#455: Starship to Mars, Expanding Galaxies & Starliner Returns

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Hello again, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts where we talk astronomy and space science. My name is Andrew Dunkley

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Coming up, we are going to look at Starliner yet again. It's getting a good news in just about every episode of late, but well, it's been plenty to talk about. Let's face it.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Also another spacecraft which is the product of Space X looks like it's going to be doing missions to Mars in the not too distant future. What's that all about? Well, it's one of those great dreams of a great man and we'll see what he's got in mind.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_03]: There's also suggestions that our galaxies are bigger than we thought much, much bigger. Why? How? What's it all mean?

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And a passing star might have been causing a little bit of disruption around that trans-Neptunian area. We'll talk about all of that on this episode of Space Nuts.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And here to discombubrate all of that and to brush off brush turkeys is Professor Fred Watson and astronomer at large, hello Fred.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Hello Andrew. Yes, you've just touched on the nerve that's affecting us all at the moment in brush turkeys, egg laying season. What do you everywhere?

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So you've got them scratching around your backyard literally.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Literally, yes, they dig up everything to try and build a nest. And it's you know, there are protected species. They're probably endangered actually.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're very fond of brush turkeys, but what they do to your garden is pretty serious stuff. So we just try and I've actually tried contacting this, solicitor and things of that. So just to see whether that has an effect.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But so we'll see.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_03]: The dam ugly though, Fred. I mean, they're there.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_03]: They're endangered and they're protected and then Australian natives, but they look like a cross between a traditional turkey in a vulture.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yeah. That's actually a really good description they do. And you know, they've got the brain of an ant as well. So they're not sort of, you know, they're not gifted in, I mean, when you compare them with some of the other species that we have around here, particularly the self-acrested cockatoo's which have got the intelligence of the primate, the intelligence of the muck, they have a very high extraordinary creatures.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We've sent a note to them as well about leaving their droppings on our outdoor furniture, but that's still a matter for the legal fraternity.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm not, I'd be surprised if they have a destroyed your furniture. They like chewing things.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But they're like chewing things, yeah, but there'd been a case of fap. I think they're, yep.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I love self-acrested cockatoo's. We've got squelions on them out at the golf course, but they're not loved when you're just in the middle of your downswing and one of them goes, oh yeah, they do that.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're studying, that's a little nearly, drive your ear drums out there. Oh, yeah, they're loud. I have super loud.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, anyway, wildlife issues aside.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about style. I know for a change, some good news at last.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so style, I know the, you know, the spacecraft that we've been talking about solidly for the last two, two, and half months, three months actually has made a text book return to earth at the end of last week.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Disconnected from the International Space Station all 27 of each thrusters worked perfectly.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And because that was the big ticket item, whether the thrusters were reliable or not.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And yep, back to way from the spacecraft fired its rockets to reenter and touchdown completely safely, exactly on targets in a huge vindication as some of the media are reporting at a huge vindication for Boeing's engineers.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's been a lot of back, back, back patting all around, which is great, including the two astronauts left behind on the space stations.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I feel terrible for them.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They were full of congratulations to the Boeing engineers who worked with very closely, obviously, for a long period of time not just while they've been in space.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, they, they reconciled themselves to another however many months it is in space quite some time ago and so they had already made peace with the whole issue of the idea, the full of congratulations as our NASA to, you know, we had reports of a bit of friction between Boeing and NASA about this.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And certainly there was some robust discussion we believe in meetings, but nothing like what might be blown out by the tabloid media.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, I think this congratulations all around.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it is good news and what pushed the two starliner astronauts still on the ISS and will be there probably till early next year.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And by the time this podcast is released, starliner would have been on the ground for probably nearly a couple of weeks but it's worth mentioning that they brought it back safely all as well.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And just didn't have any passengers, it was just auto auto piloted back to earth which is extraordinary in itself the way they do that these days with all these different spacecraft they.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_03]: They don't need humans to make them go up and down but they do need humans to push the magic buttons that are just their fedecoration I think, but yeah, and now seriously though, it's good to have it back.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_03]: There must be a collective sigh of relief.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, now yes, let's move on to another spacecraft and this one is the brainchild of space X, the Starship Mega Rocket which they say in the next couple of years will be sending missions to Mars initially unpersoned.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_03]: But ultimately leading to people going to Mars. This is actually a plan that might, you know, we talked about before and people are saying it's a bi-dream and it'll never happen.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_03]: But they're certainly looking seriously at a long-musts plan of putting a city on Mars. He's still going there.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so that's right. That's the whole motivation for developing Starship Andrew and it's quite remarkable is remarkable hardware. So it's two parts to it.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: The first stage booster which is called the super heavy and then the upper stage which itself is 50 meters tall. That's the second stage.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: No, the Starship and unlike most spacecraft and certainly the Falcon 9 series that Elon has developed which has a first stage and then a separate second stage and then the payload itself with Starship the payload is built into the second stage.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So it is really quite a different architecture for the spacecraft from others.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we have is a tweet from a big part, a space X. And X, whatever it's called message, formerly known as a tweet from Elon Musk on Saturday, the Musk Week as we are speaking.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: A post, that's the word. I want a post. A post. Yeah. And so what he's saying is what his target timelines are for the first Starship missions to Mars and it is two years.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: That is exactly as you've said, I'm crewed missions to start with with trials to land on Mars and he's talking about that happening in two years.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And then two years later, and you know he's partly limited by the physics of getting to Mars which you can only do every 26 months. That's when the two or the orbits of the two planets bring them into the right kind of alignment.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So when you get to the other end of the trip, Mars is where he wanted to be rather than somewhere else in his orbit. So that happens every 26 months.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So two years time, an uncrewed mission to Mars are perhaps several and then in four years time he's talking about sending people to Mars.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And his quote is flight rate will grow exponentially from there with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Being multi-planetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness as we will no longer have all our eggs literally a metaphorically, it truly says metaphorically on one planet.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So, got to go. Look at it's Elon Musk, it is finest in terms of big vision stuff. I think the rest of the world is looking on and saying in your hot dreams because there's so many unknowns about getting humans to Mars.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Something that we are simply faced with real, real difficulties that brute force and ignorance is just not going to cut it.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think we'll see slippage perhaps from that, but what's interesting to us is space watches of course you're seeing that technology evolve.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a final footnote about this Andrew, the starship has had four flights so far and the last one basically achieved all that was hoped to achieve.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And the fifth one is being planned and I think the fifth one is the crucial one because they will return the spacecraft, the starship back to other soft landing rather than just losing it into the ocean which is what's happened before.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people might be laughing behind his back and saying this is just a pipe dream but if you don't have people who are dream big you probably don't achieve things at the high end of the spectrum.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure because you don't hear about it in the history books but I'm sure people laughed at the right brothers and everyone else who is attempting to fly.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's no stays.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's right.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_03]: We thought it was a huge jack. You'll never do it. It's impossible.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well now look us.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you know I mean 10 years in well maybe yeah 10 years ago it was thought to be impossible to reuse a booster your first day drop it and that is now totally routine.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It was 2015 I think the first successful booster landing and you've only got to look at the track record with Tesla vehicles as well.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a streaming big kind of chief great things. Not not with standing the one Tesla vehicle that's floating out there in space.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the one that was on its way to Mars but actually over shot and is now in the last 12 I think so that's it. So solidly less of the.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's probably looking for a parking space station.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, well, well with a charger of it. One with a charger. Yes, I could be a could be an issue.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_03]: But look, I think Elon Musk is a remarkable man. I know he gets ridiculed and gets he cups a lot of flack.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_03]: But he has done some incredible things in the space science world that probably wouldn't have been attempted this soon by many other people.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I know there he's not the only one, but he's getting all the headlines and he certainly knows how to get the story out there and get get the interest of the public.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't doubt that he will ultimately achieve this.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe maybe not this quickly, but yeah, how quickly as he perfected these rockets.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But what do you think? What if he did? What if he in four years time were talking about people walking on Mars?

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, with a with a you know a Starship parked in the background.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_03]: It's it's not impossible. No, really erosical. It would be it would probably be the achievement of the century because it would be 20 years ahead of when.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, a national plans to be there at least 10 years ahead and it would be a private venture.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_03]: That would be even more remarkable.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I wish him well. And I hope I hope we get to see it. I think it would be fantastic and yes, I'd go well wish him nothing but success. I'm sure most people do.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And it got to also think about the brave people that will be doing this because it's not like and crossing the Atlantic for the first time or crossing Bass straight for the first time or any of those kinds of adventures that we heard about a hundred years ago.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's it's it's a giant leap and much giant a giant leap in the moon, and that was a huge jump. So yeah, it's all but it's all very exciting.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, good go ahead. I do so.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_03]: It will also reinvigorate interest in space science. So it'll breathe a whole new generation of scientists and then it will just keep going. I think.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the point where I think many space watches and astronomers and philosophers perhaps are completely ethos, ethosist, where they diverged from Elon is his sentence. The flight rate will grow exponentially from there with a goal of building a self sustaining city in about 20 years.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: That I think transgresses what we the way we what to think about the way we treat miles.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's it's part of Elon's philosophy of believing the earth is doomed and that we need to you know, have a have a life boat.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And as is not our life boat.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And what we have to do is fix our planet, you know, and if you want to have a life boat build it, you build a mega structure rather than going and trashing another planet.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: That's my head but all this.

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I know you've got issue with with occupying other worlds.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_03]: But you know, the time will come where more powerful people probably end up making those kind of decisions.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Sounds like Elon's made his decision.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it has.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And mining on the moon.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, whether you like it or not, that's probably going to happen to.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's I think a different issue.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you can argue for that from a ethical point of view.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Not sure about colonizing.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, I don't know.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: No problem with humans going to miles, but but I the model, I think we should adopt is a bit like Antarctica where it's a scientific research purposes mainly rather than better.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but nobody nobody can wholly own it or occupy it.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that's no fair point.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, yes, very interesting story and if you want to read up on that, it's on the space dot com web.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_03]: site.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: This is space nuts with Andrew Dunkley and professor Fred Watson.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Roger, you're a lot better here all of the space nuts.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Now Fred, we have talked quite a few times and received a lot of questions about the impending merger of the endometer and Milky Way galaxies.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_03]: But now there's a story that suggests they are already touching each other.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to do this, um, due to this discovery that the galaxies are bigger than we thought?

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_03]: How so?

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So, and this is a great story because it's got a very strong Australian connection scientist from Swimburne University down there in Melbourne.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And they are interesting from a number of points of view.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It's that Swimburne University has a deal with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_02]: The two Keck telescopes are both 10 meter telescopes are on monochairs, the tallest mountain.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not really a mountain, it's a shield volcano, but it's still one of the highest points on the planet Earth on the Big Island of Hawaii, monochairs.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So, the Keck telescope is a 10 meter telescope that has very, very fine sensitivity, it can penetrate deep into the into space, not just looking at very distant objects.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They're looking at fainter things in the, you know, in the near field, things that are around our own galaxy.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So other galaxies in the, what you might call the middle distance.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So what this team has done is they've used this sort of invested time on the one of the Keck telescopes and looked at the, the gas that surrounds galaxies.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And in particular, a galaxy which rejoices in the name of Iris 08339 plus 6517.

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the galaxies that they've looked at and what they've done is checked for glowing gas around the galaxy.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, when we look at galaxies, look at pictures of galaxies which many of us do all the time.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're looking at most of these the stars and often glowing gas as well.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: The pink blobs in the spiral arms of galaxies are pink clouds of glowing hydrogen.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They all showcase that hydrogen is just like people when it gets excited, it glows pink, but the mechanisms different.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So they've instead looked at glowing oxygen and looked at it a very, very great distances from the centers of these galaxies.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And basically, they find it goes much, much further than anybody had expected.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a real achievement because this gas is 10,000 to 100,000 times fainter than the brighter parts of a galaxy.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's just penetrating really deep into the, the, the fainter regions of the universe.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, so what the discovered is that perhaps each, each galaxy has this shroud of gas that extends maybe a hundred thousand light years into space.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, a hundred thousand light years is what we usually think of as the diameter of the diskeval galaxy.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if you, if you basically double that in size, you've got the new version of what galaxies alike, how big they are and they are colossal.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And then is it true that because of this they believe that endrometer and al-Galaxy are already touching, technically speaking?

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the, the, yes, that's I mean, these undromeda galaxies about two and a half million light years away from ours.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: If you've got a hundred thousand light years of, of gas worth of gas in each of those galaxies, they're not actually touching, but they may well be interacting.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The, you know, the extremities because gravity operates over great distances. So they may be already tugging at one another if I can put it that way with these halos of gas.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think it's very, a fair point to say that collision with the drum with us already started.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Hold on to you. How are we?

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Gosh, and we were sitting here, you know, we were going to wait that couple of billion years.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we thought we were in the diary but I don't have to in now. It's happening.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, I know these gas surrounds have been previously discovered. We're talking, you know, 70 or years ago that they were discovered, but it's only because of a new piece of equipment that have been able to really analyze them today. Is that accurate?

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, yes, it's one of the, the, the Kectaluscope. So we've equipped with very, very fine auxiliary instrumentation and one of them is the instrument that's been used to do this.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's basically, it's got what's called an image slicer on it and that does exactly what the, the, the image, it takes an image slices it up.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But then for each slice you can get a separate spectrum.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We in Australia have similar technologies on certainly the Anglo-Australian telescope, but we don't use, we don't slice the images.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We break them up into pixels by using fiber optic so it's a different technique that has the same basically the same outcome.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But the thing about the image slicer is you can make them incredibly sensitive and that's why they've been able to get the spectrum of oxygen out to these great distances from from the, from the galaxy.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So, yes it's all about the technology that is now available on these marvelous telescopes.

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Incredible. So beyond the extremities of the spiral arms of our galaxy and well other galaxies are, without those sort of structures.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a gas halo that stretches out that far again is that basically what that's correct here and, and perhaps the most startling outcome of the research that these scientists have done on this is that those gas halos when you add them up for all galaxies.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They probably make up, they believe between 70 and 90 percent of the normal matter in the universe.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You know now the normal matter is the stuff that's not dark matter or dark energy and we you know we know that we think of normal matter as being about 5% of the mass energy budget of the universe.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And we usually think of that as being in stars stars of the glowing stuff the stuff you can see, but actually what they're saying is that much more of it is in these galaxy halos.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: 70 to 90.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just that to set change the ratio just that change the formula of what, my go at the you know it's no it doesn't.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_02]: What what it changes is the ratio within that 5% which is normal matter.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we're saying is that rather than you know half of it being stars now for being gas most of it is gas and and that's a new aspect of this whole study.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, wow that's intriguing and then they think this applies to just about every galaxy.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's incredible quite a discovery.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It is and yeah you know all credit to the team.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And just to give a give a shout out to the instrument as well the image slice that we mentioned is called the cos cac cosmic web image and it's a pretty dramatic stuff.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And it proves my theory for it that the universe is built on baked beans.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's naturally what we you used to what your mind goes to really isn't it yes does.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: That much gas is fascinating story and you can read more about that on the conversation website.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_03]: This is space nuts with Andrew Dunkley and professor Fred Watson.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I feel fine space.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's get into our final chat Fred this one is about disruption in the extremities of our solar system due to a passing star.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_03]: So what happened and when quite a long time ago.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I figured it might before you and I were born.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so it's a good question actually I'm not sure that they can pin down when this happened.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But I should have another look at the paper in nature magazine which goes into details of this very nicely and what what they are doing the scientists involved with this work who are principally in the world.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm from Europe if I remember at the university of Leiden comes into my mind yes the light and University is where this research has been done.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So what have they done they've looked at the trans Neptuneian objects which we've talked about a lot because they are implicated in the idea of planet nine and I'll get to that in a minute.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But this group from Lydne University have done a huge number of computer simulations

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: to see why these trans-Neptunian objects have such highly inclined orbits when you think

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: about the orbital plane of the solar system, the one that the planet is lying.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_02]: There, that's pretty flat.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Mercury is the one that sticks out most.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But the trans-Neptunian objects are not like that and I should mention that the main belt asteroids

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_02]: mostly sit within the plane of the planet as well.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And that all comes about, of course, because of the way planets have formed from a rotating

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_02]: disk of material, the protoplanetry disk.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you look really a long way out to the trans-Neptunian objects object further away than Neptune,

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: they're tipped over all kinds of angles.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, summer vertical almost and there's one or two that are so far angled that they're

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02]: going the wrong way around.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: They're actually going in the wrong direction.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the scientists at Lydne have questioned what it is that has caused this.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And their simulations basically tell them that a star of about point eight solar masses,

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: so 80% of the mass of our sun, flu passed at a quite a close distance.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: A distance of 110 astronomical units.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we know that an astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun,

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_02]: 150 million kilometers.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's 110 times that's about 16.5 billion kilometers.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_02]: About nearly four times the distance between the sun and Neptune.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So that passage of a star and they suggest billions of years ago without pinning down exactly

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_02]: when it was.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_02]: What they find is that that tipped up many of these orbits and disturbed them,

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_02]: so that we've got all these inclined orbits.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But they also believe that this explains some of the peculiar orbits of moons of the outer

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: planets, Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of those moons were the wrong way round.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And they've always been suggested that they've been their capture destroyed,

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_02]: basically captured, trans-Neptunian objects that strayed into the inner solar system and got captured

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_02]: by these planets.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what the Lydne scientist is saying is that it's maybe the same event when they

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_02]: flew by the solar system, not only disturbed all these outer asteroids to put their orbits

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_02]: at high inclined angles but also flung some of them into the inner solar system,

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_02]: whether we're captured as moons.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a very, very neat story.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It makes sense though when you think about it,

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_02]: absolutely, it makes perfect sense.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's an exactly kind of gravitational disturbance that you think might do that.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I bless you.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, let's do it going off here though.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what the good old hay fever I guess still.

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I mentioned planet nine a minutes ago that great theory that I think has been

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: had that around since 2016 or thereabouts if I remember rightly.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's saying that yes we've got very elongated orbits out in that outer solar system region.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But some of them are lying in a way that suspicious that there's another planet out there.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So the paper that we're talking about now, which in nature astronomy is called the trajectory

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: of the stellar fly by that shaped the outer solar system it's a very nice title.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That paper is very briefly includes a mention of planet nine and I'm going to read the

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_02]: graph that it says eventually high inclination trans-neptunian objects could be crucial

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_02]: when deciding between different hypotheses.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Retrograde trans-neptunian objects themselves and that's ones that go backward in their orbits

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: provide a challenge for the planet instability model.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Adding a distant planet in bracket planet nine appeared to solve the problem.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: This combined model can account for retrograde trans-neptunian objects and with certain parameters.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But it says however distant highly inclined trans-neptunian objects if they exist may provide a

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_02]: challenge also for the planet nine model. So what they're saying is planet nine actually helps in their theory.

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's a combination of both this passing star and a planet that we have not yet discovered

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_03]: in the depths of the solar system. So to put it in super scientific technical speak we had a

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_03]: solar system sized ball in a china shop. Yes I think that sums it up a very

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_02]: bovine-ly if I can use the cloud jump over the moon the ball.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_03]: That's absolutely the china shop. The ball did the rest.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah it's a great story and if it holds true which it certainly didn't yet the mathematics

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_03]: works. Yeah could answer a lot of questions and add a bit more I touch more weight to the potential

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_03]: for a planet nine which I like. I wanted to be there. I do that. Yes. If you'd like to follow up on

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_03]: that story it's it's a good read but it's super technical so my brain when snap

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_03]: nature.com has that story. That brings us to the end friend thank you so much for your

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02]: presence yet again it's always enlightening but the then darkening isn't it which is what we

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_02]: took about what we were. Yes no great stuff I'll do a thing traveling me always a pleasure

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Fred Watson astronomer large and thanks to you in the studio we've got a question about

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_03]: you the other day I'll try and tackle that in a future episode. And for me Andrew

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Duncan thanks for your company catch you on the very next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.

[00:33:29] you