Space Nuts Episode 503: Dark Matter Stars, Australia's Oldest Impact Crater, and Mission Updates
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts as they explore the latest discoveries and updates from the cosmos. From the intriguing possibility of dark matter stars to the revelation of the oldest impact crater on Earth, this episode is filled with exciting insights and engaging discussions that will spark your curiosity about the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Dark Matter Stars: The episode kicks off with a discussion about the potential discovery of dark matter stars by the James Webb Space Telescope. Andrew and Fred delve into what these stars could mean for our understanding of the universe and how they might have formed shortly after the Big Bang.
- Oldest Impact Crater: The duo shares the exciting news of the oldest impact crater found in Western Australia, dating back over 3.5 billion years. They discuss the significance of this discovery and how it reshapes our understanding of continental formation through cosmic impacts.
- Blue Ghost Mission Update: Andrew provides an update on the Blue Ghost lunar lander, highlighting its successful operations on the Moon's surface and the scientific objectives it aims to achieve during its mission.
- Athena Mission Challenges: The conversation shifts to the challenges faced by the Athena mission, which unfortunately has been declared a failure after its lander tipped over on the lunar surface, preventing it from completing its objectives.
- Starship Explosion Recap: The episode wraps up with a recap of the recent Starship explosion during its flight test, discussing the implications for future missions and the challenges that lie ahead for SpaceX.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/) Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
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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 and dark matter stars
02:15 - Discussion on the oldest impact crater
10:30 - Blue Ghost mission update
18:00 - Athena mission challenges
26:45 - Starship explosion recap
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
James Webb Space Telescope Discoveries
https://www.nasa.gov/webb (https://www.nasa.gov/webb)
Oldest Impact Crater Research
https://www.theconversation.com/oldest-impact-crater-australia-123456 (https://www.theconversation.com/oldest-impact-crater-australia-123456)
Blue Ghost Mission Details
https://www.firefly.com/blueghost (https://www.firefly.com/blueghost)
Starship Updates
https://www.spacex.com/starship (https://www.spacex.com/starship)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-exploring-the-cosmos--2631155/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-exploring-the-cosmos--2631155/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) .
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/26060422?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:01 hello again thank you for joining us
00:00:01 --> 00:00:04 this is yet another episode of Space
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 Nuts the astronomy and space science
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 podcast and radio show on the community
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 radio network in Australia my name is
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 Andrew Dunley your host and coming up on
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 this episode a question that we may or
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 may not be able to answer did we just
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 find a dark matter star or a dark star
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 to use the term we will find out uh the
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 oldest impact crater has been found and
00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 it's in Australia and we're going to
00:00:32 --> 00:00:33 update a couple of missions The Blue
00:00:33 --> 00:00:36 Ghost Mission how is it going and
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 another mission called Athena that isn't
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 going we'll tell you why uh there's been
00:00:41 --> 00:00:45 another um Starship explosion and if we
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 got time we'll Chuck on a success story
00:00:47 --> 00:00:48 because I think we're going to need one
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 after all of that that's all coming up
00:00:50 --> 00:00:55 on this edition of Space Nuts 15 seconds
00:00:55 --> 00:00:59 guidance is internal 10 9 ignition
00:00:59 --> 00:01:00 sequence
00:01:00 --> 00:01:06 Space Nuts 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
00:01:06 --> 00:01:11 Space Nuts report it feels good and the
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 man of the moment uh who feeling real
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 groovy is Professor Fred Watson
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 astronomer at large hello Fred hello
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Andrew groovy baby yeah um just sock it
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 to me and all that stuff I've that one
00:01:23 --> 00:01:24 for a long
00:01:24 --> 00:01:28 time well yeah you like we're talking
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 about in the promo
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 when when you look at me you're looking
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 straight back to the
00:01:34 --> 00:01:38 1950s oh gosh I didn't think light was
00:01:38 --> 00:01:39 that slow no it pretty slow when it
00:01:39 --> 00:01:43 comes around here yeah indeed now uh
00:01:43 --> 00:01:47 we've got a lot on this episode and the
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 the very first story I wanted to um
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 tackle was this one about the possible
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 discovery of a Dark Star now we we've
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 had quite a few questions from people
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 asking if they exist and what are they
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 and we've basically said well you know
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 um they might exist we haven't found one
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 yet and now the James web Space
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 Telescope May well have spied
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 one Yes actually they might have spied
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 three um because there are three
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 candidates for these dark matter stars
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 and so
00:02:23 --> 00:02:27 um just setting the scene uh the story
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 of the universe uh is that yes there was
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 a big bang um uh and took a little while
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 for atoms and things to form but that
00:02:35 --> 00:02:39 all happened uh we had a period called
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 the Dark Ages when the universe was
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 filled with basically called hydrogen
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 and and and there were
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 Knights
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 Knights yeah with a k or without a k
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 whichever
00:02:54 --> 00:02:58 wanted um it's uh yeah the Dark Ages
00:02:58 --> 00:02:59 before the first stars and galaxies
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 formed and we think the first stars to
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 form were what we and we've sometimes
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 talked about these population three
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 stars yes um which are uh basically
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 completely devoid of anything other than
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 hydrogen and helium in the spectrum
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 because those two elements were formed
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 in the Big Bang and we know that all the
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 other elements actually there's a trace
00:03:20 --> 00:03:21 of lithium as well a couple of other
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 things but not nothing to worry about uh
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 all the other elements were formed in
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 the Interiors of stars as the universe
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 progressed so all the stuff went made of
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 but from the hydrogen uh was once inside
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 of star and that's kind of you know the
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 story of our origin it's our creation
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 story in a sense so what people have
00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 been looking for is population three
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 stars they they called that for
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 historical reasons but they're stars
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 that would have been the first stars to
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 form and they would have been bright
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 they would have you know been much
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 brighter than the sun but uh the
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 thinking has been over I guess the last
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 maybe 10
00:04:00 --> 00:04:05 years since we know that uh more than
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 three4 of the matter in the universe is
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 dark matter it's this stuff that we we
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 know exists because it holds galaxies
00:04:12 --> 00:04:13 together and stops them flying apart
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 it's got its own it's got gravity
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 doesn't interact in any other way with
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 uh with normal matter uh so we believe
00:04:21 --> 00:04:23 Dark Matter originated in the Big Bang
00:04:23 --> 00:04:27 as well like the hydrogen uh and so the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 postulate has always been made
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 uh by always I mean within the last
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 decade or so it's probably actually um
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 more recently than that even it's
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 probably only over the last five years
00:04:39 --> 00:04:43 the postulate was could you have objects
00:04:43 --> 00:04:47 which are basically made of clumps of
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 Dark Matter coming together under their
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 own gravity like hydrogen does in normal
00:04:53 --> 00:04:57 stars but this stuff clumps together it
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 compresses because its own gravity is so
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 so you got this huge lump of dark matter
00:05:02 --> 00:05:06 and what it then does is um and this is
00:05:06 --> 00:05:10 still a hypothesis we believe that dark
00:05:10 --> 00:05:14 matter self annihilates if you get it
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 particles too close together it's a bit
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 like matter and antimatter you know
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 normal matter and antimatter is matter
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 with an opposite electric charge you
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 bring them together and you get
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 radiation you get gamma rays um so the
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 thinking is that the same might might
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 happen with dark matter you bring
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 particles of dark matter they self
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 annihilate and produce a lot of energy
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 uh and maybe perhaps even what's left
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 might act as the nucleus for for
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 Galaxies to form but um the idea is that
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 these dark stars and it's a ridiculous
00:05:48 --> 00:05:49 name because they're billions of times
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 brighter than the sun uh but they're
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 made of dark matter which is why that
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 that you know that name comes maybe a
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 million times its mass um the thinking
00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 is that they may have eventually
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 condensed to become the super massive
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 black holes that we find in the centers
00:06:04 --> 00:06:08 of galaxies and we find them uh in an
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 age of the universe that was uh earlier
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 than we can kind of understand uh anyway
00:06:14 --> 00:06:18 uh the uh the there are three objects
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 that have been observed by the James web
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 Space Telescope which are forly
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 delineated as
00:06:24 --> 00:06:28 galaxies um but they have
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 characteristics in them
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 uh that I've made a number of
00:06:33 --> 00:06:39 researchers and um this uh this work is
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 you know it's it's coming from uh us
00:06:43 --> 00:06:47 universities um um and in fact a number
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 of us universities have collaborated on
00:06:50 --> 00:06:56 this yeah uh but the uh the the the the
00:06:56 --> 00:07:00 um point about these observations
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 is that whilst they originally were
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 identified as galaxies because that we
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 see them you know when the universe was
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 300 million years old they're looking
00:07:09 --> 00:07:11 we're looking back in time almost the
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 whole age of the universe they look like
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 just like blobs to the web telescope uh
00:07:16 --> 00:07:17 and they look like like a lot of the
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 other galaxies but it's their spectrum
00:07:20 --> 00:07:24 that is raising the possibility uh that
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 these are dark matter stars and the the
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 problem is um
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 we don't we know so little about dark
00:07:32 --> 00:07:36 matter that you know it's a hypothesis
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 uh it's a hypothesis that dark matter
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 self annihilates we don't know that for
00:07:41 --> 00:07:45 certain uh but um the the deal is that
00:07:45 --> 00:07:46 there is enough evidence from the
00:07:47 --> 00:07:52 Spectra of these uh these objects um
00:07:52 --> 00:07:56 that makes people think that they are
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 dark matter stars and I'm going to quote
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 one of the research
00:08:00 --> 00:08:09 uh on this topic um uh it's uh Dr freeze
00:08:09 --> 00:08:14 fou uh who has said uh and and it's a
00:08:14 --> 00:08:18 really nice quote you've if you've got a
00:08:18 --> 00:08:19 dark matter star
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 forming uh Dr free says you've got a
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 weird thing it looks like the sun in
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 terms of its surface temperature but
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 it's a billion S as bright it could be
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 as bright as an entire galaxy of fusion
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 powered stars that means stars that are
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 powered by hydrogen and then the
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 thinking is as I said that at the end of
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 their lives they would collapse into
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 super massive black holes um so this is
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 really quite an
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 extraordinary uh postulate but it is
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 gaining traction and this is you know
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 this is not something that's uh that's
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 being
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 um highlight well it is being
00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 highlighted in the slightly more
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 frenetic science press don't matter
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 stars form found I mean this is coming
00:09:07 --> 00:09:08 in fact the article I'm looking at is
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 from scientific America which is one of
00:09:10 --> 00:09:14 the most um uh sober and accurate of all
00:09:14 --> 00:09:18 the science media feeds uh so yes so H
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 have a look at that article uh jwsc
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 might have spotted the the first Dark
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 Matter Stars uh and if you can make more
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 of it than I can that's good uh because
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 the uh the um uh you know the
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 researchers uh are still groping with
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 the fact that we know so little about
00:09:36 --> 00:09:40 dark matter and um uh it's um one of the
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 co-authors and Dr Frieza just mentions
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 Katherine freeze who's an astrophysicist
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 at the University of Texas at
00:09:47 --> 00:09:51 Austin it it's fascinating because uh
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 these are once again named very
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 inaccurately yeah dark matter as his
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 Dark Energy so let's just make a dark
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 star that's not
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 dark it's comical is it yeah it is a bit
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 but U I think U one of the questions
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 that popped out as you would explaining
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 it was um the these happened very early
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 in the unniversary
00:10:12 --> 00:10:17 300 million years um big bang y does
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 that mean that these may have existed
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 and no longer
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 exist um I think that's that's the
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 thinking that they have a very short
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 life uh but the debris
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 uh becomes the super massive black hole
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 and so in a way these things might form
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 the nucleus of galaxies you know baby
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 galaxies that are being formed in the
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 early Universe it's a really exciting
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 prospect and um I hope we'll we'll hear
00:10:43 --> 00:10:45 more about this and talk more about it I
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 know our listeners Andrew and our
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 viewers have have latched onto this over
00:10:50 --> 00:10:51 the last couple of years because we've
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 had several questions about this already
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 but it's now sort of bubbling to the
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 surface with these three Galaxy
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 candidates which are I mean currently
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 they're still thought to be galaxies but
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 the possibility that they are actually
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 Dark Matter stars is uh becoming very
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 very insistent if I put it that way I
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 think the original paper published about
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 these three potential galaxies was July
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 2023 uh but now they've taken another
00:11:19 --> 00:11:20 look at them and they're thinking hang
00:11:20 --> 00:11:24 on a minute this might be some other
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 Dark Matter boom boom um anyway uh yeah
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 as Fred said uh you can look it up at
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 scientificamerican.com it's a it's a
00:11:32 --> 00:11:33 fabulous
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 article uh now Fred Let's uh get very
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 close to home for us well not really
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 because it's in Western Australia but um
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 they've just announced that uh the
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 oldest impact crater has been found in
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 Western Australia which basically means
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 in Australia we have now got the oldest
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 and the largest they're not the same one
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 um the largest is actually in New South
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 Wales
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 um but the oldest is in that um very
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 remote area of Western Australia around
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 the pilb isn't it yes it's the pbra
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 region that's right sort of North
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 Northwestern Australia very empty part
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 of the country yeah uh a bit unforgiving
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 if you um if you happen to be lost there
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 uh but our heroes in this story aren't
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 they're scientists from curtain
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 University uh and what's really nice
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 about this story is that
00:12:29 --> 00:12:33 these scientists actually predicted that
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 there might be an impact crator kind of
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 pretty well in the middle of
00:12:38 --> 00:12:42 Australia uh and What's led them to that
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 conclusion is
00:12:45 --> 00:12:49 um a sort of alternative view of how
00:12:49 --> 00:12:55 continents formed um so the the GE
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 geological thinking around continents
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 which of course are represented by
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 continental plates uh you know the the
00:13:02 --> 00:13:08 pl tectonics theory um uh one I guess of
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 the perhaps the most popular view is
00:13:11 --> 00:13:15 that the continents formed above plumes
00:13:15 --> 00:13:19 in the Earth's mantle um which is that
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 sort of soft region between the core uh
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 which is deep in the center of the earth
00:13:23 --> 00:13:24 and the crust which is the thin layer
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 that surounds it yeah uh so um you've
00:13:27 --> 00:13:31 got these plumes coming up and everybody
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 draws the same analogy it's like a lava
00:13:33 --> 00:13:37 lamp yes the wax Rising they come up um
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 and they basically um you know that the
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 the plume of Hot Stuff sort of condenses
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 out or solidifies on the underneath of
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 the continental plate and you get a
00:13:49 --> 00:13:53 continental plate um uh the the I think
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 there's a there's another one um that
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 says that actually it was just plate
00:13:57 --> 00:14:01 tectonics uh um you know as as uh as
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 plates collide with each other uh
00:14:04 --> 00:14:05 there's often what's called a subduction
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 zone which is where one plate slides
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 underneath the other and so the
00:14:09 --> 00:14:10 suggestion is that as plates slide
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 underneath the continental plates the
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 continental plates build and become
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 thicker and that those are the two main
00:14:16 --> 00:14:20 theories but uh these scientists at
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 curtain uh and I mean they published an
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 original paper on this several years ago
00:14:26 --> 00:14:30 uh they suggest that the energy
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 required to make
00:14:32 --> 00:14:37 continents actually came from impacts so
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 you know an impact that might be uh an
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 object that's many many kilometers in
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 diameter remember the the dinosaur
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 killer was about 10 to 15 kilometers uh
00:14:47 --> 00:14:51 impacts uh on the surface G they
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 basically put a huge amount of energy
00:14:53 --> 00:14:55 into the surface you've only to look at
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 um one of the simulations of what the
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 what the Dinos killing asteroid that
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 created the chicks crater what that did
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 to the Earth during the first 15 minutes
00:15:05 --> 00:15:06 it sort of just turned the surface into
00:15:06 --> 00:15:09 liquid yeah and you get a big splash uh
00:15:09 --> 00:15:15 and um they they suggested that uh an
00:15:15 --> 00:15:19 impact might be enough to um basically
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 generate the material that you need to
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 make a continent maybe more than one
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Collision but uh the impact uh and I'm
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 going to quote um because there's a
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 lovely article on this written by these
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 authors themselves it's in the
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 conversation it's called Earth solist
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 impact crater was just found in
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 Australia exactly where geologists soed
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 it would be uh the so the what they say
00:15:44 --> 00:15:45 in that article and they're talking now
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 about the idea of impacts creating uh
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 the continental crust our
00:15:50 --> 00:15:54 evidence
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 uh yeah our evidence lay in the chemical
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 composition of tiny crystals of the
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 mineral ziron about the size of sand
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 grains so they are generally produced by
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 impact but to persuade other geologists
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 we needed more convincing evidence
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 preferably something people could see
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 without needing a microscope so in May
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 2021 we began the long drive north from
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 Perth for two weeks of fieldwork in the
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 pilra where we meet up with our partners
00:16:21 --> 00:16:22 from the Geological Survey of Western
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 Australia to hunt for the crater and
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 then they tell the story of what they
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 found and they found the evidence very
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 very quickly within the first hour of
00:16:33 --> 00:16:37 being there yeah because what they found
00:16:37 --> 00:16:41 was shat cones um and let me quote again
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 from the article shat cones are
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 beautiful delicate branching structures
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 not dissimilar to a badminton Shuffle
00:16:47 --> 00:16:51 coock they are the only feature of shock
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 visible to the naked eye and in nature
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 can only form following a meteorite
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 impact little more than an hour into our
00:16:59 --> 00:17:00 Arch we'd found precisely what we were
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 looking for uh we'd literally open the
00:17:03 --> 00:17:04 doors of our four-wheel drives and
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 stapped onto the floor of a huge ancient
00:17:06 --> 00:17:09 impact crator uh and so they've done a
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 lot of subsequent research they've been
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 back to the to the site and yes they
00:17:14 --> 00:17:19 have essentially deline um defined it I
00:17:19 --> 00:17:23 suppose uh this as the world's oldest uh
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 impact crater which pushes the age of
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 the oldest impact crater back more than
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 a billion years they say this formed
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 more than 3.5 billion years ago wow and
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 this is huge this one it is yes it's uh
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 you know it's continen sized almost so
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 it would have been bad continent I mean
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 uh a significant chunk of the Australian
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 continent which is what they represent
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 by the piger so the piger may be
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 basically the extent of it which is very
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 very big that is incredible so how big a
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 rock would create yeah um actually it's
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 a really good point um I think we're
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 talking about several kilometers here um
00:18:00 --> 00:18:04 I'm just switching to their original uh
00:18:04 --> 00:18:08 paper on this uh which is called a Paleo
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 Aran impact crature in the pilra Katon
00:18:11 --> 00:18:13 Western Australia uh and I'm just
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 looking to see whether they uh think
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 whether the abstract yes okay here we
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 are 10 to 50 kilometers in diameter
00:18:21 --> 00:18:25 whoow yeah so it's big massive yeah you
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 bigger than yes yes we know have damage
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 that was um so this is quite incredible
00:18:32 --> 00:18:33 they've actually in the conversation
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 article got a photo of one of those um
00:18:36 --> 00:18:40 those shes yeah what incredible now to
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 the untrained eye you'd probably just go
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 oh that's
00:18:44 --> 00:18:48 nice you you you and me both yeah but
00:18:48 --> 00:18:52 yeah I mean um it is quite extraordinary
00:18:52 --> 00:18:53 it's really neat if you've got a
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 geologist with you on you know some of
00:18:56 --> 00:18:57 these Expeditions you start to see
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 things straight away
00:18:59 --> 00:19:03 um uh when we we did a tour last year of
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 um South Australia and one of the things
00:19:05 --> 00:19:07 we were looking for were the
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 stromatolites the those microbial mats
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 the evidence for them in the fossil
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 record yeah and you you they're kind of
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14 all around you but you don't see them
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 and then um we got to a sign that said
00:19:17 --> 00:19:19 here is a stromatolite and oh that's
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 what it looks like and then you see them
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 everywhere and probably be the same with
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 shatter cones yeah i' I've had a similar
00:19:25 --> 00:19:26 experience when you're thinking of
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 buying a new car
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 you haven't bought it yet you you'd just
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 see them everywhere that's actually that
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 is absolutely true that happened to me
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 when I got my last car so them
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 everywhere yeah that's fun funny how
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 that happens all right if you'd like to
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 read up on that enormous crater and and
00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 I will add Fred that finding craters
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 like this in on Earth is difficult
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 because so many of them are hidden
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 because Earth's alive and yeah all this
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 gets covered up and yeah this one was
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 covered
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 dust that's right it was covered with
00:20:02 --> 00:20:06 bu yeah so yeah sometimes it's looking
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 you in the face and saying here I'm
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 here you can't see it yes uh the
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 conversation.com is where you'll find
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 that amazing story this is Space Nuts
00:20:17 --> 00:20:23 Andrew Dunley here with Professor Fred
00:20:23 --> 00:20:27 Watson Space Nuts okay time for a couple
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 of mission updates
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 uh we spoke last week about the
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 successful Landing of blue Ghost The
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 Blue Ghost Mission uh the Firefly probe
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 or whatever it was um see how up to dat
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 I am um there's a mission update this
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 has been going rather well it it has
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 yeah and in fact you can find um uh on
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 the mission page the Firefly uh
00:20:50 --> 00:20:54 Aerospace Mission page just look Firefly
00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 space.com uh they have live updates uh
00:20:58 --> 00:20:59 on how it's doing on their surface
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 operations remember it's only active for
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 one Luna day uh or one period of lunar
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 daylight which is 14 of our days I think
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 they're on uh what are they on now day
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 they landed
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 [Music]
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 on second of March I think so we're now
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 orbit insertion command March the 1 yeah
00:21:23 --> 00:21:24 yeah so I think they landed on the
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 second on the second yes and they and so
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 we've got you know a success day by day
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 lovely images showing the surface that
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 they're landed on um quite quite amazing
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 stuff uh they um by March the 6th
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 they've completed eight of their payload
00:21:41 --> 00:21:43 objectives and remember this is part of
00:21:43 --> 00:21:47 NASA's um you know um project for
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 putting commercial payloads on the moon
00:21:50 --> 00:21:55 uh to do studies um the uh March 7th
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 they had the new Luna Magneto Sounder
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 deployment footage so work that one out
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 and it's a it's um basically the lunar
00:22:06 --> 00:22:11 Magneto TC Sounder uh is uh on a mast
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 it's uh eight8 feet tall uh and it
00:22:14 --> 00:22:19 basically um so Magneto u means uh based
00:22:19 --> 00:22:21 Earth magnetism so they're they're using
00:22:21 --> 00:22:24 the Earth's magnetic field uh to sample
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 the Deep interior of the Moon to learn
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 more about the con the structure and
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 composition of the moon's mantle uh and
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 uh a couple of days ago March the 8
00:22:33 --> 00:22:35 that's the latest I've got I should
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 probably update this but I won't just
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 now um planned power cycling for Luna
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 noon Luna noon is when the sun is at its
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 highest in the sky yeah this is um one
00:22:46 --> 00:22:47 of the problems you're trying to
00:22:47 --> 00:22:50 overcome because of the temperatures yes
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 on the service during the lunar day
00:22:53 --> 00:22:54 risks sort of
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 cooking exactly so they they power cycle
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 it to keep but cool which I think is
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 pretty cool
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 again but the the latest thing they've
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 done Fred is um drilling operations okay
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 they performed um list
00:23:12 --> 00:23:14 operations um mounted below the the
00:23:14 --> 00:23:17 lower deck uh NASA's Luna
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 instrumentation for subsurface thermal
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 Exploration with rapidity
00:23:23 --> 00:23:27 list it it's a Pneumatic gas um powered
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 drill yep um through uh which was
00:23:30 --> 00:23:33 developed by Texas Tech University so
00:23:33 --> 00:23:34 they they're they're doing a lot of work
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 up there it's really exciting and um
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 yeah so far so good everything's worked
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 that's correct um just a a quick word of
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 explanation as well the lunar moon thing
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 is pretty important a maximum
00:23:46 --> 00:23:50 temperature of about 120 Celsius um but
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 they are this spacecraft landed in
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 Marium the Sea of crises which is very
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 near the lunar equation
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 so the Sun is going to be very high in
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 the sky it'll be like being in the
00:24:03 --> 00:24:05 tropics here on Earth uh which is why
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 that's such a big issue you know to to
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 keep the the lunar noon U everything
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 working properly yeah if you would like
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 to follow the uh the mission the blue go
00:24:14 --> 00:24:18 Mission you can go to Firefly space.com
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21 that's their website uh From Success to
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 a Successful Failure we'll call it this
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28 uh is a a mission that uh landed in a
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 very different place on the moon um very
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34 close to the the South polar region
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 unfortunately and this is the second
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 time that it's happened to this company
00:24:39 --> 00:24:41 the land fell over that's right so they
00:24:41 --> 00:24:43 landed successfully as they did with
00:24:43 --> 00:24:45 another spacecraft about a couple of
00:24:45 --> 00:24:50 years ago um a successful Landing but it
00:24:50 --> 00:24:54 fell over uh that's twice and it's so
00:24:54 --> 00:24:59 sad because um a Lander that is expected
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 to be seeing the Sun and receiving power
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 through its solar panels uh suddenly
00:25:05 --> 00:25:06 finds itself on its side where it can't
00:25:06 --> 00:25:09 see the Sun or the solar panels can't uh
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12 and essentially uh the spacecraft dies
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 very rapidly because the batteries don't
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 last very long I think um it's intuitive
00:25:17 --> 00:25:19 machines is the company that's launched
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 this and its predecessor or has has um
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 built it and and deployed it uh they did
00:25:25 --> 00:25:29 as much as they could uh in the you know
00:25:29 --> 00:25:30 the the short time they had before the
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 batteries run out but it's now been
00:25:33 --> 00:25:38 declared dead sadly uh um it's a it's a
00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 very brave attempt um I think uh I read
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 a comment last week when we were talking
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 about blue Ghost successful Landing uh
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 one of the reasons that they think they
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 were successful uh it's probably
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 actually easier to land in Mari Chisum
00:25:55 --> 00:25:56 than it is near the South Pole because
00:25:56 --> 00:25:58 there's so many mountains and rocks and
00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 things near the South Pole but one of
00:26:00 --> 00:26:02 the things that um uh the Firefly
00:26:02 --> 00:26:05 Aerospace credited with their success
00:26:05 --> 00:26:08 was the fact that their Lander has very
00:26:08 --> 00:26:12 wide uh a very wide qu it's a quadripod
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 it's four legs um which are spread well
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 out with the spacecraft itself having a
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 low center of gravity and when you look
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 at the intuitive machines spacecraft you
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 can see it's the opposite their their
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 Landing legs are relatively close
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 together and that it's a tall a tall
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 spacecraft I think it's 8 meters it's
00:26:32 --> 00:26:33 and I might have that wrong that's very
00:26:34 --> 00:26:38 big but it's very tall uh it's um and
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 you know so you've only got to get a
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 slight I don't know maybe even a a
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 rebound from the lunar surface at the
00:26:45 --> 00:26:46 wrong angle and what's going to happen
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 it's going to fall over and sadly that's
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 what's happened yep um the first mission
00:26:51 --> 00:26:57 I am one uh tipped over um and uh it
00:26:57 --> 00:27:02 sort of um we had a four um leg system
00:27:03 --> 00:27:04 uh but one of the legs broke after it
00:27:04 --> 00:27:08 landed on the surface and uh yeah it
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 landed heavier than they yeah that will
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 be another yeah im2 was the name of this
00:27:13 --> 00:27:17 one and uh yeah I'm not sure they've
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 actually figured out what happened as
00:27:19 --> 00:27:23 such um but it had so many really great
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 toys on board it carried two small
00:27:26 --> 00:27:30 Rovers car robot robot Grace uh which
00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 was going to sort of drill for Ice uh
00:27:34 --> 00:27:37 this was not a cheap loss either 62.5
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 million um yeah it must be so
00:27:40 --> 00:27:42 disappointing I mean they they they got
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 it down on the ground but uh something
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 just yeah and they might have just hit a
00:27:46 --> 00:27:49 hit a rock who knows but um very very
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 disappointing for um for the Athena
00:27:52 --> 00:27:58 Mission uh on the moon
00:27:58 --> 00:28:02 I feel fine Space Nuts um Fred let's
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 move on to another Successful Failure CU
00:28:04 --> 00:28:08 they keep calling it that and this is uh
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 a Starship explosion now we only talked
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 about one last week with all the sky lit
00:28:13 --> 00:28:15 up by debris falling back into the
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 atmosphere and it's happened
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 again yes that's correct uh Starship
00:28:21 --> 00:28:25 flight 8 uh a bit of sweet one because
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 they successfully brought the the Falcon
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 super heavy booster back and grabbed it
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 by those Chopsticks yep on the Launchpad
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 that all worked flawlessly but the
00:28:36 --> 00:28:38 spacecraft itself the Starship uh
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 suffered what's it called a rapid
00:28:40 --> 00:28:44 unscheduled disassembly uh in uh in
00:28:44 --> 00:28:47 space there's more which was blamed on
00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 an energetic event yes that's right an
00:28:51 --> 00:28:53 energetic event I think we call that an
00:28:53 --> 00:28:55 explosion don't we I think we do I think
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 we do yeah um uh but it it actually um
00:28:59 --> 00:29:03 it was a little bit startling because um
00:29:03 --> 00:29:04 the
00:29:04 --> 00:29:07 explosion uh happened over land and
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 there was a lot of debris visible the
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 explosion was photographed by many
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 people yes and um I think they're
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 probably mostly in Florida and um yeah
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 the uh the Dey Cloud that was coming
00:29:21 --> 00:29:23 back down to Earth was very very
00:29:23 --> 00:29:24 spectacular there's quite a lot of movie
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 footage on the web that you can find and
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 one of the one of the big problems this
00:29:29 --> 00:29:33 causes is it um it creates Havoc for
00:29:33 --> 00:29:36 domestic air tra yes yes I think for
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 nearly an hour and a half flights at
00:29:39 --> 00:29:41 four airports in Florida had to be CED
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 just in case yep yep Miami Fort laale
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 Palm Beach in Orlando yeah that's a big
00:29:47 --> 00:29:50 worry it is that's right uh it is indeed
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53 it's a big worry and that you're going
00:29:53 --> 00:29:55 to have bits of Starship raining down on
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 your flight so
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 yeah they uh I think um I think they all
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 just kept all their aircraft grounded
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 until the you know till the thing had
00:30:06 --> 00:30:10 all Fallen back to Earth so another yeah
00:30:10 --> 00:30:11 I mean there have been if I remember
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 rightly there have been
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 two of these re-entries of the Starship
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 they haven't tried to put Starship into
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 orbit properly yet but two of the
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 re-entries have been better controlled
00:30:22 --> 00:30:26 one uh got down to a sort of touchdown
00:30:26 --> 00:30:28 speed over the ocean but I think then
00:30:28 --> 00:30:31 exploded before it hit the water um
00:30:31 --> 00:30:33 there's quite a Litany of uh of
00:30:33 --> 00:30:35 interesting stuff going on with this of
00:30:35 --> 00:30:38 course Elon Musk has a huge investment
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 in this uh in the success of this uh
00:30:41 --> 00:30:43 vehicle because he's contracted to land
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 the Artimus uh astronauts on the moon
00:30:46 --> 00:30:49 with it with the Starship spacecraft and
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 those astronauts must be looking at
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53 these and they railing yeah exactly
00:30:53 --> 00:30:55 they're already they've already been
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57 fingered they know who they are and if
00:30:57 --> 00:30:58 they're watching the TV
00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 think yeah yes yes it would have been a
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 lot of beeping on the audio coverage I
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 imagine um Elon Musk described this one
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 as a minor setback which he always tends
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 to do I think he does yeah yeah uh so uh
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 to that Successful Failure to a
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 successful success now this uh is
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 another um thing they' found in
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 Australia uh this is the V Space capture
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 which came back to Earth and it's the
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 first commercial Landing in back
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 Australia um this was a California
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 company and I love it because the the
00:31:34 --> 00:31:37 name of the spacecraft was W2 which
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 stands for Winnebago
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 to it was a long slow Mission um but
00:31:43 --> 00:31:47 yeah the capsule was launched along with
00:31:47 --> 00:31:48 another
00:31:48 --> 00:31:52 130 um things on the payload of a SpaceX
00:31:52 --> 00:31:56 Falcon 9 and they record they they they
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 report it as a um a IDE share Mission so
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 this is Uber in space
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 bake uh but they they um orbited the
00:32:04 --> 00:32:07 planet for six weeks and then the capsu
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10 made a um a plunge back into Earth's
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 atmosphere and landed at the kibba test
00:32:13 --> 00:32:17 range in South Australia and it it this
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 was a a spacecraft that uh carried a
00:32:20 --> 00:32:22 spectrometer uh from the Air Force
00:32:22 --> 00:32:26 research labs and um the Vada enhanced
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 pharmaceutical reactor because what
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 they're looking at doing is zerog
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 manufacturing this is um yeah so they're
00:32:34 --> 00:32:37 very excited this was a a huge success
00:32:37 --> 00:32:38 for
00:32:38 --> 00:32:41 them and um we wish them well because
00:32:41 --> 00:32:42 there's not much more I can tell you
00:32:42 --> 00:32:44 about
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 it I guess we'll find out more as they
00:32:47 --> 00:32:49 as they further develop it but what's
00:32:49 --> 00:32:53 what's the advantage of micro G yeah so
00:32:53 --> 00:32:56 I think I think um you can you can
00:32:56 --> 00:32:58 create uh
00:32:58 --> 00:33:01 chemistry pH pharmacology by the sound
00:33:01 --> 00:33:04 of it you can create um bonds between
00:33:04 --> 00:33:06 the molecules that behave a little bit
00:33:06 --> 00:33:08 differently I think from what you do
00:33:08 --> 00:33:11 under Gravity uh and just the structural
00:33:11 --> 00:33:12 Integrity of things is different in
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 microgravity so uh I think there are a
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 lot of experiments being done to see if
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 we can do things make them better make
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 them more successful the more
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 expensive
00:33:24 --> 00:33:28 yes yeah uh I think as it um Ed the
00:33:28 --> 00:33:31 atmosphere at hit Mark 15 yeah that's
00:33:31 --> 00:33:33 that would yes he Dar quick not bad for
00:33:33 --> 00:33:37 a winnner Bago okay uh you can read that
00:33:37 --> 00:33:40 story at face.com uh Fred we are done
00:33:40 --> 00:33:42 thank you so much great pleasure Andrew
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 always good to chat some good stories
00:33:44 --> 00:33:47 too yeah yeah it's a very active episode
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 if you wouldd like to catch up on
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 anything Space Nuts related don't forget
00:33:51 --> 00:33:55 our website SPAC nuts podcast.com and
00:33:55 --> 00:33:56 you can have a look around while you're
00:33:56 --> 00:33:59 there not only at our past episodes but
00:33:59 --> 00:34:02 uh some of the U program notes if you're
00:34:02 --> 00:34:03 interested in chasing up anything we've
00:34:03 --> 00:34:06 talked about are always there H is very
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 diligent with that kind of thing and um
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 plenty of other things to see and do on
00:34:12 --> 00:34:13 our
00:34:13 --> 00:34:17 website uh now um I always thank Hugh in
00:34:17 --> 00:34:18 the studio who couldn't be Hugh in the
00:34:18 --> 00:34:20 studio today because apparently he was
00:34:20 --> 00:34:23 out taking a walk and came across this
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 little luna Lander and thought no one's
00:34:25 --> 00:34:27 watching gave it a shoulder charge and
00:34:27 --> 00:34:30 that was the end of that uh and from me
00:34:30 --> 00:34:31 Andrew Dunley thanks for your company
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 we'll see you on the very next episode
00:34:33 --> 00:34:37 of Space Nuts bye-bye nuts you'll be
00:34:37 --> 00:34:40 listening to the Space Nuts
00:34:40 --> 00:34:43 podcast available at Apple podcasts
00:34:43 --> 00:34:46 Spotify ihart radio or your favorite
00:34:46 --> 00:34:48 podcast player you can also stream on
00:34:48 --> 00:34:51 demand at bites.com this has been
00:34:51 --> 00:34:53 another quality podcast production from
00:34:53 --> 00:34:56 bites.com