#388: Galacticide

Hi there, Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and glad you could join us once again. Coming up on today's program, we are going to be looking literally at the oldest black hole yet scene. It's not only the oldest, it is big, in fact huge, and it's very, very hungry. We'll also be looking at an asteroid impact on Earth. Yes it happened. Why are we still here? Fred will explain, And the mars kopter has run into some communications issues. We'll cover all that, plus audience questions at a bit of homework coming up on this edition of Space Nuts fifteen second guidance in channel ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts NY four three two more review ones Space Nuts as the night record it Bill's goods and joining us to hash out all of that and much much more is Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. Hello Fred, Andrew, what a surprise to see you there. I was expecting someone else, but it was you, So I'm very happy about that. Yeah, just as well, isn't it? Really? Nobody else would put up, would put up with our respectives for a terrible bunter. Anyway, I'm here and I'm glad you're there and all is well. It's going to be hot day for you, I think the West. Yeah, we're getting some really big numbers at the moment, thirty nine today, forty tomorrow, forty for Australia Day Friday, and then we might get a brief respite into the weekend proper. But yes, stinking hot. I imagine it's also going to be very windy on Australia Day, so I imagine we'll have fire weather warnings and all sorts of stuff. Dogs and cats living together, that's my favorite line. But yeah, it's all. It's all a bit hellish around here at the moment. I think I'd be better off pitching a tent on the sun. At this point in time, Western, it's getting back to a normal Western. Some of the last couple have been quite mild, so this one. The last summer we only had one day over forty degrees, and this season we've had I think this is probably the sixth or seventh, so it's it's been very hot summer. Now let's get down to business. The James Webb Space telescope has been added again and Fred and this time it spied the oldest black hole yet seen, and it is a monster and it is committing astronomical suicide by destroying its own galaxy. By the sound of it, it's a very interesting story. Galacticide. I guess it would be, wouldn't it. That's what it would be. Part arttery side is when you kill your dad galactoside. Yeah, that's I think we've just invented something there. It is a good word. Yeah, I'll just write it down so I don't forget it. Yeah, do that? Do that? Yeah, there you go here you uniting galaxy. Remember where you've heard it first, folks, So yes. So observations are led by from a team of international astronomers led by scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK, and they used the James Web telescope to look at some very early galaxies and by that I mean with a very long look back time. So you're looking back to not very long after the birth of the universe. When we're talking now about time probably about four hundred million years after the Big Bang. So the Big Bangs are currently estimated to be thirteen point eight billion years ago, so this goes back thirteen point four billion years. These observations and yes, what has been discovered is a massive factor super massive black hole at the center of this galaxy. And by that they I don't think they've got a particularly precise number for it yet because it's so far away, but it is a few million times the mass of the Sun, and that puts it very much in the super massive region. And basically what it does throws another upset into our understanding of how galaxies and black holes form and grow. So, just to recap, black holes seem to come in two sorts, the stellar mass black holes the mass typically of a star, a large star, but maybe twenty twenty times the mass of the Sun, and super massive black holes, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, with very little between the intermediate mass black holes which are thought to exist, and in fact some might be looking in the insides of what we call globular clusters of stars, but they're still very much more elusive than either the stellar mass black holes or the super massive black holes. So how does supermassive black holes get so big? The thinking has always been that they start off with stellar mass size, you know, modest sized black holes, just a few, maybe tens or even hundreds of times the mass of the Sun, and they grow over time by accreting other materials. So if you've got one in the center of a youthful galaxy, there's a lot of gas in there. That gas can be sucked in to the black hole. That's the accretion process and causes its mass to increase. But the problem is that is thought to be a process that takes billions of years. So you start off with something small and it grows to a super mass black hole over a period of as I've said, billions of years, and this is only four hundred million years after the Big Bang, and so you know, it's essentially thrown the cut among the pigeons. It's saying, well, how can we get a black hole this size so early in the universe. And the two ways that are being postulated are, first of all, maybe black holes, super massive black holes form in other ways, excuse me. They might come into being as a supermassive black hole rather than come into being as a stellar mass black hole and then grow, or they can gobble up material the surroundings. In other words, they can accrete, to use the technical term, much more rapidly than was thought to be the case, and they're estimating it would have to be about five times the rate of gobbling up that we've been you know, the astronomers have been working with so far. The number that comes from studies of how we think black holes accrete material and grow. So that's the current states. We've got this conundrum, a black hole that should have taken more than a billion years to grow to the size that it has, but it's done it in four hundred million years, and so it's it is a puzzle. Well yeah, and in doing what it's doing, it's also destroying everything around it, but it seems to be doing it in an unusual way. There's this reference to an ultra fast wind that's been caused by this process, and that's what's destroying the galaxy. Rather than eating the galaxy, it's actually destroying it's for one of a better term food source that just sounds really yeah, it does, doesn't it. And so the wind itself, I mean normally things that come out of black holes, and don't they don't come out of the black hole itself, they come out of the accretion disc Normally, the pattern is that you've got a black hole, it builds a kind of disk of material around it which is gradually swirling into the black hole, and that's how it's gobbling up. And some of that material doesn't go into the black hole. It's diverted by magnetic fields into what we call polar jets, jets that come out at right angles to the disc. And that's the wind. But it looks as though there's something else going on here. I don't know too much about this type of wind because I would have expected, you know, if you've got something that's really gobbling up material around it very quickly, the wind will be directed perpendicular to that disc. But it may well be that under some conditions you get a wind that's that's sort of blowing everywhere, what we would call isotropic in all directions. But yeah, it is as you said, that is maybe pushing away the gas that this black hole needs to keep on growing, and eventually that would stop the black hole from accreting. The black hole wouldn't go away, it would still be there, but it wouldn't be gobbling up material any more. It would become what we call a quiescent black hole, which is a bit like the one at the center of our own galaxy. So really interesting stuff. One of the lead authors says, this is the most exciting time in his career. It's a new era. The giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo's telescope to a modern telescope overnight before Web came online. I thought, maybe the universe isn't so interesting when you go beyond what we could see with ourble Space telescope. But that hasn't been the case at all. The universe has been quite generous in what it's showing us. And this is just the beginning. It's almost poetic, isn't it very very poetic? And yeah, it also is that points out the fact that the James Web Space Telescope has, as promised, delivered. A lot of the time they say this is the next big thing it's going to do, you know, yay, yay, and then it goes up again. Oh it's a blob out of focus. But this one's actually delivering, and it's delivering spectacular results, very much so. And the hope is that the telescope will be able to probe even further back in time to look at even earlier black holes, and that might give some clues as to what's going on in the early history of black holes. If we start finding dozens of these super massive black holes at a very early stage of the universe, I think it means we've got to do some really serious rethinking of what's going on in those early galaxies. Yes, indeed, and this one's certainly thrown everybody in a spin because of a how old it is, be how big it is, and see what it's actually doing to its neighborhood and how it's doing that. It's all very Yeah, it's sort of thrown the baby out with the bathwater in terms of theory in some respects, I suppose. So, yeah, we find these things and it opens up so many more questions, but they will hopefully ultimately lead to answers that that's the that's the hope, isn't it. Pret that's the way science works. Yes, that's right. So we've got you know, we've got observations which dog fit the theory that exists. So you rebuild the theory and then do more observations to see whether the theories upheld. This very much the way astronomy works, even at these great distances from from our from our own present time, great distances in time. M all right. If you want to chase up that story about this incredible discovery and this this the Strange black Hole, fizz dot org pH y s dot org is the website where you can find that article. This is Space Nuts Andrew Dunpley here with Professor Fred Watson. Let's take a break from the show to tell you about our sponsor, nord vp N and as a space Nuts listener, you can take advantage of a new year's deal exclusive to you. There's a big discount on offer and four extra months to add on to the standard time that you select. So what you need to do is go to the url NordVPN dot com slash space nuts and that'll take you to the page you need to be on, and then you click on the link that says get nord VPN. Now don't forget, they've got a thirty day money back guarantee that's backing your product thirty day money back guarantee. So click on get NordVPN when you go to the url and you'll see all the options. There's a two year plan, a three year plan, a monthly plan, and within each there are different levels. The one that gives you everything, the one that gives you most of the things that they offer, the tools, or you can get the Basic Plan. 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In this case, you'd get twenty four plus four is twenty eight months at a very low rate. Indeed, so check it out NordVPN dot com slash space nuts and click on get the deal and see what works best for you. And yeah, yeah, I mean you've got three months to try it out. And if it's not for you, okay, you don't have to stick with it, but I'm pretty sure you will. Nord vpn dot com, slash space nuts and get the deal. I'm sure you will not be disappointed. It's the best in the business. Believe me. I've been using it for a couple of years. Now. Now back to the show. Okay, we've tacked all four systems. Now, Fred, let's move on to something that happened more recently than that black hole forming. In fact, this happened only a few days ago. Earth was hit by an asteroid. It has been reported in the popular press, and we're still here to talk about it. Now. What I understand is this one wasn't as big as the one that killed off the dinosaurs. But I have heard a report that they're a small lizard with a limp after this one. Will Yeah, they don't have too many lizards out and about in January in eastern Germany. Whatever, let's have previous truth here in the way of a good joke, though Fred quite so. Yes, so an object that was largely well recorded by you know, by security cameras and dashcums and all the rest of it. An object that came to earth over Berlin, in fact, in the east and half of Germany over the weekend Sunday morning their time, so lots of video and a lot of people really interested in it. It's got a name as all good aid sorry, all good asteroids do. So it's obviously being counted as an asteroid even though it was a small object. Its name is twenty twenty four b x one, and you might remember that the way those numbers work is the date of the year twenty twenty four. The bee says it was the second half of January when it was discovered, because it's alphabetical for each half month throughout the year. It's very cleverly done, and then the alphabetical order and then a number after that. So it's landed outside Berlin. The interesting bit is that it was an astronomer in Hungary. And I think I don't know whether this gentleman Christian Sonski, I think is how we would anglicize his name. I don't know whether he's an amateur astronomer or a professional, but he discovered it and alerted the International Astronomical Union via there's an asteroid discovery system that he can use, and that was then confirmed by NASA, presumably with one of those telescopes. And this all happened kind of twenty minutes before the impact. I think the discovery was made several hours before impact. NASA confirmed it twenty minutes before impact with absolutely spot on prediction of where it would where it would land or where it would disintegrate over and at what time, and it was all right on the money. So this is interesting because it's the eighth time that an asteroid has been discovered before it hits the Earth, and that's telling you that the systems are working, particularly because this is thought to be about a meter across, so it's what you would call a very small asteroid and maybe a large meteoroid. There's a that's a sort of gray area between the two. So yeah, it's it's very very you know, satisfactory outcome of what we're hoping to do in the world of of planetary protection, as it's called, this idea of trying to monitor threats composed by asteroids before they happen. The other thing is that the gentleman who I mentioned, Christian Sanski, forgive me if I'm mispronouncing his name, has discovered three that have been hitting the Earth. In other words, first he's done three of these eight asteroids that have been discovered before they hit the Earth. Very well known asteroid hunter, yes, and seems to be very good at what he does. Now, this one, as you said, around about a meter, which is a little bit smaller than the one that hit the Earth and brought about the beginning of the end of the dinosaurs. That one was as big as Mount Everest or something, wasn't it. And this one broke up on impact. But they do think that it would have showered parts of Europe with micro meteorites. I think they referred to the mass. Yeah, so lots of small bits of debris and it's possible that some of them might be recovered. It's you know, it's wintertime up there. Meteorites are generally black, and often that discovered in Antarctica, where they're against a white background because of snow. Maybe they will be discovered perhaps in the in the regions of eastern Europe where this object is thought to have fallen. Bits of this object I thought to have fallen. So if you do want to if you're a listener from that part of the world and you would want to go out and hunt for these micro media writes, just just keep an eye out for limping lizards and you might you might get laggy. Yeah, I think yes, I think you'd probably be luckier to find a lizard than you would meteorite. At this time of year, the lizards will be well hibernating. I think they would. But yeah, so when you hear the word is asteroid, you automatically think about the dinosaurs and the andsurs frocks that have hit Earth in the past, and you make that assumption. So when when you hear that we've actually been hit by an asteroid, you go, oh no, but they're not always monsters that no, they're not. In fact, that's the interesting part about it. At the moment, you know, all these telescopes that are looking for asteroids are concentrating on the small ones because the big ones, most of them have already been found. She's good news, Yeah, we just we've actually got to watch out for the ones that are just a bit big enough just to get through. They're the ones to Yeah. Did we talk about that last week when I was talking about the asteroid Protection group that I was sitting with in Vienna. Yeah, they postulated a scenario in which, exactly as you said, I want to kill a meter asteroid could get through. It has to be in a very unusual orbit, but it's possible. Never say never. But we've done the double asteroid redirection test and we know it works. So yeah, we live in hope. Exactly. Well, you had your you had your T shirt on last week, didn't you the double storgery direction. Yes, that's right. Now let's move on to Mars, and the Mars Copta has made the news, and that's because it stopped working. In fact, I think it was in the middle of a flight when it lost comms with NASA and they thought end of mission. So yeah, it got a bit scary there for a while, but then it suddenly went nothing to see here, it's all good. I'm here, I'm here. So what do we know about this? So exactly as you said, So it's not the first time. Let's just preface it. It's not the first time. That the copter has suffered communications issues and I think the longest was two months or something that it was, oh, there you go, two months. But this was something different from that, and what they were doing was doing a test flight. This is last week and it was wait for this, This number blows me away and drew. It was Ingenuity's seventy second lift off off the planet Mars, when it was originally planned to have five flights. So seventy two is just an astonishing number and it's been so invaluable to the Perseverance mission, so that's fantastic stuff. Anyway, it was a quick test that they were doing. I think it was basically just an up and down. In fact, they described it as a quick pop up vertical flight to check out the helicopter systems following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight, so there was an issue with the previous flight, and then they did this up and down, but as it was coming down, it lost communications again before touchdown. Now, the great thing is this helicopter is equipped with basically autonomous systems, and it has to be because you know the delay, the time delay between signal leaving Earth getting to Mars and then coming back again is far too long to control helicopter with, so it's got its own brain and it does its own decisions and apparently landed safely. Although it's out of sight of Perseverance itself, they can't actually see it, so there is talk or the worst talk of Perseverance actually having a quick drive over to have a look at it a visual inspection, just to see if it's okay. But at least it's talking to Perseverance, so they've got you know, they've got communications restored. And apparently there was a post on x formerly Twitter asking if Ingenuity would fly again, and JPL Jet Propulsion of the Boro Tree, who run the whole show, said that they are going to be a setting the new information that's come from that before they'll decide whether it'll fly again. So that may have been its last flight. And the other hand, it may just very sad it would be silent, and you know, it's just done such an extraordinary job of reconnaissance in the area around Perseverances, but apparently covered seventeen kilometers and gone up to twenty four meters, which is quite quite a height for a little baby helicopter like that, And I think the other thing that's right at one point eight killograms. It's rotors, if I remember right here, one point two meters well, two of them rotating in opposite directions so that they balance out the talk. The thing that gets me though, is, you know, Martian knights, the temperature way goes way down, probably the minus sixties and things like that, And in fact, the average temperaturep males is minus sixty three. I think if I remember rightly, somebody might correct me if I've got it wrong just remembering. But Martian nights are very, very cold, and the solar panels which are sit on top of the rotors are absolutely vital for keeping it warm by the electric current that they generate for its batteries during the day, which then keep the little spacecraft warm. Not really a spacecraft. It's an aircraft, isn't it. They keep it warm during the night. It's been one of the great success stories of NASA for it to have lasted heck of a lot longer than they plant seventy two missions versus the plant five, but also to survive the prostile conditions for such a long time. That's amazing. Yes, an extraordinary success story. Were full of admiration for the engineers who invented it and built it. Basically, Yeah, and hopefully not the last we'll see of it, but if it is, it's still been a resounding success. You mentioned X formerly known as Twitter. Did you hear that? I've forgotten the name of it? You Tube, Twitter and Facebook are going to merge. Did you hear about this? It's going to be called it didn't? Yeah, it's going to be called you Twitch base. I should have seen that one coming, shouldn't. I probably dead? Oh boy, listen. I was going to save this till later, but I think we will tackle it now. It's a bit of homework. Last week we were talking about a dark energy survey where it brought into question our understanding of the cosmological constant. Now we've had a question from Lindsay asking us to explain the equation of state, the value of the cosmological constant, which is minus point one. But this survey has re jeeked that number be minus point zero eight. But what we didn't do, and I probably should have asked the question at the time, is what is that? How do they work that out? What is the equation of state? It comes from physics really Andrew's you might not be surprised, and it comes from considerations of a perfect fluid, which has its own definition. So if you merge in the universe as a perfect fluid, you can characterize it by this number, which is the equation of state. It's equal to the ratio of its pressure to its energy density, and it's it's sort of, you know, it's part and place of thermodynamics. The pressure to the energy density ratio doesn't really you know, it doesn't really feed much into our understanding of what's happening in the in the far universe. But in the case that we're talking about, which is the cosmological equation of state, the the equation of state as the universe, of the universe as a whole, and how it relates to the accelerated expansion of the universe, it's it's, uh, it actually kind of kind of makes makes more sense. I'm going to just try and read a little bit about the equation of state from the good old Wikipedia website. Uh, the accelerated expansion of the universe can be characterized by the equation of state of dark energy. So it's the dark energy itself, who's equation of state you're looking at. In the simplest case, the equation of state of the cosmological common that's what we were talking about last week, is minus one in this case. The I won't go into more detail, but if you've got an acceleration of an equation of state which is less than minus one third, then you've got you've got a different status and I think I think you've got basically something that changes with time. That's the bottom line of it all. I'm not explaining this very well at all, Andrew, and I hope there aren't any cosmopologists listening or else that the turning in their well, not in their graves, but they're turning in their beds, So there is there's something. There is another hypothetical thing that comes into it as well, which is phantom energy. That's a term I'm not familiar with. Phantom energy is you know, it's said the hypothetical form of energy which actually has a different characteristic in the equation of state. In other words, it's less than minus one. So it basically it's it's a lot of quite deep physics, which is, as you're no doubt noticing, not that easy to put into simple words. No, I can imagine. Well, I just heard it at the pot of flo is the dark energy survey we talked about last week has put a question mark over the equation of state of the cosmological constant. Thank you very much. That's blood you're here, and that's the simple that's the simple explanation. And there's only what a five percent chance that the minus point one is still relevant. Yeah, it's actually it's it's minus it's it's minus one. I'm not sure you might be looking at something slightly different, but it is minus one that he's thought to be. And I think this the value was rather smaller. Wasn't it minus point eight or something like that? Yeah, something like that. Yep, yes, you're right, and what I yeah, I'm just looking at the article now minus point minus one and now it's looking like it's minus point eight. So yes, my ologies, but yeah, thanks for the question, Lindsay. Nice to be able to follow that up and get a let's call it an explanation. This is space, not Andrew Dunkley here, Professor Fred Watson space buds. Now, Fred, let's see if we can answer some questions on other matters. And the first and I forgive me if I've missed your name up because it just couldn't quite catch it in the dialogue. In fact, I might even say your name because you've got to say it for us. Hello, Fred, thank you for a great book. My name is Manny Jabery and in Sweden, and I sent the question about why is astronomy important? Thank you for that answer. I've been thinking a lot of celestial objects rotate, spin, like our planet, our solar system, the stars, the galaxies and even black holes if I understand it correctly. My question is does the universe rotate? And is it possible that we have misinterpreted the expansion of the universe but in reality it's just spins and we are moving away from objects like the moon is escaping Earth. Thank you again, and a morn I think he said, but I'm sorry I forget that wrong. Does the universe rotate? The whole universe? Apparently not? And you know the question that you immediately asked and Andrew is how would we know what that was? The next Yeah, how do you know if it's rotating or not? Because you're in it and the universe by definition is everything that we can we can you know, we can observe or or understand detect. So it's it's basically one of these questions though that people do and ask in exactly the way that we've just heard this morning, sorry today, That is because it's a natural thing to ask that that everything in the universe seems to rotate, absolutely everything, But is the universe itself rotating? And I guess the best way to put it is that there is no evidence that the universe is rotating by any means that we we you know, we investigate whatever means we use to investigate it. There's no evidence that we do that we do find a rotating universe. So the bottom line is the fact that we you know, we have to We're sitting in the universe itself, and the only things that we can measure, certainly at cosmological distances, are the red shifts that the expansion of the universe, the way it's you know, the way shape is changing, if I can put it that way. Even though we don't know whether the universe has a shape, we can we can detect its expansion. So that is one of the things that we do know that the universe is expanding. I have seen articles in the past that say. That suggests that I haven't ever followed this up, so I don't know, you know, what the details are. I should do that it'd be a bit more homework. That suggests that if the universe was rotating, we'd be able to travel backwards in time. That seems a very unlikely scenario to me, because relative relativity doesn't like the idea of backward time travel. You can go forward, but not backwards. So it's yeah, one that might be worth following up. But yeah, no evidence that the universe is rotating. It. Okay, this is a really simple explanation on my part, but I could. I can imagine if it was rotating it it'd be like a glass of water. You know, when you've got a glass of water and you put something in the water and then you rotate the glass that it doesn't really effect what's inside, you know what I'm saying. So even if it was rotating, it might not do anything. Yeah, that's an interesting analog because it almost counteracts the argument because if you were inside a glass of water that it was rotating, what you'd see would be the effect of the centrifugal force of the water being pushed outwards, and you might think you were in an expanding glass of water. If they carry that to the universe, you know, somebody's going to say, oh, it's expanding because it's it's rotating. But then but that lies there being Yeah, that's what one was asking, though, don't know because the second part of his question was if the universe is rotating, does that change the expansion theory? Yeah, so I yes, I missed that bit. I was too busy worrying about the rotation of the universe. It's thought not to be and the you know, the the I guess one of the things that comes into this. Sorry, I'm floundering for words here. One of the points is that if we take the traditional definition of a universe, which is everything we can see or measure or detect, then we would have no way of knowing if it's rotating, because there's no frame of reference outside it within which it's rotating, so that the answer would be no. And I think the only way that you could contemplate a rotating universe will be by accepting the premise that there are other universes out there, that ours is just one of many universes. Then if you take that step, then you might have the possibility that it's rotating, but as I said, there's no evidence that it is. Okay, yeah, gee, it certainly dredges up all sorts of questions and ideas and it made them very big water cooler to stand around and talk about this. I think a great question. Thanks thanks for sending it in. Let's go to a text question. This one comes from Lachlan in James in Minnesota. It says hello from the great state of Minnesota. That's a coincidence because that's where I thought he was from right off the bat. Thank you so much for your educational insight and incredibly down to earth Unintended podcast. You make standing at the Meal so much more enjoyable. I started at the very beginning of your show, and I'm currently in the middle of May twenty twenty one, so I've got ways to go before I catch up. But my question is a bit of an abstract one. Suppose you discover an anomalist telescope of irrelevant size, and what makes this telescope anomalist is that when you look through it, it will show you whatever celestial body it's pointed at in real one to one time. What is the first thing you would look at supposing there's nothing in the way, both from a standpoint of personal choice and a broader standpoint of humanity as a whole. Wanting to learn as much as we can about the universe very much. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks Fellows. James in Minnesota. So you've got a telescope you can look anywhere in the universe in real time, what do you look at? Fred? First and foremost, I think we've discussed this before, actually, Andrew, I'm trying to remember what I said. Then we do get questions like this from time to time. Yeah, just yes, I think it's a it's a similar question to what we've had before. So yeah, I mean what I would really like to see, and it's not really aligned with this question particularly well, But if I could take a telescope anywhere and look, I would love to see our galaxy from the outside. So not only would I be wanting to see, you know, this hypothetical telescope to see anything instantaneously without the delay of time, Then not only would I want to do that, I'd want to move it as well, so I could see what the sweep of our galaxy would look like from the outside. So it's taking the question a little bit further than than James probably intended. Maybe I'm answering a different question, but that's what I'd like to do. Take this hypothetical super duper telescope, plunk it something like one hundred thousand light years above the pole of our galaxy. Might be a dangerous place, actually, because the pole of our galaxy has occasionally known been known to be the source of some high energy material coming from the super super massive black Collar. The middle of the galaxy could be a dangerous place, but it will give you a beautiful view dale on the spiral structure of our galaxy. And that's what I'd love to see. Okay, now that's a good answer. I wouldn't have thought of that for me, James. Let's just stretch this as far as we possibly can. Literally, I would want to see the actual edge of the universe. I'd want to see what's going going on beyond the visible universe. You said, assuming nothing's in the way, Well, let's just move all that stuff out of the way. I would point the telescope and I could go any direction I want and just find the actual edge of the expanding universe to see what's going on. That's what I want to see because that's one of the great mysteries. So for me, that's the answer. What do you reckon, Fred, Well, we don't think it's got an edge. Let's assume it has, so I'd want to be going on out there at the expansion point, whatever it is. That's that's where my brain, I mean, just to some extent, we yeah, yeah, it is interesting because you know, we what we see when we look as far out as you are talking about there, we see the cosmic microwave background radiation. But that's because we're looking back in the past. What James is saying is you're not looking back in the past. You're looking at what it is like now, and so it could be infinite. You might not run against an edge, Andrew. That's the conundrum of cosmology. We don't know whether the universe is infinite or not. But that's why we want to have a look. That's why I want to I want to loan of James as tell us. So it's a very you're you're You've given a very profound answer there, which which I applaud. It's better than mine. I love these I love these what if questions we get sentation, I know they're good fun. Thanks James. And our final question this week is from Ian. However, this is Ian from Cambridge. Just got a central question. What is the temperature of space around the Earth orbit from the Sun, so the distance from the Earth. So what's the temperature of space? I asked the question because when I google it it says it's about two point seven Calvin. But then you hear the James Webb telescope that one side is very very hot, on the other side of the shield is cold. So don't understand how general temperature of space from distance from a sum is only two kelvin. Appreciate me let me know. Thank you very much. Okay, we'll be sending you an email. Oh, ask for Red. What's the temperature of space? I think when he refers to one side of the James Web being hot on the other side being cold, that's that's because of the radiation effect, isn't it the Sun? Whereas in general space, which is what it is, nothing ish, there's a temperature I imagine, and that's what he's asking about in the vicinity of Earth. So yes, so the background temperature of space is indeed two point seven degrees kelvin. And what that is is the radiation from the Big Bang. It's the it's actually the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation. So when you look at we just talked about it, you're looking back so far in time. You're seeing a time when the universe was still glowing brightly. It was still luminous. It's now visible in radio waves microwaves because of the expansion of the universe, stretching the visible light wavelength out to microwave wave spifactor of about thirteen hundred I think beriightly. So that's the underlying temperature of space, and it is indeed two point seven we can generate, believe it or not, here on Earth temperatures colder than that, much much nearer to absolute zero than that two point seven degrees. So on Earth you can generate cold temperatures. But exactly as you've said, in the vicinity of a star like the Sun, you've got radiation coming from that object. It doesn't affect the temperature of space itself, but as soon as that radiation falls on another object, then it heats it up. It's exactly how infrared radiation works. So it's it is. It is a higher temperature on the surface that you're measuring. But if you were out in the middle of nowhere in space and you two point seven degrees, it would be what we call a bilometer. Actually, a bilometer is a device that measures temperature cross all wavelengths. Right, two points degrees is the right answer, So then your bufflement is understandable. But that's that's the correct answer. I'm just done that. I actually got one right, So I did. You were right? It'll body, Yeah, you don't. You could just have a go on the question of state as well. I couldn't do this. I wouldn't do this by myself. Yeah, thank you, Ian. It's a great question and it certainly cleared that up. And we appreciate your questions and your comments. And even if you want to send us corrections, we ignore that, but you can send them anyway buia our website, via our website, space nuts podcast dot com, or space nuts dot io. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's in ten next door audio form. If you do send an audio question or even the text question, don't forguest, forget to tell us who you are or we are from like James in Minnesota, who is going to invent a new telescope. It's going to be good, be called the James at Minnesota Space Telescope, and it will see everything in real time. That would be an absolute you'd make. You'd make a couple of dollars out of that, unless you sold it to the government. Then they'd make you pay to give it to them. But anyway, I'm lovely to hear from all of you, and Fred as always, thank you. That brings us to the very end of this episode not too early. Thank you, Andrew. Good to talk and we might speak next time too. We might. Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large, as always, we thank him for his very precious time. And to Hugh in the studio, thank you too for reasons I'll have to look up and from me, Andrew Dunkley, good to have your company. I hope you can join us on the very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bites dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from sites dot com.