14:40 to this um and use they use its own
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 gravity to uh Power it quickly through
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 uh the surface of that Corona just a
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 quick question I had while exploring
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 that thank you okay uh thanks Clint uh
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 love the accent um now I know the sun
00:14:54 --> 00:14:58 isn't your main area but uh I'm I'm
00:14:58 --> 00:14:59 guessing you've done your homework on
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 this question a little bit it's it's
00:15:02 --> 00:15:03 actually a real head scratcher because
00:15:03 --> 00:15:04 it's pushing the boundaries of what we
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 know and that's what I really love so
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 you know the first thing for me to say
00:15:08 --> 00:15:09 here and I think it's always important
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10 to acknowledge this is that I don't know
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 the answer here fully um I'm not an
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 expert but part of the be of science is
00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 asking questions we don't know the
00:15:17 --> 00:15:18 answer to that's what makes the
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 scientists if we already knew the answer
00:15:20 --> 00:15:21 to everything it'd be really really
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 boring and the the Suns coron room by
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 extension the coroni of all the stars
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 that we see is a so problem so exactly
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 as you say the Photosphere the visible
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 surface of the Sun that area of the sun
00:15:35 --> 00:15:39 is about 5,8 6 degrees C Centigrade
00:15:39 --> 00:15:43 Celsius roughly not precise but it's
00:15:43 --> 00:15:45 high density so that's
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 essentially the final surface you can
00:15:48 --> 00:15:49 see before light gets scattered so the
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 analogy I often use here is like looking
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 at a fog Bank a fog bank is not solid
00:15:54 --> 00:15:56 but when you on a foggy or a misty day
00:15:56 --> 00:15:57 people measure the distance that you can
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 see and the the fog is the shorter that
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 distance is of course you're looking at
00:16:03 --> 00:16:04 particles and essentially the
00:16:04 --> 00:16:05 Photosphere of the sun is the last
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 surface of which your average Photon of
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 light would hit a particle and be
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 scattered so once it reaches this point
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 it can escape space and so that gives us
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 this illusion of a solid surface when in
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 fact you're just get into a denser piece
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 of gas so the gas in the Photosphere is
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 quite dense on a huge amount of
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 radiation comes out from it so when
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 people look at the sun in the sky and
00:16:27 --> 00:16:28 there's always the usual caveat hair of
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 pleas don't do that because it's a very
00:16:30 --> 00:16:31 good way of damaging your eyes
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 permanently yeah but when you see the
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 sun when you see a photograph of the Sun
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 that surface you're seeing is because
00:16:38 --> 00:16:39 there's a high density so there's a huge
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 amount of radiation coming in coming out
00:16:42 --> 00:16:43 of it when we get in the total eclipse
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 of the sun we suddenly see this
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 beautiful diaphanous very variable area
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 around us and we call the Corona and
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 that's a much whiter Bluer light when
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 you get color photos which is indicative
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 of a much higher temperature
00:16:59 --> 00:17:00 and you think well it's a higher
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 temperature the amount of energy that
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 you get from a photon is related to the
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 temperature to the power four really
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 incredible more energy so shouldn't the
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 corona be brighter than the surface of
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 the Sun why don't we see it and the
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 answer is because the individual photons
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 are much more energetic but there's far
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 far far far less gas there so there's
00:17:21 --> 00:17:22 much less
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 flux you've got higher energy photons
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 but a lot less of them so you can only
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 see it when the sun's blocked out out
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 but the corona is incredibly hot it's
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 like a million 2 million degrees this
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 incredibly tenuous gas hot enough that
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 the individual atoms the individual
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 nuclei are traveling quick enough that
00:17:41 --> 00:17:42 they'll escape the Sun's gravity and
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 flood out into the space so Corona links
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 in with the solar wind they're
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 connected and it's been an outstanding
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 really long-term question of how on the
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 Corona is heated to those temperatures
00:17:55 --> 00:17:59 what on Earth's going on now the gravity
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 idea the idea of friction there will be
00:18:02 --> 00:18:03 a little bit of friction so any
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 particles entering into the corona that
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 are colliding with things will transfer
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 energy to the to the atoms and nuclei
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12 that they're impacting and you can get
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 some degree of frictional heating there
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 but that's going to be a very very very
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 small amount it's not going to be
00:18:18 --> 00:18:19 anywhere near enough to do this but
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 you're right it will probably contribute
00:18:22 --> 00:18:23 a bit of energy to this and we know for
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 well that there is continually dust a
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 material falling into the Sun the must
00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 spectacular example of that are the
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 sungrazing Comets that go in and fall
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 apart and fragment dumping hu a huge
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 amount of dust and gas into that coroner
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 in a localized event now the thing that
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 to me from a Science Education
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 background from the way I've been
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 trained to think about problems to say
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 that Clint's idea doesn't quite work
00:18:51 --> 00:18:52 would be to look at the distribution of
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 temperature in the corona so the bulk of
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 the mass entry into the corona would be
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 the rarer events like the cover for sun
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 gring comic you get a 100 meter sized
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03 object breaking into dust and that would
00:19:03 --> 00:19:04 inject a lot of material in one
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 particular place yeah so if the
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 mechanism Clint was suggesting was the
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 main one you'd expect that one bit of
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 the corona to then become much hotter
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 and much brighter than the rest and we
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 don't observe that so that to me is a
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 very big Telltale that it's not in
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 Falling material heating it up because
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 INF falling material will be episodic
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 and localized and so you get one bit of
00:19:26 --> 00:19:27 the corona bright then another bit then
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 another bit and and instead the corona
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 seems to be uniformly hot it shape and
00:19:32 --> 00:19:33 structure changes are through the solar
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 cycle and that's tied to the magnetic
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 fields and that seems to be a hint at
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 what's actually going on now it's
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 absolutely right we don't know the final
00:19:42 --> 00:19:43 answer but I've been looking around and
00:19:43 --> 00:19:45 there was a bit of work came out back in
00:19:45 --> 00:19:49 2023 I think it was that has come up
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 with a potential part of the
00:19:51 --> 00:19:55 answer so the answer here is linked to
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 what researchers have called low
00:19:57 --> 00:20:01 amplitude careless King
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 cations right again we're really good at
00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 naming things um lad I guess if you
00:20:06 --> 00:20:10 really wanted an Acron acronym there so
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 the corona is tied in with the magnetic
00:20:12 --> 00:20:15 field of the Sun and as the solar cycle
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17 goes on the magnetic field gets more and
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 more tangled up and you get loops and
00:20:19 --> 00:20:21 Kinks happening near the surface of the
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 Sun often tied with sun spots and this
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 is all tied in with flares and coronal
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 mass injections things like this what
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 this is saying I think is that you get
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 oscillations in those magnetic field
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 lines and the oscillations carry energy
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 from the surface into the coron room can
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 deposit it there now normally those
00:20:40 --> 00:20:41 oscillations would be shortlived so
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 you'd only have a short period of time
00:20:43 --> 00:20:44 to deposit energy so they wouldn't be
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 very efficient but these studies these
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 observations found a kind of oscillation
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 on those magnetic field lines that is of
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 low frequency so not carrying much
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 energy per second but can be long lived
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 because they are became pess they're not
00:20:59 --> 00:21:00 decaying so you get these oscillations
00:21:00 --> 00:21:03 that set up that keep going for minutes
00:21:03 --> 00:21:05 or hours and that gives them a long time
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 to put energy into the corona so the
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 authors of this work are talking about
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 the fact that such oscillations which
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 seem to be really common from their
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 observations could act to deposit a
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 large amount of energy in the corona so
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 it's a way of transferring energy from
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 the magnetic field of the sun into the
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 corona which then carries that energy
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 away into space which ties into what we
00:21:27 --> 00:21:28 were talking about before actually in
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 the gyro chronology because it's that
00:21:31 --> 00:21:32 energy that has been lost that is
00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 transferring angular momentum away into
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 space as well and causing the to slow
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 down so it is all linked together now
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 that study used data from European Space
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 Agency solar Orbiter NASA's Sol Dynamics
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 Observatory and they found one of these
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 oscillations that lasted for four
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 minutes now four minutes doesn't sound
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 long but a kink a wobble weing off four
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 minutes has a lot of time to deposit
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 energy into space yeah um read more
00:21:58 --> 00:21:59 about this you can have a look online it
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 was published I think September 12
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 2023 in nature Communications with the
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 lead author being and and apologies for
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09 the pronunciation there it's a solop
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 physicist at the University of war in
00:22:11 --> 00:22:15 the UK and it's Valerie nakariakov n a k
00:22:15 --> 00:22:19 a r i a k RV um you can find the
00:22:19 --> 00:22:21 findings online in n Communications
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 their paper will do an infinitely better
00:22:24 --> 00:22:25 job of explaining what's going on than I
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 just did because they're the experts but
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 that seems to be the latest entry in our
00:22:31 --> 00:22:34 attempt to answer the question of um WTF
00:22:34 --> 00:22:35 essentially what on Earth is going on
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 with the corona how does it work and
00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 that's how science progresses you know
00:22:40 --> 00:22:41 we don't know all the answers yet and
00:22:41 --> 00:22:42 that's why this is such a fabulous
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 question and what Clint has done in
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 coming up with a potential hypothesis
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 for what happens is how scientists
00:22:49 --> 00:22:50 actually work so we do just what Clint
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 did we come up with an idea this I think
00:22:53 --> 00:22:54 is something that could contribute this
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 is how it could work and then what
00:22:57 --> 00:23:00 happens is that we make predi from that
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02 which is how I extrapolated it which is
00:23:02 --> 00:23:03 that if it's linked to INF falling
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 material and that's a man driver what
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 would we see well we'd see the places
00:23:07 --> 00:23:08 where you get a big fa in Fall of
00:23:09 --> 00:23:10 material you get a bright Outburst of
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 energy and they would Dominate and we
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 don't see that so that theory doesn't
00:23:15 --> 00:23:16 work we make testable predictions and
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 test them and this is just another step
00:23:19 --> 00:23:20 in the way to working to that answer so
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 I think it's a wonderful question it is
00:23:23 --> 00:23:24 approaching something that we don't have
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 all the answers for yet but hopefully my
00:23:26 --> 00:23:27 answer helps a little bit in
00:23:27 --> 00:23:29 understanding just what's going on and
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 what isn't happening yeah it also shows
00:23:31 --> 00:23:35 how how complex these these things are I
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 mean the sun is the most studied star in
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 the universe as far as we're concerned
00:23:39 --> 00:23:42 and we still haven't figured it out so
00:23:42 --> 00:23:43 and and there's so many different kinds
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 of stars uh and they might not all be
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 doing the same thing so yeah there's
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50 much to learn Clint great question
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 thanks for sending it in this is Space
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 Nuts Andrew Dunley here with Professor
00:23:54 --> 00:23:59 johy HOA
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 2 one Space Nuts uh johy our next
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 question comes from one of our younger
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 audience members and I will hand it over
00:24:09 --> 00:24:12 to Sandy and Emily good day friend
00:24:12 --> 00:24:15 Andrew it's Sandy from again thank you
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 for answering my last question um they
00:24:17 --> 00:24:20 gag about the asteroids um pretty funny
00:24:20 --> 00:24:24 um now today um my four-year-old
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 daughter Emily wants to ask a question
00:24:26 --> 00:24:28 um so I'm going to pass it on to her how
00:24:28 --> 00:24:32 do we go to the mo good job Emy thank
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 you um thank you for Andrew hopefully
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 you can answer this question for us
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 cheers well it won't be Fred um nor
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 Andrew it will be jonty um and hi Emily
00:24:42 --> 00:24:44 and sy's one of our regular contributors
00:24:44 --> 00:24:47 but great to hear from Emily um a giant
00:24:47 --> 00:24:51 ladder probably not probably not it's an
00:24:51 --> 00:24:52 awesome question and a really good one
00:24:52 --> 00:24:55 Emily so thank you very much for that
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 it's difficult is the very short things
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 so traveling into space is challenging
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 and this is why we never managed it
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 until 1957 when they launched Sputnik 1
00:25:06 --> 00:25:07 which was the first thing that went into
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 orbit around the Earth the moon's
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 further away the Moon on average is
00:25:11 --> 00:25:16 about 384 km away um what that means
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 is if you want to get there in a
00:25:18 --> 00:25:19 reasonable amount of time you need to
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 travel really really quickly if you were
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 to travel on the highway you're going at
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 100 km an hour it would take you
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 something like 3 800 hours to drive
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 there driving at that speed and I think
00:25:32 --> 00:25:33 we've all got better things to do than
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 that so obviously we can't drive to them
00:25:35 --> 00:25:37 and even if we had a road or we had a
00:25:37 --> 00:25:40 ladder what we need to do instead is
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 find a way to get to go very very
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 quickly and then travel there more
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 rapidly and put that in perspective when
00:25:47 --> 00:25:49 the first people walked on the moon back
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 in the late 1960s took them about three
00:25:52 --> 00:25:54 days to get there so they were traveling
00:25:54 --> 00:25:55 a lot quicker than you go when you're
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 driving to school or driving to work
00:25:57 --> 00:26:01 andless you got P plates on your car yes
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 even with the p plates it's a push I
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 mean I wish I could do my commute at
00:26:05 --> 00:26:06 this kind of speed because it will make
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 life a lot easier yes so there's a few
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 problems with that you've got to get to
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 a very high speed which our cars just
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 can't do but you don't want to just get
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 to that speed instantaneously because
00:26:18 --> 00:26:21 the acceleration would be really really
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 violent and really really painful and
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 you feel this when you feel you know
00:26:25 --> 00:26:26 somebody driving maybe Sand's driving
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 Emily um and they Accelerate from the
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 traffic lights the harder they
00:26:31 --> 00:26:32 accelerate the more you're pushed back
00:26:32 --> 00:26:35 into your seat and so the more you're
00:26:35 --> 00:26:37 changing speed the more you feel that
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 and this is something fighter pilots
00:26:39 --> 00:26:41 need to train to practice with because
00:26:41 --> 00:26:44 when a fighter jet does a really sharp
00:26:44 --> 00:26:48 turn the pilot can pass out because the
00:26:48 --> 00:26:50 G forces are so extreme that all the
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 blood is pushed out of their brain and
00:26:52 --> 00:26:53 they kind of fall asleep and that's not
00:26:53 --> 00:26:55 good so they have special clothes to
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 deal with this so what that means is we
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 can't accelerate too quickly
00:27:00 --> 00:27:01 instantaneously because that would be
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 bad for the people going in addition
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 we've got to get out of the atmosphere
00:27:07 --> 00:27:08 and the faster you travel through the
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 earth's air the air pushes back at you
00:27:11 --> 00:27:13 so it's really hard to speed up and you
00:27:13 --> 00:27:15 can see this if you get a sheet of paper
00:27:15 --> 00:27:16 in your hand and try and push it through
00:27:16 --> 00:27:18 the air face onto the air if you go
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 gently it's not too bad but the harder
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 you push it the more the paper will bend
00:27:22 --> 00:27:23 back against your hand as it's pushed
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 back by the air resistance so a big part
00:27:26 --> 00:27:27 of getting to space is actually getting
00:27:27 --> 00:27:30 out of the that much feir and the way we
00:27:30 --> 00:27:33 solved all of these problems is to build
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 really really really big Rockets with
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 multiple stes and use those to propel
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 objects into space and then when the
00:27:40 --> 00:27:42 first stage is dealt with it falls away
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 you get rid of that mass and you get a
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 smaller and smaller spacecraft so when
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 astronauts went to the moon in the 1960s
00:27:49 --> 00:27:50 they had this enormous rocket called the
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 Saturn 5 rocket you can look at things
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 of it when I was a kid we went to
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 Florida and we went and I stood next to
00:27:58 --> 00:28:02 the sa five rocket and it's Bonkers big
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 ridiculous like it looks big on TV but
00:28:05 --> 00:28:07 when you're standing next to it you go
00:28:07 --> 00:28:10 oh my gosh it is so much bigger than you
00:28:10 --> 00:28:11 think it's going to be yeah it's long
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 enough that an Olympic sprinter would
00:28:13 --> 00:28:14 take about 10 seconds to run the length
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16 of it something like that ridiculously
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 big so that is the giant firework that
00:28:19 --> 00:28:21 we built to send astronauts to the room
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 to the moon and it launches it the
00:28:24 --> 00:28:26 rocket engine goes off like firework
00:28:26 --> 00:28:28 pushing them higher and higher into the
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 in the sky speeding up at a speed at an
00:28:31 --> 00:28:32 acceleration that anything in the top
00:28:32 --> 00:28:35 could manage so it's uncomfortable and
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 you've being pushed back into your seats
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 but it's not so extreme it makes you own
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 well and that big rocket is made of
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 multiple parts so when you get quite
00:28:45 --> 00:28:46 hope in the atmosphere and all the fuel
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 is used up in the first part that falls
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51 away and you've now got a smaller rocket
00:28:51 --> 00:28:52 that does the next burn and pushes you
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 even faster and faster and eventually
00:28:55 --> 00:28:57 you get out of the atmosphere and that's
00:28:57 --> 00:28:58 good because you no longer to have the
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 wind resistance against you and you can
00:29:01 --> 00:29:03 therefore use less energy to move around
00:29:03 --> 00:29:04 because you're not pushing against the
00:29:04 --> 00:29:05 wind so once you're out of the
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 atmosphere it gets easier what tends to
00:29:08 --> 00:29:10 happen then is that the rocket will do
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 one final boost to get you to a speed
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 where you'll travel towards the moon and
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16 it will take you two or three days to
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 get there and you curs you then go into
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 Free Fall flirting there just cruising
00:29:22 --> 00:29:23 along this is a bit like when you've got
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 up to speed on the highway and your
00:29:25 --> 00:29:26 car's just going along at the speed
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 limit mining
00:29:29 --> 00:29:30 neutral and then just put it in neutral
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 and you just Cruise a lot and at this
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 point you've got a couple of days of the
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 astronauts feeling weightless because
00:29:36 --> 00:29:37 they're moving at the same speed as the
00:29:37 --> 00:29:39 spacecraft around them and they just
00:29:39 --> 00:29:41 curse along and then when you get near
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 to the Moon you're going too quickly to
00:29:44 --> 00:29:45 orbit the Moon because you're going at
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 the speed you need to do to get there so
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 you need to turn around and slow down
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 again to slow down enough to get into
00:29:51 --> 00:29:53 orbit around the moon and so the Rockets
00:29:53 --> 00:29:54 burn again pushing you in the other
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 direction slowing you down until you're
00:29:57 --> 00:29:59 moving on an orbit around the Moon that
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01 kind of circular and maybe a few tens of
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 kilometers above the moon's surface and
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 he sit there for a while and check that
00:30:05 --> 00:30:07 everything's okay because it's hard work
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 and you want to make sure things are
00:30:09 --> 00:30:11 right but then when the astronuts went
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 to the moon the final part was that two
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 of the astronauts on the mission climbed
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 into this small Landing module and the
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 third one stayed piloting the Orbiter
00:30:20 --> 00:30:21 they stayed above the Moon and didn't go
00:30:21 --> 00:30:23 down to the surface but the landing
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 module separated from the orbitor got
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 nudged away and then used its own small
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 little Rockets to boost and slow down
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 and boost and slow down until it touched
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 down landed safely at a specific point
00:30:35 --> 00:30:37 on the moon and the pilot had to watch
00:30:37 --> 00:30:38 up what they were doing they were kind
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 of looking out at the ground below to
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 pick the best place to land and with the
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 very first landing when Neil arong and
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 buz Aldren landed on the moon they kept
00:30:46 --> 00:30:47 going and kept going and nearly run out
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 of fuel they only had a few seconds left
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 before they would have to abort and
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 boost back up because when you land on
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 the moon you've got to get back so they
00:30:56 --> 00:30:57 land on the moon they do all their fun
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 things they bounce around like kangaroos
00:31:00 --> 00:31:02 but then to get back to Earth they've
00:31:02 --> 00:31:03 got to get back in this small Landing
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 module which is probably not got much
00:31:06 --> 00:31:07 more room in it to be honest in the
00:31:07 --> 00:31:11 interior of your car strap themselves in
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 and then the top of the module detaches
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 leaving the legs behind and the rocket
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 pushes them back up so they can get into
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 orbit around the Moon they dock and
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 reconnect with the parent spacecraft
00:31:24 --> 00:31:25 that the pilot was sad in Waiting for a
00:31:25 --> 00:31:27 couple of days on their own then they
00:31:27 --> 00:31:29 turn on their rockets and they come back
00:31:29 --> 00:31:31 to the Earth same thing they boost up up
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 to a high speed then they Cruise along
00:31:34 --> 00:31:35 floating there for a couple of days
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 until they get near the Earth then they
00:31:37 --> 00:31:39 boost their Rockets again to slow down
00:31:39 --> 00:31:42 fall into the atmosphere and land again
00:31:42 --> 00:31:44 so it's a big long dramatic Journey now
00:31:45 --> 00:31:46 we've got better technology now so we
00:31:46 --> 00:31:48 can do it more effectively and that's
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 why NASA are hoping to send people back
00:31:51 --> 00:31:53 to the moon in the next few years now
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55 everybody who went to the moon so far
00:31:56 --> 00:31:58 all 12 people who walked on the moon
00:31:58 --> 00:31:59 were people who looked a bit like me and
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 Andrew and Fred they were older white
00:32:01 --> 00:32:05 men and that was it that it and you know
00:32:05 --> 00:32:06 these were all people who trained as
00:32:06 --> 00:32:09 test pilots and stuff like this with the
00:32:09 --> 00:32:10 next people landing on the moon they're
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 going to be mon you know a wider variety
00:32:13 --> 00:32:16 of people so the hope is that in a few
00:32:16 --> 00:32:17 years time we'll see the first woman
00:32:17 --> 00:32:19 walk on the moon and the third person
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 who isn't white to walk on the moon as
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23 well and that'll be really good because
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 it's important to know that this is
00:32:25 --> 00:32:27 something anybody can do everybody could
00:32:27 --> 00:32:29 learn to be an astronaut it's very
00:32:29 --> 00:32:31 competitive and really hard but if you
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 only ever see people who look like me
00:32:33 --> 00:32:34 and Andrew do it you'll think they're
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 the only kind of people who can so it's
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 really important to have everybody
00:32:39 --> 00:32:40 represented in this and I think it's
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 really exciting that in a few years time
00:32:43 --> 00:32:44 we won't just talk about men walking on
00:32:44 --> 00:32:46 the moon but we'll talk about men and
00:32:46 --> 00:32:47 women walking on the moon that's going
00:32:48 --> 00:32:50 to be really cool yes it is I I grew up
00:32:50 --> 00:32:54 in the pionering era of uh space flight
00:32:55 --> 00:32:57 and and going to the moon and I was
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 quite Young when Neil Armstrong put his
00:33:00 --> 00:33:01 foot on the surface and was followed by
00:33:01 --> 00:33:04 buz Aldren I was so very lucky to meet
00:33:04 --> 00:33:07 buz Aldren many many years later and I
00:33:07 --> 00:33:08 got to interview him for the Australian
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 Broadcasting Corporation that was
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 probably one of the highlights of my
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14 career to be honest to to meet someone
00:33:14 --> 00:33:16 so famous one of the most famous people
00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 in the world because of what he did but
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 it's reached a point now where people
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 are going up and down all the time into
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 space and we'll never know their names
00:33:24 --> 00:33:27 because it's become so common but as you
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 say emis going back to the moon and
00:33:29 --> 00:33:31 those people setting foot on the surface
00:33:31 --> 00:33:35 again men and women of multiple Races
00:33:35 --> 00:33:39 they will again reignite that Fame that
00:33:39 --> 00:33:40 goes with doing something so
00:33:40 --> 00:33:42 extraordinary and and Emily I would
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 imagine that in your lifetime uh it will
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 reach a point where there will be people
00:33:47 --> 00:33:50 living on the moon I I expect that will
00:33:50 --> 00:33:53 happen might have happen in my lifetime
00:33:54 --> 00:33:55 but certainly in yours it'll be very
00:33:55 --> 00:33:59 different maybe even Mars Emily H uh
00:33:59 --> 00:34:01 thank you for the question thanks Sandy
00:34:01 --> 00:34:03 um always great to hear from our younger
00:34:04 --> 00:34:06 listeners um joty I'm going to make an
00:34:06 --> 00:34:08 executive decision and I'm going to
00:34:08 --> 00:34:11 pigeon hole Fenton until next week
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 because his question is two hours long
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15 yeah and I imagine the answer will be
00:34:16 --> 00:34:18 five times that so um I just don't think
00:34:18 --> 00:34:20 we can fit it in today but it's a great
00:34:20 --> 00:34:22 question about the radiation of Jupiter
00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 we will put that at the top of the tree
00:34:25 --> 00:34:27 for next week's Q&A episode but thanks
00:34:27 --> 00:34:29 to everyone who contributed and don't
00:34:29 --> 00:34:31 forget if you've got questions for us
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 jump on our website SPAC nuts
00:34:33 --> 00:34:37 podcast.com and SPAC nuts. our two URLs
00:34:37 --> 00:34:40 and uh just click on that little AMA
00:34:40 --> 00:34:41 Link at the top that's where you send
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43 you text and audio questions if you've
00:34:43 --> 00:34:45 got a device with a microphone you're
00:34:45 --> 00:34:47 all set and have a look around while
00:34:47 --> 00:34:48 you're there and don't forget our social
00:34:48 --> 00:34:51 media uh very very active the Space Nuts
00:34:52 --> 00:34:54 Facebook uh page is our official page
00:34:54 --> 00:34:57 but we've got the Space Nuts podcast
00:34:57 --> 00:35:00 group Facebook page where people get
00:35:00 --> 00:35:01 together and chat and talk and and
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 compare photos and notes and yeah it's
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 very very active it's a great site and
00:35:06 --> 00:35:08 thanks to our administrators who look
00:35:08 --> 00:35:10 after it for us because I haven't got
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12 time most of the time except when I've
00:35:12 --> 00:35:16 got time and it's time to go uh thank
00:35:16 --> 00:35:19 you very much Johnny always great fun
00:35:19 --> 00:35:20 we'll catch you next week yeah catch you
00:35:21 --> 00:35:23 later thank you for having me Johnny
00:35:23 --> 00:35:25 Horner a professor of astrophysics at
00:35:25 --> 00:35:29 the University of qu Southern Queensland
00:35:29 --> 00:35:32 uh joining us while Fred is away and
00:35:32 --> 00:35:34 we'll speak to jonty again next week and
00:35:34 --> 00:35:38 to here in the studio uh he was awall
00:35:38 --> 00:35:40 because he's um putting P plates on his
00:35:40 --> 00:35:43 car so that he can go faster and for me
00:35:43 --> 00:35:45 Andrew Dunley thanks for your company
00:35:45 --> 00:35:47 we'll catch you on the very next episode
00:35:47 --> 00:35:50 of Space Nuts bye-bye Space Nuts you'll
00:35:50 --> 00:35:54 be listening to the Space Nuts
00:35:54 --> 00:35:57 podcast available at Apple podcasts
00:35:57 --> 00:36:00 Spotify by ihart radio or your favorite
00:36:00 --> 00:36:02 podcast player you can also stream on
00:36:02 --> 00:36:05 demand at bites.com this has been
00:36:05 --> 00:36:07 another quality podcast production from
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