This episode of Space Nuts is brought you with the support of Saily. If you love travelling, you need Saily by your side. To find out more and get the special Space Nuts listener discount, visit www.saily.com/spacenuts (https://www.saily.com/spacenuts)
pace Nuts Episode 513: Microbial Life in Space, Titan's Secrets, and the Search for Intermediate Black Holes
In this engaging episode of Space Nuts, host Heidi Campo returns with astronomer Professor Fred Watson to explore the intriguing intersection of microbiology and space exploration. From the mapping of microbes aboard the Tiangong Space Station to the potential for life beneath the icy crust of Titan, and the latest discoveries about intermediate black holes, this episode is a cosmic journey filled with fascinating insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Microbial Mapping on Tiangong: Heidi and Fred discuss the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program (CHAMP) and its efforts to map the microbial life aboard the Tiangong Space Station. They explore the implications of a sterile environment in space and how it might affect astronauts’ health upon their return to Earth.
- Life on Titan: The conversation shifts to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, where researchers are investigating the possibility of life in its sub-ice ocean. Fred explains how organic nutrients from Titan’s surface might migrate through its thick ice layer, and the challenges of sustaining microbial life in such a harsh environment.
- Geothermal Activity and Microbial Life: The duo delves into the potential for geothermal activity on Titan and how it might support life. They discuss the fascinating idea of life forms based on liquid natural gas, as well as the ongoing excitement surrounding NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan.
- Intermediate Mass Black Holes: The episode concludes with a discussion on the search for intermediate mass black holes, particularly in globular clusters. Fred shares insights from recent research that suggests the existence of these elusive black holes, shedding light on their formation and significance in the universe.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. (https://www.spacenutspodcast.com/) Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit 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) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:40) Discussion on microbial mapping aboard the Tiangong Space Station
(11:20) Exploring the potential for life on Titan
(22:15) The implications of geothermal activity in Titan's ocean
(30:00) New findings on intermediate mass black holes in globular clusters
For the commercial free versions of Space Nuts join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support (https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss) .
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/26674180?utm_source=youtube
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys
00:00:02 --> 00:00:06 and girls, welcome to another fantastic
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 episode of Space Nuts, the podcast that
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 is out of this world. I am your host for
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 this week, Heidi Compo, here back again
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 with the the commentary and the jokes. I
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 know I am not your beloved Andrew
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 Dunley, but I promise I will continue to
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 do my best. 15 seconds. Guidance is
00:00:25 --> 00:00:30 internal. 10 9 Ignition sequence start.
00:00:30 --> 00:00:36 Space Nuts. 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 Space Nuts. Astronauts report. It feels
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 good.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 But hey, the best part of the show is
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 right here with me, Professor Fred
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 Watson, astronomer at large. How are you
00:00:47 --> 00:00:49 doing today, Fred? Uh, pretty well,
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 thank you. It's a very bright morning
00:00:51 --> 00:00:55 here in Sydney and the sun is shining
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 and we're it's a nice crisp autumn day
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 if I can put it that way which I know
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 makes no sense in the United States of
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 America but it's an autumn day. That's
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 okay. We've got So I'll give you our
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 weather report over here from space city
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 Houston, Texas. It's a beautiful spring
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 um afternoon. It's uh late later in the
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 day here. We have had a really fantastic
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 week. The birds are chirping. The
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 flowers are starting to bloom, but it's
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 about to start really heating up. So, I
00:01:24 --> 00:01:25 think it's going to start creeping up to
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 90. And it's not gonna it's not going to
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 go down until
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 uh few few months from now. So, we're
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 going to have a nice hot summer as
00:01:34 --> 00:01:35 usual.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 What a surprise.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 Yeah. Yeah. So, here's a here's an
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 interesting um thing that I learned
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 recently from a friend of mine who's a
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 flight surgeon. She um we were at a we
00:01:48 --> 00:01:49 were at a conference. We were actually
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 at the spaceflight human optimization
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 and performance summit at this time last
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 year and I was sitting there freezing
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 cold and I asked her I was like why is
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 it always so cold when you go to
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 conferences? Every conference I've ever
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 been to is freezing cold. And she looks
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 at me and goes oh well there's a reason
00:02:07 --> 00:02:08 for that. When they keep the conference
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 rooms cold it helps pre prevent the
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 spread of germs. And I was like really
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 they do this on purpose? And I thought
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 that was super interesting that there's
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 a reason for it and they don't want to
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 just make all the attendees miserable.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:25 It's all about, you know, preventing the
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 spread of germs. Did you know that? No,
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 I always thought I I agree with you. Um
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 uh we were in a conference u a month ago
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 uh in which the auditorium was cold and
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 I was we were all sitting there well
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 wrapped up. I just assumed it was so
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 that the the um you know the delegates
00:02:44 --> 00:02:48 didn't fall asleep. Uh that's um why I
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 thought it was cold so that you keep
00:02:50 --> 00:02:54 everybody awake miserable. But yeah,
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 spread of germs sounds a lot more, you
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 know, a lot more important in fact.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 Yeah. And speaking of germs, it's
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 something to really consider when we're
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 up in space. I mean, the astronauts have
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 to go through vigorous health testing
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 before they go up um on the shuttle and
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 then when they are up on the space
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 station, there needs to be a way to keep
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 track of what hitchhikers, what little
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 microbial hitchhikers went up with them.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 And that looks like something that China
00:03:24 --> 00:03:28 is really been working on lately with u
00:03:28 --> 00:03:33 it looks like the um microbial map is
00:03:33 --> 00:03:34 something that they've been coming up
00:03:34 --> 00:03:35 with.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 Yeah, I the reason I thought this story
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 was interesting and you're you're quite
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 right. This is the microbial profile of
00:03:41 --> 00:03:45 the Tiangong space station has been or
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 is being mapped uh with uh with a
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 program. I love the acronym. It's CHAMP
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 is the acronym. It's the China Space
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 Station Habitation Area Microbiome
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 Program. Uh and that sounds very much
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 like um an acronym that was chosen and
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 then the word strain to fit into it.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 like most acronyms are. Um but the
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 reason why I thought it was an
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 interesting one is that we had a story
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 uh it's probably about a month ago uh
00:04:13 --> 00:04:18 which was commenting on um the uh return
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 of a one of the recent crews from the
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 International Space Station and it was
00:04:22 --> 00:04:23 probably I don't know I think it was
00:04:23 --> 00:04:27 probably late last year who um fell
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 mildly ill on their return to Earth and
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 I can't remember which crew it was or
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 what and I don't I think we ever found
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 out what their what their illnesses were
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 just as a you know it's a privacy thing.
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 Um but uh the the comments that were
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 coming after that from people who know a
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 lot more about this sort of thing than I
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 do uh was that um the international
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 space station may be too sterile. It may
00:04:51 --> 00:04:55 be an environment that does not have uh
00:04:55 --> 00:04:59 its own sort of micro population. And
00:04:59 --> 00:05:00 there were suggestions being made like
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 two or three dogs or cats up there might
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 kind of help, you know, with with
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 dsterilizing it a bit and make it an
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 environment that is not uh detrimental
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 to astronauts if everything's too
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 sterile. Yes, you're not going to get
00:05:14 --> 00:05:15 infected with anything, but you might
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 get ill when you get back down to Earth.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 And that was the the thing um you know
00:05:21 --> 00:05:23 that I thought well it's interesting
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 that the other space station and there
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 are only two at the moment uh the
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 Tangong space station which uh has its
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 own set of experiments and things of
00:05:32 --> 00:05:37 that sort u they basically um have this
00:05:37 --> 00:05:41 program that uh goes into uh the the
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 genomics of the microbes that are that
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 are there. They they've gone into great
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 detail about the probably the microbial
00:05:50 --> 00:05:55 species. Uh they've investigated how
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 well these microbial communities uh
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 evolve, how how well they you know they
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 they replicate and and and essentially
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 how well they adapt to microgravity.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:07 Now, I'm sure there have been
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 experiments like this on the ISS as well
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 because one of the main thrusts, as you
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 know, as a as a space medical person,
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 uh, one of the main thrusts is is how uh
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 how humans behave in the environment
00:06:22 --> 00:06:23 that we put them in on the space
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 station. Uh, but we I I suspect we
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 haven't heard quite as much about it as
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 what we're hearing in this uh this
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 research report that has come come out.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 Uh it is called uh the research report
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 is an early microbial landscape
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 inspiring endeavor from the China space
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 station habitation area microbiome
00:06:42 --> 00:06:46 program or CHAMP uh and it comes from
00:06:46 --> 00:06:48 the the Shenzha space biotechnology
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 group. So I it just struck me as being
00:06:51 --> 00:06:54 an interesting uh an interesting insight
00:06:54 --> 00:06:58 into how China is approaching this issue
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 of microbes in space.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 And it really is so interesting to think
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 of, you know, a space being too sterile.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 And I I always just think about, you
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 know, like with our with our food and I
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 think back to a conversation I had years
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 ago. I was at the farmers market and I
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 was purchasing I think it was just like
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 uh lettuce or something from a farmer
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 and there was a little bug on it and I
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 was like, "Oo, a bug." And the farmer
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 looked at me with the sweetest, kindest
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 look and smile. He had it was he was one
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 of these farmers who just like, you
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 know, they're just a good good human.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:37 And he looks at me and he's like, you
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 know, if there's a bug on it, that means
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 it's probably good for you and it's not
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 full of all that other bad stuff. And I
00:07:44 --> 00:07:45 was like, he's like, if the bugs want
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 it, you know, he's like, your food is
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 your, and he he went on to this whole
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 spiel about your food is life. And our
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 our gastrointestinal systems and our
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 entire body and our own microbiomes that
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 live on us is a very symbiotic
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 relationship between us, our food, the
00:08:03 --> 00:08:05 environment around us. And if you
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 sterilize everything from the food that
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 the astronauts are eating and their
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 spaces around them, you know, there's a
00:08:11 --> 00:08:15 very delicate balance of our microbiomes
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 that that we need and live in and on and
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 around us that potentially need to
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 interact with the ecosystem outside of
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 us as well that disappears when they are
00:08:26 --> 00:08:30 up in space for that long. Yeah. Um,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 quite remarkable. I mean, you you can
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 understand why you would want a sterile
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 environment in space just to try and
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 keep people healthy, but if in doing
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 that you're totally destroying this
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 symbiosis that you've mentioned, um then
00:08:47 --> 00:08:48 people are going to get sick and that
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 might be what has happened. You've I
00:08:50 --> 00:08:51 think you've talked to astronauts,
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 Heidi, in the past. Has any of them
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 commented on how they felt when they
00:08:56 --> 00:08:57 returned to Earth? Whether they did feel
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 as though they had any deleterious
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 effects in terms of their things like
00:09:02 --> 00:09:03 digestion and things of that sort. I
00:09:03 --> 00:09:07 guess uh I think the conversations I've
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 had in either interviews or casual
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 conversations is just really it's they
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 give me kind of the HR answer because I
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 don't so just to be clear I don't work
00:09:17 --> 00:09:20 at NASA and I don't I am still I'm still
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 just a student working in exercise
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 countermeasures in human space flight
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 and optimization. So I'm not quite as
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 deep in as I'd like to be yet. But from
00:09:29 --> 00:09:33 what I have heard, you know, at tertiary
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 um level is they they do feel a little
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 bit crummy when they come back and it
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 takes a little while to adjust um sorry
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 adjust to to being back here on Earth
00:09:43 --> 00:09:44 and some of that it's like you know
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 think about like a sailor like it takes
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 time like they get their sea legs on the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 ship and then when you get back you're
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 like man it's like adjusting to any
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 different ecosystem is going to kind of
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 alter you a little bit but but Sunny
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 she's doing great. she's back. Uh she's
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 I guess she's doing her fitness classes
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 again. She does CrossFit, which I don't
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 know if I agree with, but that's a topic
00:10:04 --> 00:10:09 for another time. But um doing doing um
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 the things that are part of your regular
00:10:12 --> 00:10:13 routine and getting you back to your
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 regular routine should be the priority
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 because that's where your body is going
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 to be the happiest. And so if we can
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 figure out a way
00:10:23 --> 00:10:27 to kind of create that environment up in
00:10:27 --> 00:10:31 space, even on a bacteria level, they're
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 going to be so much better at adapting
00:10:34 --> 00:10:35 when they get back here instead of
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 having that stark
00:10:37 --> 00:10:41 kind of shift.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:43 It's fascinating stuff and uh of great
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 importance of course as we contemplate
00:10:46 --> 00:10:50 future very long space flights. uh if
00:10:50 --> 00:10:55 we embark on interplanetary travel.
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 Absolutely. You know, one little um kind
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 of a a sci-fi tidbit. So, for those of
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 listeners who um plan on reading
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 Hyperion and don't want it spoiled, you
00:11:06 --> 00:11:10 should fast forward 5 seconds. But there
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 is a concept of a tree ship. So, they
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 have um in the sci-fi book, they've
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 grown a tree to be so large that it has
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 its own atmosphere and ecosystem, and
00:11:22 --> 00:11:26 they um use it as a interstellar trip,
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 interstellar ship. And then the real big
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 um reveal later on in the last book,
00:11:32 --> 00:11:33 fast forward 5 seconds if you don't want
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 it ruined, is they create a organic
00:11:35 --> 00:11:39 Dyson sphere out of trees, which is a
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 very interesting concept that's very
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 far-fetched, very sci-fi, but so
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 interesting when we're thinking about
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 organic matter in space. And who knows,
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 you know, we might realize that um the
00:11:50 --> 00:11:54 author of Hyperion was on to
00:11:54 --> 00:11:58 something here also. space nuts. But
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 life in space is something that we are
00:12:00 --> 00:12:02 always interested about and curious
00:12:02 --> 00:12:06 about. And it looks like there might be
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 something on Titan.
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 Yeah. Um Titan perhaps the most
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 interesting world in the whole solar
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 system after our own planet of course
00:12:18 --> 00:12:20 and with similarities to our own planet.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 Um very very briefly what we have with
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 Titan, the the biggest moon of Saturn
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 and actually second largest moon in the
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 whole of the solar system bigger than
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 the planet Mercury. An extraordinary
00:12:33 --> 00:12:38 world uh which um has a rocky core
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 overlaying by a liquid ocean probably of
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 brine or at least a very mineralrich
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 water on which is a layer of ice which
00:12:47 --> 00:12:51 at the temperature of minus
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 195° C. Uh I don't know what that is in
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 Fahrenheit. It's very cold. At that
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 temperature, the ice uh layer over the
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 water behaves just like rock. Uh and so
00:13:02 --> 00:13:06 we have uh this curious aspect of
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 depressions in that surface which have
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 lakes in them but not of water. They're
00:13:11 --> 00:13:14 of liquid natural gas. Uh methane and
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 ethane, a mixture. Uh and there is a
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 weather cycle on the surface of Titan.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 Titan has a has a thick atmosphere and
00:13:21 --> 00:13:25 uh you know you get methane rain uh on
00:13:25 --> 00:13:29 Titan and uh phenomena related to the
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 weather cycle on earth. Now the
00:13:32 --> 00:13:35 scientists who have engaged in the study
00:13:35 --> 00:13:39 that I wanted to mention uh who are from
00:13:39 --> 00:13:43 universities in the United States uh
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 they are at the University of Arizona
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 and also Harvard. uh they have been
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 looking at the prospect of living
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 organisms, water-based living organisms
00:13:54 --> 00:13:58 in the sub ice ocean. Uh and what
00:13:58 --> 00:14:02 they've done is they've looked at the
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 transport of organic nutrients and we've
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 just been talking about organic
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 nutrients on the International Space
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 Station. Um these are the chemicals the
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 the prebiotic chemicals on which any
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 living organisms might feed. the they've
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 looked at the migration of that from the
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 surface of Titan which we believe is
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 very rich in these organics just because
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 of the chemistry of the atmosphere
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 itself. Uh how that might migrate
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 through the ice layer which could be
00:14:30 --> 00:14:34 something like uh you know 450 or so 300
00:14:34 --> 00:14:38 miles 450 kilometers or so thick a very
00:14:38 --> 00:14:40 thick layer of ice. how that would
00:14:40 --> 00:14:44 perhaps um track down into the ocean to
00:14:44 --> 00:14:46 feed any microbial organisms that were
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 present in the ocean underneath uh
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 Titan's surface. And the conclusion they
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 get, which is not that surprising when
00:14:54 --> 00:14:58 you think of 300 miles of ice to get
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 through um is that not much comes down
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 there. And so that if microbial life
00:15:03 --> 00:15:07 exists in the oceans of Titan, then it
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 would be at very very low levels. They
00:15:09 --> 00:15:13 they talking about you know um I think
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 they said one cell per cubic meter or
00:15:15 --> 00:15:16 something of that sort which means that
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 when you add together all the ocean of
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 Titan uh you've got enough microbes to
00:15:21 --> 00:15:25 make a dog uh or something of that sort.
00:15:25 --> 00:15:28 Not very many. Um, and so this is sort
00:15:28 --> 00:15:31 of depressing from the point of view of
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 whether there is microbial life in the
00:15:33 --> 00:15:37 ocean of Titan. But what surprised me
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 was that this article paid no heed and
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 that's because this is not the research
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 of the the people who are working on it.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 This is not their particular topic. But
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 certainly um a few other um
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 astrobiologists have looked at the
00:15:52 --> 00:15:56 prospect for life based not on water as
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 all life on Earth is but on liquid
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 natural gas the ethane and methane that
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 makes up the lakes and seas of Titan on
00:16:03 --> 00:16:07 the surface. Uh and I know early on in
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 the Cassini mission when Titan was first
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 being explored with Cassini radar and
00:16:12 --> 00:16:13 the Huygens's lander which touched down
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 on the surface of Titan. Uh when that
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 mission was in progress, people were
00:16:18 --> 00:16:22 speculating about um um microbial
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 creatures uh that use methane and ethane
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 as their working fluid. Uh and there
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 were some suggestions that they might
00:16:30 --> 00:16:34 breathe hydrogen which is there on Titan
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 in Titan's atmosphere. uh and uh perhaps
00:16:37 --> 00:16:42 eat uh or feed on acetylene which is a
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 complex organic molecule which is also
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 plentiful around the surface of the the
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 shores of the lakes of Titan. Uh so
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 that's the perhaps the alternative view
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 and it might be a wonky view. I'm not um
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 as I I'm always at pains to point out a
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 biologist of any kind um apart from
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 being a self-taught one but uh the the
00:17:02 --> 00:17:06 um uh idea of a microbial or or or
00:17:06 --> 00:17:10 living organisms generally um which base
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 their existence on a different fluid
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 from water uh I think is a fascinating
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 one and that's why the dragonfly mission
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 which NASA is is planning to send to
00:17:20 --> 00:17:25 Titan uh a little um airborne vehicle um
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 a bit like Ingenuity on Mars but a bit
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 more complex and a bit cleverer. Uh
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 that's why the Dragonfly mission is so
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 interesting and which we're looking
00:17:33 --> 00:17:35 forward to so much.
00:17:35 --> 00:17:39 That is so cool. I uh I I I've never
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 quite understood how I mean I guess it's
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 just because the core is a little bit
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 warmer because it's like how can liquid
00:17:46 --> 00:17:48 exist underneath the ice? That's always
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 been kind of hard for me to wrap my head
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 around. When I was um living in Iceland
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 for a winter years years ago, um I went
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 for a tour inside one of the glaciers
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 and I learned that inside
00:18:01 --> 00:18:06 glaciers there are um ecosystems just
00:18:06 --> 00:18:10 like every other ecosystem. And I I was
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 blown away because inside a glacier, you
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 can have rivers of moving water and you
00:18:16 --> 00:18:21 can have lakes of liquid water inside of
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 a glacier. And I just could not wrap my
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 head around how water surrounded by ice
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 doesn't freeze. And that was so
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 fascinating to me to see that. They're
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 like, "Yep, here's a lake inside of the
00:18:33 --> 00:18:34 glacier." And it looks like Titan has
00:18:34 --> 00:18:38 that same kind of deal. So, is there um
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 do we know if there's any kind of
00:18:41 --> 00:18:45 geothermic activity happening? Maybe we
00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 could get some bacteria bubbling up from
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 deep within.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 I think the um the thinking is very much
00:18:51 --> 00:18:55 that the answer to that is yes. Um so,
00:18:55 --> 00:19:01 what keeps um the rock of Titan warm is
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03 the tidal interactions with Saturn. So
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 you've got this squeezing and squashing
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 very very slight in the case of Titan
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 because it's a big big world not
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 anywhere near as big as Saturn of course
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 but um and so that that um the tidal
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 effect as we call them and it's tides
00:19:17 --> 00:19:21 not in oceans but in rock uh heats heats
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 the uh heats the rocky core of Titan and
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 to some extent that helps to keep the
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 ocean liquid plus the pressure of the
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 ice on top of it. So when you compress a
00:19:30 --> 00:19:31 liquid then you change the freezing
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 point plus the fact that it's probably
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 very very rich in minerals uh like
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 perchlorates which drop the freezing
00:19:38 --> 00:19:42 point by many tens of degrees uh and so
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 uh it's uh easy reasonably easy to
00:19:45 --> 00:19:47 understand uh why you might have a
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49 liquid ocean and it's not just Titan of
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 course there are probably about half a
00:19:51 --> 00:19:52 dozen worlds out there that we think
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 have this same this same structure uh on
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 at least one of them and that's
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 Enceladus another of Saturn's moons.
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 There is evidence of hydrothermal
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 activity because
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 Cassini, one of the most wonderful space
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 missions that was ever carried out.
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10 Cassini flew through the plumes of uh
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 ice crystals that were being squirted
00:20:12 --> 00:20:16 out around Enceladus's south pole, these
00:20:16 --> 00:20:20 geysers of ice, which um did contain
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 molecular hydrogen and that was seen as
00:20:23 --> 00:20:27 uh symptomatic of geothermal activity at
00:20:27 --> 00:20:31 the base of the ocean there. So, um you
00:20:31 --> 00:20:32 know that that you're probably right.
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 And as soon as you've got hydrothermal
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 vents, we start thinking, oh yes, living
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 organisms and things being formed using
00:20:39 --> 00:20:40 the energy of just the hydrothermal
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 energy itself to to form life. And I
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 suspect that's where these scientists
00:20:45 --> 00:20:46 who've done this particular research
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 that we're talking about are coming from
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 the fact that we probably do have this
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 geothermal activity. Therefore, we
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 probably do perhaps do have living
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 organisms deep in the ocean of Titan.
00:20:58 --> 00:20:59 But the downside is you're not going to
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 get the nutrients coming down from the
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 surface uh through that thick uh layer
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 of ice on top. It's it's remarkable
00:21:08 --> 00:21:12 stuff. I um I find uh you know the
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 myself being excited about the
00:21:14 --> 00:21:15 possibility of future missions to these
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 worlds where we really do start
00:21:17 --> 00:21:18 tinkering around and finding out what
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 there is in the oceans underneath. Uh
00:21:21 --> 00:21:22 but they might be quite a long way in
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 the future. Yeah. about how these things
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 could be so similar or maybe so
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 different from from life on Earth. Um,
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 isn't there a theory? Are you familiar
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 with the tardigrade?
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 Of course. Yes. Yeah. So, you've you've
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 heard that there's like some some people
00:21:38 --> 00:21:39 speculate, and I could be totally wrong,
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41 some people speculate that the tardy
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 grade is not from Earth.
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 I like that idea. Um, and they think
00:21:47 --> 00:21:48 probably think that because the
00:21:48 --> 00:21:52 tardigrade uh has survived rather well
00:21:52 --> 00:21:54 or some of them on the outside of the
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 International Space Station. They they
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 they turn into there's a name for it. Is
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 it a ton tun? They turn into a
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 dehydrated ball when they're in an
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 environment that's not their normal
00:22:04 --> 00:22:05 environment. They get rid of all the
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 water uh and turn into this little solid
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 ball of stuff uh which is still alive
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 but isn't really doing anything. um you
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 know all the all the um the the the
00:22:17 --> 00:22:21 the biology that keeps us alive is is on
00:22:21 --> 00:22:25 pause. Uh and so that uh is probably why
00:22:26 --> 00:22:27 people think that they might come from
00:22:27 --> 00:22:29 other worlds. I find that very hard to
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 believe. I think they've probably got a
00:22:31 --> 00:22:35 fairly well sequenced genome uh here on
00:22:35 --> 00:22:36 in a terrestrial environment. But they
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 are remarkable creatures. Oh, they're so
00:22:39 --> 00:22:41 cute. And they're very cute. Yeah. And
00:22:41 --> 00:22:42 half a millimeter long. They're called
00:22:42 --> 00:22:44 water bears. You don't have to run away
00:22:44 --> 00:22:47 from them because they're half a
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 millimeter. Um, yeah, they are the
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 poster poster child of the astrobiology
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 world.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 You know what would be really crazy to
00:22:57 --> 00:23:01 think about is hundreds maybe thousands
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 of years from now when we finally do
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 figure out what's in a black hole. And
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 what if we found a tardy grade in there?
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 It might be a stretched out tardy
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13 grading. gets spaghettified when it gets
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 near the black hole. But look, tardy
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 grades can turn up in the most unusual
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 places. So you could be right and
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 yes, go ahead, Heidi. Sorry. No, that's
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 just a maybe maybe something to think
00:23:27 --> 00:23:29 of. That's a what's inside a black hole?
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 We always we always that is the that is
00:23:31 --> 00:23:33 the most popular topic here on Space
00:23:33 --> 00:23:35 Nuts is black holes and the the real
00:23:35 --> 00:23:39 fringe of a um astronomy, science, and
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 cosmology. But, you know, sometimes it's
00:23:41 --> 00:23:43 funny to think, you know, a black hole,
00:23:43 --> 00:23:44 you know, it's not a wormhole to another
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 dimension. Maybe it's just a it's a
00:23:47 --> 00:23:48 little playground for tardy grates.
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50 Yeah. It could even be a tardy great
00:23:50 --> 00:23:51 hole to another dimension. You never
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 know. That might be where they came
00:23:53 --> 00:23:55 from. Yeah. Maybe the tardy grades are
00:23:56 --> 00:23:57 the ones running the whole show. We
00:23:57 --> 00:24:01 should Yeah.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 Okay. We checked all four systems and
00:24:03 --> 00:24:05 being with the girls. Space nets. So, so
00:24:05 --> 00:24:08 while we're talking about black holes,
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 well, it just happens to have come up in
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 the conversation, uh there's uh there is
00:24:14 --> 00:24:18 some new work that uh we think sheds
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 light on one of the big mysteries about
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 black holes. Um and that is that they
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25 seem to come only in two
00:24:25 --> 00:24:28 sizes, very big and very small. Well,
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 not really that small. Uh let me clarify
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 that. Um, so we've got uh what what we
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 call stellar mass black holes about the
00:24:36 --> 00:24:38 mass of a star. In fact, it's they're
00:24:38 --> 00:24:40 more than the mass of a star because a
00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 single star like the sun is not massive
00:24:43 --> 00:24:44 enough to turn into a black hole. But
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 there are stars which are much more
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 massive than that. Uh and at the end of
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 their lives they the the core of the
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 star collapses to form a black hole. And
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 we call those stellar mass black holes.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 Their masses are typically 10 to 20
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 times the mass of the sun. Uh and then
00:25:00 --> 00:25:02 at the other extreme we've got these
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 super massive black holes which we think
00:25:04 --> 00:25:09 populate uh the center of all galaxies.
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 We think there's a super massive black
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 hole in the middle of every galaxy. Uh
00:25:13 --> 00:25:16 that's a relatively new deduction
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 perhaps only in the last 10 15 years or
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 so. Um including our own galaxy which
00:25:21 --> 00:25:23 has a black hole with a a mass of about
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 four million times the mass of the sun
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 uh sitting 25 lighty years away as
00:25:29 --> 00:25:31 the crow flies in the constellation of
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 Sagittarius. So uh super massive black
00:25:34 --> 00:25:38 holes can extend in mass up to not just
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 millions but billions of times the mass
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 of the sun and we know of many examples
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 of that. But the the the conundrum is
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 that there's nothing in between. Uh
00:25:48 --> 00:25:49 you've got the small ones and the big
00:25:49 --> 00:25:52 ones. Uh but you know where are the ones
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55 that that have 10 times the mass of
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 the sun or something like that. And we
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 call these objects intermediate mass
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 black holes. they should exist because
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 big ones and small ones exist. And so
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 the the issue has been very much in
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 trying to find them. Where can we find
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 uh these intermediate mass black holes?
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 And the uh
00:26:16 --> 00:26:20 the thrust of people's research has been
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 to look at the globular clusters. Uh
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 globular clusters are are clusters of
00:26:26 --> 00:26:28 stars. They're sort of globular or more
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 or less spherical in in appearance. Uh
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 very dense clusters tightly packed
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 together. The best examples of them, I'm
00:26:36 --> 00:26:38 sorry to have to say this, Heidi, but
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 they are in the southern hemisphere sky.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 Uh Omega Centuri and 47 Takani, they are
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 brilliant uh globular clusters, even
00:26:45 --> 00:26:47 when seen through binoculars, believe it
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 or not. Um you don't need a big
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 telescope to see that there's something
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 quite different. Uh but they these
00:26:53 --> 00:26:57 objects consist of perhaps uh hundreds
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 of thousands to millions of stars uh in
00:27:00 --> 00:27:04 a relatively small volume. Uh and
00:27:04 --> 00:27:06 because the stars are relatively tightly
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 packed in a globular
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 cluster, the uh insights have been that
00:27:12 --> 00:27:13 if you're going to find intermediate
00:27:13 --> 00:27:15 black holes, that might be the kind of
00:27:15 --> 00:27:17 place to look because in a sense a
00:27:18 --> 00:27:19 globular cluster is like a sort of mini
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 galaxy, although it's part of our own
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 the ones we're looking at are part of
00:27:24 --> 00:27:26 our own Milky Way galaxy, but they've
00:27:26 --> 00:27:28 got characteristics that are almost as
00:27:28 --> 00:27:30 though they were the nucleus of a galaxy
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 whose outer stars have been stripped
00:27:32 --> 00:27:33 away. something of that sort. We don't
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 know that that's necessarily their
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 origin, but um because people think that
00:27:38 --> 00:27:41 these super massive black holes grow
00:27:41 --> 00:27:44 over time, maybe the globular clusters
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 uh would let you see a sort of
00:27:46 --> 00:27:50 freeze-dried version of a galaxy uh
00:27:50 --> 00:27:51 whose evolution has stopped. And so
00:27:52 --> 00:27:53 you've got a black hole that's only
00:27:53 --> 00:27:57 grown to something like hundreds um you
00:27:57 --> 00:27:58 know, hundreds of thousands, tens of
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 thousands of times the mass of the sun.
00:28:01 --> 00:28:04 And so cut to the chase. I'm sorry
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 that's a rather long preamble, but you
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 did ask me about black
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 holes. Uh the um and and so the new
00:28:12 --> 00:28:13 research that we're talking about, once
00:28:13 --> 00:28:15 again, it's this is clearly a Chinese
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 episode of of space nuts because they
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 come from Chinese researchers using uh
00:28:21 --> 00:28:23 telescopes uh one of which I had quite a
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 bit to do with a telescope called
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 Lamost, which is the Chinese large uh
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 aperture multiobject spectroscopic
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31 telescope. That's what Lamst is an
00:28:31 --> 00:28:34 acronym for. I sat on two committees
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 during the early 2000s. Uh were you were
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 you in China? I was. Yes. Um it was I
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 was a guest of the Chinese Academy of
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45 Sciences to help them decide uh you know
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 what how this telescope should be built
00:28:47 --> 00:28:48 and and what they should do with it.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 It's a very interesting experience. How
00:28:50 --> 00:28:52 long were you there for? It was a matter
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54 of a couple of weeks each time. It
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 wasn't a long stay, but it was certainly
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 very illuminating. I learned a lot and
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 uh met some fantastic uh Chinese
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 astrophysicists and colleagues. All of a
00:29:04 --> 00:29:07 great time actually was very very
00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 enjoyable. But uh to cut to the chase,
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 other instruments have been used uh by
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 these Chinese astronomers. Um Chinese
00:29:15 --> 00:29:16 Academy of Sciences is the main
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 institution where they're involved. And
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 what they've done is they've looked for
00:29:21 --> 00:29:25 stars associated with a globular cluster
00:29:25 --> 00:29:29 that have very high velocities. Uh, and
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 they found some. And the reason they're
00:29:31 --> 00:29:33 doing that is that you can envisage that
00:29:34 --> 00:29:35 in the nucleus of a globular cluster in
00:29:36 --> 00:29:37 the heart of this really densely
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 populated region of space, if you did
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 have a black hole at the middle of it,
00:29:43 --> 00:29:47 um what you might find is stars that uh
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 have close encounters with that black
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 hole. Now, if these stars are binary
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 systems, that's to say they're in pairs.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 And actually, most stars in the That's
00:29:57 --> 00:29:59 not quite true. About half the stars in
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01 our galaxy are in pairs. They're members
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 of binary systems. If you had a
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 situation like that and a binary pair
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 goes near an intermediate black hole
00:30:08 --> 00:30:09 near the center of one of these globular
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 clusters, what happens to it? Uh it gets
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 ripped apart in the sense that one star
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 gets sucked into the black hole and the
00:30:17 --> 00:30:19 other is given an enormous boost in
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 velocity that essentially projected out
00:30:21 --> 00:30:23 of the globular cluster. And so they
00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 found a number of stars with very high
00:30:25 --> 00:30:27 velocities, including one with a
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 velocity of 550 kilometers/s,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 uh, which is an extraordinary high speed
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 for a star that's not just leaving the
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 globular cluster, it's leaving our
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 entire galaxy. It's fast enough to leave
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 the galaxy. And so, um, what they're
00:30:41 --> 00:30:44 speculating is that that is evidence of
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 that and other observations that they've
00:30:46 --> 00:30:48 made is evidence of there being an
00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 intermediate black hole at the center of
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 the globular cluster. And the reasoning
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 just to prolong this a little bit
00:30:54 --> 00:30:58 longer. The reasoning is that in order
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 for this uh in order to find a star
00:31:00 --> 00:31:02 leaving at such high velocity, it must
00:31:02 --> 00:31:05 have gone through this process of of
00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 being part of a binary system and one
00:31:07 --> 00:31:08 half of the binary is pulled in, the
00:31:08 --> 00:31:12 other gets thrown out. Um but in order
00:31:12 --> 00:31:18 to do that uh you need a a large mass in
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 a very small space. So you can rule out
00:31:21 --> 00:31:24 uh a a dense cluster of stars right at
00:31:24 --> 00:31:26 the middle doing the same gravitational
00:31:26 --> 00:31:27 trick. That wouldn't work because the
00:31:27 --> 00:31:31 cluster would be too big uh in in in
00:31:31 --> 00:31:35 volume. Uh and so what it can only be a
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 black hole. Moreover, uh the fact that
00:31:38 --> 00:31:41 it is not showing itself in any other
00:31:41 --> 00:31:43 way. It's not gobbling up stuff and
00:31:43 --> 00:31:45 release and releasing x-rays all the
00:31:46 --> 00:31:48 time like the super massive black holes
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 do. uh therefore it must be something of
00:31:51 --> 00:31:52 a smaller mass than a super massive
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 black hole. And I think the these
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 scientists have basically uh put a
00:31:57 --> 00:32:00 figure on the uh size of the black hole
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 that they think is at the center of this
00:32:03 --> 00:32:05 globular cluster and I can't remember
00:32:05 --> 00:32:07 how big it is. It's a few tens of
00:32:07 --> 00:32:09 thousands of solar masses and they've
00:32:09 --> 00:32:11 done that by looking at the dynamics of
00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 this star that's been ejected. really
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 interesting piece of work and perhaps
00:32:16 --> 00:32:18 not definitive proof because we haven't
00:32:18 --> 00:32:20 seen it yet, but really good evidence
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 for the existence of intermediate black
00:32:23 --> 00:32:26 intermediate mass black holes. Wow,
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 that's that's amazing. I I want to
00:32:28 --> 00:32:30 circle back to one thing you said. You
00:32:30 --> 00:32:32 said it's ejected at moving at what do
00:32:32 --> 00:32:33 you say
00:32:33 --> 00:32:36 550 kilometers per second per second.
00:32:36 --> 00:32:38 What's what's the average speed of a
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 star for me to have that reference
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 point? Yes. So um uh that's that's
00:32:43 --> 00:32:49 right. So uh it's um our motion through
00:32:49 --> 00:32:51 the galaxy
00:32:51 --> 00:32:54 uh the star the sun's motion is in the
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 region of 200 kilometers per second. Oh
00:32:57 --> 00:32:59 okay. So so more than double. Yeah
00:33:00 --> 00:33:01 that's right. So this is what a star
00:33:01 --> 00:33:04 would have if it's circulating in a kind
00:33:04 --> 00:33:06 of well- behaved fashion as our sun is
00:33:06 --> 00:33:09 doing thankfully uh in a well- behaved
00:33:09 --> 00:33:11 fashion around the center of our galaxy.
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 Uh that would be a typical speed couple
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 of hundred kilometers/s. So something at
00:33:16 --> 00:33:19 that 550 kilometers/s is definitely
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 leaving the galaxy. Uh another project
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 that I was involved with some years ago
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26 is a project with a delightful name of
00:33:26 --> 00:33:28 rave. Rave was the radial velocity
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 experiment. we could meant we could
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32 write papers with titles like rave on
00:33:32 --> 00:33:35 and um you know raving mad all of that.
00:33:35 --> 00:33:39 Anyway, uh we the rave uh survey was a
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 survey of the speeds of u roughly half a
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 million stars in the sun's environment
00:33:44 --> 00:33:48 and we did find outliers within that uh
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 cohort of stars. I think the fastest we
00:33:51 --> 00:33:52 found was 400
00:33:52 --> 00:33:55 kilometers/s and we interpreted that as
00:33:55 --> 00:33:57 stars that had interacted actually with
00:33:57 --> 00:33:58 the black hole at the center of our
00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 galaxy uh because that was where they
00:34:00 --> 00:34:02 were coming from not to do with a
00:34:02 --> 00:34:05 globular cluster but yeah I was a
00:34:05 --> 00:34:06 project manager for RA it was very
00:34:06 --> 00:34:08 interesting very interesting project
00:34:08 --> 00:34:11 slingshot slingshot out that's right it
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 really is amazing I mean you know
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15 thinking today we we talked about the
00:34:15 --> 00:34:17 tiniest little things little microbes
00:34:17 --> 00:34:19 and then the biggest things these whole
00:34:19 --> 00:34:22 big giant interacting and that's that's
00:34:22 --> 00:34:25 just one of the fun delightful parts of
00:34:25 --> 00:34:27 space is it's there's a I think this is
00:34:28 --> 00:34:30 a tagline somewhere some someone's using
00:34:30 --> 00:34:32 this or space for everyone everybody's
00:34:32 --> 00:34:35 interests align in space and whether you
00:34:36 --> 00:34:39 are a biologist an astronomer
00:34:39 --> 00:34:41 cosmologist you know a human
00:34:41 --> 00:34:44 physiologist um you know there's there's
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46 a job for you you know everybody can
00:34:46 --> 00:34:49 find a place working in this industry I
00:34:49 --> 00:34:52 even saw um something that NASA had put
00:34:52 --> 00:34:54 out that they have someone working there
00:34:54 --> 00:34:55 who's a seamstress. It's like well, you
00:34:55 --> 00:34:58 know, we still need a seamstress to put
00:34:58 --> 00:35:01 these these sales together, the suits
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 and the sales. Um anytime there's
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 anytime there's textiles involved, so
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 you know, not everything at NASA and
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12 space is STEM specific. I mean, it's
00:35:12 --> 00:35:15 obviously heavily STEM, but I just want
00:35:15 --> 00:35:18 to remind everyone that if you have
00:35:18 --> 00:35:20 interests in these things and you have
00:35:20 --> 00:35:23 skills, then you probably can find a
00:35:23 --> 00:35:26 place where you fit in. So, I think on
00:35:26 --> 00:35:29 that happy note, Fred, is there anything
00:35:29 --> 00:35:31 you would like to add to today's
00:35:31 --> 00:35:33 conversation? No, I don't I think we've
00:35:33 --> 00:35:36 covered pretty well everything. I I I
00:35:36 --> 00:35:37 think what you've just said is
00:35:37 --> 00:35:39 absolutely right. When people ask me how
00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 they get into astronomy and space, you
00:35:42 --> 00:35:44 know, I tell them the same thing. It's
00:35:44 --> 00:35:47 STEMheavy, but but really there are
00:35:47 --> 00:35:49 openings uh in the world of astronomy as
00:35:49 --> 00:35:51 well. Not sure about seamstresses,
00:35:51 --> 00:35:52 although big telescopes occasionally
00:35:52 --> 00:35:55 need fabric covers and things of that
00:35:55 --> 00:35:59 sort. I'm sorry. Seamstress is very
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 gender specific, isn't it? Is there a
00:36:01 --> 00:36:02 word for
00:36:02 --> 00:36:05 I I don't know actually. I've never
00:36:05 --> 00:36:08 thought of that. It's um I guess you
00:36:08 --> 00:36:09 know that is the funny thing about
00:36:09 --> 00:36:13 language is is uh I heard somebody the
00:36:13 --> 00:36:16 other day refer to the moon as he and I
00:36:16 --> 00:36:18 was like wait a second that's wrong.
00:36:18 --> 00:36:20 Everybody always refers to the moon in
00:36:20 --> 00:36:22 the feminine and the sun in the
00:36:22 --> 00:36:23 masculine and it's like there's no rule
00:36:23 --> 00:36:25 that says you have to do it that way but
00:36:25 --> 00:36:28 that's just the way that mythology has
00:36:28 --> 00:36:30 evolved around these celestial bodies.
00:36:30 --> 00:36:33 Let me surprise you. Um, Aboriginal
00:36:33 --> 00:36:35 culture here in Australia has a male
00:36:35 --> 00:36:37 moon.
00:36:37 --> 00:36:39 Really?
00:36:39 --> 00:36:41 Yeah, it does. It's the other way
00:36:42 --> 00:36:44 around. That could be a tangent for
00:36:44 --> 00:36:45 another episode then. Yeah, there's a
00:36:45 --> 00:36:49 lot to to unpick in that actually.
00:36:49 --> 00:36:51 Yeah, there's a lot of interesting um if
00:36:51 --> 00:36:53 you look at etmology and how that's
00:36:53 --> 00:36:55 played in. See, there you go. If you're
00:36:55 --> 00:36:58 an etmologist or a linguist, you there's
00:36:58 --> 00:37:00 a there's a job for you, too. All right,
00:37:00 --> 00:37:02 Fred. Well, it has been a delight and a
00:37:02 --> 00:37:06 wonder and this is Heidi Compost signing
00:37:06 --> 00:37:08 off. I hope you all have a wonderful
00:37:08 --> 00:37:10 rest of your day and thank you for
00:37:10 --> 00:37:13 listening to Space Nuts. Space Nuts.
00:37:13 --> 00:37:15 You've been listening to the Space Nuts
00:37:15 --> 00:37:17 podcast
00:37:17 --> 00:37:20 available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:37:20 --> 00:37:23 iHeart Radio, or your favorite podcast
00:37:23 --> 00:37:25 player. You can also stream on demand at
00:37:25 --> 00:37:28 byes.com. This has been another quality
00:37:28 --> 00:37:33 podcast production from sites.com.