#441: The Return of Phosphine & Space Debris Dilemmas

Hi there, Thanks for joining us yet again on yet another episode of the yet to be heard Space Nuts. My name is Andrew Uncle, your host, and it's good to have your company coming up on this episode. We talked about it before it was rebuked, debunked, and the door was shut on it, and that was life in the atmosphere of Venus, and we only spoke about it the other day, and yet again it has made the news. We will tell you all about it. We're also going to look at some movement on the issue of space debris. You might remember there were a couple of incidents recently recently with houses hit and people pumped and all sorts of because of space junk. Well, it looks like they're going to literally move on that issue. And we're going to talk about a man that Fred has worked with in the past, a man who had a wonderful astronomy career has recently passed, but a real advocate for dark skies, David L. Crawford. That's all coming up on this edition of Space Nuts. Fifteen second in Channel ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts or three two. One Space Notes as when I reported Neils Good and making his moves in this episode will be Professor Fred Watson. Hello. Yes, everything in the universe moves, so I might as well move as. Well, which is good. You too, You too. I just got back from Sydney. I didn't have time to rush over to your side of the city. Would have taken away too long. Do Yeah, I would love to, but we were moving our son into a new apartment and yeah it was Yeah, he's very happy. It's a lovely place. It's a very nice suburbs. It's off a main road. In fact, it's nowhere near a main road, so it's really quiet. He's done well. I'm very proud of him, and we both are. And it all went well until I stubbed my toe on a concrete step and I just hit it at the perfect angle to cause mayhem and destruction. So ended up in a doctor's surgery and had to have Yes, the pressure relieved by drilling a needle through the top of the nail. I don't recommend it. Did you get any kind of local anesthetic for that or no? He just we Actually it was funny because we were having a really long conversation while he was doing it. I think it was more for me to keep his mind off it than mine because I didn't really care. I've had so many needles stuck in me over my life. Just another one, I must I must say he was very good. It didn't didn't hurt at all that there was already a lot of pain there, so maybe it did notice. But yeah, I just completely yeah, just have been the perfect angle to cause the damage because I'd choose on. But still I won't show it to you. You don't look you. It's very kind of you. Sounds like it's that color. Oh gosh, yes, a freak accident and that you could have double well do without. Probably was that before or after you you moved all the furniture. It was in the middle of all that. We didn't have to move the big stuff, but lots and lots of boxes for you know, bits and pieces, so it was very difficult. But anyway, it's done. He's happy, We're all happy. I'm home and on the mend. I hope you haven't had any incidents so. Far. So far it's still been smooth sailing, and let's continuous that way. Yes, yes, all right, we better get down to business now. We did only a week or two ago talk about this. Suppose a discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, which the discoverers suggested could mean signs of life. But then that was debunked, and it's sort of been going backwards and forwards for the last as it turns out, four years, four years since that discovery. It's amazing, isn't it. And now it's back to theory number one because the people who made that discovery have gone back to their original concept with a new sort of element to add to the argument. So they're again saying it is phosphene, and we know we are going to stand by this discovery. That's correct. And I think that this one, this time, it might stink, Andrew. I think it might be one that is much harder to refute by the not the naysay as, just the skeptics, the people who, as we all do in the world of science, think well is that really correct? So, yes, that discovery made back in twenty twenty the same team basically, and actually that team includes. A really good friend of mine on the island of Hawaii, and he loo that in fact, that's where the telescope is and that's why he's there. The telescope is called the James Clark Maxwell Telescope. It's not at Helo. It's on the summit of Mount Ica, which is the mountain that really makes up, along with Mount Loa, the bulk of the big island of Hawaii, as you know, one of the best observing sites in the world for Northern Hemisphere astronomy. The James Clark Maxwell Telescope itself quite a well established, an old facility, and unlike some of the other ones which all sit right on top of the mountain where you can see them from all over the island, and that caused it little kinds of grief, which is quite understandable. The JCMT is nestled in a valley on top of the summit. There are values up there. It's quite an interesting geography, and that's to keep it away from terrestrial microwave radiation, because the James clok Wexwell Telescope is a microwave telescope. So once again this team has pointed their telescope at the planet Venus, but this time they have a new receiver on the telescope, and that apparently is the game changer in this work. It's certainly giving them a good deal more confidence in the results that are coming out of it, and much more of the data themselves. So basically and that the bottom line is that in each of the three observing campaigns they've done with the James Clerk Maxwell telescope, they've got one hundred and four times more data than they did with the original detection. So that's why they are much more confident in their results. This is a quote from Dave Clements, who's reader in astrophysics at Imperial College in London and one of the one of the team members. What we've got so far indicates that we once again have phosphene detections and so that's, you know, it's a bold thing to do to go back to your original target, knowing perhaps that you've got a better instrument and have another look. And it looks as though they are much more confident. And there's also you know, it's but wait, there's more story, because there is more to this. There is another observing team which is working on a different part of the microwave spectrum and they think they've detected the gas ammonia and that apparently is is basically, you know, a bigger and even bigger puzzle. So quoting Dave Clements again, he said that is arguably more significant than the discovery of phosphine. We're a long way from saying this, but saying it anyway, we're a long way from saying this. But if there is life on Venus producing phosphine, we have no idea why it's producing it. However, if there is life on Venus producing ammonia, we do have an idea why it might want to breathe ammonia. And that is. The interesting part of this. And just to. Elaborate again in another comment from Dave Clements, phosphine has been discovered in the atmosphere of Saturn, but that's not unexpected because Saturn is a gas giant and there's an awful lot of hydrogen in its atmosphere, so any hydrogen based compounds like phosphine or ammonia are what dominate there. But the same is not true of rocky planets like our own and Venus and Mars. And that's why you know, the possible detection of these hydrogen based compounds phosphine and ammonia are so unexpected on Venus. Well, it does open up a can of worms, and it could be worms, I'm not sure, But what are the odds of it being life? I know they say they're a long way from saying it is, but it could be or what, well, I suppose the alternative question, what else could be causing the existence of phosphine and ammonia. That's that's the right way to look at it. The the well, it's very you know, dev clements is he is certainly talking the talk and giving us some very good quotes here. Phosphine and pneumonia have both been suggested as biomarkers, including on exoplanets, so finding them in the atmosphere of Venus is interesting on that basis as well. When we published the phosphene findings in twenty twenty, quite understandably that was a surprise. And so he makes the point that other instruments have not actually made that detection, and they include the Venus Express spacecraft, which is an ISO spacecraft in orbits around Venus. They include and something called the IRTF which is a NASA facility again on Hawaii, not actually very far from the gents Clark Maxwell Telescope NASA Infrared Telescope facility, and observations made with actually an observatory that another of my friends has worked on Sophia, which was the airborne NASA observatory on that seven seven four seven sp in the back of it that's now no longer flying, but that when it was and also obviously observed Venus and they didn't find these phosphine found finding. So there's a number of different investigations that have not turned up the gas phosphine. And I am getting to the antity or question in a minute, Andrew and working round to it and there. But they've they've ruled out one of the things that was suggested as being a contaminant when that first lot of phosphine observations were released, and that was sulfur dioxide and that is basically ruled out now by the Attakama large MILLIMETERSILIM array ALMA. But the key thing here, and again I'm going to quote Dave Clements. It turns out that all our observations that detected phosphene were taken as the atmosphere of Venus moved from night into day, and all the observations that didn't find phosphene were taken as the atmosphere moved from day to night. And the suggestion is that the ultraviolet light from the sun actually breaks up these molecules as it moves from day to night. So you know, if you take them at the end of the day, the molecules have all gone because the sun's basically baked it out. As Dave Clements puts it, all phosphine is baked out, and that's why you don't see it, Okay. Yeah, So that suggests that the phosphine observations might be real and they might be sort of being replenished, if I can put it that way. Because if you got phosphene that at the end of the day isn't there, it's been baked out, but at the beginning of the day it is there, it suggests that something is forming phosphene and maybe that is an indicator of life. Yeah, you've got to wonder what kind of life there could be, and it would be residing in the upper atmosphere because there's too wide for anything down on the planet. That's correct, And there's nasty things as well. There's all that sulphuric acid. At lower levels in the you know, down in the in the in the droplets cloud that sorry, the clouds of venus further down. Yeah. So look, it's the suggesting what they're suggesting. And this now is a quote from. Actually once again from Dave Clements, so that we're going to get another voice but. Ammonia. Actually, let me let me quote. Jake Graves or Grieves is professor of astronomy at Caldiff University, and actually I think she's the leader of the team. She says, the exciting thing behind this will be if it's some kind of microbial life making the ammonia, because that would be a neat way for it to regulate its own environment. It's really interesting that they know that they are so confident with these observations. They're actually trying to look at what mechanisms living organisms might might be using to create the phosphene or the ammonia. So I think they'd put it at fifty to fifty. I'm just reading between the lines here. My self. I'd put it lower. I think that maybe you know it's we've marked up this tree so many times Andrew looking for rock solid biomarkers, and they're very, very difficult to find. Even if you find something that you think is only caused by living organisms, there's probably always going to be another chemical way, purely chemical way that you light form it and that might not have been failed yet. Right, So it could just be some kind of chemical reaction you need to venus. Maybe so caused by just the unusual conditions in the pu atmosphere. Yeah, well they certainly are unusual. Although we're really working hard to get there ourselves, aren't we. It's yes, it's a great story. Hopefully they're right about the phosphor and the ammonia and hopefully and they're not absolutely saying that it's caused by life, but let's hope it's true. It would be wonderful to discover life beyond Earth as we and our focus is on Mars and Enceladus and you know, ice moons in general, but Venus Venus certainly sounds like it's a candidate worthy of further investigation. This is space nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson there Space Nuts. Now to another thing in astronomy and space science that keeps popping up in the news, that of space debris. And there's been plenty of debris hitting the ground in recent times and it's starting to become a real concern. There have been incidents around Florida, there's been incidents in Australia. It's happening in several places, and this is because we're seeing so very many launches around the world, and Florida has been a bit of a hotbed of space launches in recent times. But that incident we talked about a few weeks ago has it sounds like it's sort of become the straw that's broken the camel's back in certain respects. Fred I think that's correct. Yes, So the bit of debuts that came through somebody's roof in Florida, because no space lawch organization wants to be responsible for something coming back and injuring or killing somebody. Now that's not hapmed yet, but they're worried that it will. But this is a little bit more specific than just the very large numbers of spacecraft that are being launched. It's to do entirely with the Dragon space capsules, which are a product of SpaceX. They are flown on SpaceX rockets. They're fucking nine rockets, and the Dragon capsules come in two flavors. One is crew Dragon, which has humans on board, and the other is the Dragon which doesn't, which is a cargo spacecraft. So there are two different kinds and they've both. They've been significant numbers of both actually which have flown. In fact, if I can, I'll find it. There have been I can't remember how any how many of the Crew Dragon missions have been several, but there have been more than twenty twenty of the Cargo Dragon missions. So you see, you know, we make the Crew Dragon missions tend to make big news because they're carrying astronauts. The Cargo Dragon ones don't, and there are far more of them. They're the ones that dock remotely with or autonomously with the International Space Station, and sure enough they unload cargo and that's great. So the Dragons, there are more of them than we tend to hear about, is what I'm getting at. But both of them, both the Crew Dragon and the Cargo Dragon capsules have what is called the trunk and that is basically it's what we used to call the service module in the Apollo era, and in fact, I think Boeing still call it the service module for their Starlin spacecraft. But the trunk component, so it's a cylindrical space vehicle which sits between the capsule itself carrying either crew or cargo, and the launch vehicle and I think it probably is the second stage of the launch vehicle that it sits on top of, so that trunk is the bit that is the culprit here, because it's bits of those trunks that have fallen in various different places, including Australia not very far from Canberra, including the one that went through the roof in Florida, including North Carolina and Saskatchewan in Canada. All of these places have had bits of SpaceX Dragon trunks falling on them, and so SpaceX have gone back to the drawing board to look at why this is happening and to try and understand how it can be prevented. And there are two things I think that have changed. One is that they have changed the landings of the Dragon spacecraft from the East coast off Florida to the West coast off the United States, so that they they will start landing that the Dragon capsules themselves in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic. In fact, they're basing their operations out of Long Beach, California for the you know what's called post flight processing, in other words, going and recovering the Dragon capsules and then they will be transported across country back to Florida for the next launch. So that's one thing that they've done, and the other is that they. Get a big thing that's not going to be changed huge. That's right. It's going to cost them because they're not just pulling these things out of the water right next door to where they're going to launch it the next time. It's got to it's got to go across country. So yes, it will cost them. But the other thing is that they'll shift the time that the the re entry burn starts, because I think, if I'm remembering this correctly, the situation has been that they have separated the crew dragon capsule from the trunk before they have fired the trunk burn to bring it back, and I think they're going to do that afterwards now, and I hope I've got that the right way round. But the bottom line, you know, we're not flying the spacecrafts, so it doesn't really matter, but it's it's it's a change in the way that they will actually initiate the re entry of the of the trunk. And the hope there is that they will that it will achieve higher velocity is to burn up completely, but if it doesn't, it will fall in a much more safe zone. It's much likely likely to fall over ocean than overlearned. That's the bottom line, right, Well, it's good that they've taken notice of the problem and they're making moves to reduce the potential impact. So that'll come as a relief to a lot of people and probably insurance companies too. I mean that sounds funny, but they've been talking about it becoming a thing for homeowners and business owners in certain parts of the world that have a lot of these potential problems, and yeah, that could jack up premiums, and it also reduces the risks of human life, which is the most important thing. So it does sound like they're making some positive moves. Read Yes, that's right. I think it's a good outcome, and let's see what happens. Let's see indeed. Yes, if you'd like to read up on that story, it's available on fizzphys dot org. This is Space Nuts. Andrew Duncley here with Professor Fred Watson. Okay, we tacked all portraits of being with air space Nuts. One more thing before we wrap it up, Fred, and a little bit of sad news. David Crawford David OL Crawford passed away just in the last couple of weeks at the age of ninety three. This is a fellow who has worked for had a very long and wonderful career in astronomy. And I believe you've cross paths with David in your career as well. Yes, indeed, that's right. So actually there's a very nice tribute to David Crawford on the Sky Telescope website. Just the first paragraph of that says it all. With the peaceful passing of David L. Crawford on July the twenty second, at the age of ninety three, we've lost the person who taught the world about light pollution and warned us all of the threat it poses not just to astronomy, but to the entire nocturnal environment. So he basically spent time at major observatories in the United States. He was an astronomers exactly as you said. He got his doctorate from the University of Chicago, spent time at Yerke's Observatory, and basically wound up in Tucson, Arizona, at the kit Peak National Observatory, which is the equivalent of Siding Spring in the United States, and in context of our National Observatory, here in northwestern New South Wales kit Peak, not very far from Tucson, and basically he was really interested in the structure of an evolution of star clusters and galaxies absolutely you know front rank astronomy problems back in nineteen sixty when he joined the staff at kit Peak, and in fact he basically morph from that those studies into the two great four meter telescopes that were being built in the nineteen sixties and early seventies, and in fact our Angle Australian telescope, which was commissioned exactly fifty years ago in nineteen seventy four. That telescope was a copy of at some level a copy and a general copy in design of the two for meters that Dave Crawford was responsible for, one at kit Peak that's called the Male Telescope, and the other at the Sara Torolo Sero Tololo inter American Observatory in Chile, which is now not far far from Las Arena, if I remember rightly. So these two big telescopes his mind and attention on what could stop observatories, and he very quickly realized that one hundred kilometers from kit Peek there was Tucson with half a million people at that time, and that it was a city that was getting brighter and brighter and that was a threat to the environment of the telescopes. But he basically went on a mission to encourage the city to think about this, and they very quickly enacted legislation to protect the darkness of kit Peek and that's where it all started, so along with a gentleman called Tim Hunter, who was an amateur astronomer who'd also been concerned with that. So that was the start of the dark sky movement in the world in during the nineteen eighties in particular. Now I met Dave when he came here for Ducks Sky Conference to Australia. It would have been probably twenty years ago. I met him through another really good friend, a colleague, sadly who also is no longer with us, Reg Wilson. He was mister dark Skies in Australia. He used to carry around with a newspaper cutting from nineteen seventy three which said now it's light pollution, and it was quoting him who, having worked with Dave Crawford, knew what light pollution was all about and that it was not just bad for astronomers, but bad in general. Yes, it is, because it's bad for human health exposure to light. We made darkness to get a decent night sleep basics. That's absolutely right. So it's all about circadian rhythms. And I had my other half Maney. As you know, she's talked about this on Space Notes. She's getting to be a world authority on this as we speak. In fact, she's doing a lot of radio interviews because National Science Week hearing Usustralia next week as we speak today, that will feature dark light pollution as its focus. So it's become much more widely understood than it was before. We now know as well that nocturnal animals and even some non nocturnal species are badly affected by light pollution, so we know much more about it. The International Dark Sky Association was formed in nineteen eighty eight, and actually there's a quote from the nineteen eight May nineteen eighty eight issue of Sky and Telescope that reported on that formation. It's now called Dark Sky International, but it was then the International Dark Sky Association. Dave craw Crawford said lack of awareness, rather than resistance to change, is generally the biggest problem in controlling light pollution. And I think that remains the case today. I think it's just people are ignorant of what it's all. Yes, yes, and they need to be educated. And the torch continues to be held by your good wife, Marni and many other people around the world. But it all started with this great man, and yeah, David L. Crawford, who has passed away. Fred. We're going to end on that note. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure, Andrew, and we'll talk again soon. Yeah, it could be a few minutes. It's that joke run out of puff yet, I don't know, but let's keep telling it. I didn't think it was a joke. I just thought it was what we do next. Absolute reality is all right, We'll see you soon, and don't forget. By the way, if you are on social media, you can watch us on YouTube, and don't forget to subscribe. You can talk to other Space Nuts listeners via our Space Nuts podcast group Facebook page or our other face book page, which is the genuine article. But yeah, they both get plenty of traffic. We're on Instagram, We're everywhere, and we'll be back here very very soon with another episode. Oh thanks to Hue in the studio for reasons I'm still to glean. But thank you Hugh and from me andrewd Uncley, thanks for your company. See on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye. 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 bides dot com. This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.