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Exoplanet Collisions, DART Mission Revelations, and Australia's Astronomical Future
In this thought-provoking episode of Space Nuts , hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson explore the latest cosmic discoveries and their implications for the future of astronomy. From the dramatic collision of two exoplanets to groundbreaking insights from the DART mission and the potential fate of Australia's telescopic capabilities, this episode is packed with engaging discussions and astronomical insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Exoplanet Collision: Andrew and Fred delve into the recent observation of two exoplanets colliding around the star Gaia20ehk, located 11,000 light years away. They discuss the significance of this rare event, its potential implications for planetary formation, and what it might reveal about our own solar system's history.
- DART Mission Insights: The hosts revisit the DART mission, highlighting new findings from the impact on the asteroid moon Dimorphos. They discuss the peculiar surface streaks observed and the implications of material transfer between Didymos and Dimorphos, drawing parallels to cosmic events in our own solar system.
- The Future of Australian Astronomy: A critical discussion unfolds regarding the impending end of Australia's strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory. Andrew and Fred consider the challenges and opportunities this presents, referencing a compelling economic study that advocates for continued investment in astronomical research and infrastructure.
For more Space Nuts, including our continuously 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, Instagram, and more. 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.
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Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/32304367?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Hi there. Thank you again for joining
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 us. This is Space Nuts, where we talk
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 astronomy and space science. My name is
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 Andrew Dunley and we have got a lot to
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 talk about as always. Uh this is a
00:00:13 --> 00:00:14 really interesting story to start us
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 off. Two exoplanets have collided.
00:00:17 --> 00:00:18 Apparently, it happened on the corner of
00:00:18 --> 00:00:19 George Street and Martin Place in
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 Sydney. Uh and they weren't insured. Uh
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 we've got more interesting data from
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 Dart. See what I did there? and uh a
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 paper looking at Australia's telescopic
00:00:32 --> 00:00:33 science future with a strategic
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 partnership about to end. What does it
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 all mean? We will tell you on this
00:00:38 --> 00:00:39 episode of Space Nuts.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:44 >> 15 seconds. Guidance is internal. 10 9
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 Ignition sequence start.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:47 >> Space nuts.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 >> 5 4 3 2
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 >> 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
00:00:52 --> 00:00:53 >> Space Nuts.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 >> Astronauts report. It feels good.
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 And he's back again to throw furniture
00:00:58 --> 00:00:59 at us. No, to furnish us with his
00:00:59 --> 00:01:03 knowledge. It's Professor Fred Watson,
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 astronomer at large. Hello, Fred.
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 >> You You're on fire today, Andrew.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 >> I don't know what to call it. Maybe not
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 on fire.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 >> It's turned in me. It's cost me my
00:01:14 --> 00:01:18 voice. Having a coughing fit. Excuse me.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 Yes. Um, I am going to furnish you with
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 any gems of information that I can drag
00:01:23 --> 00:01:24 up from wherever they happen to be
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 lurking. Very good. I appreciate it.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 Otherwise, it would be very boring show.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 >> Yes.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 >> Yeah. Um, how are things? Everything
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 good down in your neck of the woods?
00:01:36 --> 00:01:40 >> Yeah. Not doing too badly. The uh the uh
00:01:40 --> 00:01:45 uh job that I do, which is um uh a sort
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 of vague job of as a professor of
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 astronomy, is getting bit busier and
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 busier. A lot going on. Um, and we'll
00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 talk about some of that actually in in
00:01:53 --> 00:01:57 this uh week's episode. But um, yes, all
00:01:57 --> 00:01:58 good so far.
00:01:58 --> 00:01:58 >> Excellent
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 >> as far as it goes.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:00 >> All right.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 >> Actually, I can tell you I might I might
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 have mentioned this to you last week.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:08 Um, over the weekend I was down in CRA
00:02:08 --> 00:02:12 uh because I was narrating uh a some
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 music about the sky given by a classical
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 ensemble called the Griffin Ensemble who
00:02:17 --> 00:02:20 I've worked with before. They uh they uh
00:02:20 --> 00:02:25 are a a sort of eightpiece alto together
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 uh classical music ensemble. They're
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 very popular in Canbor and they do a
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 work uh which was written by an Estonian
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 composer who's now no longer with us.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 Uh both the leader of the ensemble and I
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 have met that guy um a long time ago. uh
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 but he's he wrote a big piece called
00:02:43 --> 00:02:44 Southern Sky about the southern
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 hemisphere constellations and uh they
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 were playing excerpts from that in the
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 two concerts that we gave on Sunday and
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 my job is to say a little bit about not
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 the constellations but sort of what they
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 mean what what what astronomy what's
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 going on in astronomy just to add a
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 little bit of uh uh perhaps a little bit
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 of structure to the program and uh both
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 there were two sellout concerts we had
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 full house each time and it all seemed
00:03:10 --> 00:03:11 go very well.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 >> Yeah. Fantastic. Gee, that's different,
00:03:13 --> 00:03:14 isn't it?
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 >> Yeah. Yeah. It's um some it's very it's
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 very close to my heart because uh
00:03:19 --> 00:03:20 classical music's always been my thing
00:03:20 --> 00:03:23 and uh it uh it's really nice to be able
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 to participate in it at that kind of
00:03:25 --> 00:03:26 level.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:26 >> Yeah. Wow.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 >> These are top top class musicians
00:03:28 --> 00:03:29 >> and and you and you say they're very
00:03:30 --> 00:03:31 popular in Canberra.
00:03:31 --> 00:03:32 >> Yeah. Yep.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 >> That's that's difficult to do to be
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 popular in Canra.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 >> Yeah, I know. We did take um one one
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 when we started doing this. The very
00:03:41 --> 00:03:42 first time we did it, it was in the
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 ruins of one of the telescope domes at
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 Mount Stromlo after the fire burned down
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 few yeah years earlier and it was really
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 what an atmosphere. It was just in this
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 circular building which was a dome once
00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 with the peers of the telescope. The
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 telescope had gone it was burnt but the
00:03:58 --> 00:04:02 concrete remained and quite uh quite
00:04:02 --> 00:04:03 spectacular and that was the first time
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 we did it. We've probably done it 20
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 times since. It was uh featured on ABC
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 Classics a few years ago as well, so we
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 can kind of probably find it somewhere.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:15 >> Yeah, it's done.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 >> Wow, what a venue, too. And you just had
00:04:17 --> 00:04:18 to tear away all the police tape so you
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 could get in. So, yeah, that would
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 >> Yeah,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 >> shall we get to it?
00:04:26 --> 00:04:27 >> Yeah, let's get to it. Sorry to to
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 >> Oh, no. No, it was really interesting.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 Oh. Um, yeah, actually in our next
00:04:33 --> 00:04:34 episode we're going to hear from
00:04:34 --> 00:04:35 somebody else who does something
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 completely different because we asked
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 the question about um, yeah, tell us
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 more about your job and they did. So,
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 we'll look forward to that. That'll be
00:04:44 --> 00:04:44 fun.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 >> That's really interesting as well.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:50 >> It is. Um, but first, let's talk about
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 um this this fascinating discovery uh,
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 which didn't happen happen near us
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 thankfully. Uh, two exoplanets have been
00:04:57 --> 00:05:01 witnessed colliding. Uh, it wasn't a car
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 crash, but um, probably a little bit
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 worse in the scheme of things. Pretty
00:05:06 --> 00:05:07 spectacular, I would imagine, if you
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 were uh, you know, at a ringside seat
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 for that on an orbit side seat.
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 >> Um, yeah, this is uh, work that's come
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 from uh, University of Washington
00:05:18 --> 00:05:23 >> uh, in the US. It is uh a a piece of uh
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 research
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 concentrating on a star which is 11
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 lighty years away. It's not nearby. This
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 is you know this is kind of the well
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 it's well well well in the depths of the
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 galaxy compared with where we are. Um
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 and it's a I might tell you the name of
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 the star because we should always give
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 our stars names. It's called Gaia 20
00:05:42 --> 00:05:47 EHK. Uh and it's a bog standard main
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 sequence as we call them star a lot like
00:05:49 --> 00:05:55 the sun uh and is like the sun um
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 constant in its light output. So this
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 thing's been monitored since 2016
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 uh beg pardon since before 2016. Um it
00:06:04 --> 00:06:08 the Gaia spacecraft is a is a what's
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 called an astrometric spacecraft. It
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 measures the positions of objects in
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 space very accurately. Uh but it also
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 measures their brightness. And um it's
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 been going now for oh gosh don't know
00:06:20 --> 00:06:21 how when it went into orbit. I should
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 check that. Uh but anyway Gaia 20 ehk
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 was one of the stars that was monitored
00:06:26 --> 00:06:30 by it. U and then in 2016 uh things
00:06:30 --> 00:06:34 started happening. Uh and what basically
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 happened was something that we expect
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 when we have a planet in orbit around
00:06:39 --> 00:06:43 another star. Uh you get uh a dip in
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 brightness. That's how you know we've
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 talked about this many many times on
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 space notes. It's how you often how you
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 discover that stars have planets going
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 around them because the planet passes in
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 front of the star. it drops the
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 brightness of the star very slightly and
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 you can measure that and if it does it
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 again of months or weeks or days
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 sometimes later then you you can
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 identify it as being due to a planet
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 going round this star and so we happen
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 to be looking along the plane of the
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 orbit of the planet that's that's the
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 trick that's the statistical bit but it
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 turns out you can you know there's still
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 a lot that you can discover doing that
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 anyway 2016 it had three dips in
00:07:22 --> 00:07:27 brightness uh over a um matter of years.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:32 But then in 2021, and I love the the um
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 the description by the lead researcher
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 on this work, it went completely
00:07:37 --> 00:07:38 bonkers.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:43 Um um a quote says, "I can't emphasize
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 enough that stars like our son don't do
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 that." So when we saw this one, we were
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 like, "Hello, what's going on here?" And
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 by bunkers, he meant that um there were
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 many, many dips. it it just sort of it
00:07:55 --> 00:08:00 wasn't um uh it wasn't a a a steady slow
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 dip and then a coming back to
00:08:02 --> 00:08:03 brightness. It was almost like a
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 flickering
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 >> uh of the light of the star. And what
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 they assumed from that, the research
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 team, was that this is probably the
00:08:14 --> 00:08:19 result of a lot of rock and dust passing
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 in front of the star as it goes around
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 in orbit. Meanwhile, the the sort of
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 steady dips have disappeared and all
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 you've got is this this almost
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 flickering. And so what this is being
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 interpreted as is that two planets which
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 caused the original dips uh in orbit
00:08:37 --> 00:08:42 around Gaia 28 AHK collided. Uh and we
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 have caught that you know by these
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 observations with the GIA spacecraft. Uh
00:08:47 --> 00:08:51 so those um those planets are no more.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 But what we've got is a cloud of large
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 chunks probably of debris which is
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 causing the the flickering. And the the
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 real the bit of this that I really like
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 is that they didn't just say, "Oh, well
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 that's that's the end of that. That's we
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 we know that that's what's happened."
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 What they did was they also observed
00:09:12 --> 00:09:16 this star in infrared radiation. They
00:09:16 --> 00:09:20 used a a different telescope um to to
00:09:20 --> 00:09:25 observe it with infrared. And uh let me
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 quote uh again from the um lead author.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:32 The infrared light curve uh which is the
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 the way the light varies over time. The
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 infrared light curve was the complete
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 opposite of the visible light. As the
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 visible light began to flicker and dim,
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 the infrared light spiked, which could
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 mean that the material blocking the star
00:09:46 --> 00:09:47 is hot.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:48 >> So hot that it's glowing in the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 infrared.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 >> Um, and that's the kind of the smoking
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 gun because if if you're looking at the
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 debris of a collision, this is a very
00:09:56 --> 00:10:00 violent event. Uh, what you would expect
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 is for that debris to be hot, and it is
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 hot in the infrared. uh sorry it's
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 visible in the infrared revealing that
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 it is actually hot. So what um the way
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 they're uh interpreting this and another
00:10:13 --> 00:10:17 quote from the lead author uh Andy, let
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 me try and pronounce his name or
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 pronounce their name. I should say it's
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 Zanidaris.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 Sanidaris. Hope that's all right.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:26 >> Close enough.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 >> Uh yeah.
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 Um it uh the quote is that could be
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 caused by the two planets spiraling
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 closer and closer to each other. At
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 first they had a series of grazing
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 impacts which would wouldn't produce a
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 lot of infrared energy. Then they had
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 their big catastrophic collision and the
00:10:44 --> 00:10:48 infrared really ramped up. And so um the
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 link that these researchers are drawing
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 uh with our own solar system are I think
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 um in many ways quite profound because
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 what we might be seeing there is a
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 similar event to the one in which the
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 moon was created. Um um again something
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 we've talked about a lot the fact that
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 perhaps 4.5 billion years ago very early
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 in the history of the solar system uh an
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 object about the size of Mars uh which
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 we call thea collided with the the young
00:11:18 --> 00:11:22 earth and lifted clouds of debris uh
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 which eventually coalesed to form the
00:11:24 --> 00:11:28 moon. So that is uh you know if we've
00:11:28 --> 00:11:29 seen something like that actually
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 happening uh as we seem to have done
00:11:31 --> 00:11:35 with uh this particular star maybe uh
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 there is an exomoon on the way uh being
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 formed as we speak as a result of these
00:11:41 --> 00:11:41 collisions.
00:11:41 --> 00:11:45 >> Of course 11 years have passed since
00:11:45 --> 00:11:46 the event.
00:11:46 --> 00:11:47 >> Yes, that's right.
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 >> We're only seeing it now but uh yeah
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 it's it's already 11 years since
00:11:53 --> 00:11:54 that happened.
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 Still can't get my head around that
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 stuff. But uh it's Yeah. So, who knows
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 what's going on there. It could create a
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 moon. It could create a a much bigger
00:12:03 --> 00:12:05 planet. It could just become an asteroid
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 belt. You just don't know, do you?
00:12:08 --> 00:12:09 >> That's right. That all of those are
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 possibilities. Unfortunately, it'll
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 probably take, as they say, it'll take a
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 few million years for the all this to
00:12:15 --> 00:12:15 settle down.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:16 >> Yeah.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 >> Uh to let us see kind of, you know, what
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 what actually has happened. So in a few
00:12:21 --> 00:12:22 million years time, Gaia will probably
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 be defunct by then, but we might be
00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 observing it by different means.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:27 >> And I looked that up. It was launched in
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 2013 and got got down to business in
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 2014. So
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 >> So yeah. So So that's a couple of years
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 of observing this star when it did
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 nothing and then suddenly you started
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 seeing these dips. Yes. Went weird.
00:12:40 --> 00:12:41 >> Very strange. Another interesting
00:12:42 --> 00:12:47 coincidence about GIA 20HK is that um
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 apparently
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 that collision happened 93 million miles
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 from the star which is pretty much the
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 same distance we are from our star.
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 >> 150 million kilometers. That's correct.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 Yeah. So it's um that's right. Uh which
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 I I thought was an interesting fact as
00:13:04 --> 00:13:08 well just as a coincidence. Um, but what
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 I guess what that means is because it is
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 a sunlike star and you've got this going
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 on 150 mill million kilometers away from
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 it the same distance as we are from the
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 sun uh it might what's happening there
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 might almost mimic what has happened
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 here uh in our solar system that yes you
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 might end up with a earthlike planet and
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 a and a moon um
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 >> in a few million years time. Well, we'll
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 we'll uh we'll get back to that then, I
00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 suppose.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 >> Yes, we we will we'll we'll return to
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 that story then. There may be more news.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 I mean, it's clearly this is uh it's a
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 big story in the astronomy world. It's
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 uh such a rare event to see something
00:13:49 --> 00:13:50 like that. I think there will be more
00:13:50 --> 00:13:51 studies and we might have more
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 information coming out of it, not in a
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 million years, but maybe within the next
00:13:55 --> 00:13:55 few months.
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 >> You never know. All right. Uh if you'd
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 like to read about it, it's on the
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 space.com website, but you can also read
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 the entire paper, which will take you a
00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 couple of billion years uh at um it's in
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 astrophysical journal letters. This is
00:14:10 --> 00:14:11 Space Nuts with Andrew Dunley and
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 Professor Fred Watson.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 Let's take a break from the show to tell
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00:15:48 --> 00:15:49 >> Hey, that's one of the better sims.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:50 Believe me,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 >> we've had a couple of cardiac arrests
00:15:52 --> 00:15:53 down here, too, peeps.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 >> There weren't any time for that up here.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 >> Space nuts.
00:15:58 --> 00:16:02 Now, it was only a week ago, maybe two,
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 where we talked about some interesting
00:16:04 --> 00:16:08 data that came out of the Dart mission,
00:16:08 --> 00:16:12 that uh impact on a little moon orbiting
00:16:12 --> 00:16:16 a uh an asteroid. Uh, and it's the gift
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 that keeps on giving, Fred, this
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 particular mission, because there is
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 even more information that's come out.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 And this this is really strange, this
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 one. And I I would not have considered
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 this, but there it is in black and
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 white.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 >> Purple and white as I'm seeing it as
00:16:32 --> 00:16:34 well. Could be purple and white.
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 >> Purple and white. Yes. Uh which is the
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 color coding of the image that um is the
00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 story that we're talking about. So yes,
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 Dart uh the the double asteroid
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 redirection test. Very successful
00:16:46 --> 00:16:50 collision of a little impactor, 600 kgs.
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 I think you corrected me on last time we
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 spoke about it. Uh and uh that actually
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 shifted the orbit of Demorphus, a little
00:16:58 --> 00:17:02 moon 170 m across around its parent
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 asteroid um Ditimos, which I think is
00:17:05 --> 00:17:09 about 700 m across. Uh and it changed
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 its orbit by 13 minutes, the orbital
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 period. So a successful uh really
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 successful mission. Um, we spoke last
00:17:17 --> 00:17:18 week about the fact that not only had
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 that changed the impact, not only had
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 the impact changed the orbit of uh,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 Demorphus around Ditimos, it had also
00:17:26 --> 00:17:27 changed the orbit of both of them around
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 the sun by a tiny tiny amount, but
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 enough to be significant and enough to
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 mean that maybe there is hope that one
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 day down the track if we really were
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 faced with uh, the prospect of an
00:17:39 --> 00:17:40 asteroid impacting the Earth, there
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 might be there might be things we could
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 do. uh but the latest comes from some
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 research university of uh I think it's
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 Johns Hopkins University and University
00:17:50 --> 00:17:54 of Maryland uh and what they've done is
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 they've looked very closely at the
00:17:57 --> 00:18:03 images of uh Demorphus the little moon
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 uh which of course was captured by the
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 onboard camera on Dart getting bigger
00:18:08 --> 00:18:12 very rapidly as uh as as Dart h hurtled
00:18:12 --> 00:18:16 toward at what was it six kilometers/s
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 uh for the impact and the last few
00:18:18 --> 00:18:19 images of that of course are very very
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 detailed and so what these scientists
00:18:21 --> 00:18:25 have done is they've said we wonder if
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 uh and I should explain what d what the
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 what Dimmos looks like it's it's a
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 what's called a rubber pile it just
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 looks like a pile of dirt with boulders
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 all over it some of them quite big uh
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 with no real structure to it just a a
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 potato-shaped object with lots of
00:18:41 --> 00:18:44 boulders on and and clearly dirt and
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 debris at very small scales. So what
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 they wondered was whether there was any
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 structure that would be visible uh sort
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 of underlying structure in the shape of
00:18:56 --> 00:18:57 that moon
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 >> and
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 uh some really neat image processing.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:06 They've taken away the shadows of
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 boulders and taken away the images of
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 boulders. They had done a sort of search
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 algorithm for the things that kind of
00:19:13 --> 00:19:17 would hide any any underlying structure.
00:19:17 --> 00:19:21 Uh and sure enough when they did that uh
00:19:21 --> 00:19:25 they revealed a whole set of streaks uh
00:19:25 --> 00:19:29 on the surface um quite you know marked
00:19:29 --> 00:19:33 streaks um many many meters long uh all
00:19:33 --> 00:19:37 of which seem to um basically originate
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 from one point
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 on the uh on the on this moon's surface
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 which as I understand it is the point
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 that corresponds to the direction to the
00:19:47 --> 00:19:51 parent asteroid uh Ditimos
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 uh because it's tidily locked. Andrew,
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 the um Demorphos always keeps the same
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 face towards Diddimos. That's the
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00 >> normal situation with something like
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 that. And what they're interpreting this
00:20:03 --> 00:20:07 as being about is m material being
00:20:07 --> 00:20:11 transferred from uh from Ditimos to
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 Demorphus and sort of landing with a
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 splat on the surface of Demorphus and
00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 causing these streaks to basically uh
00:20:19 --> 00:20:23 emanate from the the point of impact. Uh
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 what they are saying is that it's a
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 cosmic snowball fight. That's Scitec
00:20:28 --> 00:20:33 Daly's words. Um, and so it it it is
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 very very intriguing. And I they've done
00:20:36 --> 00:20:37 experiments to show that yes, if you
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 splat cosmic snowballs on a surface, you
00:20:40 --> 00:20:45 get these streaks. Uh, but um the the
00:20:45 --> 00:20:49 the mechanism for this is
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 uh something that they've hypothesized,
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 but it probably is the mechanism for
00:20:55 --> 00:20:59 what's happening. And it's um relies on
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 the Yorp effect
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 uh which I have heard of before but I
00:21:03 --> 00:21:04 can never remember what it stands for.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 And the reason for that is that it's
00:21:07 --> 00:21:11 four names. Yakovski, O'Keefe, Red
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 Seiski,
00:21:13 --> 00:21:14 and Paddock
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 Yo RP. The initials of those I'm not
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 going to try and attempt it again. But
00:21:20 --> 00:21:24 the York effect is where uh if you've
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 got an asteroid, small asteroid,
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 sunlight that's falling on it, the sun's
00:21:29 --> 00:21:33 radiation actually increases its
00:21:33 --> 00:21:37 rotation rate. It sort of spins it up.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:38 >> And
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 as that happens, if you've got loose
00:21:41 --> 00:21:45 material uh near the equator, it can
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 actually be flung off. Um that was one
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 of the early hypotheses for how the moon
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 was formed that uh the earth when it was
00:21:54 --> 00:21:57 born was rotating so quickly that
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 centrifugal force lifted stuff off its
00:21:59 --> 00:22:01 equator which eventually coalesed to
00:22:01 --> 00:22:05 form the moon. It was um uh that theory
00:22:05 --> 00:22:11 was due to the son of the inventor of
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 evolution.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:15 Uh and I can't remember the son's name
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 never mind. Uh it's so a couple of
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 famous famous people. Charles Darwin's
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 son, I've forgotten his name. Charles
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 Darwin's son was an astrophysicist or an
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27 astronomer and he he uh suggested that
00:22:27 --> 00:22:29 was the way the moon had originated. Uh
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 and and we now know it's not that the
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 the earth never rotated fast enough to
00:22:33 --> 00:22:37 do that. But Dinimos might have rotated
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 fast enough to release material from its
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 equator and splat it towards uh the
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 little moon that it has in orbit around
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 it. So yeah, so remarkable really
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 remarkable piece of work.
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh as for Charles Darwin's
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 son, well, you've got a you got a few to
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 choose from. There's William George, uh
00:22:59 --> 00:23:03 Francis, Leonard, Horus, and Charles Jr.
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 So take your pick.
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 >> Yeah, because Scott and his wife had 10
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10 kids.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 >> It might have been Well, there you go.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 It's evolution for you. Uh I think it
00:23:15 --> 00:23:16 might have been William. It's probably
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 very easy to find because um uh the
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 younger Darwin uh whichever one it was
00:23:22 --> 00:23:23 was quite prominent in the world of
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 astronomy.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:27 >> Uh yeah, he was he was first born in
00:23:27 --> 00:23:31 1839. William Erasmus
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32 uh Darwin,
00:23:32 --> 00:23:33 >> eldest child.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:34 >> That's okay.
00:23:34 --> 00:23:34 >> Yeah.
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 >> Although if he was a banker.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:38 >> Oh, well that might mean Oh,
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 >> hang on. It'll be George because he was
00:23:40 --> 00:23:41 a prominent mathematician and
00:23:41 --> 00:23:42 astronomer.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 >> That's it. Okay. There you go. George
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 Howard Darwin.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:46 >> Very good.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:47 >> Yeah,
00:23:47 --> 00:23:48 >> we got there in the end.
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 >> We did. We did eventually. Yeah. Um
00:23:51 --> 00:23:52 Yeah.
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 >> Now, I did have a bit of trouble with
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 you breaking up, so I missed a couple of
00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 bits and pieces. Uh
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 >> oh, sorry. No, that's okay. But um these
00:24:00 --> 00:24:01 things happen. It's the internet after
00:24:01 --> 00:24:06 all. It's perfect. Um did we finish?
00:24:06 --> 00:24:08 >> No, I was just going to say make one
00:24:08 --> 00:24:10 more comment. There's there is a
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 spacecraft called her which um is going
00:24:13 --> 00:24:17 to visit uh the Diddimos system. So we
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 should see more evidence of this kind of
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 thing. There'll be better images uh down
00:24:22 --> 00:24:23 the track than what we've been working
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 with so far. So I think this is again is
00:24:25 --> 00:24:26 a story that we'll revisit at some point
00:24:26 --> 00:24:27 down the track.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 >> Very good. Uh I must say the image that
00:24:30 --> 00:24:34 they've published on scitecdaily.com
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 uh with that color um impression makes
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 it look like a passion fruit.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:44 >> It does. Yes. Yes. There you go. I've
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 got must be a link there as well. You
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 know, you got to create mind pictures
00:24:48 --> 00:24:49 with this sort of thing. So there you
00:24:49 --> 00:24:50 are. It's
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 >> Yes, you do. Which is very Yes. It's a
00:24:52 --> 00:24:53 bit bigger than the standard passion
00:24:53 --> 00:24:56 fruit, but um yeah, probably not quite
00:24:56 --> 00:25:00 as nice. Yeah. Uh you can also read that
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 article uh in the Planetary Science
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05 Journal. You're listening to Space Nuts
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 with Andrew Dunley and Professor Fred
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 Watson.
00:25:10 --> 00:25:14 >> I'm going to step off the limb now.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:20 That's one small step for man,
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23 one leap for mankind.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:25 >> Space nuts.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:28 >> Our final story, and this this sort of
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 uh is a a pretty serious story in terms
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 of the future of uh telescopic science
00:25:34 --> 00:25:38 in Australia. Uh and it's all about uh
00:25:38 --> 00:25:43 an arrangement or or um an agreement.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:44 I'm trying to think of the word. A
00:25:44 --> 00:25:46 strategic partnership maybe uh between
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 the European Southern Observatory and
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 the University of New South Wales or
00:25:50 --> 00:25:54 Australian Telescope um
00:25:54 --> 00:25:57 uh telescopic um infrastructure. Uh but
00:25:57 --> 00:26:01 um it that's due to end and there's a
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 risk that we might sort of be left high
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 and dry seems to be the inst of this
00:26:06 --> 00:26:07 story.
00:26:07 --> 00:26:09 >> That's correct. Yeah. So um what's
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 what's prompted uh this this is
00:26:11 --> 00:26:13 something that I've been deeply involved
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 with for the last three years
00:26:16 --> 00:26:19 >> uh although um so you're absolutely
00:26:19 --> 00:26:22 right in 2017
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 uh in again it was the federal
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 government that underwrote this um
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 Australia the Australian government
00:26:29 --> 00:26:30 entered into a strategic partnership
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 with the European Southern Observatory
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 which gave Australian astronomers access
00:26:34 --> 00:26:38 to first of all the four uh 8.2 2 meter
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 telescopes of the VLT, the very large
00:26:40 --> 00:26:42 telescope down in Chile and a number of
00:26:42 --> 00:26:44 other ESO telescopes as well were
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 included uh in that deal. One that
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 wasn't was ALMA, the Atakama Large
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 Millimeter Array in which ESO has a a
00:26:51 --> 00:26:55 share. Uh but um the the others were and
00:26:55 --> 00:26:58 it's been absolutely transformative for
00:26:58 --> 00:27:00 Australian astronomy because the biggest
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 telescope we had available as of right
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 before that was the Anglo Australian
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 telescope, a 3.9 meter telescope. uh
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 still doing great work, but um it's only
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 half the size of the world's largest
00:27:12 --> 00:27:17 now. Uh and it's uh on a on a fairly
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 indifferent site. They've lost the last
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21 two nights because of cloud. That's very
00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 typical. Uh whereas that just doesn't
00:27:23 --> 00:27:27 happen in uh the Atakama desert. Uh they
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 lose virtually no time to cloud. So you
00:27:29 --> 00:27:32 and you've got exquisite uh image
00:27:32 --> 00:27:33 quality because of the lack of
00:27:33 --> 00:27:36 atmospheric turbulence. So that um for
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 many years has been uh the holy grail of
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 Australian astronomers wanting
00:27:41 --> 00:27:44 association with ESO. Uh Australian
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 astronomers every 10 years put out a
00:27:46 --> 00:27:50 decadal plan. Uh a new one has just been
00:27:50 --> 00:27:52 released last year. It's uh but for the
00:27:52 --> 00:27:55 last three I think membership of the
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 European Southern Observatory has been
00:27:57 --> 00:27:59 top of the list. Um and in fact we
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 nearly got it back in 1996 but that
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 didn't quite work out. The strategic
00:28:04 --> 00:28:08 partnership was uh a special deal um and
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 it was sort of almost like a try before
00:28:11 --> 00:28:16 you buy arrangement um with the hope
00:28:16 --> 00:28:18 back in 2017,
00:28:18 --> 00:28:19 excuse me, that by the end of the
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 strategic partnership uh Australia would
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 be in a position to um enter into full
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 membership of the European Southern
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29 Observatory rather than just this
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 partnership. So that was the bright
00:28:32 --> 00:28:36 hope. Excuse me. 10 years have gone by.
00:28:36 --> 00:28:38 Sorry, I've got froggy my throat about
00:28:38 --> 00:28:41 this. Um 10 years have gone by which
00:28:41 --> 00:28:43 have been very successful for Australian
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 astronomers. But we're now reaching the
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 end of that deal. Uh it ends next year
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 in fact at the end of next year and in
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 fact this July is the last deadline for
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 which Australian astronomers can apply
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 for time. So it's really, you know, the
00:28:57 --> 00:29:02 the the pointy end of this is coming up.
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 Excuse me. European Southern
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 Observatory, sorry about that, is very
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 keen for Australia to become full
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 members. Uh it's sort of looking as
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 though Canada might be as well. Um they
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 might be assess um accessing to full
00:29:18 --> 00:29:20 membership. Not sure about that. But
00:29:20 --> 00:29:22 Australia, of course, all Australian
00:29:22 --> 00:29:25 astronomers are keen. the Australian um
00:29:25 --> 00:29:28 uh sorry the European Southern
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 Observatory is keen. What's the problem?
00:29:30 --> 00:29:33 The problem is it's quite expensive.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:37 >> Uh it's an expensive venture. Um and
00:29:37 --> 00:29:41 your so your annual subscription to ESO
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 is it depends on your gross domestic
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 product. uh and ours is high enough that
00:29:47 --> 00:29:50 it means that our fee for membership of
00:29:50 --> 00:29:54 ESO is is is relatively high. It's $40
00:29:54 --> 00:29:56 million a year. That would be what it
00:29:56 --> 00:30:00 would cost uh for us to join ESO.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 Now, the problem at the moment is we're
00:30:03 --> 00:30:07 in a an era of fiscal um well
00:30:07 --> 00:30:11 limitations. uh the governments, federal
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 government in particular, are trying to
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 reduce costs and you know when you put
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 it against a hospital or something like
00:30:18 --> 00:30:22 that, uh $40 million a year is is quite
00:30:22 --> 00:30:26 significant amount. Uh but what the
00:30:26 --> 00:30:28 press release that's just been released
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 by by the University of New South Wales,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 which is why you picked that up at the
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 beginning, uh it's uh drawing attention
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 to uh an economic study by a very
00:30:40 --> 00:30:43 wellrespected economist in Australia, uh
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 Professor Richard Holden, who's also at
00:30:46 --> 00:30:48 the University of New South Wales, hence
00:30:48 --> 00:30:52 the press release from UNSW. Um he has
00:30:52 --> 00:30:55 shown that
00:30:55 --> 00:31:00 um far from it being a luxury item for
00:31:00 --> 00:31:03 governments to fund astronomy and to
00:31:03 --> 00:31:05 include things like membership of the
00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 European Southern Observatory. Far from
00:31:07 --> 00:31:09 it being a luxury item, it actually
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 generates considerable revenue.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 uh and the just what we do now this
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 covers about because um astronomy
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 stimulates research into high-end
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 instrumentation uh optical
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 instrumentation that's developed here in
00:31:25 --> 00:31:27 Australia is at the top of the list in
00:31:27 --> 00:31:30 the in the in a on a world scale uh the
00:31:30 --> 00:31:32 instruments for astronomy and space
00:31:32 --> 00:31:36 science uh and that um effectively
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 stimulates industry to join in with this
00:31:38 --> 00:31:41 and puts new inventions out there and so
00:31:41 --> 00:31:46 this uh quite rigorous uh analysis of
00:31:46 --> 00:31:50 the benefits of being in astronomy by uh
00:31:50 --> 00:31:54 by professor Richard Holden uh has shown
00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 and this is his paper that's just been
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 published. It shows uh well let me read
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 uh there is a strong case for membership
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 in the ESO as an investment in basic
00:32:04 --> 00:32:06 research. While there have been numerous
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 uh attempts to quantify the economic
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 returns to Australian university
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 research, this report concludes by
00:32:13 --> 00:32:15 taking a novel approach based on
00:32:15 --> 00:32:17 endogenous growth theory. This produces
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 more rigorous and plausible estimates of
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 the economic value of existing astronomy
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 and astrophysics research in Australia.
00:32:25 --> 00:32:27 You can see Jordi agrees with all this.
00:32:27 --> 00:32:30 And the bottom line is uh what comes out
00:32:30 --> 00:32:33 of research in Australia
00:32:33 --> 00:32:38 $330 million per year. Uh so what he
00:32:38 --> 00:32:41 says is at $330 million per year. This
00:32:41 --> 00:32:44 is an exceptional return on the 184
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 tenur and 627 total scholars in the
00:32:47 --> 00:32:49 field of astronomy in Australia. So a
00:32:50 --> 00:32:52 small group of people are generating a
00:32:52 --> 00:32:54 huge economic return because of the
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 research that they do. And if you're
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 putting $330 million per year out, uh
00:33:00 --> 00:33:03 then a $40 million uh fee to be part of
00:33:03 --> 00:33:07 ISO seems like a small uh quite a small
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 fee. Uh and what that does though is
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 gives Australian astronomers access to
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 the very finest facilities in the world.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:17 Uh we can build instruments for them, we
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 can do research with them and uh as I
00:33:20 --> 00:33:23 said all these spin-offs generate um
00:33:23 --> 00:33:25 that kind of figure. And one last point
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 in this if I may, Andrew, I'm sorry, you
00:33:28 --> 00:33:31 rambled on a bit as as I do. Um,
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 >> Australia of course uh Thank you.
00:33:34 --> 00:33:37 Australia of course is a uh is one of
00:33:37 --> 00:33:40 the main uh contributors to the square
00:33:40 --> 00:33:43 kilometer array observatory. So
00:33:43 --> 00:33:44 Australia's radio astronomers are going
00:33:44 --> 00:33:48 to benefit enormously by access when
00:33:48 --> 00:33:50 that facility comes on stream towards
00:33:50 --> 00:33:52 the end of the decade. uh part of it in
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 South Africa, part of it in Australia,
00:33:54 --> 00:33:58 the SKA low facility, uh the the biggest
00:33:58 --> 00:34:01 and best radio telescope anywhere in the
00:34:01 --> 00:34:03 world, the the two halves of it. Um
00:34:04 --> 00:34:05 because Australian astronomers have
00:34:05 --> 00:34:08 access to that. Um it's always been seen
00:34:08 --> 00:34:11 that the SKA, the square kilometer
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 array, would be entirely complimentary
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15 to the next big thing that ESO is
00:34:15 --> 00:34:17 building, and they're well under well
00:34:17 --> 00:34:19 underway with it. And that of course is
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 the ELT, the extremely large telescope
00:34:21 --> 00:34:23 with a mirror 10 times the diameter of
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 the Anglo Australian telescope, 39
00:34:25 --> 00:34:29 meters. When that starts producing data,
00:34:29 --> 00:34:32 uh 2029 I think is uh currently the
00:34:32 --> 00:34:35 date, it will revolutionize astronomy.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:36 It'll absolutely revolutionize
00:34:36 --> 00:34:40 astronomy. uh and with our astronomers
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42 here having access also to the world's
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 best radio telescope, those two
00:34:44 --> 00:34:47 facilities dubtail perfectly to give you
00:34:47 --> 00:34:50 absolutely pole position on the world
00:34:50 --> 00:34:53 stage uh of astronomy. So um it makes
00:34:53 --> 00:34:56 that $40 million a year look a lot more
00:34:56 --> 00:34:59 modest, but the bottom line is the
00:34:59 --> 00:35:01 decision has not yet been made. That's
00:35:01 --> 00:35:03 the main thing. So the minister is still
00:35:03 --> 00:35:03 considering this.
00:35:03 --> 00:35:05 >> Yeah, but you're talking politics here.
00:35:05 --> 00:35:08 So the left hand might not know what the
00:35:08 --> 00:35:11 right hand's doing. So you know someone
00:35:11 --> 00:35:14 will say 40 million no way not knowing
00:35:14 --> 00:35:17 that 330 million is being generated.
00:35:17 --> 00:35:20 >> Yeah that's danger which is
00:35:20 --> 00:35:22 >> and that's why I'm talking about this
00:35:22 --> 00:35:24 paper because that is a very compelling
00:35:24 --> 00:35:28 argument for um you know for um actually
00:35:28 --> 00:35:30 the government stamping up the joining
00:35:30 --> 00:35:33 fee. Maybe it'll happen. We um we uh we
00:35:33 --> 00:35:35 defer to the minister, the Minister for
00:35:35 --> 00:35:39 Science uh uh and Industry and
00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 Resources. Uh we'll see what he has to
00:35:41 --> 00:35:42 say.
00:35:42 --> 00:35:44 >> Indeed, we will. If you'd like to read
00:35:44 --> 00:35:46 about that, you can find it at the
00:35:46 --> 00:35:48 University of New South Wales website
00:35:48 --> 00:35:52 where they've published the article. Uh
00:35:52 --> 00:35:55 and um that's about it, Fred. Well, I
00:35:55 --> 00:35:56 think we're done.
00:35:56 --> 00:35:59 >> We are. Yes. Um and um maybe we'll end
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 on an optimistic note that maybe one day
00:36:01 --> 00:36:03 you and I'll be talking about the um
00:36:03 --> 00:36:06 ceremony that allows Australia to join
00:36:06 --> 00:36:07 ISO. Who knows?
00:36:07 --> 00:36:08 >> Would be wonderful. Yes, indeed it
00:36:08 --> 00:36:09 would.
00:36:09 --> 00:36:10 >> Fred, thanks so much. We'll catch you on
00:36:10 --> 00:36:12 the next episode.
00:36:12 --> 00:36:14 >> It sounds good. Thank you, Andrew.
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 >> Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at
00:36:16 --> 00:36:19 large. And don't forget to uh visit our
00:36:19 --> 00:36:21 website uh in between episodes. You can
00:36:21 --> 00:36:24 do that at spacenutspodcast.com
00:36:24 --> 00:36:27 or spacenuts.io.
00:36:27 --> 00:36:29 uh have a look around, visit the shop.
00:36:29 --> 00:36:30 Maybe you'd like to become a supporter.
00:36:30 --> 00:36:32 You can do that by clicking on the
00:36:32 --> 00:36:34 support our podcast button. Uh or you
00:36:34 --> 00:36:35 can leave us a message or a question
00:36:35 --> 00:36:37 through the ask me anything tab at the
00:36:37 --> 00:36:40 top. Uh just have a look around even. Um
00:36:40 --> 00:36:43 and uh yeah, that's about it. Uh and
00:36:43 --> 00:36:45 thanks to Hugh in the studio, although
00:36:45 --> 00:36:46 he couldn't be with us today, he went
00:36:46 --> 00:36:48 and raided his piggy bank to see if he
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 could scrape up $40 million so that we
00:36:51 --> 00:36:53 could um become full members of the
00:36:53 --> 00:36:55 European Southern Observatory. But I
00:36:56 --> 00:36:57 haven't heard back from him on that. Uh
00:36:58 --> 00:36:59 I think he ended up at JB Hi-Fi
00:36:59 --> 00:37:02 actually. Anyway, uh from me, Andrew
00:37:02 --> 00:37:03 Dunley, thanks for your company. We'll
00:37:03 --> 00:37:05 catch you on the next episode of Space
00:37:05 --> 00:37:06 Nuts. Bye-bye.
00:37:06 --> 00:37:07 >> Space Nuts.
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 >> You'll be listening to the Space Nuts
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