Timestamped summary of this episode:
00:00:00 - Introduction and Peregrine Moon Lander
Andrew Dunkley introduces the episode and discusses the recent launch of the Peregrine moon lander, which has encountered a mission failure problem.
00:03:48 - Issues with Peregrine Moon Lander
Fred Watson discusses the issues faced by the Peregrine moon lander, including the inability to charge its batteries and critical propellant loss, leading to doubts about its planned lunar landing.
00:11:00 - Search for Copernicus's Remains
Fred Watson dives into the fascinating search for the remains of Nicholas Copernicus, the renowned astronomer and mathematician, highlighting the historical significance and efforts to identify his burial site.
00:14:16 - Discovery of Copernicus's Skeleton
Fred Watson details the discovery of a skeleton near the altar of the Holy Cross in Frombork Cathedral, believed to potentially belong to Copernicus, and the subsequent genetic analysis to confirm its identity.
00:15:41 - DNA Analysis and Book Reference
The discussion continues with the challenges of conducting DNA analysis for confirming Copernicus's remains, as well as the unexpected discovery of a book used by Copernicus, adding further depth to the search for his identity.
00:16:36 - Unveiling Copernicus' Skeleton
Researchers in Sweden used genetic material from hairs found in a book to match them with Copernicus' teeth and bones, providing strong evidence of his identity.
00:18:47 - The Vasa Ship and its Tragic Fate
A brief discussion about the Vasa, a 17th century sailing ship that sank on its maiden voyage in Stockholm due to a lopsided weight distribution and other theories.
00:20:37 - The Identification of Nicholas Copernicus
After confirming the identity of Copernicus' skeleton, it is likely that the bones have been reburied, marking a significant breakthrough in science history.
00:21:31 - Mystery of Titan's Ghost Islands
Cassini's radar imaging of Titan revealed temporary bright patches in the seas, sparking theories about their composition and behavior, shedding light on the mysteries of this alien world.
00:29:33 - Quantum Entanglement and Additional Dimensions
Rusty's question about quantum entanglement prompts a discussion on the potential existence of additional dimensions and ongoing research into fundamental physics, including the search for dark matter and dark energy.
00:34:20 - Quantum Confusion
Discussion on the complexity of quantum-related topics and the potential for confusion in understanding them.
00:35:16 - Planetary Formation
Explanation of how the location of the frost line in the solar system led to the differentiation between rocky and gas giant planets.
00:38:08 - Ice Planets and Dwarf Planets
Exploration of the composition of dwarf planets and how the distance from the sun impacted their formation and characteristics.
00:40:58 - Solar System Variations
Consideration of the variability of planetary formations in other solar systems compared to the unique characteristics of our own solar system.
00:42:28 - Uncharted Territories
Contemplation of the possibility of undiscovered elements in the outer reaches of the solar system and the ongoing search for new celestial bodies.
Join us as we delve into the recent mission failure of the Peregrine moon lander and the search for the lost grave of Copernicus. But just when it seemed like we might unravel the mysteries of the universe, a shocking turn of events leaves us hanging in the balance. Are we on the brink of a groundbreaking discovery, or will the secrets of space remain elusive?
In this episode, you will be able to:
· Explore the intriguing challenges of space missions.
· Uncover the details behind the Peregrine moon lander mission failure.
· Join the search for the lost grave of Copernicus.
· Delve into the mysteries of the islands on Titan.
· Discover the fascinating connection between quantum entanglement and inner planet composition.
‘We're getting there bit by bit. So what we're piecing together about our solar system is a pretty big encyclopedia's worth now.’ - Andrew Dunkley
Uncovering the ongoing search for Copernicus' grave
The historical figure of Nicholas Copernicus, renowned for his influential heliocentric model, remains shrouded in mystery due to the persistent enigma of his burial site. This unmarked grave exemplifies the complexities faced in historical astronomical study, considering even the famed Napoleon expressed interest in its discovery. The revelation of Copernicus' final resting place will not only pay homage to his contributions but also aid a deeper understanding of his era.
The resources mentioned in this episode are:
· Visit the Space Nuts website to send in your questions. Click on the Send us your questions link on the right-hand side or click the AMA tab to upload a text or audio question.
· Sign up to be a patron if you are interested in supporting Space Nuts. All the details are available on the website.
· Check out the Space Nuts shop for some great products and books, including those by Professor Fred Watson.
· Listen to the Space Nuts podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at www.bitesz.com
· Explore the Space Nuts website for more information and to see what's available in the shop.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.
00:00:00
Hi there. Thanks for joining us and Happy New Year. This is
00:00:03
Space Nuts. I'm your host, Andrew Dunkley. Great to be back
00:00:06
again. And I hope you had a terrific Christmas New Year
00:00:09
period if you got to have a bit of a break. Goody for you. If
00:00:13
you had to work, nothing more needs to be said. Coming up on
00:00:18
this episode, episode 300 si 386.
00:00:22
We're going to look at the Peregrine Moonlander which was
00:00:25
launched just recently the other day, but it looks like they've
00:00:28
run into a mission failure problem. We'll also be talking
00:00:33
about the lost grave of Copernicus, more specifically
00:00:37
the lost Copernicus himself and they think they found him. And
00:00:41
what are those islands that come and go on? Titan?
00:00:45
It's a bit of a mystery, but they think they've figured it
00:00:47
out. We'll also be looking at audience questions about quantum
00:00:52
entanglement. Why the inner planets are rocky and rolly and
00:00:57
the unknown solar system? All to come on this episode of Space
00:01:02
Nuts sequence Space Nuts 5432 and joining me to disassemble.
00:01:21
All of that is Professor Fred. What's an astronomer at large?
00:01:24
Hello, Fred.
00:01:25
Hello, Andrew. It is very good to see you again. And Happy New
00:01:28
Year. And hope you had a great festive season.
00:01:32
Did indeed went on a cruise, visited Fiji Vanuatu and Numa,
00:01:37
had Christmas Day in Yuma and we only found out when we got there
00:01:41
that the French celebrate Christmas the day before. So
00:01:45
there wasn't much going on, but we, we had a good time. It was
00:01:48
mighty hot, but we had a nice lunch on the beach there, which
00:01:51
was good.
00:01:52
And one of the weirdest things we did was in Fiji at La Toka
00:01:56
where we went and visited some hot springs and got covered in
00:02:00
volcanic mud and then got into, you know, what's the dumbest
00:02:05
thing you can do in Fiji in summer, you can get in water.
00:02:07
That's 60 degrees. So that's what we did. And it was a lot of
00:02:12
fun and a lot of fun.
00:02:14
But yeah, and, and smooth sea seas all the way. So we were out
00:02:17
on the water for two weeks and hardly saw a wave which was
00:02:21
terrific and especially this time of the year. I mean,
00:02:24
cyclones have been all over the place, but we managed to miss
00:02:27
all of that. How was your Christmas? Pretty quiet.
00:02:30
We had family friends and everybody around on several
00:02:33
occasions, including my two sons who came and had a lovely boxing
00:02:37
day with us but I had my head down for most of it trying to
00:02:39
finish an article that has been hanging over my head for 3.5
00:02:43
years. So I did finish it and the, the good news is, it's
00:02:48
finished. The bad news is that it's 50% too long. And so I've
00:02:51
got to start chopping away at all this work that I've done.
00:02:56
So, it's an ongoing story. In fact, I wonder when this story
00:03:00
will ever end.
00:03:01
Yeah, that's a slow burn. 3.5 years. Good grief.
00:03:06
It is pretty shameful, actually, shameful.
00:03:10
Well, they should have given you a deadline that works in radio.
00:03:13
I can tell you the dead.
00:03:17
Ha.
00:03:18
Oh, dear. Ok, Fred. Let's, let's get stuck into it because we
00:03:21
have a lot to talk about for our first official show back for
00:03:25
2024. And let's start with this unfortunate situation that seems
00:03:30
to have struck the Peregrine Moonlander. It was launched on a
00:03:34
brand new rocket just the other day.
00:03:37
It looks like, the rocket launch was ok, but then when they
00:03:41
released the spacecraft and this, this is a civilian effort.
00:03:44
This was going to be the first civilian touchdown on the moon
00:03:48
and now it looks like it's not even gonna get there, but it was
00:03:51
launched on the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is the next big
00:03:55
thing.
00:03:56
Quite right. It's, it is a sort of story that as you say, it got
00:04:01
off to a great start. And it's full of promise and all kinds of
00:04:05
interesting aspects to it.
00:04:07
But it looks as though it's in big trouble now and the, the
00:04:11
really interesting thing about it. First of all, exactly as
00:04:15
you've highlighted, Andrew, we ha what we have is the first
00:04:18
launch of the United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur
00:04:24
rocket, which is a replacement for their older version.
00:04:29
And that performed flawlessly United Launch Alliance is
00:04:33
basically a, a collaboration between Boeing and Lockheed
00:04:37
Martin and is one of the, I guess the two big players in in
00:04:41
American launch vehicles. So that performed flawlessly the
00:04:46
Peregrine Lunar Lander itself exactly as you've said, it is
00:04:50
private enterprise.
00:04:52
NASA is trying to actually devolve a lot of its development
00:04:56
and production work on issues that you might consider
00:05:00
relatively straightforward, like sending probes to the moon to
00:05:03
the private sector. And so, and, and that's and, and in that
00:05:08
regard, I do note that NASA in commenting briefly on the fact
00:05:15
that the Peregrine Lander seems to have run into trouble.
00:05:18
Kind of shrugged their shoulders and said, yeah, that's kind of
00:05:21
what we expect with you know, such a new idea of putting the
00:05:25
private sector on on top of these projects. But it, but it
00:05:30
will lead to better understanding of what the issues
00:05:33
might be.
00:05:34
So what, what happened? What I we, we're not really exactly
00:05:38
clear yet what happened. The first problem was that they
00:05:42
discovered the mission controllers discovered that they
00:05:45
couldn't turn the spacecraft to point its solar panel at the sun
00:05:50
and to charge up the batteries.
00:05:52
And that was a real panic situation because you don't have
00:05:55
that long on the onboard batteries for them to provide
00:05:59
power without being actually resupplied by solar energy. And
00:06:05
so, yet the sun, you know, the sun pointing exercise turned out
00:06:09
to be a lot harder than they expected. And that was the first
00:06:12
alert to the fact that there was a problem.
00:06:15
They managed to do it but then realized that they had a serious
00:06:19
propellent loss. Which you know, I'm not sure whether they know
00:06:24
how that's happened yet, but they've, they've described it as
00:06:28
a failure within the propulsion system that's causing a critical
00:06:31
loss of propellant trying to stabilize the loss.
00:06:34
But given the situation, they have prior prioritized,
00:06:38
maximizing the science and data they can capture. In other
00:06:41
words, looking at what they can actually do with a spacecraft
00:06:45
that probably isn't gonna make it to the lunar surface because
00:06:49
they don't have the fuel needed to make a safe landing.
00:06:53
The just very briefly, I know we, we, we were just, this is
00:06:57
just an update, but the spacecraft is interesting
00:06:59
because it carries a number of NASA experiments. They've funded
00:07:03
the mission essentially but also has some little miniature rovers
00:07:07
which I think have come from the Mexican Space Agency.
00:07:11
And also the what, what might be called, well, what are called
00:07:16
crem capsules. These are little capsules containing the ashes of
00:07:21
humans. So it's taken some ashes to the moon. That was the plan.
00:07:26
And it was a plan that had turned controversial because the
00:07:31
Navajo nation in Arizona in particular are upset about the
00:07:36
idea of human remains being placed on what they consider to
00:07:40
be a sacred object that the moon in their tradition.
00:07:43
And so that pro produced some con controversy which has not
00:07:47
really been resolved. But if the spacecraft doesn't make it to
00:07:49
the moon that solves that problem, And that seems like the
00:07:53
likely outcome at the moment.
00:07:55
Yes. And it, it, I suppose that there's more controversy now
00:07:59
because with human remains on board and, you know, planning to
00:08:03
put them on the lunar surface, they won't get there now. So
00:08:06
what happens there?
00:08:08
I'm, I'm guessing that the propellant loss has been because
00:08:14
of some fault with the lunar lander itself or there's been
00:08:19
some damage as it was taken out of the payload. Who knows? I
00:08:22
guess they'll try and figure that out, but they're, they're
00:08:25
now trying to see what can be salvaged in terms of things they
00:08:30
want to achieve on this particular mission.
00:08:33
I was surprised when you said that NASA kind of expected
00:08:35
there'd be issues. So why would you, you know, knowing that
00:08:39
things might go wrong, why would you still go ahead and put your
00:08:44
stuff on board now? Knowing that it'll probably not reach its
00:08:49
destination?
00:08:51
I don't, I don't, I think they were, that, that's taking it a
00:08:54
little bit too far. I think it's more that they were
00:08:57
philosophical about the, the fact that there was an issue.
00:09:01
They, they didn't expect it.
00:09:02
But they understand that they're doing something so new that, you
00:09:08
know, that private enterprise is very capable in the,
00:09:10
particularly in the USA in terms of the space industry. But, but
00:09:14
there's always risks at and perhaps what's, what's, what's
00:09:18
different is that NASA is an extremely risk averse
00:09:22
organization as you might expect, especially when human
00:09:26
life is involved and eventually it will be with the Artemis
00:09:29
missions.
00:09:30
In fact, we've learned this morning that they pushed those
00:09:32
back. So we're not going to see Artemis two until probably late
00:09:36
next year and we're not going to see Artemis three until 2026. So
00:09:40
that's not unexpected.
00:09:41
But that comes from, you know, the fact that when you've got
00:09:44
humans, you cannot, you know, you can't, you can't take risks.
00:09:48
Whereas, I'm sure they've been risk averse with the, the
00:09:52
Peregrine mission. But they, as I said, they're more
00:09:55
philosophical about the fact that things haven't gone
00:09:57
according to plan.
00:09:58
Well, let's face it. Sometimes things do go horribly wrong.
00:10:03
Sometimes it's only a small problem but it can create big
00:10:08
issues with, trying to, trying to get things done. Let's hope
00:10:13
that they can piece together some sort of, salvage job on
00:10:17
this and, and achieve something.
00:10:20
But landing on the moon looks like it's been lost to them,
00:10:24
unfortunately, but we will watch with interest and hopefully have
00:10:29
some positive news in the aftermath of the Peregrine
00:10:33
Moonlander issues. Let's move on to this next story.
00:10:36
This is an amazing story about the search for the remains of
00:10:44
Nicholas Copernicus, the great astronomer and mathematician who
00:10:50
well came up with an idea and wasn't real keen to make it
00:10:55
public because he was worried about the backlash from the
00:10:58
church and, and other scholars.
00:11:00
But it, it brings me to that great Copernicus joke where his
00:11:04
mother said to him someday, my Nicky Copernicus someday, you'll
00:11:09
learn that the world doesn't revolve around you. And, and
00:11:14
that was, that was basically what he, what he wanted to prove
00:11:17
that earth was not the center of the universe and everything
00:11:20
revolved around us.
00:11:21
But the the the the search has been on for his, his remains and
00:11:25
even Napoleon wanted to find him because he held Copernicus in
00:11:31
such such high esteem. So tell us about this amazing story of
00:11:36
the search and potential discovery of his remains.
00:11:39
Y Yes, that's right. So it's, he died in, from Borg in Poland in
00:11:45
1543. He actually died just about the same time as his great
00:11:49
book on the Excuse me, On the Revolution of the Planets Around
00:11:52
the Sun de Revolution Bus is what we call it.
00:11:56
It's that book was basically published while he was on his
00:12:00
deathbed. So he did see it, I think, but then passed away
00:12:04
knowing that he'd, his great work had been put out there for
00:12:08
all to see. What surprised me about this story. Andrew is that
00:12:13
while he was alive, he wasn't really known as an astronomer,
00:12:17
he was a mathematician, but he basically put that mathematical
00:12:21
knowledge into economics.
00:12:23
And he developed theories of economics which are still kind
00:12:28
of hints of them are still you know, visible in the, in the
00:12:32
work of great economists like Milton Friedman and people of
00:12:36
that sort. So his ideas were very far reaching. The
00:12:40
Copernican model.
00:12:41
Doesn't actually, oh it's true origin to him because there were
00:12:46
Greeks who put, put the sun at the center of the solar system.
00:12:50
Nobody believed them because Ptolemy was so great a
00:12:53
scientist, Ptolemy was the the person who said, of course the
00:12:57
earth at the center. And that was what we call the Ptolemaic
00:13:00
system. But by the time Copernicus was a thinking man in
00:13:03
the 15 thirties and forties.
00:13:06
He'd got the other end of the stick. That, that, yeah,
00:13:08
actually it's, that's the wrong way around. It's the sun that's
00:13:11
at the center. So he passed away as I said, 1543 in the cathedral
00:13:17
at, from Borg in Poland. And a few people have tried to
00:13:23
identify, his remains within that cathedral because there's
00:13:27
about 100 100 graves in there.
00:13:30
Most of which are basically named their graves without
00:13:35
anybody's name on them. And so, you know, basically, there's
00:13:40
been a long history and as you said, it included a good old
00:13:44
Napoleon thinking that it would be good to try and find
00:13:48
Copernicus's remains because of his, of his admiration for, for
00:13:52
Copernicus. So fast forward to 2005.
00:13:57
And I think you and I might have covered this story on the radio
00:14:01
when you used to be in charge of breakfasts in the western plains
00:14:06
of New South Wales. It was a group of Polish archaeologists
00:14:11
who picked up the thinking about where Copernicus might be. And
00:14:16
because Copernicus had a relatively elevated position
00:14:20
within the cathedral, he was the Canon Of Thromb Cathedral.
00:14:25
The they made the fairly logical assumption that he would have
00:14:29
been buried near the altar which he was responsible for while he
00:14:34
was, while he was serving. And so sometimes known as the altar
00:14:39
of the Holy Cross, they found there were 13 skeletons near
00:14:43
this altar, including one that was incomplete belonging to a
00:14:48
man aged between 6070 years.
00:14:53
And that actually matched Copernicus's age better than any
00:14:58
of the other skeletons. So they took this as being likely to be
00:15:04
Copernicus skeleton. And what they did was they took the skull
00:15:08
and they made from that a facial reconstruction. And I think that
00:15:11
might be what you and I would have talked about back then in
00:15:14
the early two thousands because I still have a picture of that
00:15:17
facial reconstruction on my, on my laptop.
00:15:21
And so that was, you know, that was where the story sat.
00:15:26
But there was a further step that took place not very long
00:15:30
after that. Because of course, what you want to find is DNA and
00:15:35
DNA analysis is actually the, the sort of gold standard in
00:15:40
this regard. And so it turned out that the skeleton, the
00:15:46
skeleton that was proposed to be of Copernicus had very well
00:15:50
preserved teeth.
00:15:52
And so they could use that material, the material from his
00:15:55
teeth to essentially do a genetic scan, a genetic you
00:16:01
know, identification and that's all well and good. But in order
00:16:06
to really pin it down, you need to, to know the genetic material
00:16:10
of somebody who is rela related to Copernicus.
00:16:14
And there, there's nobody who fits fits the bill of that. But
00:16:18
then it turns out and this was actually just a few years, a
00:16:21
couple of years after that facial reconstruction and they
00:16:24
found that these Polish scientists in a book that had
00:16:28
been taken to Sweden, that Copernicus used a reference book
00:16:33
that Copernicus used.
00:16:36
It had been taken to Sweden apparently in the middle of the
00:16:39
16 hundreds. And he's actually resides in a museum that I
00:16:43
visited the Gustav, the Gustav Anum at Uppsala University.
00:16:47
It's a marvelous marvelous Museum Fe in Upsala in Sweden.
00:16:52
It's well worth a visit, stunning collection. So this
00:16:55
book is actually in the Gust Gustav, Gustav Anum and they
00:17:02
kind of went through it with a fine tooth comb and that's an
00:17:06
appropriate metaphor because what they found were hairs hairs
00:17:10
in the book that probably belonged to Copernicus.
00:17:13
And so, you know, to cut to the chase, they actually could
00:17:17
extract genetic material from these hairs and compare them
00:17:22
with what they'd got from the teeth and actually some bone
00:17:25
samples as well from the tomb, compare them.
00:17:29
And what did they get? They got a match. And that's such a
00:17:32
strong suggestion that this is actually the skeleton of
00:17:36
Copernicus that I think, you know, that the the world of of
00:17:40
science history is really celebrating a breakthrough of,
00:17:43
of this, you know, of this because of this result.
00:17:47
So it is an extraordinary outcome, an extraordinary
00:17:49
finding that modern DNA testing can give you basically a pretty
00:17:56
solid identification of somebody who's in an unmarked grave with
00:18:01
no known relatives. It's quite extraordinary. It is amazing.
00:18:04
And when you really analyze it, that, that particular book that
00:18:08
they found the Hares in was a war trophy. Sweden had invaded
00:18:12
Poland in the mid 17th century and they took the war, took the
00:18:17
book back as a piece of war booty.
00:18:20
And that's how it ended up in, in Sweden and they found those
00:18:23
hairs and they've cross referenced them, as you said.
00:18:26
And you know, the odds of someone else being buried in
00:18:30
that cathedral that read that book as well are very, very low,
00:18:35
I would imagine. So, it, it almost confirms his identity
00:18:41
almost. Absolutely. You just can't say 100%.
00:18:45
Well, that's right. You ne you never can with these things, but
00:18:47
it's very, very compelling evidence. Actually, you've just
00:18:50
reminded me that there's another connection with modern day
00:18:54
Sweden, which certainly I've been involved with because one
00:18:58
of the fantastic tourist attractions in Stockholm is the
00:19:02
Vasa, which is a sailing ship that was built by the king of
00:19:07
Sweden to go and basically join in the battle for Poland.
00:19:11
And on its maiden voyage, sank in the harbor in Stockholm, was
00:19:16
dug up in 1961 or you know, raised and is in the most
00:19:21
astonishing museum. It is such a a is absolutely awe inspiring to
00:19:25
walk in and see this 17th century vessel. It's huge
00:19:29
towering above you looking as though actually it's made of
00:19:32
Easter egg chocolate because that's the, because the
00:19:34
preservative that they used to, to, to protect the wood. Now it
00:19:38
's dry.
00:19:39
Do you, do you know why it fell over?
00:19:41
Yeah, because the king wanted an extra layer of gun guns and the
00:19:46
lower deck. So the gun ports were open and it healed in the
00:19:51
wind and the water came in through the gun port.
00:19:54
I heard another, I don't know if it's the same ship, but I heard
00:19:56
a theory that during construction there was confusion
00:19:59
over the weights and measures process and one group of
00:20:03
tradesmen used one system of measure and someone else used
00:20:07
another and the thing was actually built with a lopsided
00:20:10
weight distribution, but I, I don't know if it's the same.
00:20:13
That might have been part of it as well.
00:20:15
Yeah, but it didn't last long. I mean, you and I didn't even get
00:20:19
out of the harbor and gone.
00:20:23
No.
00:20:25
Very sad story. That one, but the great news that they have
00:20:28
probably identified Nicholas Copernicus, do we know what will
00:20:32
happen with those bones? Now? Are they just gonna leave them
00:20:35
there? What, what happens?
00:20:37
I think so. I think they would have, you know, reburied them.
00:20:40
They've probably been there for the last nearly 20 years after
00:20:43
they took, took the samples.
00:20:46
Ok. Fair enough. Alright. Fascinating story and one with
00:20:51
a, well, a happy ending. I suppose you're listening to
00:20:54
Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.
00:20:59
Let's take a quick break from the show to tell you about our
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VPN dot com slash Space Nuts. Get onto it today and now back
00:24:14
to the show notes. Now, Fred, we're off to Titan and this is a
00:24:23
place you really don't want to go on a hot summer's day for a
00:24:27
swim.
00:24:28
It's a pretty hostile environment, but it's also
00:24:31
shrouded in mystery because they've been sort of, I'm
00:24:35
guessing through radar images, seeing stuff floating in the
00:24:39
ocean and then disappearing and they thought they were probably
00:24:42
ghost islands at one stage. But now they've got a new theory and
00:24:46
this one sounds like it might hold water or methane as the
00:24:50
case may be.
00:24:51
That's right. So just to recap on this, we talked about this a
00:24:54
lot at the time.
00:24:56
And these are results from the Cassini mission which ended in
00:25:00
2017. And one of its great triumphs was mapping essentially
00:25:06
using radar of Titan's large, sorry, Saturn's largest moon
00:25:11
Titan.
00:25:12
Titan is one of the most extraordinary worlds in the
00:25:15
solar system because it's the only place in the universe other
00:25:18
than the earth where we know there is liquid, there is liquid
00:25:22
on the surface. A liquid in which is in, in equilibrium with
00:25:27
its atmosphere.
00:25:28
So Titan has a thick atmosphere, if I remember, rightly, its
00:25:31
atmospheric pressure is about 100 times what we have here a
00:25:34
bit like Venus. It's it's mostly, if I remember rightly,
00:25:39
mostly carbon dioxide but has within it because the
00:25:44
temperature out at the distance of Titan is typically a H minus
00:25:48
100 and 90 °C.
00:25:50
The, the, the, the there is a sort of rain cycle on Titan,
00:25:54
which is because it's got methane and ethane and they are
00:26:00
basically go between a vapor and a liquid state. And so there are
00:26:04
lakes on the surface of Titan which by the way, is not rock.
00:26:08
It's solid water ice with a layer of liquid water underneath
00:26:11
it. It's an amazing, absolutely amazing place.
00:26:14
And NASA of course, has has plans to launch AAA another
00:26:19
helicopter to send to Titan, something called Dragonfly,
00:26:22
which I'm sure you and I will talk about when Space Nuts is in
00:26:26
its 4/100 in its fifth century of editions in, in the four
00:26:34
hundreds. Yes, that's right of episodes.
00:26:37
So, so one of the puzzles that came from the discovery of these
00:26:43
lakes and I should say they were discovered by the downward
00:26:46
pointing radar carried on the Cassini probe. You did. What you
00:26:52
do is you, you beam radio waves down to the surface and look at
00:26:56
what they look like when they come back and if you've got a
00:26:59
dark reflection, then what it tells you is that your radio
00:27:05
waves are bouncing off something very smooth.
00:27:07
Indeed. If you've got a bright reflection, it, they're coming
00:27:10
off a rough surface. And so by using that technology, the NASA
00:27:18
and East mission, scientists were able to map these lakes and
00:27:22
seas which are predominantly in the northern hemisphere of
00:27:24
Titan. There are one or two in the South.
00:27:27
And the only liquid that can sort of survive under those
00:27:31
conditions is a mixture of methane and ethane. And that's
00:27:33
what the atmosphere contains. We know that from spectroscopy. So
00:27:37
the seas were well mapped and they've got names Kraken Mare, I
00:27:41
think is the biggest which has, which is in two halves with a
00:27:46
narrow gap between them, which is called the throat of Kraken.
00:27:50
It's great, great terminology, but one of the mysteries that
00:27:53
came up, well, there are two really one is that you can use
00:27:57
the radar Andrew to measure how smooth the surface of this
00:28:02
liquid is. And it turned out that the biggest waves on it are
00:28:06
a matter of millimeters high. They're not, you know, they're
00:28:08
not waves like the ones we we see on earth, they are tiny.
00:28:13
And we don't really know why that is. There is a suggestion
00:28:17
that it might be because there's a thin layer of ice covering
00:28:20
these seas, but that's you know, something that remains to be
00:28:25
seen. But the other thing that was detected by Cassini was what
00:28:29
you've termed magic islands or ghost islands, which are bright
00:28:34
patches in the seas that come and go. They, I think they come
00:28:39
and go over a matter of days in fact.
00:28:42
And so the question was always, and this was a question that was
00:28:47
left unanswered, excuse me, by the Cassini mission. Those
00:28:51
islands were discovered first in 2014 and they, they, they, they
00:28:57
move on the surface but they disappear as well. So they, they
00:29:02
appear and move around on the surface and then vanish with,
00:29:06
with time intervals.
00:29:08
I said a few hours or days, a few, sorry, a few days, they can
00:29:11
last just hours or even several weeks in occasion, but they were
00:29:15
all temporary, all temporary. And so the the thinking about
00:29:22
what they were at the time were, well, first of all, temporary
00:29:27
icebergs made, you know, made of perhaps frozen ethane or
00:29:31
methane. And that's actually close to what this like the new
00:29:34
theory suggests.
00:29:37
But another theory was that they were actually ripples on the
00:29:40
surface. If you've got wind blowing on the surface that
00:29:43
causes it to ripple, then that will make the surface look
00:29:47
bright in a radar reflection. And so, you know, ripples have
00:29:51
been put down as being one of the possibilities as well.
00:29:56
Anyway, cutting to the chase, there is a new study that
00:30:00
suggests that they may be organic chemicals, which are
00:30:07
actually what ethane and methane are, but perhaps several
00:30:11
different species of organic chemicals. And the, the article
00:30:15
which, we is on f.org one of our favorite websites that actually
00:30:19
lists many of these, different, potential organic solids, which
00:30:24
they think might have condensed sort of out of the atmosphere.
00:30:30
And one, because they've looked at the, the contents of the
00:30:34
atmosphere as well as the contents of the liquid legs to,
00:30:38
to try and figure out what they might be. And so what they're
00:30:41
saying is there might be solid materials deposited out the
00:30:44
atmosphere which could float for a while before eventually
00:30:48
sinking.
00:30:49
And they wonder whether, you know, the, the these things
00:30:53
might have an interesting structure. They actually suggest
00:30:57
they might be a kind of almost like a honeycomb structure.
00:31:01
They s so, and, and they, they actually come to that conclusion
00:31:06
because I, if you've got this sort of honeycomb, then it takes
00:31:09
a while for the liquid methane to seep into it so that the
00:31:13
thing would then sink. And so a honeycomb would allow it to sit
00:31:17
on the surface for a longer time, interesting stuff which is
00:31:21
still, I guess, theoretical.
00:31:23
But as good an answer as I think we're going to get in the post
00:31:26
Cassini era. And it may well be that when we send new spacecraft
00:31:31
to Titan, which I hope will happen while space max is still
00:31:34
on air. Then we might get more answers.
00:31:38
Yeah, it is. It is rather interesting and it also adds
00:31:41
more reason to not go swimming on Titan. If stuff's falling
00:31:45
into the ocean and crack you on the head.
00:31:50
Not a pretty, it's a fascinating place but, not for the faint
00:31:54
hearted. Indeed. That's right.
00:31:55
Fainthearted is not something that will take you to, to, to ti
00:32:00
No.
00:32:01
Not at all. Alright. If you do want to read about it, it's on
00:32:04
the Fizz.Org website.
00:32:07
Yeah, there's so much we just need to learn about the the
00:32:11
solar system, let alone what's happening elsewhere in the
00:32:13
universe. And you know, almost on our doorstep, there are
00:32:16
places that are so alien and so much to learn about. We, yes, we
00:32:20
do.
00:32:21
Need to send more missions out and that's exactly what's
00:32:23
happening with Titan. This is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here
00:32:27
with Professor Fred Watson Nuts. Now, Fred, let's tackle some
00:32:36
audience questions and our first one comes from an old mate who
00:32:41
regularly sends questions into us. Rusty from, you know, where.
00:32:47
Hello, Fred and Andrew. Andrew and Fred, it's Rusty from
00:32:49
Donnybrook.
00:32:51
Refractive index describes the speed of light in a medium. So
00:32:58
in a vacuum, the effect of index is one and the speed of light is
00:33:02
C in glass. It's about 1.5. So the speed of light is reduced by
00:33:12
dividing see by 1.5 and in water, it's 1.3 and so on. So
00:33:19
you do get these different optical media which all slower
00:33:24
than a vacuum, the vacuum at space time.
00:33:28
But then we come to quantum entanglement and messages
00:33:34
somehow go outside of space time and can reach any distance with
00:33:40
the two entangled particles are separated and it's instant and
00:33:48
requires no energy. So my question is with an effective
00:33:53
refractive index of zero.
00:33:56
Although it's not like we're talking about, do you think it's
00:34:00
that every particle in the universe would be have some
00:34:04
component outside of space time for this to to be able to occur?
00:34:10
And if so, do you think we should be doing a heck of a lot
00:34:12
more research into it? Thank you guys.
00:34:14
Cheers. Wow. He always comes up with a parlor, doesn't he?
00:34:19
Yeah.
00:34:21
Yeah. It's so entanglements and very, very intriguing. You know,
00:34:28
an intriguing phenomenon which some people say defies
00:34:33
relativity because it looks as though information is
00:34:36
transmitted faster than the speed of light.
00:34:39
But the quantum physicists themselves say that's a naive
00:34:42
interpretation and it's not what 's happening. It's, it's more
00:34:46
that you have that you have a correlation between the
00:34:52
entangled particles. And so there isn't any way of somehow
00:34:57
twisting it to, to make faster than light communication.
00:35:03
Of course, it's, it, it happens. And we know that there's there
00:35:09
is a phenomenon. But it, but I think it's, it's one that's been
00:35:13
misrepresented a lot of the time. And I, and you can
00:35:16
probably tell I'm struggling to explain it because I'm a bit
00:35:19
hazy about the, the actual mechanism that are correlated.
00:35:23
That, you know, this idea of the correlation brings up.
00:35:27
I have, I've read very good piece which I might check again
00:35:33
about this exactly what quantum entanglement entails and it's
00:35:37
not faster than light transmission. I'll check through
00:35:40
that once we're off air and maybe try and talk about that a
00:35:44
little bit next time. But yeah, II, I love, you know, Rusty's
00:35:49
introduction to this because he 's absolutely right.
00:35:52
The speed of light varies depending on what medium you're
00:35:55
in. And the, and it's certainly possible that there could be
00:36:02
additional dimensions that we're not yet familiar with. And that
00:36:06
's, there is a lot of research being done on that in the world
00:36:10
of fundamental physics.
00:36:12
It's one of them is work, you know, the, the, the, the idea of
00:36:18
dark matter and dark energy, which are quantities that we are
00:36:22
familiar with in astronomy because the evidence is all
00:36:24
there that they exist, but we don't know what they are, some
00:36:28
of the theories as to what they might be require additional
00:36:31
dimensions that we have not yet discovered.
00:36:35
And that's one of the things that's sort of I, I suppose,
00:36:38
propelled a lot of work at the places like the large Hadron
00:36:41
Collider, that giant atom smasher on the Swiss French
00:36:44
border, that collider has not yet, despite its, I think it's
00:36:50
still at 14 tera electron volts is its maximum energy.
00:36:53
It's, it's not, it hasn't shown up any evidence of anything that
00:36:58
could be interpreted as needing new physics. And so what that
00:37:03
means is they haven't worked out what dark matter and dark energy
00:37:05
is yet. But at the same time, they haven't found anything that
00:37:08
needs higher dimensions. But that work is ongoing.
00:37:12
Exactly. As Rus Rusty suggests, there's a lot of effort being
00:37:14
put into it. And well, we'll try and keep everybody up to date,
00:37:19
but I will check out quantum entanglement again because it's
00:37:21
something that it annoys me that I can't put into simple words,
00:37:26
why it isn't faster than light transmission?
00:37:30
Ok. But that's what people are confused into thinking. Is that
00:37:34
what you're saying?
00:37:35
Yep.
00:37:36
Ok. Yes. Yes. It is very confusing. But when you put the
00:37:40
word quantum ahead of anything, you know, you're going to have a
00:37:42
complicated situation.
00:37:45
Alright. Thank you, Rusty. Let's move on to our next question.
00:37:50
This one is a text question from Johann spoof. Johann is a patron
00:37:55
and thank you Johann for supporting Space Nuts, which
00:37:59
anybody can do if they want to. All the details are on our
00:38:01
website. But yeah, he he's got AAA pretty simple question. I'm
00:38:06
not sure it'll be a simple answer because our solar system
00:38:09
doesn't seem to reflect that of many other solar systems.
00:38:13
But he says, how come just the inner planets have rocky
00:38:16
surfaces? For instance, why aren't Jupiter and Neptune rocky
00:38:20
planets or put differently? Why doesn't the inner planets or why
00:38:25
don't the inner planets have a large gaseous envelope above
00:38:29
their rocky surfaces? Thanks Johan. Interesting question. Is
00:38:33
there a simple answer to that one, Fred?
00:38:35
Certainly, people who look at, you know, the theories of the
00:38:40
origins of planets think they know the answer and they're the
00:38:44
ones I listen to.
00:38:45
So so the the just going back to, you know, planetary
00:38:51
formation 101, we've got AAA young star which has around it,
00:38:57
a protoplanetary disc, a disc of gas and dust which is swirling
00:39:00
around and the bits of material are colliding with one another
00:39:04
and gradually building up bigger, bigger bodies. So you
00:39:07
get some protoplasm mo and then protoplanetary planets by this
00:39:13
process of accretion things sticking together.
00:39:16
And but the critical thing in the case of the solar system is
00:39:20
where that happens. And so the thinking is that on the inner
00:39:25
edge of the solar system, the sorry, the inner part of the
00:39:29
solar system where the rocky planets are the temperature
00:39:32
because of the solar radiation is high enough to prevent the
00:39:36
formation of ice.
00:39:38
Whereas beyond that line, which is called either the ice line or
00:39:44
the frost line, you get water ice forming. Now, water's
00:39:48
critical to this process because first of all, it's the most
00:39:52
common two element molecule in the whole universe, it's
00:39:55
everywhere.
00:39:56
And so it would have been in the solar nebula and also in the dis
00:40:01
the protoplanetary disc, the solar nebula is the cloud of gas
00:40:04
and dust from which the sun was born or in which the sun was
00:40:08
born.
00:40:09
So you've got water, basically vapor, which when it's within
00:40:14
the, the frost line or the snow line is vapor and it's vapor at
00:40:19
the distances of the rocky planets. But when you get beyond
00:40:22
that, it can freeze out and form ice.
00:40:25
And so the thinking is that the planets that were formed beyond
00:40:29
the frost line could actually accrete more material they got
00:40:33
bigger because they were able to collect ice. And so they
00:40:39
probably have very icy cores deep down somewhere.
00:40:43
And then because of their increased mass compared with the
00:40:47
rocky planets, that means they were able to hold on to a gassy
00:40:52
envelope until the present time rather than losing it, which
00:40:56
might well be what happened in the case of the inner planet. So
00:40:59
they've got their gassy atmosphere and a much bigger,
00:41:02
much more massive ice core. That 's the thinking. It makes a lot
00:41:07
of sense.
00:41:07
It is certainly very neat and tidy that we have four rocky
00:41:11
planets and four gas giant planets beyond them. And it's
00:41:14
certainly true that the frost line exists between the orbits
00:41:17
of Mars and Jupiter. So it, you know, it, it seems to be the,
00:41:21
the, the correct answer.
00:41:23
So, why, then do we have rocky dwarf planets beyond the four
00:41:28
gas giants or are they ice planets?
00:41:31
Yes, they are. They're, they're ice planets, most of them. So,
00:41:34
so, and, and, well, a true ice planet would be a comet in the
00:41:39
sense that comets are just basically, you know, small blobs
00:41:42
of ice.
00:41:43
But we think that the, so by the time you get to the distance
00:41:48
from the sun that the dwarf planets are, and we're thinking
00:41:52
of objects like Pluto and Eris and Mai Mai and Quao, all of
00:41:57
these are transnet objects, small objects, they're small
00:42:03
because at that distance, there wasn't much left of the PLO
00:42:08
protoplanetary disc to, to accrete objects.
00:42:12
You know, you couldn't, you couldn't make something big at
00:42:14
that distance because you sort of, you were running out of
00:42:17
material and all that was left really was ice, mostly ice.
00:42:21
And then, you know, if you, if you look further out, you, you
00:42:25
come to the cloud, which is just a cloud of, of, of icy bodies
00:42:29
which we call comets, which are probably, you know, the, the
00:42:33
leftovers of the extremities of the cloud of gas and dust from
00:42:36
which the sun formed.
00:42:38
One more question though. We are looking at our solar system
00:42:42
which when we now analyze other solar systems, ours doesn't seem
00:42:47
to be typical because there are gas giants close to their parent
00:42:51
stars and there are rocky planets beyond certain limits.
00:42:56
So what makes the difference? Is it the type of star that seems
00:43:00
that could cause that variation?
00:43:03
It's a good point actually that, you know, we've not found a AAA
00:43:06
neat and tidy analog of our solar system anywhere, partly
00:43:10
because small rocky planets are very, very difficult to detect.
00:43:14
And so, you know, most of the 5000 or so planets that are now
00:43:18
known are big ones bigger than the earth. There are earth like
00:43:21
planets known, there are ways of detecting them.
00:43:23
But the, but, you know, for, for a long time, all we were finding
00:43:27
was the jupiters and yet you're right, hot. Jupiters are very,
00:43:31
very close to their parent stars and they're hot. So, the
00:43:36
thinking I think is that you've, in certainly in the case of some
00:43:40
stars, you've got a lot of mixing of orbits.
00:43:44
If you've got, you know, something that gets disturbed by
00:43:46
another star passing by, then it can toss a planet out of its
00:43:50
orbit into something much different. But that is still one
00:43:54
of the puzzles though, of modern astronomy as to why we see this
00:43:58
enormous variation in where planets are formed and, and, and
00:44:02
a neat and tidy solar system like ours seems to be a rarity.
00:44:06
It's, there doesn't seem to be a standard model at all.
00:44:09
So that's right. Standard model.
00:44:13
Maybe they'll figure it out one day. But, there you are, Johann,
00:44:16
it's because that's the answer to your question.
00:44:21
Just the way it worked out basically. Because of that frost
00:44:25
line. Thanks for your question. Lovely to get that one from you.
00:44:29
And we've got one more question from Ralph who is a regular
00:44:33
Cerina. I've always wanted to say that. Hello, Master Nuts.
00:44:37
This is Ralph in northern California thought maybe I'd
00:44:40
throw another quick one at you since it's an all questions
00:44:43
episode coming up.
00:44:46
Recently, Fred was talking about planet nine and the possibility
00:44:52
of something out there that's, you know, lining the planets or
00:44:57
some force that we hadn't reckoned that is there in the,
00:45:01
in our solar system. They got me to thinking we take it for
00:45:05
granted.
00:45:05
At least we lay people do that. Our solar system is well mapped
00:45:09
and everything is accounted for and we know it inside and out,
00:45:12
but it almost seems now that we really don't. Is it possible
00:45:18
there's a lot more to our solar system than we, than we realize
00:45:22
just thinking it through.
00:45:23
Thanks guys. Yeah, it's a good question, Ralph. And that
00:45:26
correlates well, with the previous question in some
00:45:28
respects, but yes, is there probably, is it possible that
00:45:32
there is stuff out there that we haven't discovered yet about our
00:45:36
solar system, things we just haven't been able to detect or
00:45:40
identify or may never know about.
00:45:43
Well, yes, it's right. And Ralph, that is a great question.
00:45:47
What it isn't, Andrew is things hiding behind the sun. Which is
00:45:52
a popular conspiracy theory. The stuff on the other side of the
00:45:56
sun from the earth that we can't see is not that because we've
00:46:00
got satellites around there.
00:46:02
So that certainly the solar system out to the orbit of
00:46:05
Neptune is well mapped. And it 's, you know, it's, it's with
00:46:11
the modern technology that we have the telescopes that are
00:46:14
available, it will be very hard to miss anything.
00:46:17
And we're, you know, I guess the fact that we're talking about
00:46:20
detecting asteroids down to just over 100 m across, and things of
00:46:24
that sort that's telling you how, well we know the inner part
00:46:29
of the solar system.
00:46:30
Of course, it depends on how near those asteroids come, but
00:46:33
the further out you go, the, the, the fainter, the light or
00:46:39
whatever it is that's being emitted radio waves, the
00:46:42
fainter, they are radiation follows what's called what's
00:46:46
called the inverse square law.
00:46:48
So if you've got a planet that's out at the distance, you know,
00:46:52
twice the distance of Pluto or something, then the amount of
00:46:56
radiation that falls on it is a quarter of what falls on Pluto
00:47:00
and coming back to earth, it's a quarter of what the reflected
00:47:04
light from Pluto is.
00:47:05
So you, you've, you've got this, you know, diminishing returns
00:47:09
and it may well be, we, we, we think there's a population of
00:47:13
icy asteroids, the trans Neptunian objects, which we know
00:47:17
several 1000 of they've been mapped, but there must be many,
00:47:20
many smaller ones that, are too faint for us to detect. You
00:47:25
might remember when new horizons succeeded in its mission to fly
00:47:31
by Pluto.
00:47:33
Back in 2015, it carried on and had a rendezvous with an object,
00:47:38
which we called Tule for a while. And it, but it has a
00:47:43
different name which is eluding me at the moment. It will come
00:47:47
back to me, which is too two, basically two saucer shaped
00:47:51
objects stuck together, an extraordinary thing.
00:47:53
It looked like a snowman when it was first discovered. And that's
00:47:57
a tiny object. It's, I, you know, I can't remember its
00:48:00
dimensions but it's a order a kilometer. I hope you're gonna
00:48:03
tell me what it's what its modern name is.
00:48:07
I'm just trying to have a look.
00:48:09
I've got a reference ahead of 486958 Arow.
00:48:15
I don't know.
00:48:16
Yeah, that's, it's the one that 's correct. And, so that's, that
00:48:22
's what Tuli eventually was called. And, you know, that's a
00:48:27
tiny, tiny object and I can't remember its distance it's
00:48:30
something like, six or 7 billion kilometers. And we just think
00:48:36
that through again, am I talking rubbish? It's certainly, you
00:48:41
know, Neptune.
00:48:41
Well, let's, let's do it in the normal, the normal units, which
00:48:45
are astronomical units. One astronomical unit is the
00:48:48
distance from the earth to the sun. That's 100 and 50 million
00:48:50
kilometers. Neptune is at 30 astronomical units and we're
00:48:54
finding things, 60 astronomical units. They've got to be pretty
00:48:58
big and bright to shine at that distance where planet nine might
00:49:03
be hiding.
00:49:05
Yeah. There you go. 44 astronomical. That's, that's ao,
00:49:08
is it 44 astronomical units? Yeah, good. There you go. And
00:49:13
that's a tiny. So we're doing pretty damn well is my point.
00:49:17
But those distances, there are probably many smaller bodies
00:49:21
that we simply haven't found yet and it is just possible there
00:49:25
might be another planet but it's so far away that it is very,
00:49:28
very difficult to detect.
00:49:31
Yes, indeed. But the search continues. Of course. So Ralph,
00:49:35
yeah, I suppose there's a, there 's stuff still to be discovered.
00:49:38
But what we're piecing together about our solar system is a
00:49:41
pretty big encyclopedia's worth now. So we're getting there bit
00:49:47
by bit, Ralph. Lovely to hear from you. Thanks for your
00:49:50
question. And don't forget if you do have questions whether or
00:49:53
not they're for an all question episode or not.
00:49:55
Ralph's was designed to be, but we didn't get to it in time, but
00:49:59
it was still worth, still worth running with. Yeah, send them to
00:50:02
us so you can do that through the Space Nuts website. Just
00:50:06
click on the various links. There's the send us your
00:50:10
questions, link on the right hand side or you can click the A
00:50:13
MA tab and that you can upload a text question or an audio
00:50:18
question.
00:50:18
As long as you've got a device with a microphone, you're all
00:50:21
set. Just don't forget to tell us who you are or where you're
00:50:24
from and have a look around while you're there. Maybe sign
00:50:28
up to be a patron if you are interested and visit the Space
00:50:32
Nuts shop if you, if you like and see what's available, some
00:50:36
good stuff, some great books in there by a professor. I know
00:50:40
that wraps that up, Fred. Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:50:44
Great pleasure, Andrew as always and I look forward to talking to
00:50:47
you next week.
00:50:49
Indeed, Professor Fred Watson astronomer, a large part of the
00:50:52
team here at Space Nuts. And thanks to Hugh in the studio who
00:50:55
's made an appearance for the first time this year. Good, good
00:50:59
on you here. And from me, Andrew Dunley, thanks for your company.
00:51:02
Looking forward to joining you again on the very next episode
00:51:05
of Space Nuts, available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:51:16
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00:51:18
You can also stream on demand at bites, stop this has been
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