#404: Terraforming Trials & Titan's Tantalizing Truths: Venusian Visions and Microbial Mysteries

By there, Andrew Dunkley here, Thanks for joining us on Space Nuts Q and A. And on this episode, we've got a few things we need to talk about terraforming for starters, we get questions about terraforming fairly regularly, but we've got a new one. We've also got a question about a proto star. Fred loved the name of this L one five seven. We'll see if we can answer that one. We've got a question about the enjoyment of science fiction? Are there limits to what you can do that will make or break it? And a couple of our younger listeners have chimed in with questions as well. We'll deal with all of that on this episode of Space Nuts fifteen. In Channel ten nine ignition Sigunch Space Nuts ni Urn three two Space notes as when as we bought it, Neils good and with me again is Professor freed Wardson, Astronomer at Large. Hello, Fred, Hi Andrew, looking forward to a few Q and a's. Yes, we've got quite a bit to get through us. A couple of these will be pretty quick because one of the questions, which is almost ironic, asks us exactly about something we spoke about last week in episode four oh one, So we'll be able to make a reference to that. But let's begin well, actually, let's deal with that straight away. A young listener named Oliver, eleven years old from Queensland has sent in a question and said, I was just wondering if there was any chance that Titan could have micro organisms, and well, up until recently we might have said yes, and I think the chance still exists, but some recent data has been put together suggests Titan probably not as life worthy as we once thought. Free that's right. So the bottom line from our discussion last week was that the calculations that have been made by some astrobiologists demonstrate that the water that filters down through the icy surface of Titan won't contain enough of the carbon containing material that we know is on the surface of Titan to make any difference to the ocean underneath. In fact, it was one elephant mass per year, was it that was filtering down seven seven point five tons? And that's a tiny amount when you compare it with a water reservoir that towns. I believe we said twelve times the amount of water as the assertions have so people are a bit depressed about that. I don't think I mentioned in the program. I'm more optimistic because there is a possibility that there might be microorganisms that don't use water, they're working fluid, but use and methane as they're working fluid, and they will be very different from what we know on Earth, but micro organisms nevertheless, so I think there's still a possibility. Andrew, I'm not as pessimistic as maybe the authors of this article were. Yes, So there you go, Oliver. The new data which is based on modeling, so they don't have absolute proof, but it does suggest that if certain things happen the way we think they did, Titan's less likely to have life as we know it, but it might have other forms of life. But I wouldn't write it off completely. But it also kind of puts a bit of tips water on the other ice moons having life as well, because they're less likely than Titan apparently to harbor life. So, Oliver, thanks for the question, but if you go back to episode four oh one, there's a much broader explanation of the situation you've asked us about. Next question comes from Dan Hi, Andrew and Fred. I know a few listeners have touched on this before, but i'd like to go a little further on the terraforming thing, if I may, what would happen if we were to place a huge megastructure at Venus's l one point, something like a vast solar panel that blocked all the light from the Sun. How long would it take Venus to cool down? And would that eventually lead to the runaway greenhouse effect collapsing? It comes from Dan in California. I've got a nickname for Dan in California. I'm going to call him Cala Dan, which is one of the planets in a sci fi show that I've watched recently. Couldn't help usself. There you go, and yes, So this touch is on things we were talking about last week as well, because we were talking about flotilla's of tiny spacecraft to reduce the radiation from the Sun on Earth, and the idea was to do exactly as Dan suggests, put these flotillas of spacecraft at the l one point between Earth and the Sun. So if you did the same thing with Venus, it turns out that a solid lump of something like a big sunshade, even if you could build something which would have to be the diameter of Venus to work at all, that will be unstable. It's not something that would probably stay intact. The gravitational forces might well break it up. So you're better off starting off with small things rather than big things. Dan's questions not about that though. Really it's about if you did switch off the Sun, as far as Venus is concerned, how long does it take to come back to something that we might recognize as a planet like Earth? And I honestly don't know the answer to that. But my guess is we are talking about geological timescales. We're talking about millions of years rather than a fortnite or something like that. Just because that sudden loss of energy would certainly transform the climate. It would shock the climate into a change. But how long it might take for the change to take place, I don't know. Just thinking slightly laterally though the thinking, I believe, as far as you know, a kind of quasi related event on Earth's history, which is the chick Slab impact sixty six million years ago. I think scientists who look at that so yes, that thing ejected huge amounts of dust in the atmosphere which blocked off the Sun. And I think it wasn't a fortnite but I think the lengths of times for things to recover were measured in you know, in decades rather than millions of years. But with Earth, what you're talking about is a temporary blanket of the Sun, which is all the dust in the atmosphere that eventually falls out and the Sun comes back to its original brilliance, the atmosphere regains its original transparency, and so you're returning to the status quo, whereas with Venus you're fundamentally changing everything. If you leave that shut some shade in place, or equivalently, fill the atmosphere with dust, that might have other consequences that because dust retains heat. So I think it's going to take a lot longer. Yeah, Indeed, we've talked This was quite a whilid and go we talked about that. I mean, Venus is an example of a planet that may one at one time and it's past been earth like, as was Mars. And so we've got three planets that at one stage during the life of the Solar System were Earth like. I had more what we would consider normal terrain and normal conditions, one of a better work. Yeah, and sometime in its past the Earth was more tyson like because there was the snowball Earth era when everything was frozen. So yes, it's gone through various climatic changes and events. Fortunately it's landed up where it is at the moment. In terms of the Earth, you know, ambient temperature fifteen degrees celsius on our ridge and rising, yeah, rising, yes, right, all right, Kelly, Dan, thank you so much for your question. I always like to get those kinds of questions and dice them up. But yeah, probably not feasible in terms of building the structure and time frames would be rather extensive, and I'm probably understating that. From Dan in California to Dan in Brisbane who wants to talk about a proto star for red Hello to stand from Brisbane. If you do a Google search on proto star L one five two seven, you'll see amazing James Webspace telescope image of a accretion disc with two cones of material being ejected above and below the accretion disc. Now, I believe this was the same situation is what happened to our soul system when it was forming. But this protostar is one hundred thousand years old, where our four point six billion years. So I'm wondering did similar clouds of material form above and below the accretion disc plane. If so, what happened to him after four point six billion years. I believe that there's two forces of pressure coming from our sun. One is the photonic pressure, which I think would be spherical, and the other one is the solar wind, which probably varies over time, but I think bridge it would probably be spherical as well. So I'd like to know how does the pressure, say on on clouds of gas compare from the say, the solar wind and the photonic pressure. And also what has happened to this cloud of material above and below the plane of our solar system? Is there any remnant of it left? Okay, thank you, Dan. A lot of information required to answer that one. I did look up the website that he referred to, the NASA website with that image of L one five two seven. I can see what he's saying. I think we did talk about something like this recently with the hourglass image that is created by that effect. Yeah, what, well, it's yours s bread passing the ball. How do you answer this one? So Done's you know, Done's conjectures are right, It's actually not really an accretion disc. It's a protoplanetary disk that is in orbits around the star itself, although as the caption that NASA provides for that Web telescope images suggests, the cloud of material is actually feeding basically the nebulating nebula within which this star has been born is feeding the growth of that protostar. So it's a process that probably you know, includes various examples of stellar burps, if I can put it that way, what you'd call, in a more formal sense, sporadic ejections, where material is actually ejected from the star as it's forming, And indeed there's evidence for several past stellar ejections in the web telescope image. It's really it's a really extraordinary image, and thanks to Dan for drawing our attention to it. But to bring it more up to date. So I so long time as I've looked at these, But my understanding, if I remember correctly from my time when he used to study cellar evolution, is that all sunlight stars go through what's called a t Tory phase. Now t Tory is basically another type of star. I'm just going to google that as well, just to get my bearings correct with what I'm talking about. I spent that. In fact, I think I have a paper back in my long ago history where I was talking about T. Tory stars because so I worked on them with a colleague on an instrument I just built. So T Tory stars are a class of variable stars that are less than about ten million years old. They're named after the prototype T. Tory, a young star in the Tourist star formation region. They're found near molecular clouds and identified by the optical variability and chromospheric lines. So they are basically sun like stars that have not yet become sunlight, typically less than three times the mass of the Sun. And what they do is they basically emit winds. The sorts of winds that they blow are like the solar wind, much much stronger and with much more energy you know, associated with them. So Tee Tourist stars are effectively how a newborn star in a nevula blows away the residual gas, gets rid of all this stuff that has formed its cocoon for a few, perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of years. So they are, you know, they're basically embedded in these gas clouds, but they blow out the wind, which I think has down surmises are probably isotropic. I mean in all directions, it's very clear symmetrical. So check out t Tourist Stars, Dan, and you'll find that that might be the mechanism by which the residual gas and dust is blown away. And so that an object like the Sun who's lost already lost its siblings. The son would have been born with other stars in the same dust cloud. And we know we can't identify what those stars are. They won't be far away, and I'm sure it will happen one day that stars with identical chemic called composition to the Sun will be discovered. But you know that that means that because of the te Tory phenomenon, we've lost all those remnants of the cloud, which is so obvious in the picture of L one five two seven. Okay, there you Dan, if you do it, so it for TEA Tory. It's tea single letter and Tory t A U R I T Tory Star if you want to read up on it. And thanks for the question. Is a really good one. This is space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson. Okay, we check your space nuts. Let's go to another question, and this one comes from Star. That's so we're talking about a proto Star. Now we've got a question from Star. I just wanted to start off by saying, thank you so much for this amazing weekly podcast twice a week now. I always look forward to it every Thursday, and your episodes helped me get through my astrochemistry homework. Oh okay, good. I hope you didn't get your answers wrong based on what we've said, I was wondering, when it comes to sci fi, does your enjoyment of it depend upon how scientifically accurate it is, where applicable or does it not matter? Also, if you have a favorite sci fi series, book, movie, et cetera, I would love to hear about it from Star. My enjoyment of sci fi is not limited to anything. I will take every story on its merits, whether it's feasible or not. I suppose one of my favorite sci fi movies would have to in recent times be The Martian, which did actually base a lot of its storylines on feasibility. They did stretch the envelope a bit, though, didn't They fread a couple of times there with certain things, But they basically went with a this could be possible scenario. But then I look at a movie like Passengers, which is absolutely and utterly not feasible because you're basically cryogenically freezing people and stopping their lives so that they can travel ninety years to another world and then suddenly start their lives again, so they're ninety years older without getting any older. And a lot of things in that film were just, you know, they were stretching it beyond reasonable possibility in terms of the story. But a great story nonetheless, and I really enjoyed it. And as far as my favorite, my favorite sci fi story of all time, I'd have to say it's Dune. I think Dune is probably one of the best sci fis ever written, but there are so many it's probably unfair just to name one. I mean, Isaac Asimov's Nemesis is brilliant, Kitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy probably one of the greatest of all time. The list goes on. There's three that I can think of, Parallax, the Trannian Enigma, the Hitler Paradox. They're all really good too. They're familiar sounding time a bit of an unknown author. They're black great idea is just not a great execution, Fred would you're not so much into sci fi as I am? Are here? No, I'm not, definitely, and that comes from you know the real thing. Well, I don't know that. It's that I used to read the huge amounts of sci fi when I was just a lad, but these days there seems to be far more to do, and so it's not so not so much. But just picking up on what you said about passengers, was it with that idea of suspended animation that in my experience goes back to nineteen fifty five when Frank Hampson, who was the author of Dan Dayre in the Eagle comic in Britain, actually put his put the whole crew into suspended animation for about ten years so they could get to the solar system of Loss with its two warring and it's cryptos and fantos. That's, for me, was the stuff of why I became a scientist actually because I was totally immersed in all that stuff back in the day, I have to say though, And in fact, actually Frank Hampson, who was a genius artist as well as a great educator and a great feminist as well, back in the day, he had a character called Professor Jocelyn Peabody, and she was the one who explained all the science, and so he put, you know, the scientific explanations for what was going on in the in the mouth of a woman, which was very unusual back at that time, but fantastic stuff, way ahead of his time. But maybe it was that, maybe it was the effect of my old time favorite movie two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey, where you're where, you're where, you are actually keeping within the bounds of scientific reality. That to me, he's an added if a science fiction story keeps the physics right and the biology right, then it strikes a chord with me compared with the ones that don't, and they're just annoying to a scientist. Gravity comes to mind. Gravity was just way beyond the realms of Yeah, it was was good in the sense that the the the basic premise of a kind of Keshler syndrome thing was was good. But the idea of being able to walk from one space space station to another with your pressure suit on, that's just not on. And I mean the other one, Interstellar, was lump it a bit over the top in that regard in stretching the relativistic ideas. The one I liked, I've forgotten. We've talked about it recently. What was the one called that had an interpreter working out how to communicate with arrival. Yeah, magical movie. I like that one because because there was so much that could be real in it, rather than you know, being scientifically fictitious. That is, assuming that giant squid like creatures did come to you've got to have that to start with. But that's the point is you can't eliminate that scientifically because they might well be there, which is very I don't know. That's the thing about aliens. You're never going to be able to prove that they're not there. That's right. You can prove they're there if you find well, but you can't ever prove they're not. So you started something there start so. But the truth for me is it doesn't matter whether there's a reality potential in it or it's just gone way to the extreme. Yeah. I love the ones that are based on real science. But Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is based on nothing but a man's incredible imagination, just who nails it for me? It just does. Thanks for the question. That was really good. Quick one for Fred to finish from nine year old Ted, whose father has sent the question in on his behalf Joe, why can I sometimes see the moon during the day in the UK and does that mean there isn't a moon in the sky on the other side of the Earth? Thanks Joe and Ted. The reason you can sometimes see the UK in the sky is because the pollution is buying a way briefly, the moon in the UK sky, Yeah, that's right, or the cloud or the cloud. Well, it's true, that's absolutely true. The fact is you can see the moon during the day anywhere it's not you know, because the moon as it goes around the Earth is very often above the horizon at the same time as the Sun is, and its phases are different. What you tend not to see is a full moon during the day because that tends to be all night long. You might see it at dusk and dawn, but you won't see it in the full moon in the middle of the day, whereas you can easily see half moons in the middle of the day and all that doesn't matter where you are UK, North Pole, South Pool, Australia, anywhere. But you're right, if you see the moon in the day during the UK's daytime, you won't see the moon in the sky in Australia because we're basically on the other side of the planet, almost exact opposites. Yeah, that's right, we're almost the exact opposite, so that's why. Yeah, there are times though, because of the positioning and the distance, you can see the Moon from a great many places around the world at the same time. I've sometimes been watching live golf from the United States and they'll have an image of the Moon and I'll be going in. I can't see that too, and you know, I'm thousands and thousands of kilometers away. But it's all a matter of the angular perspective, isn't it. Yeah, it's pretty easy. Actually, anywhere on the same hemisphere that's facing the Moon, we'll see the moon. So that's half the Earth, yes, you know, so it does include. Yeah, the Pacific Ocean's big, separating Australia in the United States, but they can be simultaneously in the same hemisphere pointing towards the Moon, so you see them there you go ted. Hopefully that answers your question, and keep on gazing at the sky you just never see. It's always fun up there. Fred. That brings us to the end. And if you do have a question for us, please go to our website and send it to us on the AMA tab or the little button on the right that says send us your questions. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's in text form or audio form. And don't forget to tell us who you are and where you're from, and don't forget to subscribe you for your YouTube follower and have a look around on the website. Some great sci fi books on there, and some great science books as well, more credibility. Thank you, Fred, a pleasure as always, and for me too, Andrew, thank you for putting up with my rumblings. And we'll speak again soon. We will, indeed, and they're not ramblings by any means. Fred Watson, astronomer at large part of the team here at Space Nuts. And thanks to you in the studio for being just a nice guy. Oh I said something nice And from me Andrew Dunfrey, thanks for your company. Looking forward to catching up with you again later this week on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye Byepnuts. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also stream on demand at bites dot com. This has been another quantity podcast production from nights dot com.