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Space Nuts Episode 490: Origins of Life, Mars Missions, and Cosmic Distances
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner in this enlightening Q&A episode of Space Nuts , where they tackle some of your most pressing cosmic queries. From the origins of life on Earth to the challenges of traveling to Mars, and how we accurately measure distances in space, this episode is brimming with intriguing discussions that will expand your understanding of the universe.
Episode Highlights:
- Origins of Life: Christian shares his exciting research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exploring the origins of life and its implications for other planetary bodies. Andrew and Jonti discuss the significance of these findings and how they relate to the conditions necessary for life to emerge.
- Traveling to Mars : Rennie asks about the potential pitfalls of a Mars mission. Discover the realities of traversing the asteroid belt and the safety measures in place to ensure a successful journey to the Red Planet.
- Measuring Cosmic Distances : Lawrence raises a thought-provoking question about how astronomers judge distances in space, especially with the effects of gravitational lensing. Andrew and Jonti explain the distance ladder method used to measure astronomical distances and the challenges involved.
- Future of the James Webb Space Telescope : Lee inquires about the possibility of building additional James Webb Space Telescopes. Andrew and Jonti discuss the complexities of space telescope production and the exciting prospects for future astronomical missions.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/about (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/about)
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
00:00 - Introduction to the episode and questions
02:15 - Discussion on the origins of life and Christian's research
10:30 - Challenges of traveling to Mars and the asteroid belt
18:00 - How astronomers measure distances in space
26:45 - Future of the James Webb Space Telescope
30:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement
✍️ Episode References
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Astrobiology Research
James Webb Space Telescope
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Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/25275005?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 hi there thanks for joining us this is a
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 Q&A edition of Space Nuts my name is
00:00:04 --> 00:00:06 Andrew Dunley so good to have your
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 company coming up we are going to answer
00:00:09 --> 00:00:10 a question from Christian about the
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 origins of life we talked about that
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 sort of in the last episode well uh
00:00:16 --> 00:00:18 there's a question on the table from the
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 audience renie wants to know about the
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 pitfalls of traveling to Mars aside from
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 being you know next to Ill on mask uh
00:00:25 --> 00:00:27 there are other things to consider uh
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 Lawrence is asking how we judge
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 distances in space and Lee wants to know
00:00:33 --> 00:00:34 about whether or not there's a
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 possibility in the future of James web
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 space telescopes two and three that's
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 all coming up on this edition of Space
00:00:42 --> 00:00:47 Nuts 15 seconds guidance is internal 10
00:00:47 --> 00:00:52 9 ignition sequence start Space Nuts 5 4
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 3 2 2 5 4 3 2 Space Nuts as nuts
00:00:57 --> 00:01:01 reported feels good and in the stead of
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 Professor Fred Watson we are again
00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 joined by johy Horner professor of
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 astrophysics hi johy hey how are you
00:01:07 --> 00:01:11 going I am well good to see you again uh
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 we have got plenty of questions to
00:01:13 --> 00:01:15 answer they're all text questions today
00:01:15 --> 00:01:17 I I didn't get the audio questions in
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 time but we'll save them up for future
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 episodes um and we might as well get
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 straight into it shall we yeah all right
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 happy New Year I've been listening to
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 your podcast regularly for over five
00:01:29 --> 00:01:30 years now
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 well you know some people go to prison
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 you did that and it's been a source of
00:01:34 --> 00:01:38 inspiration for me in fact uh it partly
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 motivated the work I currently do which
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 is why I wanted to share some exciting
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 news with you uh We've finally published
00:01:46 --> 00:01:49 our findings in the proceedings of the
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 National Academy of Sciences uh our
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 study explores the origins of life and
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 argues for its significant implications
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 not only for Earth but for other
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 planetary bodies Across the Universe uh
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 I'd be thrilled to hear your thoughts on
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 it uh Fred's mentioned my colleague Juan
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 Manuel Garcia ru's earlier work a few
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 times on the podcast recently we
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 embarked on an exciting new project
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 collaborating with the exomars science
00:02:17 --> 00:02:21 team at the Euro European Space Agency
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 uh it's an incredibly stimulating area
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 of research and I hope it pequs your
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 interest and that comes from Christian
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 and forgive me if I mispronounced your
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 name Christian uh Jean wine or Jean
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 Wayne I hope you know I'm close but uh
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 I'm I'm kind of Gob smacked that um
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 listening to us kind of partially
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 inspired this work that that's I never
00:02:45 --> 00:02:49 thought I would see the day where um
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 something we did could lead to something
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 like that not directly but obviously you
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 know a few things we've said has um got
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 somebody thinking which is what we hope
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 to to achieve well absolutely it's
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 fabulous and yeah congratulations to
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 yourself and Fred by proy for motivating
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 and inspiring I think that's fabulous
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 and that's one of the real values of
00:03:11 --> 00:03:12 this kind of what before we dive into
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 the awesome paper here one of the
00:03:15 --> 00:03:16 important things with podcasts like this
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 with TV shows with astronomy Outreach in
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 general or astrobiology Outreach is you
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 don't know where it's going to end but
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 people get inspired and I wouldn't be
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 here if it wasn't for Patrick Mo doing
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 the sky at night back when I was a kid
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 yeah and it's fabulous to see that
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 impact and that you know just yeah
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 genuinely huge cudos to you and Fred for
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 having such fabulous podcast and clearly
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 going out and inspiring people so that's
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 fabulous and it's lovely to hear this
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 story now the article itself is on um
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 pnas which is as it says the proceedings
00:03:48 --> 00:03:51 of the National Academy of
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 Sciences the challenge with that and
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 certainly I'd quite happily recommend
00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 people have a look at the paper but one
00:03:56 --> 00:03:57 of the challenges when you publish in a
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 journal as prestigious as that is that
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 papers have to be very short and concise
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 which sometimes makes them harder to
00:04:04 --> 00:04:07 dive into and I think the authors here
00:04:07 --> 00:04:08 have done a very good job of dealing
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 with that but it is a slightly
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 challenging read if you're not banging
00:04:13 --> 00:04:14 the discipline but I've had read through
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 it and it's a fabulous piece of work and
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 really really interesting so what
00:04:18 --> 00:04:22 they've done is building on a really
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 fabulous history called the MRI
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 experiments this was the idea that
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 people are fascinated with how life gots
00:04:29 --> 00:04:33 started and way back in time there was
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 this experiment done which essentially
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 attempted to bottle the atmosphere that
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 the early Earth had and then pass
00:04:40 --> 00:04:41 electricity through it essentially
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 simulating lightning and UV exposure on
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 that early atmosphere and it showed that
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 you could get some kind of Prebiotic
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 chemicals forming from a very simple
00:04:50 --> 00:04:52 atmosphere in those kind of conditions
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 so it became very much a touchstone of
00:04:54 --> 00:04:55 early
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 astrobiology went out of fashion for a
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 while because people argued that the
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 early Earth was like that but recent
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 Studies have shown that those kind of
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 conditions probably were around were
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 important this work then kind of Builds
00:05:07 --> 00:05:08 on that they've done a similar
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 experiment with a much more modern and
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 much more nuanced setup and looked at
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 the results in a lot more detail than
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 could have been done all that time ago
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 and what's really interesting is again
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 with a really simple setup they get
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 quite a complex stew of different
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 ingredients forming you get this layer
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 of stuff floating on top of the water
00:05:28 --> 00:05:29 essentially but they've dug into that
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 and what they found that is that in that
00:05:32 --> 00:05:37 watery layer there is this what they
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 almost describ as protoc celes globules
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 that are quite small that are spheres
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 with a membrane that are possibly hollow
00:05:44 --> 00:05:48 inside that could be you know Prebiotic
00:05:48 --> 00:05:49 chemical factories essentially the
00:05:49 --> 00:05:51 places where chemistry can happen in
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 really interesting
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 ways that's really interesting and
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 they're talking about these biomorphic
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 Proto cells now there's positives and
00:06:00 --> 00:06:01 negatives to this so one of the
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 negatives from this research is that
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 when people look for evidence of the
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 earliest life on Earth or in future when
00:06:08 --> 00:06:08 they're looking for evidence in the
00:06:09 --> 00:06:10 earliest Life on Mars what are the
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 things they'd look for of these kind of
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 protocells things that are a precursor
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 to the cells of life we know and the
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 argument has always been that these are
00:06:20 --> 00:06:21 separate to the formation of the
00:06:21 --> 00:06:22 compounds and therefore they could be
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 seen as a discret bit of evidence of the
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 start of the origin of life and what
00:06:27 --> 00:06:29 this work is saying is that these can
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 should be something that forms concomly
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 that's the phrase is in the title forms
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 at the same time as those Prebiotic
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 chemicals so finding these globules is
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 not necessarily evidence that life has
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 begun but rather that the conditions
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 needed for life were there so it's maybe
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 saying when you look back at the
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 historical record this is not a
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 definitive sign of Life necessarily but
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 maystead be a sign that of the
00:06:54 --> 00:06:55 conditions for life to been develop in
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 the future so that's a little bit sad
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 but on the flip side
00:07:00 --> 00:07:01 what it's showing is that these
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 conditions where you can start to get
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 the conditions needed for life to start
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 could be quite widely distributed
00:07:07 --> 00:07:08 because this was is fairly simple these
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 are the kind of conditions you could get
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 on planets across the cosmos with
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 similar conditions to the Earth so the
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 other outcome from this is that this
00:07:17 --> 00:07:18 thing that sets the scene for the
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 emergence of life could be more common
00:07:21 --> 00:07:22 than people think that places where
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 you've got oceans and atmospheres like
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 this could get these protocells these
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 globules that act as accelerators
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 incubators for advanced
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 chemistry that could be more common
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 through the cosmos and therefore the
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 scope for finding life out there could
00:07:39 --> 00:07:40 be greater than we thought so it's a
00:07:40 --> 00:07:42 really interesting piece of work and I
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 think the way that the balance the
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 positive and negative outcomes is really
00:07:45 --> 00:07:49 quite cool now it is quite a complex
00:07:49 --> 00:07:50 paper to read because of the nature of
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 having to be condensed for this very
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 prestigious Journal but the results are
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 fabulous and if you do get on to it and
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 have a look at it the entire
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 presentation is available online and
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 some of the figures are beautiful some
00:08:02 --> 00:08:03 of the images that they've got showing
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 the globules and the microscopic
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 structures they've got a really
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 beautiful and it's the kind of thing
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 that you almost wish that back when Yuri
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 and Miller were doing their experiment
00:08:13 --> 00:08:14 originally we could have had that same
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 quality of imagery and results to go
00:08:17 --> 00:08:18 back and look at so I think it's an
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 absolutely fabulous piece of work and
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 I'm really interested to see where it
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 goes next and how people react and
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 interact with it in other words what
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 research does it spawn next are we
00:08:29 --> 00:08:30 actually going to get to the point where
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 we get a distinct idea of where life
00:08:32 --> 00:08:36 began and also what the difference
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 between life and not life is there's
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 still not really a hard and fast
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 definition of when something is life and
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 when it isn't yeah which always makes my
00:08:44 --> 00:08:45 head hurt I'm an astronomer I'm not a
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 biologist and I remember at one of the
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 early astrobiology conferences I went to
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 talking about life and Sly mentioned
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 viruses and all the biologists said oh
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 no viruses aren't alive and that's
00:08:57 --> 00:08:58 totally contrary to my understanding as
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 a lay person
00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 you know as a generalist as an
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 astronomer I was Gob smacked but
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 apparently by most biological
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 definitions a virus is not alive and I
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 don't understand how that works now it's
00:09:10 --> 00:09:11 again back to that old carot about
00:09:12 --> 00:09:13 you've actually got a spectrum from
00:09:13 --> 00:09:14 definitely not life to definitely is
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 life and we have to put the dividing
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 line somewhere but I don't know that
00:09:19 --> 00:09:20 there's a consensus on that yet and that
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 kind of feeds into this as well in that
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 this kind of work might help people
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 figure out that process and therefore
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 help them put a line on this is where
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 consider it to be alive versus not
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 essentially so yeah fabulous work and
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 even better I guess even more
00:09:35 --> 00:09:36 inspirational given the links to the
00:09:36 --> 00:09:37 podcast in the past I think that's
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 fabulous yeah I I'm chuffed I'm really I
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 mean Fred does most of the talking I but
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 I have always argued that the recipe for
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 Life exists everywhere you've just got
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 to have it um you know all put together
00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 properly and have the right oven to make
00:09:53 --> 00:09:57 it happen and um I I've always believed
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 that when when you look at how life
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 flourishes on Earth how a weed can find
00:10:02 --> 00:10:06 the the slightest crack and grow yeah I
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 mean it stands to reason that life could
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 flourish anywhere in the universe if the
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 conditions are right because we have
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 learned that the the the building blocks
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 of life all the bits and Bobs that we
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 need to to to to establish life exist
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 they're flying around the universe as we
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 speak um so it's not a giant
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 leap uh um to consider that you know if
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 if it hits something that's exactly
00:10:34 --> 00:10:38 right boom you've got life somewhere
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 else uh I I don't doubt it exists now it
00:10:41 --> 00:10:45 might not be Life as we know it um um
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 and as you said what is life anyway that
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 uh the same question that the great
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 George Harrison asked and um we yeah
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 there is no real definition of what
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 constitutes life how do how do you uh
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 you know when was a kid I had a pet rock
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 could have been alive you don't
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 yeah uh where do you draw the
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 line real EST set out there as well so
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 it's not like you're limited in space
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 we've got an incredible volume of space
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 an incredible depth of time and what's
00:11:15 --> 00:11:16 always sh me is interesting is the
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 division between those who believe that
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 life won't be out there and those who
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 will and I saw this when I'm one of the
00:11:23 --> 00:11:24 members of the committee of the
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 astrobiology Society of Great Britain
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 even though I left the country 15 years
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 ago now but there's an active
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 astrobiology Community there and I first
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 started going to conferences with them
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 more than 20 years ago now and
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 astrobiology conferences are wonderful
00:11:38 --> 00:11:39 things because they're so
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 multidisciplinary so you've got learning
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 in areas that you wouldn't normally
00:11:43 --> 00:11:44 encounter where you learn something new
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 you've also got kind of sociological
00:11:46 --> 00:11:47 learning of the way that different
00:11:47 --> 00:11:50 disciplines present you know different
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 disciplines have different color schemes
00:11:52 --> 00:11:53 which I'd never thought of you know I've
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 been to Talks by geologists that were
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 pink texts on a pale blue background
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 which made my eyes bleed but you know
00:11:59 --> 00:12:00 you get these differences there but one
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 of the things that struck me early on
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 was that the people involved in
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 astrobiology from the biology side were
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 nearly all very young researchers really
00:12:09 --> 00:12:10 passionate and excited but because the
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 senior biologists were convinced that
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 life was impossible and they thought
00:12:14 --> 00:12:15 that the search life elsewhere was a
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 Fool's errand that you just couldn't
00:12:18 --> 00:12:19 have
00:12:19 --> 00:12:23 life now if you think that the Earth is
00:12:23 --> 00:12:24 the only place in the universe with life
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 which you know we've got a sample of one
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 so that is still possible but you have
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 to assume that life is so incredibly
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 impo impossible that we a flick if you
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 make life even slightly more probable
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 than that even if it is not impossible
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 just but just vanishingly improbable
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 because there is so much real estate
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 because there are so many planets around
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 so many stars in so many galaxies even
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 if life is vanishingly improbable it
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 must be everywhere it just might not be
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 close enough for us to find and that
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 divide is really Stark and it's a
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 philosophical one because we have no
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 evidence either way it becomes almost a
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 belief structure people believe that we
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 must be alone or people are convinced
00:13:03 --> 00:13:04 that we're not and the only way we'll
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 find out is by looking and by doing this
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 kind of work and I would love to think
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 that within our lifetimes we'll know the
00:13:10 --> 00:13:14 answer one one can only hope yes uh if
00:13:14 --> 00:13:18 you would like to find that paper um
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 it's at um pnas.org pen.org oh that
00:13:22 --> 00:13:27 didn't sound good uh and uh yeah it's um
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 it it's uh
00:13:30 --> 00:13:33 this it's a long title but um it it
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 isant concomittant formation of
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 protocells and Prebiotic compounds on
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 rep plausible early Earth atmosphere
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 there you are uh and and yeah it's not a
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 long raate but it is uh yeah it can make
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 your brain hurt but uh most scientific
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 papers tend to do that but uh yeah and
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 and thanks Christian for letting us know
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 and and telling us that we had a a tiny
00:13:55 --> 00:13:58 part to play in the development of your
00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 work that that really excites me and um
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 I'll I'll make sure Fred's aware and he
00:14:02 --> 00:14:03 might want to talk about that when he
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 gets back uh to our next question uh
00:14:08 --> 00:14:10 this one comes from uh who is it it's
00:14:10 --> 00:14:14 from reny who is in um Southern uh Sunny
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 West Hills
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 California um renie tends to ask very
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 short sharp questions on a mission to
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 Mars would a spaceship Traverse through
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 the asteroid belt or would it travel
00:14:25 --> 00:14:29 above or below the belt yes really good
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 question now the asro belt as everybody
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 imagines it is between the orbits of
00:14:34 --> 00:14:35 Mars and Jupiter so when we're going to
00:14:35 --> 00:14:38 Mars we're still closer to the Sun than
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 the asro belt is so you're not really
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 going to be traversing the belt anyway
00:14:42 --> 00:14:46 however Mars is such a tiny puny planet
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 with fairly weak gravity and sorry Mars
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 but it's true that the in edge of the
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 Astro belt basically almost overlaps
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 with Mars's orbit and asteroids do cross
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 Mars's orbit all the time Ms therefore
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 gets hit more often than we do
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 fortunately Space is really really
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 really big and there's a experiment you
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 can do that demonstrates this so if
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 you've watched great movies like Star
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 Wars you've got asro belts in there as a
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 refuge for the brave heroic enemies of
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 society and you know being chased by the
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 baddies they fly into the astroid belt
00:15:18 --> 00:15:19 and they have to dodge and weave to get
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 through and of course the baddies fail
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 terribly crash into things and we chair
00:15:24 --> 00:15:25 because at heart we're all horrible
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 individuals but that's what happens so
00:15:28 --> 00:15:30 they kind a cultural tick from that is
00:15:30 --> 00:15:31 that we imagine Astro belts has been
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 incredibly densely packed with material
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 now if the Astro belt was like that you
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 could go out tonight or any night of the
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 year and look up and the plane of the
00:15:40 --> 00:15:45 Sol system would have a band quite broad
00:15:45 --> 00:15:48 of the sky from Horizon to Horizon where
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 you see no stars where you cannot see
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 Jupiter when you cannot see Saturn
00:15:53 --> 00:15:54 because there's an asteroid in the way
00:15:54 --> 00:15:55 because every line of sight would hit an
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 asteroid and that would be glowing
00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 grayish because it'd be reflecting
00:15:59 --> 00:16:00 sunlight back to
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 us that would be how the sky looks the
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 reality is that you don't see the
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 asteroid belt you need a telescope or
00:16:08 --> 00:16:11 binocular to see individual asteroids
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 but to have an asteroid pass in front of
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 a star and block its light to have an
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 occultation is a sufficiently unusual
00:16:18 --> 00:16:19 event that astronomers will travel
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 across the world to set up in the shadow
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 of the asteroid to get data that tells
00:16:24 --> 00:16:25 you how big it is what its shape is by
00:16:26 --> 00:16:27 the shape of that shadow as it moves
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 across the Earth what that tells you is
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 that space is mostly empty the fact that
00:16:33 --> 00:16:34 it is so rare that one of these Ash
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 roads lines up with a star is telling
00:16:37 --> 00:16:38 you that essentially you're going to be
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 fairly safe traveling through the ashro
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 belt when you talk about there being
00:16:42 --> 00:16:43 more than a million objects bigger than
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 a kilometer across you think space must
00:16:46 --> 00:16:48 be papped but in actuality that belt is
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 so sparsely populated these days that if
00:16:51 --> 00:16:52 you were ever to be stood on the surface
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 of an asteroid and you weren't having to
00:16:55 --> 00:16:56 worry about how you get home or what
00:16:56 --> 00:16:57 you're going to breathe if you're stood
00:16:58 --> 00:16:59 on the surface of that as
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 very few other asteroids will be near
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 enough to see with your un eded eye
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 space is that big the way that you can
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 evidence that I guess is the fact we
00:17:08 --> 00:17:09 sent all these missions to the outer
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 planets and not one US Comm AC Cropper
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 but also when those missions want to
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 visit an asteroid for a bit of added
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 value they've got to be very careful in
00:17:17 --> 00:17:18 picking their trajectory to get near
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 enough to see something because space is
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 pretty big so in terms of this question
00:17:23 --> 00:17:25 for Mission to Mars there is debris in
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 the inner Sol system that you'd want to
00:17:27 --> 00:17:28 be aware of but you can basically just
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 pick your path and go the odds of you
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 intersecting an asteroid are pretty much
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 non-existent very very small smaller
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 debris may be but the bigger you get the
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 less stuff there is even going to the
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 outer solar system you just go through
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 you don't need to go above or below
00:17:45 --> 00:17:46 which is fortunate because the orbits of
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 the asteroids are quite puffed up you'll
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 get up to 30 or even 45 degree tilts
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 before the asteroid belt starts to wear
00:17:53 --> 00:17:55 and so that means you'd have to go very
00:17:55 --> 00:17:56 very high to get up and then get back
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 down again a lot easier to go straight
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 through yeah yeah uh and as you said um
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 nothing's hit one yet that we've set out
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 there so yeah there's plenty of room to
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 move through and as you said uh space is
00:18:09 --> 00:18:10 Big you might think it's a long way down
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 the street to the chemist to quite a a
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 famous book but um yes space is huge uh
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 thanks renie great to hear from you this
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunley and
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 John de
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 Horner time to take a short break to
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00:20:25 --> 00:20:28 won't be disappointed now back to the
00:20:28 --> 00:20:29 show
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 and I feel fine Space Nuts well it's not
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 Professor Fred Watson at the moment it's
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 Professor jonty Horner Fred's away and
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 that means the mice can play
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 jonty uh let's go to our next question
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 hi your chaps Lawrence from London
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 England here I have a question about how
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 we map the night sky and judge distances
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 accurately specifically how can we make
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 any kind of objective claim regarding
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 the distance and positions of particular
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 stars or planets uh when we know effects
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 like gravitational lensing can actively
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 disconnect what we see with what is
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 actually out there it seems that without
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 any sort of unaffected control against
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 which we make these judgments it's not
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 all U some giant if not educated uh
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 guessing game apologies if I've missed
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 something incredibly obvious here love
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 the Pod uh listen to it every day and uh
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 to and from work and congratulations
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 Fred on the big step in your career
00:21:27 --> 00:21:30 you're an INSP ation to all jez chaps
00:21:30 --> 00:21:31 all the best that's another one I'll
00:21:31 --> 00:21:36 have to send to Fred uh but um yes um
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 yeah measuring things in space how do we
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 get it right how do we uh compensate for
00:21:41 --> 00:21:42 gravitational
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 lensing um I think we've had similar
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 questions in the past but it's always
00:21:46 --> 00:21:48 good to revisit these things absolutely
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 and it's a good question and we actually
00:21:50 --> 00:21:51 cover a lot of this when we teach
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 astronomy so I've taught this I've gone
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 through it and it is true that the
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 distances you get are not per perfectly
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 precise so we can't say that an object 4
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 million light years away is exactly 4
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 million there'll be an uncertainty with
00:22:08 --> 00:22:10 that but the way that we've got the
00:22:10 --> 00:22:14 distances worked out is a series of
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 different runs on a ladder that's how
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 it's often described the distance ladder
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 and there are different techniques we
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 can use that find objects that are more
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 easy to spot but are rarer So within our
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 solar system it's it took a long time
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 but people got the distances worked out
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 there were clever experiments that went
00:22:33 --> 00:22:35 on all the way back to the 1600s and
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 even earlier trying to estimate the
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 scale of the solar system famously o
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 Roma back in the 1670s I believe it was
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 did some cool experiments trying to
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 measure the speed of light looking at
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter and
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53 in order to measure the speed of light
00:22:53 --> 00:22:55 he had to have an implicit understanding
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 of the scale of the universe or at least
00:22:57 --> 00:23:00 a scale Loc in the solar system in order
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 to make that happen and that scale the
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 distance of the planets from the Sun had
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 got relatively well established by them
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 than to clever observations using
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 trigonometry and using little bits of
00:23:12 --> 00:23:14 things like trigonometric Parallax now
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 parala is going to become quite
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 important so within the solar system
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 once you've got your ruler worked out if
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 you know the orbital period of an object
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 you know it's semi- major axis which is
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 the scale of its orbit we also by
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 observing from different locations can
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 get quite a good immediate measurement
00:23:33 --> 00:23:34 of the distance even to things we've
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 only just discovered If You observe from
00:23:37 --> 00:23:38 two different sides of the planet you'll
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 see the thing move a little bit against
00:23:40 --> 00:23:41 the background stars and that gives you
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 a distance now that technique that idea
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 of pamps comes in really important to
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 measure the distance to the nearest
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50 stars and this is what people were doing
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 by the early 1800s you've got people
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 like Johan Friedrich Bessel were doing
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 this way before the days of optical
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 obser of photographic observing should I
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 say this is all Optical with the eye but
00:24:02 --> 00:24:04 they were taking very precise
00:24:04 --> 00:24:06 measurements of stars against a
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07 background stars using the biggest
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 telescopes of the
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 day and they use this technique called
00:24:11 --> 00:24:13 trigonometric paralax now if you're
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 driving while listening to the podcast
00:24:15 --> 00:24:16 don't do this but if you sat somewhere
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 safe you can do this as an experiment
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 actually see how it works so if you put
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 your finger up in front of your face and
00:24:22 --> 00:24:23 close your right eye and look where your
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 finger is against the background then
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 open your right eye and close the left
00:24:27 --> 00:24:28 you'll see your finger move against the
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 background y the closer your finger to
00:24:31 --> 00:24:32 your face the bigger the
00:24:32 --> 00:24:34 movement so that's trigonometric
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 Parallax and it's part of how our brains
00:24:37 --> 00:24:38 help us do things like catch a ball that
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 surround to us we get a sense of depth
00:24:41 --> 00:24:43 perception now what I want you to
00:24:43 --> 00:24:45 imagine is that without killing you or
00:24:45 --> 00:24:46 causing you pain I'm able to separate
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 your eyes and instead of them being a
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 couple of inches apart make them 300
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 million kilometers apart so I'm putting
00:24:53 --> 00:24:54 them on one side of the Earth around the
00:24:54 --> 00:24:56 Sun and then the other that gives you a
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58 much bigger Baseline and that Baseline
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 is enough that nearby Stars when you
00:25:00 --> 00:25:02 look at them through a telescope will
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 appear to move against the background
00:25:04 --> 00:25:05 stars in just the same way that your
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 finger does when you look from the left
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 eye and the right eye so that gives us a
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 way to measure the distance to those
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 Stars so long as we know the distance
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 that the Earth has moved that's the
00:25:15 --> 00:25:16 distance of the Earth from the Sun so if
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 we know the size of the Baseline we know
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 the angle that the Stars moving through
00:25:21 --> 00:25:23 fairly simple trigonometry allows you to
00:25:23 --> 00:25:25 calculate the distance and that gives us
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 the distance to the nearest stars and
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 the better your tell up the better your
00:25:29 --> 00:25:31 facility the more accurately you can
00:25:31 --> 00:25:32 measure that which is why the guia
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 mission at the minute is so incredible
00:25:35 --> 00:25:36 the guia mission is a spacecraft
00:25:36 --> 00:25:38 floating around out there in space with
00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 an incredibly precise camera that is
00:25:41 --> 00:25:43 among many other things measuring the
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 parats and the proper motion of about
00:25:45 --> 00:25:49 two billion with a B two billion stars
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 that's depend depending on the number
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 you estimate a half a percent to 1% of
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 all stars in our galaxy will be able to
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59 have their distance measured by this
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 spacecraft but eventually things get so
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 far away that you can't use paradilla
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 anymore they just move too little for
00:26:05 --> 00:26:07 you to measure it how then do you get
00:26:07 --> 00:26:09 the distance to the next subject well
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 you go back to the early
00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 1900s and you had a great astronomer I
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 think it was henrieta levit who did this
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 fabulous fabulous work as one of the
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 calculators one of the astronomers at a
00:26:22 --> 00:26:25 great American Observatory and she was
00:26:25 --> 00:26:26 looking at photographic plates of the
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 large melanic cloud which is one of our
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 satellite galaxies and studying them and
00:26:31 --> 00:26:33 what she realized was that there was a
00:26:33 --> 00:26:36 group of variable Stars which we call
00:26:36 --> 00:26:38 the seid variables after Delta sephi
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 which is the brightest one in the sky
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 that were all varying periodically they
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 were getting brighter and fainter but
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 the stars that were the same brightness
00:26:48 --> 00:26:49 that were varying this way also varied
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 with the same period now because all
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 these stars were in the same galaxy a
00:26:53 --> 00:26:55 long way away they were essentially at
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 the same distance the size of that
00:26:57 --> 00:26:59 Galaxy comp compared to its distance is
00:26:59 --> 00:27:00 quite small so all the starsu was
00:27:00 --> 00:27:02 studying in that field of view in that
00:27:02 --> 00:27:04 Galaxy were effectively the same
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 distance ah so the stars that looked
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 fenter actually were fenter and the
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 stars that looked brighter actually were
00:27:11 --> 00:27:13 intrinsically brighter and what she
00:27:13 --> 00:27:15 found was that there was a relationship
00:27:15 --> 00:27:17 between the period of these oscillations
00:27:17 --> 00:27:18 and the
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 brightness which is brilliant what that
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 means is if you see a star oscillating
00:27:22 --> 00:27:25 in this way and you measure its period
00:27:25 --> 00:27:29 you know intrinsically how bright it is
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 and you know how bright it is in the sky
00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 so that allows you to work out its
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 distance there's an equation we can use
00:27:35 --> 00:27:36 which allows you to compare the true
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 brightness and The observed brightness
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 so that gives you an independent measure
00:27:41 --> 00:27:42 of distance that tells you which of
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 these stars are closer or further away
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 across the sky but you need to calibrate
00:27:46 --> 00:27:49 that you can say that one star is closer
00:27:49 --> 00:27:50 than another but until you know the
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 distance of one of the Stars that's not
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 really useful but fortunately the very
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 closest of these seped variable Stars
00:27:58 --> 00:27:59 are close enough to also measure the
00:27:59 --> 00:28:02 distance with padal apps so that gives
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 you a way to quantify the scale now
00:28:05 --> 00:28:06 these are quite Bright Stars so you can
00:28:06 --> 00:28:09 even see them nearby galaxies so that
00:28:09 --> 00:28:10 gives you another rung on the distance
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13 ladder and you can see these Stars you
00:28:13 --> 00:28:14 can spot them you can measure their
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 variability which tells you how luminous
00:28:17 --> 00:28:18 they are how intrinsically bright they
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 are and you can measure how bright they
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 appear and use that to get the distance
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 and that gets you out a bit further but
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 then again they get too faint you can't
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29 see them but there are some types of
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 supernova explosion that it turns out
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 are very very regular in their Peak
00:28:34 --> 00:28:36 Luminosity how much light they give off
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 so if you see a supernova behav in a
00:28:39 --> 00:28:40 certain way can identify it's one of
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 these kind of supern noi then that tells
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 you you know exactly how luminous it got
00:28:45 --> 00:28:46 and once again you can measure the
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 brightness as we see it put the two
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 together to get the distance with those
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 we can use a seid variables to set the
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 standard these standard candles you can
00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 get the distance of supern noi and that
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 gives you your distance scale so there
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 are other ladders other rungs on this
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 ladder but that's the essential way it
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 works now it's not perfect there are
00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 uncertainties that accumulate as you go
00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 further and further away so the more
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 distant something is from us the larger
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 the uncertainty on its distance will be
00:29:19 --> 00:29:20 so for objects in the solar system we
00:29:20 --> 00:29:22 know the distances with Incredible
00:29:22 --> 00:29:23 accuracy nowaday particularly for the
00:29:23 --> 00:29:26 objects we've studied really well the
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 nearest Stars again we know that very
00:29:28 --> 00:29:31 very accurately but not as precisely as
00:29:31 --> 00:29:32 we know the distance to the objects in
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 the solar system and the further you go
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 the bigger the uncertainty the bigger
00:29:37 --> 00:29:38 the error gets on the measurement
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 compared to the measurement itself now
00:29:40 --> 00:29:42 all of these things like gravitational
00:29:42 --> 00:29:45 lensing and stuff like that interfere
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 for some objects in some
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 locations but they're not the end of the
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 world because they're a small subset of
00:29:51 --> 00:29:53 the objects and there are small effect
00:29:53 --> 00:29:55 on the total of it so if you've got and
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57 this is getting a bit further from my
00:29:57 --> 00:29:58 personal area that's expertise but if
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 you've got a distant Galaxy that is
00:30:00 --> 00:30:01 lensed by a foreground
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 object the distance along the different
00:30:04 --> 00:30:05 light paths is still going to be very
00:30:05 --> 00:30:07 similar to it coming direct you're only
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 deviating by a couple of degrees off
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 that line and then getting bent back so
00:30:12 --> 00:30:13 even if that lights had to travel a
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 little bit further the uncertainty is
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 still within all the other uncertainties
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 there so that's a part of the story as
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 well and we can observe these things now
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24 one of the nice things is for some of
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 the really extremely distant things that
00:30:26 --> 00:30:28 are lensed that lensing gives us A
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 Brighter Image than we would get if the
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 thing in the forground wasn't there
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 which has allowed people to observe
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 these Supernova and them to help give an
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 independent confirmation of their
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 extreme distances you've also had a
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 couple of qu occasion I believe where
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 you've got these fragmented lensed
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 images these beautiful things you see in
00:30:46 --> 00:30:48 some of the asro photos from things like
00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 Hubble we've got a distant Galaxy with a
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 lens in the foreground and you've got
00:30:52 --> 00:30:55 multiple images of the same galaxy and I
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57 believe that s to be corrected on this
00:30:57 --> 00:30:59 that there has been a case at least once
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 where a supernova has been seen in the
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 different fragments of the lens coming
00:31:03 --> 00:31:04 at slightly different times because the
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 light paths are different lenss so we
00:31:07 --> 00:31:09 can even see the differences in the
00:31:09 --> 00:31:11 distance for the different images
00:31:11 --> 00:31:14 because of the asymmetry in the lens
00:31:14 --> 00:31:15 fact that it's not perfectly centered
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 essentially so there's a lot we can dig
00:31:17 --> 00:31:19 into there and if you want to know more
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 about it searching you know the kind of
00:31:21 --> 00:31:23 Galactic distance scale the you know the
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 distance ladder looking up SEF with
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 variables and the story of the um
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30 incredible scientists in the early 1900s
00:31:30 --> 00:31:33 the women who worked there under this
00:31:33 --> 00:31:34 remarkable science is well worth looking
00:31:35 --> 00:31:36 into as well you've got people like
00:31:36 --> 00:31:39 Henry to levit Annie Jump camon who did
00:31:39 --> 00:31:40 similar work at the same Institute at
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42 the time these kind of overlooked Heroes
00:31:42 --> 00:31:44 of astronomy that did absolutely
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 astonishing work and led to this
00:31:47 --> 00:31:49 knowledge that we have
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 now wow um there go Lawrence I bet you
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 didn't expect that answer but uh you've
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 got plenty to work with so uh off you go
00:31:57 --> 00:31:59 do your home work and get back to us
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 when you've got when you've got another
00:32:01 --> 00:32:05 follow-up question but yeah uh it
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 um yeah I mean it's a great explanation
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 and there's a lot more to it than meets
00:32:11 --> 00:32:15 the eye bom
00:32:15 --> 00:32:21 bom Space Nuts um one final question and
00:32:21 --> 00:32:25 this one comes from Lee I'm listening to
00:32:25 --> 00:32:26 the episode discussing the 9 to1
00:32:26 --> 00:32:29 subscription rate the James web space
00:32:29 --> 00:32:33 telescopes time I understand that jwst
00:32:33 --> 00:32:36 costs a few dollars but um surely most
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 of the cost was in uh tooling
00:32:39 --> 00:32:42 Contracting Etc wouldn't NASA have
00:32:42 --> 00:32:44 contract options to build additional
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 systems such as in the event of a launch
00:32:47 --> 00:32:49 failure since the tooling and such is
00:32:49 --> 00:32:52 already made and the science value is so
00:32:52 --> 00:32:55 high would they ever consider consider
00:32:55 --> 00:32:57 building James web space telescopes to
00:32:57 --> 00:33:01 and three just seems logical to buy in B
00:33:01 --> 00:33:03 keep up the good work she's Lee uh I
00:33:04 --> 00:33:05 think when Fred and I were first talking
00:33:05 --> 00:33:09 about James web um we we talked about
00:33:09 --> 00:33:10 the fact that they had to get this
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 absolutely right first go because there
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 was no going back if they made a mistake
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 so that may well help answer the
00:33:17 --> 00:33:20 question from Lee but uh your thoughts
00:33:20 --> 00:33:23 jonty there aren't any plans at the
00:33:23 --> 00:33:26 minute for jwsc Mark I Mark II um it's
00:33:26 --> 00:33:29 interesting when you go back to Hubble
00:33:29 --> 00:33:32 but the US military has spare hubbles
00:33:32 --> 00:33:34 lying around so there's great great
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 Observatory coming online in a few years
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 time when it gets launched um Nancy
00:33:38 --> 00:33:41 Grace Roman telescope I think it is that
00:33:41 --> 00:33:44 has its origin in the fact that Hub
00:33:44 --> 00:33:45 space telescopes are now all technology
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 for the military so NASA got approached
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 apparently and told oh by the way we've
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 got three or four spare hubbles lying
00:33:51 --> 00:33:54 around could you use them um and the
00:33:54 --> 00:33:55 ones that the military were using
00:33:55 --> 00:33:56 obviously point in a different direction
00:33:57 --> 00:33:58 because they look down rather than
00:33:58 --> 00:34:01 looking up I don't think that's the same
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04 story with jwst and part of the issue
00:34:04 --> 00:34:06 here as well is a development time um
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 jwsc famously launched about 20 years
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 after it was initially scheduled to and
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 the first discussions the first planning
00:34:13 --> 00:34:16 for jwsd was actually in the 1980s and
00:34:16 --> 00:34:18 it took until 2021 for it to get
00:34:18 --> 00:34:20 launched that's really challenging and
00:34:20 --> 00:34:22 there is nothing in the pipeline to do
00:34:22 --> 00:34:25 it now the idea of having the production
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 line is something that's become Rel for
00:34:28 --> 00:34:31 smaller telescopes we at unq have this
00:34:31 --> 00:34:32 fabulous Observatory Mount Kent
00:34:32 --> 00:34:34 Observatory where we've got a dedicated
00:34:34 --> 00:34:36 facility for finding and characterizing
00:34:36 --> 00:34:39 planets around the stars and we're able
00:34:39 --> 00:34:41 to do that on a university scale budget
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43 with our collaborators because for
00:34:43 --> 00:34:45 smaller telescopes there are now
00:34:45 --> 00:34:47 companies who produce these things on a
00:34:47 --> 00:34:48 production line and we're having
00:34:48 --> 00:34:50 essentially the Model T Ford revolution
00:34:50 --> 00:34:53 in telescopes where for small telescopes
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 people and not and by small telescopes
00:34:55 --> 00:34:57 here I'm talking telescopes with mirrors
00:34:57 --> 00:34:59 that are 7 ctim or a meter across so
00:34:59 --> 00:35:00 they're still a lot bigger than your
00:35:00 --> 00:35:03 typical backyard scale but they're small
00:35:03 --> 00:35:05 compared to jwsc or compared to the ver
00:35:05 --> 00:35:08 ruin Observatory things like that yeah
00:35:08 --> 00:35:10 and there is sufficient demand from the
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12 military from commercial interests from
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 astronomers and from amateur astronomers
00:35:15 --> 00:35:17 that it's now sufficiently profitable
00:35:17 --> 00:35:18 for companies to do these things on a
00:35:18 --> 00:35:21 production line and what that's led to
00:35:21 --> 00:35:22 is a dropping the cost of these
00:35:22 --> 00:35:24 telescopes of an order of magnitude
00:35:24 --> 00:35:28 which lets us build these bespoke observ
00:35:28 --> 00:35:30 that are tasked with a single task to do
00:35:30 --> 00:35:33 a single thing the problem is that that
00:35:33 --> 00:35:36 production line thing is okay for
00:35:36 --> 00:35:39 telescopes at a 7 cm or a meter across
00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 it's not telescopes at The Cutting Edge
00:35:41 --> 00:35:44 of the biggest in the world the most
00:35:44 --> 00:35:45 complex in the world these are
00:35:45 --> 00:35:46 relatively simple
00:35:47 --> 00:35:50 telescopes there is no motivation as far
00:35:50 --> 00:35:53 as I can tell it's not a good Financial
00:35:53 --> 00:35:54 thing to say we're going to build a
00:35:54 --> 00:35:56 production line for jwss because it's
00:35:56 --> 00:35:58 just not the market for that them the
00:35:58 --> 00:36:00 cost is so high the use case is so small
00:36:00 --> 00:36:01 I'd love there to be nine out there but
00:36:01 --> 00:36:03 I would lay odds that if there were nine
00:36:03 --> 00:36:05 JW SDS they would still be over
00:36:05 --> 00:36:07 subscribed by 9 to1 because there's just
00:36:07 --> 00:36:09 so much science that we want to get done
00:36:09 --> 00:36:12 the focus is on the next generation of
00:36:12 --> 00:36:13 telescopes there a Vera Rubin
00:36:13 --> 00:36:15 Observatory coming online in the next
00:36:15 --> 00:36:17 year or two that'll see first light that
00:36:17 --> 00:36:19 will revolutionize astronomy I'm really
00:36:19 --> 00:36:21 excited about that and that's
00:36:21 --> 00:36:24 groundbased but that's an 8.3 M diameter
00:36:24 --> 00:36:27 primary mirror but a a incredibly
00:36:27 --> 00:36:29 incredible fast photographic lens so
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31 it'll have it's like having a really
00:36:31 --> 00:36:33 fast lens on your camera but it been 8.3
00:36:33 --> 00:36:36 me across that will let people survey
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 the entire Sky once a week down to
00:36:39 --> 00:36:41 magnitude 20 which is about a billion
00:36:41 --> 00:36:43 times fenter than the human eye can see
00:36:43 --> 00:36:45 every single week and that's predicted
00:36:45 --> 00:36:47 to increase the number of objects we
00:36:47 --> 00:36:48 know in the solar system by factor of 10
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 to 100 times within a year to do similar
00:36:51 --> 00:36:54 things for the rest of astronomy and
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 things like that things like the James
00:36:56 --> 00:36:58 web which are really at The Cutting Edge
00:36:58 --> 00:37:01 of what we can do tend to be one-offs
00:37:01 --> 00:37:02 because they're incredibly expensive
00:37:02 --> 00:37:04 they require huge amounts of Technology
00:37:04 --> 00:37:07 Innovation to make happen but they're
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 also such an incredibly long lead time
00:37:09 --> 00:37:10 that by the time it's up there people
00:37:10 --> 00:37:12 are planning the next big things yeah
00:37:12 --> 00:37:13 and we're talking for space
00:37:13 --> 00:37:15 observatories about telescopes that want
00:37:15 --> 00:37:17 launch until the late 2030s early 2040s
00:37:17 --> 00:37:19 now nothing that I'm aware of is a
00:37:20 --> 00:37:22 direct analog for James web it's
00:37:22 --> 00:37:24 probably worth having aside here I like
00:37:24 --> 00:37:26 to talk about this you sometimes get
00:37:26 --> 00:37:28 people saying why do we spend so much
00:37:28 --> 00:37:30 money on this why do the US governments
00:37:30 --> 00:37:33 continue to give billions to NASA and
00:37:33 --> 00:37:34 trly spend that money on things like
00:37:34 --> 00:37:38 curing cancer you know really you
00:37:38 --> 00:37:42 question semi- regularly and for
00:37:42 --> 00:37:46 me what we as scientists always Overlook
00:37:46 --> 00:37:48 is the fact that the motivations of
00:37:48 --> 00:37:49 governments to fund these things are not
00:37:49 --> 00:37:51 really the science we always when we get
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 asked that question so but it's awesome
00:37:53 --> 00:37:55 and we want to learn stuff and we're so
00:37:55 --> 00:37:57 passionate and that's a really valid
00:37:57 --> 00:37:58 answer if you share that passion but if
00:37:58 --> 00:38:01 you don't it's meaningless what's
00:38:01 --> 00:38:04 actually going on with NASA and with
00:38:04 --> 00:38:05 other governments around the world that
00:38:05 --> 00:38:06 are pumping huge amounts of money into
00:38:06 --> 00:38:08 this is that they're aware of the return
00:38:08 --> 00:38:10 that they'll got on their investment to
00:38:10 --> 00:38:12 build James web was ridiculously
00:38:12 --> 00:38:14 expensive I think it's approaching 10
00:38:14 --> 00:38:16 billion US Dollars that's billion with a
00:38:16 --> 00:38:19 B again that's a lot for a CO government
00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 to invest especially when you think yeah
00:38:21 --> 00:38:22 should we be investing in curing cancer
00:38:22 --> 00:38:25 but to do that you're looking at solving
00:38:25 --> 00:38:27 technology problems that have never been
00:38:27 --> 00:38:28 solved building cameras to make
00:38:28 --> 00:38:30 measurements with a Precision that's
00:38:30 --> 00:38:31 never been
00:38:31 --> 00:38:33 achieved and that drives a huge amount
00:38:33 --> 00:38:35 of technological
00:38:35 --> 00:38:38 innovation for the government funding
00:38:38 --> 00:38:39 NASA the great majority of the people
00:38:39 --> 00:38:42 aren't at all interested in the science
00:38:42 --> 00:38:43 but what they're aware of is that
00:38:43 --> 00:38:45 historically since it Formed without
00:38:45 --> 00:38:48 fail year on year NASA has had return on
00:38:48 --> 00:38:50 investment of at least 10 to one so for
00:38:50 --> 00:38:53 every dollar that is invested the return
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55 to the economy is more than $10 and
00:38:55 --> 00:38:57 there is no other business that I'm
00:38:57 --> 00:38:58 aware of of that has that return on
00:38:58 --> 00:39:00 investment so commercially it makes a
00:39:00 --> 00:39:03 lot of sense but also for things like
00:39:03 --> 00:39:05 curing cancer if you're a doctor who
00:39:05 --> 00:39:09 wants to cure cancer and you want to be
00:39:09 --> 00:39:11 able to study the human body you're
00:39:11 --> 00:39:12 going to need better cameras better
00:39:12 --> 00:39:15 detection tools better software but
00:39:15 --> 00:39:17 you're a doctor you're saving lives you
00:39:17 --> 00:39:19 can't say I'm going to let my patients
00:39:19 --> 00:39:20 die because I'm going to go spend five
00:39:20 --> 00:39:22 years developing new tool that's not
00:39:23 --> 00:39:25 going to happen but the tools that are
00:39:25 --> 00:39:28 developed for these astronomical things
00:39:28 --> 00:39:30 for instruments for facilities for space
00:39:30 --> 00:39:32 observatories then find use in other
00:39:32 --> 00:39:34 areas you know I've got you know my
00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 pocket based fruit-based device my phone
00:39:37 --> 00:39:39 um other other brands are obviously
00:39:39 --> 00:39:41 available has a camera in it that when
00:39:41 --> 00:39:43 you take photos they're awesome and all
00:39:43 --> 00:39:45 the phone brands like this but the
00:39:45 --> 00:39:46 camera itself's terrible you know you
00:39:46 --> 00:39:49 look at the phone side on and you've got
00:39:49 --> 00:39:50 a tiny little light path to a sensor
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52 with mass-produced
00:39:52 --> 00:39:55 lenses the images that these phones make
00:39:55 --> 00:39:58 are actually absolutely got awful
00:39:58 --> 00:40:00 they're terrible images because the
00:40:00 --> 00:40:02 Optics is terrible because it's cheap
00:40:02 --> 00:40:06 reproducible very small but they're God
00:40:06 --> 00:40:09 awful in a very predictable way all the
00:40:09 --> 00:40:10 Optics have the same flaws from one
00:40:10 --> 00:40:12 front to the next which means in the
00:40:12 --> 00:40:15 camera software all of those flaws can
00:40:15 --> 00:40:18 be reverse managed out so you go from a
00:40:18 --> 00:40:21 blurry kind of you know hole of mirrors
00:40:21 --> 00:40:23 type experience to a beautiful image
00:40:23 --> 00:40:26 because it's reproducibly bad the
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 detector in that pH on the software
00:40:28 --> 00:40:29 that's used for that image processing
00:40:29 --> 00:40:31 all of that stuff that we take so for
00:40:31 --> 00:40:33 granted in our pocket has come from
00:40:33 --> 00:40:35 astronomy research from the image
00:40:35 --> 00:40:36 processing and the Imaging that's done
00:40:36 --> 00:40:39 by astronomers and that's really why
00:40:39 --> 00:40:41 governments invested this for you and I
00:40:41 --> 00:40:43 and for bulk of the audience we just
00:40:43 --> 00:40:45 want we're just in it for the research
00:40:45 --> 00:40:47 and the excitement and the discoveries
00:40:47 --> 00:40:49 but for the people in power they see the
00:40:49 --> 00:40:51 benefits that this brings that are
00:40:51 --> 00:40:53 clearly very different to the scientific
00:40:53 --> 00:40:56 outcomes and that's why it gets funded
00:40:56 --> 00:40:57 and when you're passionate about
00:40:57 --> 00:40:59 something when you care you don't think
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01 about that narrative you just talk about
00:41:01 --> 00:41:03 the excitement and the wonder which is
00:41:03 --> 00:41:06 preaching to the converted but the
00:41:06 --> 00:41:07 skeptical person down the pub who wants
00:41:07 --> 00:41:09 to know where the tax dollars are going
00:41:09 --> 00:41:10 in a time when we've got a cost of
00:41:11 --> 00:41:13 living crisis telling them about the
00:41:13 --> 00:41:14 Wonder of science isn't going to win
00:41:14 --> 00:41:16 them over no telling them about the
00:41:16 --> 00:41:19 other benefits they'll understand and I
00:41:19 --> 00:41:20 think it's really important to have
00:41:20 --> 00:41:21 those
00:41:21 --> 00:41:22 discussions even if they're not the
00:41:22 --> 00:41:25 wonder that we all want to espouse and
00:41:25 --> 00:41:26 it's good to have the reality of the
00:41:26 --> 00:41:27 other benefits as well
00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 indeed yeah well said um there you go
00:41:30 --> 00:41:32 Lee uh probably not a James web Space
00:41:33 --> 00:41:36 Telescope 2 and three but I can tell you
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 um for sure and jonty hinted at this
00:41:39 --> 00:41:43 over the next uh gosh well between now
00:41:43 --> 00:41:48 in 2051 and uh Beyond there are plans to
00:41:48 --> 00:41:54 launch 22 23 space telescopes so um they
00:41:54 --> 00:41:56 won't be James web they'll all have
00:41:56 --> 00:41:58 different tasks one of them will be
00:41:58 --> 00:42:01 studying gravitational waves um others
00:42:01 --> 00:42:04 will be looking at gamma rays um that
00:42:04 --> 00:42:06 the LI gos on but they are sorry oh
00:42:06 --> 00:42:08 there's exoplanets as well and there
00:42:08 --> 00:42:11 there's old yes and it's Jes web is a
00:42:11 --> 00:42:13 very um multi-use tool so it's good for
00:42:13 --> 00:42:15 everything but you quite often get more
00:42:15 --> 00:42:17 mileage by making a cheaper tool that's
00:42:17 --> 00:42:19 good for one thing yeah and a lot of
00:42:19 --> 00:42:20 these facilities are designed for a
00:42:20 --> 00:42:24 specific task yeah so in the coming few
00:42:24 --> 00:42:27 decades yeah 22 23 at least space
00:42:27 --> 00:42:29 telescopes are going to be launched so
00:42:29 --> 00:42:32 um it's it's not something that stopped
00:42:32 --> 00:42:34 at James web by any means what I make
00:42:34 --> 00:42:36 quickly on that topic is actually hop
00:42:36 --> 00:42:38 off one sot box and climb up on another
00:42:38 --> 00:42:42 one okay which is the challenge involved
00:42:43 --> 00:42:44 in this so you say you know next 20
00:42:44 --> 00:42:45 years we're talking about maybe another
00:42:45 --> 00:42:47 20 or 30 space telescopes Spar and we
00:42:47 --> 00:42:49 might get a bit more than that in
00:42:49 --> 00:42:52 actuality but one of the things uh
00:42:52 --> 00:42:54 silink proponents will often argue to
00:42:54 --> 00:42:56 astronomers when astronomers say oh no
00:42:56 --> 00:42:57 the sky is getting ruined and going to
00:42:57 --> 00:42:58 be damaging from Grand based Optical
00:42:58 --> 00:43:01 observatories it's just oh while Grand
00:43:01 --> 00:43:03 Bas observatories are obsolete anyway
00:43:03 --> 00:43:04 Elon Musk can just launch all your
00:43:04 --> 00:43:06 telescopes to space and that's a problem
00:43:06 --> 00:43:08 solved and it just doesn't work quite
00:43:08 --> 00:43:10 way I mean I did some reading around
00:43:10 --> 00:43:12 when this debate kicked up again there
00:43:12 --> 00:43:14 are more than
00:43:14 --> 00:43:16 10 professional groundbased
00:43:16 --> 00:43:18 astronomical telescopes on Earth that
00:43:18 --> 00:43:20 are doing research that roll over
00:43:20 --> 00:43:22 subscribed the smallest of them are
00:43:22 --> 00:43:23 things like up at our Observatory at
00:43:23 --> 00:43:25 Mount Kent at Mount Kent we've got more
00:43:25 --> 00:43:28 than a dozen telescopes all actively on
00:43:28 --> 00:43:30 Sky every night doing really good
00:43:30 --> 00:43:32 research and the smallest of them are
00:43:32 --> 00:43:35 are 70 CM telescopes we're involved in a
00:43:35 --> 00:43:37 space mission called twinkle twinkle is
00:43:37 --> 00:43:39 looking at putting a 70 CM telescope in
00:43:39 --> 00:43:41 orbit to do infrared observing and it's
00:43:42 --> 00:43:43 kind of crowd crowd sourcing it and
00:43:43 --> 00:43:45 building it off the shelf it's a new
00:43:45 --> 00:43:47 model of telescopes which makes it
00:43:47 --> 00:43:51 hugely cheaper that will cost 70
00:43:51 --> 00:43:55 million our 70 CM telescope on the
00:43:55 --> 00:43:56 ground cost us a quarter of a million
00:43:56 --> 00:43:58 dollar
00:43:58 --> 00:44:00 there is just not the money to reproduce
00:44:00 --> 00:44:02 what we've got on the ground in space
00:44:02 --> 00:44:04 there is also not the capacity to launch
00:44:04 --> 00:44:06 a really top end stuff you know the very
00:44:06 --> 00:44:09 Rubin Observatory is going to be an 8.3
00:44:09 --> 00:44:12 meter mirror with a 5.3 meter secondary
00:44:12 --> 00:44:15 crazy huge thing the biggest telescopes
00:44:15 --> 00:44:17 in building at the minute have nearly 40
00:44:17 --> 00:44:18 meter diameter mirrors there's just no
00:44:18 --> 00:44:21 way you could launch them though
00:44:21 --> 00:44:23 unfortunately it's a bit specious to
00:44:23 --> 00:44:24 come back and say we don't need to
00:44:24 --> 00:44:26 protect the night sky because you can
00:44:26 --> 00:44:27 just launch all the big up spair we
00:44:28 --> 00:44:30 can't afford to unfortunately though we
00:44:30 --> 00:44:31 need the grand B stuff as well and the
00:44:31 --> 00:44:34 grand B stuff does amazing work indeed
00:44:34 --> 00:44:38 it does yes um very well said again and
00:44:38 --> 00:44:40 Lee thanks for the question it certainly
00:44:40 --> 00:44:43 um sparked jonty into
00:44:43 --> 00:44:46 action um but uh yeah thanks uh for
00:44:46 --> 00:44:47 getting in touch with us Lee Lawrence
00:44:47 --> 00:44:50 renie and Christian who made up our
00:44:50 --> 00:44:54 panel today uh with our text questions
00:44:54 --> 00:44:56 uh thanks as always to you and if you've
00:44:56 --> 00:44:58 got questions for us uh don't forget to
00:44:58 --> 00:45:01 send them in Via our website because um
00:45:01 --> 00:45:02 that's the best way to get them through
00:45:02 --> 00:45:04 to us whether they're text or audio we
00:45:04 --> 00:45:06 take them all if you want to put a
00:45:07 --> 00:45:08 question on a paper airplane and just
00:45:08 --> 00:45:10 throw it it might get to us you never
00:45:11 --> 00:45:14 know uh and jonty as always thanks so
00:45:14 --> 00:45:16 much we'll catch up with you again next
00:45:16 --> 00:45:18 time looking forward to it thanks for
00:45:18 --> 00:45:20 having me and you know clear skies to
00:45:20 --> 00:45:22 everyone uh johy Horner professor of
00:45:22 --> 00:45:26 astrophysics uh sitting in for Fred on
00:45:26 --> 00:45:28 space nuts at the moment and thanks to H
00:45:29 --> 00:45:30 in the studio although he couldn't be
00:45:30 --> 00:45:32 with us today because uh he's actually
00:45:32 --> 00:45:34 waiting in line for his turn to use the
00:45:34 --> 00:45:37 James webp Space Telescope and from me
00:45:37 --> 00:45:39 Andrew Dunley thanks for your company
00:45:39 --> 00:45:40 we'll catch you on the next episode of
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 Space Nuts bye-bye Space Nuts you'll be
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