00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 hi there thanks for joining us this is
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Space Nuts once again my name is Andrew
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 Dunley it's great to have your company
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 uh we have got a lot on this particular
00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 episode we're going to talk about
00:00:12 --> 00:00:13 something that was said during the
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 inauguration speech of one Donald Trump
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 we're going to listen to a meteorite
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 striking somebody's front door in Canada
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 or close enough and we're going to look
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 at a couple of space launchers one that
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 had a bit of a disassembly and one of
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 them that successful although there was
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 a bit of an issue with sticking the
00:00:33 --> 00:00:36 landing on that one as well pan spermia
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 is in the news again and if we can fit
00:00:39 --> 00:00:41 anything else in we will that's all
00:00:41 --> 00:00:45 coming up on this edition of Space Nuts
00:00:45 --> 00:00:50 15 seconds guidance is internal 10 9
00:00:50 --> 00:00:54 ignition sequence start Space Nuts 5 4 3
00:00:55 --> 00:00:59 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 Space Nuts as the
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 nuts report it meals
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 good yes indeed and it is good to
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 welcome again johy Horner professor of
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 astrophysics at the University of
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 Southern Queensland sitting in for Fred
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 who's gallivanting around the Northern
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 Hemisphere somewhere up in the uh in the
00:01:14 --> 00:01:19 Deep cold looking at stuff jonty hello
00:01:19 --> 00:01:20 hello and yeah I'm continuing to be the
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 substitute yorman this week so that's
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 it's good to be here it's great to have
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 you you're doing a fabulous job and uh
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 yeah we're really really pleased to have
00:01:29 --> 00:01:34 you you uh I wanted to start this week
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 with uh the inauguration speech of one
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 Donald Trump uh who um had select guests
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 in his audience they had to actually
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 move it for the first time in 40 years
00:01:44 --> 00:01:45 because it was so bitterly
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 cold and so there was a a limited
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 audience um one might do guy who was
00:01:51 --> 00:01:52 always talking about people being
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 snowflakes out of um
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 Poss and
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 uh there's been a lot of reporting on
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 some of the things that uh Donald Trump
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 said in his uh opening speech uh his
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 inauguration speech and one of them was
00:02:09 --> 00:02:13 we will pursue our Manifest Destiny to
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 plant the stars and stripes on planet
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 Mars now uh this this sort of follows on
00:02:20 --> 00:02:24 from his um his desire to increase US
00:02:24 --> 00:02:28 territory now isn't there some kind of
00:02:28 --> 00:02:32 uh space treaty that bans us owning
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 anything off Planet there is this is the
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 space treaty back in 1967 and it's an
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 interesting one of how the world has
00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 changed because back then the only
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 people really involved in doing anything
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 in space were a few select nation states
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 who were doing a lot of things as a way
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 of proving that they were bigger and
00:02:50 --> 00:02:51 stronger than their rals as much as
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 anything else but this was a un
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 declaration that the US is a signator
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 and one of the many things covered in
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 the space is the fact that there is no
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 ownership of things off the Earth the
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 idea that things should be for everybody
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 rather than for select States and that's
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 never really been challenged because
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 we've never had the wherewithal to
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 occupy and take over things in space we
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 can land there we can drive stuff around
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 but it's like the moon you know the US
00:03:19 --> 00:03:20 can land on the moon but there's no way
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 they can stop China Landing over on the
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 moon they can claim things and protect
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 them in any way now there's two sides to
00:03:28 --> 00:03:29 this Donald Trump thing on the one hand
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 fabulous uh to some degree the support
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 there for space exploration going
00:03:34 --> 00:03:35 forward and it does seem like it's been
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 an ongoing tennis match for 60 years of
00:03:38 --> 00:03:39 one side saying we'll go to the Moon
00:03:39 --> 00:03:40 then four years later the other side
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 next saying n we'll scrap going to the
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 Moon we'll go to Mars and back and forth
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 so it's really positive seeing some
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 continued engagement with that side of
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 space stuff on the flip side the
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 language is a little concerning so I
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 mean you know you get there you put the
00:03:54 --> 00:03:55 flag in to say we got here that's one
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 thing if you're putting the flag in as a
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 point of ownership then that's an
00:04:00 --> 00:04:01 entirely different thing and it'll be
00:04:01 --> 00:04:04 very interesting to see what that Sparks
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 in terms of reaction from China for
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 example who also have aspirations to go
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 to Mars and whether any of this is
00:04:10 --> 00:04:12 enforceable now there's been a lot of
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 discussion about the space treaty anyway
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 in the context of the commercial use of
00:04:17 --> 00:04:18 space because like I said when it was
00:04:19 --> 00:04:21 put together very few nations were
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 involved in space and it was a nation
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 thing and now it's a commercial thing
00:04:27 --> 00:04:28 yeah the great bulk of launchers to
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 space are no longer research missions
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 launched by governments their commercial
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 initiatives launched by companies and
00:04:36 --> 00:04:37 that's a very different way of doing
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 things and legislation just hasn't kept
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 up you know there's a lot of discussions
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 about the likes of sty link and the
00:04:44 --> 00:04:45 proposed Amazon Mega constellation and
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 many many others and what the legality
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 of that is and should we be doing it all
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 and how do people have a right to
00:04:53 --> 00:04:54 control what is put in the sky above
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 them and none of that's really covered
00:04:57 --> 00:04:58 because the legislation hasn't kept up
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 so is very much like the wild west and
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 this is just yet another reflection of
00:05:03 --> 00:05:04 that in terms of it's all well and good
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 having a treaty that is more than 60
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 years old that says you can't ear things
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 in space we can't build a presence there
00:05:11 --> 00:05:12 but the reality is if they go there and
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 put the flag in and say this is ours now
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 and they have the wherewithal to defend
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 that claim which is another thing
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 entirely who's going to stop them yeah
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 well that's that yes that's The $64
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 Question and his um his richest
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 supporter wants to put a colony on Mars
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 so there's every chance that they've had
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 a bit of a chat about this pre speech
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 too I remember many years ago Elon Elon
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 the great what a wonderful character I I
00:05:40 --> 00:05:41 have opinions there which I probably
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 shouldn't dig into too much but he said
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 that he has this great aspiration that
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 he should be the first person to die on
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 Mars and I think if you talk to a lot of
00:05:51 --> 00:05:52 astronomers there's some interesting
00:05:52 --> 00:05:53 thoughts on whether that would be a good
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 thing or
00:05:55 --> 00:05:59 not yes and uh yes there were a few
00:05:59 --> 00:06:00 other things things at the inauguration
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 speech and the Afterparty if we can call
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 it that that uh yeah we're not going to
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 go into involving Elon but he got plenty
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 of coverage on that in the news as well
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 but yeah it's it's a really dicey one
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 and one wonders what will happen going
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 forward you mentioned China they were
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 invited to the inauguration I think the
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 vice president uh or the vice Premier or
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 whatever the title is for China uh did
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 go so um maybe that's a good sign that
00:06:27 --> 00:06:28 relations between the two countries
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 might be um warming up a bit but we'll
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 uh we'll have to wait and see it's early
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 days uh but the next four years will be
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 fascinating to say the least interesting
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 to I think yes indeed uh let's move on
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 uh to something uh as interesting but
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 completely different and this this is
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 where um household technology has become
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 such an amazing thing I remember when I
00:06:52 --> 00:06:56 first got a camera at my front door at a
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 house we used to live in it actually
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 recorded a lightning strike uh which was
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 amazing uh over in Canada the other day
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 a meteorite strike was recorded by a
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 door Cam and they not only got the
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 vision of the thing hitting the
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 porch uh they uh they got the audio and
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 it sounded something like
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 this that's a quite a record I think
00:07:23 --> 00:07:23 I've got it
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 again there we go um that's fascinating
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 JY isn't it oh it's just so awesome I
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 mean one of the first things I thought
00:07:32 --> 00:07:33 about on this when I saw the photos and
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 the footage was hang on this is Canada
00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 which is notoriously cold and snowy and
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 all the footage is green and verdant
00:07:40 --> 00:07:41 turns out that this event actually
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 happened in July last year but we're
00:07:43 --> 00:07:44 only now getting to hear about it
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 because there's been an official naming
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 of this mey right after the town that it
00:07:48 --> 00:07:50 landed in so it's a the Charlotte Town
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 mey right now and that's why this has
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 finally come out as a story so it's one
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 of these interesting things with stories
00:07:56 --> 00:07:57 like this that you don't often hear
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 about the news when it's new you some
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 you have to he about it when something
00:08:01 --> 00:08:03 triggers that release but it's
00:08:03 --> 00:08:04 absolutely fabulous so there's actually
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 a photograph I've got up on my other
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 screen at the minute showing where this
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 meteorite hit and it's hit on the
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 Redstone driveway essentially which is
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 why you hear that smashing shattering
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 sound because this was a conric type
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 meteorite so it was quite fragile Frable
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 and so when it hit the ground and it hit
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 the ground traveling at what you
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 describe as terminal velocity so it
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 wasn't coming in at kilometers a second
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 at this point it's coming in a couple of
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 hundred miles an hour ex that's the
00:08:33 --> 00:08:34 atmosphere had slowed it down
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 essentially so it landed essentially
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 like if you dropped a rock from a an
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 aircraft or dropped a rock from a couple
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 hundred meters up hit the ground the
00:08:42 --> 00:08:43 ground was harder and this thing
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 shattered so the noise you're hearing is
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 the initial impact and then all the bits
00:08:47 --> 00:08:48 scattering around this was a single
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 impactor and you see this beautiful
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 spray Distribution on the driveway on
00:08:53 --> 00:08:54 this Photograph that looks very much
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 like a ray Creator on the moon very
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 similar but also very reminiscent of the
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 similar impact that happened in the UK
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 just a couple of years ago that was also
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 a conr that hit somebody's driveway and
00:09:06 --> 00:09:07 they did a really good job of collecting
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 it so it's really nice to see the
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 similarities and just looking at that
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 debris and the scatter pattern you can
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 tell that this isn't an iron meteorite
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 that it was something quite light and
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 fragile even before the bits got
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 analyzed the fact that on the video feed
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 from this you know doorbell camera you
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 see as Freeze Frame and you can actually
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 see the rock as it's coming in
00:09:30 --> 00:09:31 the frame rate was high enough that the
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 frame before the impact happened there's
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 this black Speck in front of the sky
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 that is a rock just before impact and
00:09:38 --> 00:09:39 that has to be unique I don't think
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 there's ever been any record like that
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 of an impact as it happened when it
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 happened from closeup we saw comic
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 schumak le9 hit Jupiter but even then
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 the impacts were around the back of that
00:09:51 --> 00:09:52 planet we've seen a few impacts on
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 Jupiter's face since but that seeing an
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 event at 600 million kilm separation is
00:09:58 --> 00:09:59 very different seeing a mobile camera
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 showing a
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 rock six foot above the ground that is
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 about to hit that is a part of a
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 celestial object that's just awesome it
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 is awesome uh they collected some
00:10:10 --> 00:10:14 fragments and um that that sort of
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 prompted you to think uh about how this
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 should or shouldn't be done yeah there's
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 some really good and really bad examples
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 of what to do if you think you found a
00:10:23 --> 00:10:27 meteorite and this aside 99.9% of the
00:10:27 --> 00:10:28 time when people think they found a
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 meteorite on the ground they haven't but
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 a common thing people do is touch what
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 they' found to a magnet because ion
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 meteorites will be trapped to the magnet
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 this is really bad so everybody I know
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 who works in meteorite studies strongly
00:10:45 --> 00:10:46 strongly strongly says please please
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 please do not bring magnets anywhere
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 near them because one of the cool things
00:10:51 --> 00:10:52 about meteorites is they preserve the
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 history of the early solar system are
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 one of the things locked in them is any
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 evidence of weak magnetic fields back
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 then and if bring a magnet next to but
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 you wipe all that history oh right I
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 likeing a hard drive absolutely yeah
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 it's a little bit a little bit sad the
00:11:07 --> 00:11:08 other thing I've seen that a couple of
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 people have done that is really fabulous
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 is if you get there very quickly when
00:11:13 --> 00:11:14 something's Fallen it's not going to be
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 steaming hot boiling hot like you see in
00:11:17 --> 00:11:18 the movies it'll actually probably be
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 CLA cold and water will be condensing on
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 it but if you want to pick it up one of
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 the things about freshly fallen
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 meteorites that's exciting is they are
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 preserving evidence of another the
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 celestial body and people are interested
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 in things like possible precursor
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 compounds to Life Could there have been
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 life there or protolife or things like
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 that where does it have come from now if
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 you go and grab it with your sweaty
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 human hand covered with oils and all the
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 rest of it you contaminate it now I've
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 got a couple of dogs one of them is
00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 asleep here and when we take them for
00:11:50 --> 00:11:51 their walk they sometimes decide to do
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 their business and we've got very
00:11:53 --> 00:11:54 skilled at getting these little plastic
00:11:55 --> 00:11:56 bags and putting the bag over our hand
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 and then picking the unmentionables up
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 and putting the bag over it so that
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 there's no contact between human flesh
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 and that which you wish to not touch in
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 this case and the same kind of thing
00:12:08 --> 00:12:09 would work for meteorites so if you
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 found If You observe this happen on your
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 ring doorbell or other products are
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 available you know see this happen don't
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 go pick it up with your hand if you can
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 bagg it as if it's dop seriously and
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 then if you can store it in the freezer
00:12:23 --> 00:12:24 so there's a fabulous story of a
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 meteorite that fell in Canada again that
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 fell on a frozen lake in the the middle
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 of winter and was recovered and they
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 actually managed to bag baggy it and
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 store it in the freezer and the people
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 who did that the scientists are thrilled
00:12:37 --> 00:12:38 with them because it turned out that
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 that meteorite was incredibly rare in
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 that it is pretty much the only one we
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 found with volatile material still in it
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 and if it had fallen somewhere where it
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 was above freezing that would have just
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 melted and dribbled out of it but what
00:12:51 --> 00:12:52 it thought is that that may well have
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 actually been more cometry material than
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 asteroidal material and all the things
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 that we were able to learn from it were
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 ensured by the fact that the people who
00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 found it a it was preserved because it
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 fell somewhere really Cur so it stayed
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 Christine but then when it was collected
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 they bagged it up the right way they put
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 it in the freezer and they stored it now
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 lot to remember and the odds are nobody
00:13:12 --> 00:13:13 listening to this will ever have the
00:13:13 --> 00:13:15 Good Fortune of having a meteor Outland
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 on the driveway but if you ever do it's
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 good to do the right thing because that
00:13:19 --> 00:13:20 makes something that's already very
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 valuable even more precious to
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 scientists yeah that that's good advice
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 um and some more advice uh if you do
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 um you know practice what you preach and
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 pick up the dog poo don't put it in the
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 freezer next to the sausages don't mix
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 it up with the meteoro fragments because
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 you know that could be very
00:13:41 --> 00:13:45 to um yeah but great story and quite
00:13:45 --> 00:13:46 amazing footage if you haven't seen it
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 jump online and have a look for the um
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 um I think it was a ring camera that
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 they were us think it
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 was okay this is Space Nuts Andrew
00:13:56 --> 00:14:00 Dunley here with Jodi horn
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 let's take a little break from the show
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 right now to tell you about our sponsor
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00:15:55 --> 00:16:02 show 3 2 1 SP nuts next story jonty
00:16:02 --> 00:16:06 involves uh Space X and this was a test
00:16:06 --> 00:16:10 flight of their um uh one of their uh
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 Mega Rockets the Starship and and uh
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 well things went well and not well I
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 think they uh they got the um the big
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 bit back with the with the Chopsticks
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 but the other bit uh well it created
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 quite a l show Absolutely and this came
00:16:27 --> 00:16:28 very quickly to my attention when I I
00:16:29 --> 00:16:30 got up that morning and looked on
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 various platforms and there's the most
00:16:33 --> 00:16:35 astonishingly beautiful footage taken
00:16:35 --> 00:16:39 over the turken Kos islands of what it's
00:16:39 --> 00:16:40 clearly space junk so it's coming in
00:16:40 --> 00:16:44 much too slowly to be a meteorite or
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 something from Beyond the Earth's
00:16:46 --> 00:16:47 immediate environment they come in much
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 much quicker you've got this beautiful
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 shower of Sparks moving slowly across
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 the sky I mean slowly is a relative term
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 slowly compared to when you've seen
00:16:55 --> 00:16:57 meteor showers and Fireballs fast
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 compared to a helicopter an aircraft
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 high up but incredibly multicolored
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 incredibly bright visible during the
00:17:04 --> 00:17:08 daytime and it was very quickly make
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 clear that this was the remnants of the
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 upper stage of the Starship test launch
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 so they launched this rocket that is 123
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 M tall which boggles my mind to begin
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 with yes after the first stage separated
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 the lower stage which is the bigger bit
00:17:23 --> 00:17:24 successfully came back and landed which
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 is an incredible achievement they
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 captured it landed safely ready to reuse
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 again
00:17:30 --> 00:17:31 but about 8 and a half minutes into the
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 flight the upper stage encountered a
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 problem and self-destructed it's what
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 basex have coined a rapid unscheduled
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 disassembly which I think is kind of
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 whimsical but that's lovely and it it
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 was exploded deliberately when something
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48 goes wrong you don't want it going out
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 of control so things are terminated and
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 then it fell back to her through the
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 atmosphere and a blad burned up high in
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 the sky putting on a spectacular show
00:17:58 --> 00:17:59 now
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 a lot of people go oh no things have
00:18:01 --> 00:18:03 blown up that's terrible and SpaceX are
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 fairly positive about it um because I
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 guess with space flight the argument is
00:18:08 --> 00:18:09 you don't make an omelet without
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 breaking eggs the entire history of
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 space flight is Success built on failure
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 and when something fails that's actually
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 a real success in its own right because
00:18:20 --> 00:18:21 it allows you to identify something that
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 could go wrong and fix it so that it
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 never goes wrong again so this kind of
00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 thing has been a standard part of space
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 EX history and their great success is
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 that they accept these things and build
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 on them it did have some interesting
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 kind of side effects so I saw an
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 interesting thread on Reddit um from a
00:18:40 --> 00:18:41 pilot who'd been in the air when this
00:18:41 --> 00:18:42 happened and they'd had to divert
00:18:43 --> 00:18:44 because obviously that shonfield where
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 this is coming down has to become closed
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 airspace for I think he said the the
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 rules and regulations were 30 minutes
00:18:52 --> 00:18:53 after it
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 finishes in order to be just in case
00:18:56 --> 00:18:57 just to be safe because the ODS of one
00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 of these fragments hitting in aircraft
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 are vanishingly small but they're a lot
00:19:01 --> 00:19:02 higher than if there's not one of these
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 events happening so it's a safety thing
00:19:05 --> 00:19:06 and it turns out that aircraft only have
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 a relatively small margin of fuel error
00:19:09 --> 00:19:10 so a couple of the planes involved had
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 to declare what they call a fuel
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 emergency which isn't as bad as it
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 sounds I found this really fascinating
00:19:16 --> 00:19:17 reading through it because he was very
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 detailed in it a fuel emergency is not
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 saying oh my God we're doomed it's
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 saying we're now onto our backup fuel so
00:19:24 --> 00:19:25 you need to bump it up the landing
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 shedule so it's not panic panic it's
00:19:28 --> 00:19:31 more give us a priority Landing but it's
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 still really interesting that you don't
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 necessarily connect immediately SpaceX
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37 doing a rocket launch and somebody on an
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 aircraft having to divert or having to
00:19:40 --> 00:19:41 be delayed because the rocket launch
00:19:41 --> 00:19:44 went wrong and at the minute we have
00:19:44 --> 00:19:46 more rocket launchers happening per week
00:19:46 --> 00:19:48 per day than there has ever been before
00:19:48 --> 00:19:49 and that's only going to get more and
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 more common as the commercial EAS space
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 gets even more common so this kind of ss
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 an interesting insight into how all this
00:19:56 --> 00:19:58 stuff plays together as well as putting
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 on an incredibly spectacular lro I mean
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 the footage is well worth going out and
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 looking for it cuz it's so stunning it
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 is it's quite extraordinary I I had to
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 laugh though because um
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 SpaceX has this this habit of um stating
00:20:14 --> 00:20:19 the bleeding the obvious so Starship is
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 a Starship uh and and the upper stage
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 that actually um they had to destroy is
00:20:25 --> 00:20:29 called ship yeah
00:20:29 --> 00:20:33 okay all right well I mean that's what
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 it is uh it's a spaceship so they just
00:20:35 --> 00:20:39 called it ship um
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 gosh do I guess it doesn't really matter
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 what you call anything but uh you people
00:20:45 --> 00:20:46 look back in the future at the history
00:20:46 --> 00:20:51 of these pioneering events and go oh
00:20:51 --> 00:20:52 they really didn't put much thought into
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 that did they I think they've actually
00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 done quite a good job about getting
00:20:58 --> 00:20:59 people on B and actually giving things
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 Whimsical names you know things that
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 stick in the mind so my memory is and
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 you know feel free to correct me if I'm
00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 wrong here but my memory is that the
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 platforms that they bring the spacecraft
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 back to are named after some of the
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 ships from the culture novels by inm
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 Banks which are fabulous fabulous books
00:21:17 --> 00:21:18 and that's a Lely little touch because
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 those names themselves are a little bit
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 quirky and a little bit Whimsical and
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 there's a a fairly good history of
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 giving things quirky names and also kind
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 of almost
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 arzinger when they got their own Twitter
00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 accounts back in the day and people
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 really got hooked into the human journey
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 of this artificial Lander on Mars and I
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 think companies are becoming aware of
00:21:41 --> 00:21:42 this and thinking it's a really good way
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 of helping the public opinion and
00:21:44 --> 00:21:45 getting people more aware of what's
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 going on and these things stick a lot
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 better in your head than a
00:21:50 --> 00:21:52 barcod yeah absolutely I was just trying
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 to look up some of the names of um the
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 SpaceX landing pads but uh they are
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 not jumping out in front of me but um
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 yeah I've I've heard some of them and
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 yeah you're right they are very very
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 very unusual some of them um while we're
00:22:10 --> 00:22:14 talking about um the SpaceX disassembly
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 uh we can't really go past uh blue
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 origin which is probably going to become
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 spacex's most direct competitor amongst
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 others and they've had success with and
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 here's another name um the launch of new
00:22:28 --> 00:22:29 Glenn
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 yes and this is a been a long time
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 coming it was initially meant to launch
00:22:33 --> 00:22:34 in about 2020 but they've taken it
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 careful postponed improved popon
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 improved now this was a smaller rocket
00:22:39 --> 00:22:40 and when I say a smaller I think it was
00:22:40 --> 00:22:44 only about 90 meters tall um but this is
00:22:44 --> 00:22:45 looking like it's going to be the big
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 rival in long-term future to Sparx
00:22:48 --> 00:22:49 certainly in terms of competing for
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 American grants and MAA
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 opportunities blue origin have got
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 interest just like Sparx in being
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 involved in the you know ongoing emist
00:22:59 --> 00:23:01 stuff trying to get stuff to the Moon
00:23:01 --> 00:23:03 yeah and it's a really interesting
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 mirror to the SpaceX launch because with
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 the SpaceX launch the lower stage landed
00:23:07 --> 00:23:08 and was captured beautifully but the
00:23:08 --> 00:23:11 upper stage detonated with new Glenn
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13 their primary focus was to just get the
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 rookie to orbit that was the goal it's
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 the first ever test flight and that was
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 achieved perfectly they had a secondary
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 goal that was trying to land their main
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 booster back on their launch pad and it
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 didn't quite work so space has got the
00:23:27 --> 00:23:29 first part right blue origin got the
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 second part right but it's a really nice
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 bit of evidence that things are moving
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 forward and again if we go back to when
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 I was a teenager in the '90s
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 if you told me then that you'd have had
00:23:41 --> 00:23:43 reusable launch vehicles that are a
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45 commercial thing that were doing this it
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47 blown me away and now it's become common
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 place you know we have so many launches
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 of satellites for commercial purposes
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 going on that nobody ever hears about
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 them unless they're really enthusiastic
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 or something happens that shouldn't or
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 something happens yeah it's that usual
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 thing of nobody's interested in a news
00:24:02 --> 00:24:03 story saying that something happened and
00:24:03 --> 00:24:05 it went perfectly smoothly and it's
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 perfectly mundan but when something goes
00:24:07 --> 00:24:11 wrong it's big news yeah yeah it is um
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 so in both cases they had success and
00:24:14 --> 00:24:18 failure um and and both parties
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 basically said no look this is good
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 because we learn from these mistakes and
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 uh and again you know you're looking at
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 names I I I didn't look up what new
00:24:27 --> 00:24:29 Glenn
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31 stood for where it came from but uh it's
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 an odd name for a
00:24:33 --> 00:24:35 spacecraft yes uh there's so many of
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 these little things go around but it
00:24:37 --> 00:24:38 again it's six in the head it's better
00:24:39 --> 00:24:40 than rocket 11
00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 174b yeah true true I I found some of
00:24:43 --> 00:24:48 the names SpaceX uses for its um Landing
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 sites the these were the barges I think
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 that they were using that's right just
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 read the instructions yeah uh of course
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 I still love you and a short fall of
00:24:57 --> 00:25:01 Gravitas
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 H God link back to these culture novels
00:25:04 --> 00:25:05 where I read them a long time ago and
00:25:06 --> 00:25:07 you've got this hyper Advanced future
00:25:07 --> 00:25:10 Society kind of thing where almost
00:25:10 --> 00:25:11 anything is possible and you've got
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 these spits senent eyes that are far
00:25:14 --> 00:25:16 more intelligent than anything else but
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 just kind of vaguely tolerate humans and
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 all the other aliens as their passengers
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 and have their own private inner lives
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 and Communications with each other yeah
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 they're quite heavy goinging boooks at
00:25:27 --> 00:25:28 times but that side of it it's just
00:25:28 --> 00:25:32 lovely yeah it is yeah well you know um
00:25:32 --> 00:25:36 I'm I'm a big believer in quirky so I I
00:25:36 --> 00:25:37 don't really have a problem with it but
00:25:37 --> 00:25:40 um yeah ship I think was probably you
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 know that falls a bit
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 short um yes but uh yeah uh if you want
00:25:45 --> 00:25:47 to chase up those stories you can read
00:25:47 --> 00:25:49 them on
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 space.com this is Space Nuts with Andrew
00:25:51 --> 00:25:55 Dunley and Professor jonty
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 hor okay we checked all four systems and
00:25:58 --> 00:26:03 Space Nuts now Johnny uh this this is um
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 sort of a follow on story to something
00:26:05 --> 00:26:07 that Fred and I discussed more than once
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 in recent times and that is uh looking
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 at whether or not there might be life in
00:26:12 --> 00:26:16 the atmosphere of Venus uh and a new
00:26:16 --> 00:26:20 paper has been released that is
00:26:20 --> 00:26:24 actually suggesting that not only could
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 there be life in the atmosphere of Venus
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 and they're not saying there is is could
00:26:29 --> 00:26:32 be it may well have come from Earth yeah
00:26:32 --> 00:26:35 that's that's interesting in itself and
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 and they've backed it up with some um
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41 well data that they believe suggests
00:26:41 --> 00:26:44 it's a it's a it's a possibility it is
00:26:44 --> 00:26:46 and this is all based on an idea called
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 panspermia that when it was first
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 proposed was firmly considered by The
00:26:51 --> 00:26:52 Establishment at the time to be in the
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 crank box to be absolutely bunkers it
00:26:55 --> 00:26:58 couldn't work it's the idea that life
00:26:58 --> 00:26:59 can be transferred from one planet to
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 another carried on the back of
00:27:02 --> 00:27:04 meteorites so you have a big impact on
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 Earth digs up a load of rock fling some
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 of that rock into space and eventually
00:27:09 --> 00:27:10 some of those rocks land on another
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 planet and life spreads a bit like the
00:27:13 --> 00:27:16 common cold on a busy train you know
00:27:16 --> 00:27:17 that whole thing of don't G near Earth
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 it's got humans their
00:27:19 --> 00:27:22 contagious and when this first came out
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 everybody just s it sounding Bonkers
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 because firstly life can't exist in
00:27:27 --> 00:27:30 space two hard not going to happen then
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 you've got it would take millions of
00:27:32 --> 00:27:33 years on average for a bit to get from
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 one place to another and that's too long
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 so it couldn't happen and finally if a
00:27:37 --> 00:27:39 rock's ejected from a planet then it's
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 been in a big impact and that should
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 sterilize it so it should never happen
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 but then as time's gone on all of those
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 kind of conceits have fallen down a bit
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 we found meteorites on Earth from the
00:27:51 --> 00:27:52 Moon we found them from Mars you know
00:27:52 --> 00:27:54 the Allen Hills meteorites one of the
00:27:54 --> 00:27:56 famous ones which led to claims of Life
00:27:56 --> 00:27:57 on Mars a couple of decades ago that
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 were event shut down so we know that
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 rocks get transferred from planet to
00:28:02 --> 00:28:03 planet fairly
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 straightforwardly when I worked at the
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 oen University this is from 2006 to 2009
00:28:09 --> 00:28:10 there were people there who were working
00:28:10 --> 00:28:13 on this kind of stuff looking into it
00:28:13 --> 00:28:14 and what it turns out is that when you
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 get a fairly large impact up to the kind
00:28:17 --> 00:28:18 of dinosaur killing size impact but the
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 kind of thing that forms a substantial
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 crator on Earth the closer you are to
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 the middle the more intense the shock
00:28:24 --> 00:28:25 wave and the more damaging it is and the
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 further out you go the less intense it
00:28:27 --> 00:28:28 gets so the further away you are the
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 less strong the shock is but that
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 gradient is actually shallower the
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 bigger the impact is it falls off more
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 slowly what that leads to bizar is that
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 there is a range of distances from the
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 impact where that shock wave is strong
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 enough to eject rocks from the surface
00:28:44 --> 00:28:47 of the Earth out of the atmosphere
00:28:47 --> 00:28:48 particularly given that the thing that's
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 just hit us has created a hole in the
00:28:50 --> 00:28:52 atmosphere to make it a bit easier and
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 that those rocks can be ejected intact
00:28:54 --> 00:28:57 and the shocks involved in the Rock are
00:28:57 --> 00:28:59 weaker than the amount of shock you'd
00:28:59 --> 00:29:01 need to sterilize it in other words
00:29:01 --> 00:29:03 bacteria could be ejected to space on
00:29:04 --> 00:29:05 the back of these rocks without being
00:29:05 --> 00:29:07 killed so that's another thing in its
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 further and then you get studies that
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 have looked into the viability of
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 bacteria in the vacuum of space with UV
00:29:15 --> 00:29:17 radiation that suggests that they can
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19 remain viable for a much longer period
00:29:19 --> 00:29:20 of time than you think because when they
00:29:20 --> 00:29:22 go out into space they kind of go into
00:29:22 --> 00:29:26 this stasis Spore form and UV damage
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 kills some of them I'm working with a
00:29:28 --> 00:29:32 PhD student down um in Victoria who's
00:29:32 --> 00:29:34 looking at this doing some experiments
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 into the fact that the dead cells on the
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 outside provide extra shielding and
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 that's even before you consider that
00:29:40 --> 00:29:41 there can be bacteria on the inside of
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 the rock where the rock Shields them and
00:29:44 --> 00:29:45 they did test they put bacteria on the
00:29:46 --> 00:29:47 outside of the space station left them a
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 few months brought them back inside and
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 they cultured them happily W the step
00:29:51 --> 00:29:53 seem to be that despite the fact this
00:29:53 --> 00:29:56 sounds a ridiculously outlandish idea
00:29:56 --> 00:29:58 it's perfectly reasonable to think that
00:29:58 --> 00:29:59 life could be passed around the solar
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01 system like a a tennis ball bouncing
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 around at the Australian Earth and going
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 from planet to planet so that's become
00:30:06 --> 00:30:07 an established
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 possibility it's like to a lot of
00:30:09 --> 00:30:11 discussions there's interesting
00:30:11 --> 00:30:12 philosophical things if we ever find
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 Life on Mars and that's still an if will
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 it be life that has a separate origin to
00:30:17 --> 00:30:19 life on Earth or will it be life that
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 shares An Origin with life on Earth and
00:30:21 --> 00:30:22 that's not necessarily saying life is
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24 out on Earth we could be martians you
00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 know life could have begun on Mars and
00:30:25 --> 00:30:27 been transferred to Earth yeah we've
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 just done know but there are some
00:30:30 --> 00:30:31 predictions you can make and one of them
00:30:31 --> 00:30:33 is that if we ever find life on another
00:30:33 --> 00:30:35 body in the solar system there's a a
00:30:35 --> 00:30:37 good possibility that it will share a
00:30:37 --> 00:30:39 Heritage with us so that brings us after
00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 a lot of jonty waffle to this story
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 about Venus and it's bringing together
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 that other story which is the potential
00:30:47 --> 00:30:48 detection of this gas called phosphine
00:30:48 --> 00:30:51 in Venus which was quite controversial I
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53 know the lead scientists quite well who
00:30:53 --> 00:30:55 did that work and I felt very sad for
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57 her some of the abuse and vitriol that
00:30:57 --> 00:30:58 were directed to their team over the
00:30:58 --> 00:31:02 results yeah but it was a really
00:31:02 --> 00:31:04 interesting detection right at the edge
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 of sensitivity for their inment and what
00:31:06 --> 00:31:07 they said was that we found this gas
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 called phosphine on the Earth the only
00:31:11 --> 00:31:14 way that that is produced is through the
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16 action of life or through human industry
00:31:16 --> 00:31:18 there's no other chemical process on
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 Earth we know of that can make this that
00:31:21 --> 00:31:22 doesn't mean that there aren't other
00:31:22 --> 00:31:23 possibilities it's just we don't know of
00:31:24 --> 00:31:26 them so there is a possibility that this
00:31:26 --> 00:31:28 could be being produced by life but it's
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 not a detection of life and there was a
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 whole Cavalcade of arguments and stories
00:31:34 --> 00:31:36 that followed on from that but inspired
00:31:36 --> 00:31:37 by that the team that have done this
00:31:37 --> 00:31:39 paper have looked at it to say if there
00:31:39 --> 00:31:40 is life in the Clouds of Venus in this
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 temporal layer where the conditions are
00:31:43 --> 00:31:44 more similar to those on Earth than you
00:31:44 --> 00:31:46 would have on Venus's
00:31:46 --> 00:31:48 surface could that life actually be
00:31:48 --> 00:31:50 Earth Life Could It Be contamination
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 from the earth with bacteria that have
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 been transferred there through this pans
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 spermia reat and they've done some
00:31:57 --> 00:31:59 calculations so there's a certain degree
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 of speculation to try and figure out how
00:32:01 --> 00:32:03 much material is been ejected from the
00:32:03 --> 00:32:05 earth over the time how much it reaches
00:32:05 --> 00:32:07 Venus and to try and put that into a
00:32:07 --> 00:32:11 sense of how many discrete bacteria
00:32:11 --> 00:32:12 would reach Venus in a billion-year
00:32:12 --> 00:32:14 period and they've got this hand waving
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 number of a billion bacteria in a
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 billion years now that's showing you how
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 big deep time is more than anything else
00:32:21 --> 00:32:22 and what they say is that doesn't mean
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 there's one bacterium per year reaching
00:32:24 --> 00:32:26 Venus it'll be clumpy you'll get a rock
00:32:26 --> 00:32:29 delivering tens of thousands at a time
00:32:29 --> 00:32:31 but the idea is that if you've got that
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 level of delivery going on all it takes
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 is a very small number of them to be
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 viable for life to suddenly become
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 present there now you've then got all
00:32:41 --> 00:32:43 the additional challenges of how does it
00:32:43 --> 00:32:44 get into the atmosphere all the rest of
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 it but this is just an interesting thing
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 pointing out again that once you bring
00:32:50 --> 00:32:53 panspermia into the picture you can no
00:32:53 --> 00:32:54 longer say that when we found life
00:32:54 --> 00:32:56 elsewhere in the solar system that means
00:32:56 --> 00:32:59 we've shown that life originated there
00:32:59 --> 00:33:02 um also as a total side point it makes
00:33:02 --> 00:33:05 the efforts we go to in sterilizing our
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 spacecraft seem less relevant because
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 for example when we send spacecraft to
00:33:10 --> 00:33:11 Jupiter to the icy moons I can
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 understand why we're sterilizing this
00:33:13 --> 00:33:15 planetary protection thing but material
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 from Earth carrying bacteria has been
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 bombarding those Moons for billions of
00:33:19 --> 00:33:21 years if Earth life is going to get
00:33:21 --> 00:33:23 there it's already there so there's a
00:33:23 --> 00:33:26 lot of interesting spins from this but
00:33:26 --> 00:33:28 it's interesting that an idea that again
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 when I was young was viewed as being
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32 really stupid and you know extreme and
00:33:32 --> 00:33:35 only talked about by cracks is now
00:33:35 --> 00:33:37 sufficiently mainstream that this kind
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39 of research is going on to investigate
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 the what ifs and to try and drive on
00:33:41 --> 00:33:44 from that to make predictions you know
00:33:44 --> 00:33:45 the ultimate extent of this is if we
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 find Life on Mars if we find life on
00:33:47 --> 00:33:50 Venus and we're able to isolate a sample
00:33:50 --> 00:33:52 of it and study it the prediction from
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 this is that we'd find that it shares a
00:33:54 --> 00:33:56 common Heritage with us a share shares a
00:33:56 --> 00:33:58 common Universal an drug
00:33:59 --> 00:34:02 ass fascinating yeah and uh what do you
00:34:02 --> 00:34:05 like Fred and I have often discussed
00:34:05 --> 00:34:08 this um do you think that day will come
00:34:08 --> 00:34:10 where we might find something and we'll
00:34:10 --> 00:34:12 be able to test whether or not it has a
00:34:12 --> 00:34:14 shared origin we I'm absolutely an
00:34:15 --> 00:34:17 optimist and I think um if there is life
00:34:17 --> 00:34:19 to be found in the solar system we will
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 find it it's just a question of when
00:34:21 --> 00:34:23 rather than if that is the big question
00:34:23 --> 00:34:26 as if there is life there we've got
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28 places to look you know obviously
00:34:28 --> 00:34:30 with every decade that goes our Focus
00:34:30 --> 00:34:31 shifts a bit because we learn more so
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 for example if we've been having this
00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 chat a decade ago we' have been talking
00:34:35 --> 00:34:36 about Mars we' have been talking about
00:34:36 --> 00:34:38 the equator of Mars and following what
00:34:38 --> 00:34:40 the wonderful Rover missions are doing
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42 there and then there was that
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 astonishing discovery of liquid water in
00:34:44 --> 00:34:47 Marza South po C that um an Australian
00:34:47 --> 00:34:49 astronomer Professor gracial caparelli
00:34:49 --> 00:34:51 was very involved with with the Italian
00:34:51 --> 00:34:54 team that did the red ass of this and
00:34:54 --> 00:34:56 suddenly it's harder to get to Mara
00:34:56 --> 00:34:57 South Ball but suddenly that locks
00:34:57 --> 00:34:59 really promising place to go because on
00:34:59 --> 00:35:01 Earth if you drill down into Antarctica
00:35:01 --> 00:35:03 you find these Lakes of liquid water
00:35:03 --> 00:35:04 that have been separated from the rest
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 of the Earth for ridiculous periods of
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 time and they're still teaming with life
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 if Mars ever had life maybe it's still
00:35:11 --> 00:35:13 there in The Waters at the South Pole so
00:35:13 --> 00:35:15 our Focus shifts a little bit we've also
00:35:15 --> 00:35:17 got the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn
00:35:18 --> 00:35:19 and the more we look the more we realize
00:35:19 --> 00:35:21 there's a lot of places we could look
00:35:21 --> 00:35:24 for life and I'd love to think that 10
00:35:24 --> 00:35:26 years 20 years down the line in a future
00:35:26 --> 00:35:28 Space Nuts episode we'll be talking
00:35:28 --> 00:35:29 about the fact that we've definitely got
00:35:29 --> 00:35:31 some and people are playing with it and
00:35:31 --> 00:35:33 a p tradition to learn more about it
00:35:33 --> 00:35:36 yeah yeah and then it escapes and kills
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 humans all over the planet yeah oh but
00:35:38 --> 00:35:39 they kill it with shampoo right that was
00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 the way the movie
00:35:41 --> 00:35:44 worked that's right yes just I know the
00:35:44 --> 00:35:49 one you're talking about um uh that
00:35:49 --> 00:35:51 was yeah silly silly film but such a
00:35:51 --> 00:35:54 good Evolution I think was called yeah
00:35:54 --> 00:35:57 that's a great film very funny uh yeah
00:35:57 --> 00:35:59 if you like to read up on Pan spermia
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 and the uh the new paper that's been
00:36:01 --> 00:36:04 released um it is available online you
00:36:04 --> 00:36:08 can also read the preed version of it at
00:36:08 --> 00:36:10 space.com uh before we go jonty just
00:36:10 --> 00:36:13 quickly uh where are we up to with Comet
00:36:13 --> 00:36:19 2024 G3 AT Atlas is it still alive it is
00:36:19 --> 00:36:20 still alive
00:36:20 --> 00:36:22 fish I appreciate it's a wonderful
00:36:22 --> 00:36:24 non-answer I got some lovely photos of
00:36:24 --> 00:36:27 this Comet back on Sunday evening um
00:36:27 --> 00:36:29 which I'm really pleased with really
00:36:29 --> 00:36:30 happy with I went out last night and
00:36:30 --> 00:36:32 there was one cloud in the sky and it
00:36:32 --> 00:36:34 was right in front of the Comet oh was
00:36:34 --> 00:36:35 the way it goes so I'm going to keep try
00:36:35 --> 00:36:37 the next few nights it's still
00:36:37 --> 00:36:39 relatively easily visible with the naked
00:36:39 --> 00:36:41 eye from Southern Hemisphere locations
00:36:41 --> 00:36:43 but the photos of it people are turning
00:36:43 --> 00:36:46 up from around the globe now are looking
00:36:46 --> 00:36:48 interesting so there is a suggestion
00:36:48 --> 00:36:49 that the snowball at the heart of the
00:36:50 --> 00:36:52 comic the nucleus actually fell apart
00:36:52 --> 00:36:54 and fragmented about a week ago as we
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 record this the 14th 15th of January
00:36:56 --> 00:36:59 released a ious amount of dust and
00:36:59 --> 00:37:02 because of the nature of how comets work
00:37:02 --> 00:37:04 that means that the comet hasn't really
00:37:04 --> 00:37:06 started to fade yet it's enhance the
00:37:06 --> 00:37:07 comet's tale possibly even making it a
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 bit more spectacular for us now but
00:37:10 --> 00:37:11 we'll probably hasten the demise of the
00:37:11 --> 00:37:13 Comet and when we were talking about
00:37:13 --> 00:37:15 this previously talked about how if you
00:37:15 --> 00:37:17 managed to live for another 600
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 years you'd see the comic return that's
00:37:19 --> 00:37:21 looking less likely now I think it's
00:37:21 --> 00:37:25 pretty much done and dusted probably um
00:37:25 --> 00:37:27 but we don't know for sure and we'll
00:37:27 --> 00:37:29 find find out more over the coming week
00:37:29 --> 00:37:30 but in the meantime get out there take
00:37:30 --> 00:37:33 photos because it's a spectacular object
00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 it is reasonably easily visible with the
00:37:35 --> 00:37:37 naked eye if you know where to look
00:37:37 --> 00:37:39 setting currently about an hour and a
00:37:39 --> 00:37:41 quarter hour and 20 minutes after sunset
00:37:41 --> 00:37:42 for those of us in the southern
00:37:42 --> 00:37:44 hemisphere Northern Hemisphere not so
00:37:44 --> 00:37:47 good you can't really see it but on
00:37:47 --> 00:37:49 photographs digital cameras are making a
00:37:49 --> 00:37:51 spectacular job of showing this and
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 there's some gorgeous images out there
00:37:53 --> 00:37:56 yeah I've just looked at one on sky and
00:37:56 --> 00:38:00 telescope. org and yeah you can see how
00:38:00 --> 00:38:02 the uh the tail has become much more
00:38:02 --> 00:38:06 Vivid and spread out as a consequence of
00:38:06 --> 00:38:09 it's uh well impending demise I suppose
00:38:09 --> 00:38:11 it's an astonishing image on Astronomy
00:38:11 --> 00:38:12 Picture of the Day the wonderful NASA
00:38:12 --> 00:38:15 site for today the 20th of January as
00:38:15 --> 00:38:17 we're recording this showing the comet
00:38:17 --> 00:38:19 as it was going around the Sun through
00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 the lasar camera that somebody's put
00:38:21 --> 00:38:24 together using different filters from
00:38:24 --> 00:38:25 the lascar camera so you've got
00:38:25 --> 00:38:28 different color tales and there's one
00:38:28 --> 00:38:30 three four five six seven different tals
00:38:30 --> 00:38:33 on the comet which is just oh yeah yeah
00:38:34 --> 00:38:36 I can see that now I just got it up that
00:38:36 --> 00:38:37 was when it was only visible in the
00:38:37 --> 00:38:40 daylight sky but it shows you just how
00:38:40 --> 00:38:41 active this thing got because it was so
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43 close to the Sun and there are some
00:38:43 --> 00:38:44 discussions that because it was so
00:38:44 --> 00:38:47 incredibly close in a couple of those
00:38:47 --> 00:38:50 cells are actually probably sodium and
00:38:50 --> 00:38:52 iron how close it got that those kind of
00:38:52 --> 00:38:54 minerals those kind of materials were
00:38:54 --> 00:38:57 getting erupted from the surface from
00:38:57 --> 00:38:59 Tails not just water ice and a little
00:38:59 --> 00:39:02 bit of gas yeah fascinating I I had I
00:39:02 --> 00:39:04 tried to have a look yesterday but I
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07 think I was a bit too early but um I
00:39:07 --> 00:39:09 will make an effort and the other thing
00:39:09 --> 00:39:11 that people are getting excited about
00:39:11 --> 00:39:13 although you you're suggesting this is a
00:39:13 --> 00:39:16 bit premature is the um the upcoming
00:39:16 --> 00:39:17 planetary
00:39:17 --> 00:39:19 alignment yeah which is not something
00:39:19 --> 00:39:21 that is anywhere near as rare as a media
00:39:21 --> 00:39:24 is making it out to be but the idea here
00:39:24 --> 00:39:26 is the planets are lining so your first
00:39:26 --> 00:39:28 s is oh that's great if I got my
00:39:28 --> 00:39:29 binoculars I could see them all in the
00:39:29 --> 00:39:31 same field of view and what it actually
00:39:31 --> 00:39:33 is is that they're all in the same 180
00:39:33 --> 00:39:36 Dee Arc of the sky so if you were out a
00:39:36 --> 00:39:38 little bit after Sunset you could see
00:39:38 --> 00:39:40 all the naked eye planets and if you got
00:39:40 --> 00:39:42 your binoculars and a telescope out you
00:39:42 --> 00:39:44 could see your andron as well all at the
00:39:44 --> 00:39:47 same time what the coverage has left out
00:39:47 --> 00:39:49 is that mercury is actually not joining
00:39:49 --> 00:39:50 the party at the minute so this is
00:39:50 --> 00:39:51 viewed as being the evening Sky after
00:39:51 --> 00:39:53 Sunset the first thing you'll see is
00:39:53 --> 00:39:55 Venus Saturn's right next to it
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57 Jupiter's High to the northwards in the
00:39:57 --> 00:39:58 southern hemisphere to the South for
00:39:58 --> 00:40:00 those in the northern hemisphere Mars is
00:40:00 --> 00:40:03 rising over to the east it's just past
00:40:03 --> 00:40:05 opposition they're all there Uranus and
00:40:05 --> 00:40:07 neun are over roughly in the same part
00:40:07 --> 00:40:09 on the sky as Saturn and Venus so you
00:40:09 --> 00:40:10 can find them with binocular in the
00:40:10 --> 00:40:12 telescope but Mercury is currently
00:40:12 --> 00:40:14 visible in the morning sky for Mercury
00:40:14 --> 00:40:16 to join the party we've got to wait
00:40:16 --> 00:40:17 another month and that's going to be at
00:40:17 --> 00:40:20 the end of February so maybe if you you
00:40:20 --> 00:40:22 know Comet Atlas which is satellite of
00:40:22 --> 00:40:25 the Horizon is masquerading as mercury
00:40:25 --> 00:40:26 for the purposes of the current
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 discussion I guess giving is a number of
00:40:29 --> 00:40:30 things to see but if you really want to
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32 see all of them at once you're going to
00:40:32 --> 00:40:35 have to wait till A month's time and at
00:40:35 --> 00:40:37 that point Saturn and Mercury and Venus
00:40:37 --> 00:40:39 will be a fair bit lower to the Horizon
00:40:39 --> 00:40:41 a little bit hard at the spot but then
00:40:41 --> 00:40:43 you will be able to see all the naked
00:40:43 --> 00:40:45 eye planets all at once in the sky at
00:40:45 --> 00:40:46 the same time and then you'll go well
00:40:46 --> 00:40:48 the spread out over 180 degrees isn't
00:40:48 --> 00:40:49 that
00:40:49 --> 00:40:52 pretty yeah I definitely want to have a
00:40:53 --> 00:40:55 look at that uh and uh yeah we got
00:40:55 --> 00:40:57 plenty of time to do it so absolutely
00:40:57 --> 00:40:59 yeah fantastic all right uh thank you
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01 Johny as always don't forget if you
00:41:01 --> 00:41:03 would like to follow up on those stories
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05 you can do that in our show notes don't
00:41:05 --> 00:41:07 forget to visit us online at SPAC nuts
00:41:07 --> 00:41:09 podcast.com or SPAC
00:41:09 --> 00:41:13 nuts.i and check out our various Pages
00:41:13 --> 00:41:15 including our shop which is full of um
00:41:15 --> 00:41:17 all sorts of junk uh stuff uh really
00:41:17 --> 00:41:20 good stuff um that you can um take a
00:41:20 --> 00:41:23 peek at uh thanks Johnny as always uh
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 we'll catch you on the very next episode
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27 pleasure thanks for having me Johnny
00:41:27 --> 00:41:29 Horner professor of astrophysics
00:41:29 --> 00:41:32 standing in for Professor Fred Watson
00:41:32 --> 00:41:34 and thanks to here in the studio who
00:41:34 --> 00:41:36 didn't turn up today because he actually
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 got a free ticket on a spacecraft called
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42 ship and for me Andrew Dunley thanks for
00:41:42 --> 00:41:45 your company we'll see you on the next
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48 episode of Space Nuts until then byebye
00:41:49 --> 00:41:51 Space Nuts you'll be listening to the
00:41:51 --> 00:41:53 Space Nuts
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