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Time Dilation, Cosmic Questions, and the Nature of Space
In this enlightening episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson dive into a captivating array of listener questions that explore the intricacies of time, light, and the universe itself. From the mysteries of dark matter to the philosophical implications of faster-than-light travel, this episode is a treasure trove of astronomical insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Speed of Light and Time Dilation: The episode kicks off with a thought-provoking inquiry from Martins in Latvia about why an object traveling at the speed of light ages differently than one on Earth. Fred unpacks the concept of time dilation as described in Einstein's theory of relativity, illustrating how time behaves differently for observers in motion.
- Ephemerides and Navigating Space: Art from Rochester, New York, poses a fascinating question about the navigation of rockets and the possibility of creating ephemerides for faster-than-light travel. Fred explains the significance of ephemerides in celestial navigation while addressing the theoretical challenges of faster-than-light journeys.
- Galactic Colors and Time Travel: David from Munich wonders about the different colors of galaxies captured by the James Webb Telescope and the implications of traveling to these distant realms. Fred discusses redshift, the nature of light, and how our view of the universe is essentially a glimpse into the past.
- Heat and Friction in Space: Daryl from South Australia asks whether objects in space produce heat as they move. Fred clarifies the role of friction in a vacuum and the conditions under which objects can generate heat through their motion.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
(00:00) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:20) Discussion on time dilation and the speed of light
(15:00) Navigating space with ephemerides
(25:30) Exploring the colors of galaxies and time travel implications
(35:00) Heat and friction in the vacuum of space
For commercial-free versions of Space Nuts, join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts, or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another episode of space
00:00:03 --> 00:00:03 nuts.
00:00:03 --> 00:00:06 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:12 --> 00:00:14 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 report. It feels good.
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 Heidi Campo: I'm your host for this summer, filling in
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 for Andrew Dunkley. My name is Heidi Campo.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 And joining us is professor Fred Watson,
00:00:28 --> 00:00:29 astronomer at large.
00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, good to be here, Heidi, as always. And
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 you're also our host for this winter here in
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 Australia. So, yeah,
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 lovely to talk. And um, I think we've got
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 some pretty great questions from our, uh,
00:00:42 --> 00:00:43 listeners for this episode.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 Heidi Campo: We do. We have some really fun, uh,
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 uh, not episodes. We have some fun questions.
00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 Um, our first question today is
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 Martins from Latvia. And here
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 is his question.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 Martins: Hello guys. It's, uh, Martins from
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 Latvia. Um, I've been loving your show. Been
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 listening since 2017. And, um,
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 so I have a question about dark matter.
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 Okay, just kidding. I have a question about
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 speed, uh, of light. So we have two objects.
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 One object is on Earth and the other one is
00:01:20 --> 00:01:22 traveling in space at the speed of light.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 After some time it comes back and the object
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 that's on Earth is older than the other
00:01:28 --> 00:01:31 object. So why is that happening
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 again? Why? They aren't the same, uh,
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 age. I mean. Yeah, there's something to do
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 probably when you're reaching speed of light
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 that time is slowing down or something. But
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 why it's slowing down? Why isn't it, uh,
00:01:43 --> 00:01:45 like. Yeah, just curious.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 And uh. Yeah, and I have,
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 um, some dad joke for your,
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 uh, arsenal, Andrew. So, uh,
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 how do you put a space baby to sleep?
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 You rock it. So anyways, guys,
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 cheers then. Yeah, have a good one.
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 Heidi Campo: Well, I think those space babies will
00:02:07 --> 00:02:09 being well with those jokes. Thank you so
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 much, Martinez. That's a. That was a good
00:02:11 --> 00:02:11 one.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Space babies, uh, always need to be
00:02:16 --> 00:02:17 rocked. That's right.
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 So, uh, now that's a great question.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 Um, um, I have visited Latvia actually.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 Uh, some years ago we did a tour there. I do
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 remember, um, you know, Heidi, because we've
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 talked about it before. I'm very fond of
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 trains. We traveled on a little railway,
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 uh, through the snow and through, uh. Because
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 we always visit these places in winter, uh,
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 through snow and woodlands. And it trundled
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 along at something like
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 nine miles an hour. Maybe it
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 was a fast walking pace
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 because it was a very old line, but it was a
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 lot of fun. Anyway, enough about Latvia.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 Uh, let's get to the speed of light, which is
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 basically what Martin's question is about.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 Um, this is, it's one of the
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 fundamental aspects of
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 relativity. Uh, Einstein's two theories
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 of relativity. One was about motion. The
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 other was about gravity. It's the one about
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 motion that covers this. That's called the
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 special theory of relativity. Uh, dated
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 1905. And it turns out
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 that the thinking that Einstein had had,
00:03:25 --> 00:03:27 uh, leading up to this. Was
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 that we know that the speed of light
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 is a bizarre quantity.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Because in a vacuum it's always the same.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 We know also that it's the maximum
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 speed that anything can attain. In fact, you
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 can't actually achieve the speed of light
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 with an object. Because you would have to put
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 infinite energy in to get it to the speed of
00:03:48 --> 00:03:49 light. And we don't have infin infinite
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 energy. So light and its other
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 electromagnetic waves. They are the only
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 things that can travel at the speed of light.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 But if you had something that you are
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 accelerating. Well, let me just go back. The
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 speed of light is almost like a
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 magic number. It's not magic because it's a
00:04:07 --> 00:04:09 very round number. It's about 300
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 kilometers per second. Uh uh,
00:04:12 --> 00:04:15 it is, however, the fact that it
00:04:15 --> 00:04:17 doesn't change in a vacuum. And it doesn't
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 matter how fast the source is moving. You'd
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 expect if you have a source that's moving.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 That sends out a beam of light. Um,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 the source's speed would add to the speed of
00:04:28 --> 00:04:29 light. And the speed of light would increase.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 But it doesn't doesn't work like that. And
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 once you establish that, then it
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 turns out. And there's some
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 quite sort of simple ways of
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 seeing how this might work. Which we don't
00:04:43 --> 00:04:44 really have time to talk about. But some of
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 the books about special relativity. That talk
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 about people looking at somebody moving on a
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 train. Show you how the geometry works. That,
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 uh. Because the speed of light is always the
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 same. Then what it tells you is
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 perceptions of time and distance must change.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 And so the key thing here. And the point
00:05:04 --> 00:05:06 that, uh, Martins is raising.
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 Is that if you've got an observer
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 who is stationary. Compared with somebody
00:05:13 --> 00:05:16 who's moving at a very high speed. Nearly,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 uh, the speed of light or yeah.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:20 It doesn't matter whether it's near the speed
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 of light or not. The effect works. But it's
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 when you get nearer the speed of light. That
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 it becomes noticeable. Um, the
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 time that you observe. Um, that
00:05:30 --> 00:05:31 moving person,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 uh, experiencing is slower. So your
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 time's ticking away as normal. And
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 the person who's moving past you. Their time
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 is ticking away as normal. But when the
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 stationary person if you could see the clock
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 on the moving vehicle or whatever it is.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 Train Going at nearly the speed of light.
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 Just to mix a few metaphors there, um, what
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 you would see is their clocks would seem to
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 be going much more slowly than yours is.
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 And that's the time dilation effect.
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 And yes, it means that, um, if you
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 can then bring these two back together, the
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 moving person has experienced less
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 time relative to you than you have. And
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 that's the. It's sometimes called the twins
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 paradox. Because if you take two twins, one
00:06:19 --> 00:06:20 goes off at the speed of light, comes back
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 again, or nearly the speed of light, comes
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 back again there they have aged much less
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 than the twin who stayed put.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 So that's the bottom line. And
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 it's such a counterintuitive concept that it
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 is really hard to get your head around. But
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 we know it works. Uh, in fact,
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 um, the demonstration, um, the practical
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 demonstration of this phenomenon happening in
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 reality, uh, I think it was just before the
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 Second World War. Might have been round about
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 the same time. But there are things called
00:06:55 --> 00:06:57 cosmic rays which are bombarding the Earth
00:06:57 --> 00:06:58 all the time. These are subatomic particles
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 that come from space. Um, and they
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 are predominantly a
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 species of subatomic particle called a muon.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 So these muons were observed coming down
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 through space at, uh, nearly the speed of
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 light. And we know how long
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 they take to decay in the laboratory.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 But their decay time was much longer
00:07:21 --> 00:07:23 when they were observed coming in at the
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 speed of light, nearly the speed of light,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 the time had dilated. So the decays were much
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 longer than what we observe in the laboratory
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 when they're not stationary, but they're
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 going much more slowly. So it is a proven
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 fact this works. Uh, if we could
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 build a spacecraft that would get us to. I
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 can't remember what it is. I think it's
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 9998% of the speed
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 of light. Head off for 500
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 light years, come back again. Uh, you will be
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 10 years older, whereas everybody else on
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 Earth will be a thousand years older. So
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 it's that sort of thing. Your time has slowed
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 down relative to what they've experienced.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:06 Heidi Campo: I had a weird nightmare about that the other
00:08:06 --> 00:08:07 night.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:07 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, did you?
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 Heidi Campo: It was the strangest thing. I had a nightma.
00:08:10 --> 00:08:13 Um, somebody put me in, like, some kind of a
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 cryo sleep. And I woke up and so much time
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 had passed that everyone I knew had died. And
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 so I had them put me back in cryo sleep for
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 thousands of more years until we discovered
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 the technology to travel back in time so I
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 could go back in time and link back up with
00:08:26 --> 00:08:27 everyone I loved.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:31 Professor Fred Watson: That's A pretty good one is that.
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 Heidi Campo: I have a very active dreamscape. Uh,
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 at night I wake up exhausted.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:38 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:40 Heidi Campo: All right.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 Well, our next, uh, question has a little bit
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 of philosophy in it. Um, this, this question
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 is coming from Art from Rochester, New
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 York. And it's, ah, it's quite a long
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 question. So let's, uh, grab a cup of tea
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 here. Art
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 says, I was listening to the June 13 program
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 concerning the flying banana, which prompted
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 me to submit my first question to Space Nuts.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 It is a question I had been pondering for
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 some time. You will be glad to hear it is not
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 a black hole question, but rather a what if
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 question. The great American philosopher
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 Julius Henry Marx once postulated,
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 banana. Based on
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 empirical evidence, I can confirm that fruit
00:09:24 --> 00:09:26 flies like a banana. My question
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 revolves around time flying like an arrow.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 To the best of my understanding, when we
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 shoot off rockets to the moon or Pluto,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 in order to get there accurately, the rocket
00:09:37 --> 00:09:38 scientists use an
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 amphimerus. M. You'll have to correct me on
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 the pronunciations of that or possible
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 amphimerds as a sort of a map.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 If faster than light space travel were
00:09:50 --> 00:09:53 possible, how could one navigate from point A
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 to point B? Is it possible to develop
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 an ephemeris for faster
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 than light travel? Thank you, Art from
00:10:01 --> 00:10:02 Rochester, New York.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 Professor Fred Watson: A great question, Art. And, uh, yeah,
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 your pronunciation is correct. Ephemeris is
00:10:10 --> 00:10:12 what these things are, and ephemerides is
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 what a lot of them, ah, are. So what's an
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 ephemeris? Well, uh, the
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 original meaning, um, and I
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 guess this really is still the meaning of the
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 word is, uh, to predict
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 where, uh, planets are going to
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 be, uh, in the future, where
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 celestial objects are going to be. So,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 um, going back to my master's
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 degree, uh, back, you know,
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 150 years ago, my work was on,
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 um, the orbits of asteroids. And
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 so there were two problems. First problem was
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 how do you take observations of an asteroid?
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 And remember, all we had in those days was
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 the direction that you could see measured
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 with a telescope. How do you turn that into
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 knowledge of the orbit of the
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 asteroid, uh, in three dimensions? And you
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 can do it. You need at least three
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 observations to do that, but you can do it.
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 You can mathematically deduce the orbit from
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 just three directions in space. But then once
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 you've got the orbit, what you want to know
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 is where it's going to be in the future,
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 what's its direction in space going to be?
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 And that is what an ephemeris is. It's how
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 the position of an object changes, uh, in the
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 sky, uh, over time. Um, so
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 it comes from the word ephemeral, meaning
00:11:29 --> 00:11:31 stuff that's temporary. Uh, so an
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 ephemeris, uh, is the,
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 basically it's a table of where an object
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 will be over a given amount of time. And of
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 course it's critically important these days
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 because we now know that, which we didn't
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 know when I did my master's degree. We now
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 know that the Earth's locality is pretty
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 heavily populated with asteroids. And
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 there's, you know, we might want to know
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 where they are just in case one's uh, heading
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 our way. So um, I, you know, I think the
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 question, Art's uh, question is uh, a good
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 one in the sense that, okay, he's saying,
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 yes, we, we use ephemera, um,
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 ephemerities to, to basically
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 navigate to objects.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:16 Um, it's actually a little bit more
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 than that because we, we use effectively
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 a three dimensional map of where these, these
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 planets are, uh, in order to
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 dictate where they're going to be when your
00:12:27 --> 00:12:28 rocket arrives there. And that's critically
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 important of course, because you want the
00:12:31 --> 00:12:33 rocket to get to the orbit of for example
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 Pluto, as Art mentions, uh,
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 when Pluto is going to be where, whereabouts
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 the rocket is. You don't want to reach the
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 orbit of Pluto and find Pluto somewhere else.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 That's why you need uh, an ephemeris.
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 But uh, if you could travel faster than the
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 speed of light, and we've already shown that
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 that's impossible, uh, in this episode
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 because you need infinite energy to do that,
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 uh, to reach the speed of light. But if you
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 could, um, the ephemeris would still
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 work. Um, you would need to put
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 in a negative number for the.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 I think the speed of light
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 actually goes into ephemeris calculations. I
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 remember it well. But I think you
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 uh, put in a factor. It wouldn't be a
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 negative number. It would be a factor that
00:13:21 --> 00:13:22 would allow for the fact that you were
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 traveling at faster than the speed of light.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 So you could do it. It's not an impossible
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 mathematical problem.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:32 For what it's worth.
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 Heidi Campo: Well that was fantastic. Uh, I just about
00:13:35 --> 00:13:36 understood that too.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:38 Professor Fred Watson: Sorry.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 Heidi Campo: Uh, no, you always do such a great job of
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 explaining these. Um, my IQ is going
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 up every time I'm um, involved on these, uh,
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 these episodes. And also great questions.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 We have some of the smartest, smartest
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 listeners. I mean these people are, are
00:13:54 --> 00:13:55 brilliant.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:00 Speaker C: Space nuts.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 Heidi Campo: Um, our next question is another audio
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 question, um, from David from Munich.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 And it's a little bit of a longer question as
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 well. So, so we are going to go ahead and
00:14:11 --> 00:14:13 play that for you now.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:16 Speaker C: Hey guys, David from Unique here. Uh,
00:14:16 --> 00:14:19 shout out to Andrew, Fred and
00:14:19 --> 00:14:22 Jonti and I heard that you're a bit
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 shorter in questions so I thought that's my
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 chance to submit one.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 I'm currently looking at the picture from um,
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 or taken by the James Webb Telescope. You
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 know the first one, the first um, deep space
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 which was also presented by President Biden
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 back then. And I realized that the
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 galaxies do differ in
00:14:42 --> 00:14:44 their color pretty much. So there are
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 more white ones, uh, orange ones and also
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 reddish ones. And I um, wonder
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 how is that, Is it due to the fact that
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 um. Or is this like the red shift because
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 they're moving away, which I
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 kind of doubt, but I don't know what, what is
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 it else? Or is there so much material of a
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 different, of different kind
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 in the galaxy that appears for us more
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 red or more blue. So
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 would be nice if you could explain that.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 And um, also I wonder a bit.
00:15:18 --> 00:15:21 Let's imagine we would travel to this far
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 distant galaxies. Um, if we
00:15:24 --> 00:15:25 could do it potentially
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 would it not be some kind of
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 travel through the time?
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 So because when we look back there, right. We
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 see them on their early stages. So
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 till it's a long time until
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 um, until the light reaches us. And if you
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 would travel to that far distant uh,
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 galaxies you would basically.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 Or what I imagine is like you would travel
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 through time, right. So if you did, the
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 moment you come closer and closer the galaxy
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 or maybe let's think of a single planet would
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 then change its appearance, right? So you
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 would see that it's alter, uh, it shifts
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 maybe its base or it merges with another
00:16:07 --> 00:16:08 galaxy. Um,
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 is my thinking correct, Would it like the
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 far. The closer you come the more it would
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 change its shape and it, I
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 don't know, colors maybe.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 Um, and things you would see.
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 Um. Yes, thanks for taking my questions. Um,
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 like the shop and, and um,
00:16:29 --> 00:16:30 till then.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:32 Heidi Campo: Well, thank you so much. Um,
00:16:33 --> 00:16:35 that was David from Munich. Thank you. That
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 was a well thought out question. Fred, I'm so
00:16:38 --> 00:16:38 curious.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 Professor Fred Watson: They were great questions Heidi from
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 David and in fact the answer to both his
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 questions is yes. Um,
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 so David's asking whether
00:16:50 --> 00:16:52 the color changes that we see in the
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 images, uh, of these deep fields as we
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 call them, uh, looking way back in
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 time, uh, whether those different colors of
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 galaxies is caused by
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 the different redshifts of these galaxies.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 And that's the bottom line. But there's a few
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 caveats here. Let me just explain what I
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 Mean, um, redshift is the
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 phenomenon that, uh, as light travels
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 through an expanding universe, uh, the
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 universe is expanding, light is making its
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 way through the universe, but as it goes, the
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 universe is getting bigger. And so the
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 light's wavelength is actually being
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 stretched. Uh, and, uh, as you
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 stretch the wavelength of light, it goes
00:17:33 --> 00:17:34 redder. It goes to the redder end of the
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 spectrum. And so that's what's happening. But
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 the caveat that I mentioned is that these are
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 actually false colors in the sense that the
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 James Webb telescope is an infrared
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 telescope. So it is looking at light that our
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 eyes are not sensitive to. It's actually
00:17:49 --> 00:17:52 redder than red light that it's looking at.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 So what the mission scientists do
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 is they, um, they take
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 the shortest wavelengths that the Web
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 can see, which are really beyond
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 our. They're redder than red for us,
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 for our eyes, but they're the shortest
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 wavelengths that the red can detect, and they
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 make that blue in their colors. And then the
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 longest wavelengths that the Web can detect,
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 they make it red in their colors and that. So
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 that mimics what we would see with
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 our eyes, uh, with visible, you know,
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 visible light, but it mimics it moved into
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 the infrared. So it does mean that as
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 objects, uh, you know, get
00:18:32 --> 00:18:35 redder, uh, in the infrared spectrum, we see
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 them redder, uh, in the James Webb telescope
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 images. And that's exactly the reason
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43 the most distant objects are so highly
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 redshifted, that you're seeing them as red
00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 objects compared with the white objects,
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 which are the much nearer ones. So David's
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 right on that front. His second question,
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 uh, what would some of these galaxies we're
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 looking back, you know, up to. I think the
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 record is looking back 13.52 billion years at
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 the moment, which is 280 million
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 years after the birth of the universe. It's a
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 big puzzle as to how galaxies got
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 so big and so rich,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 um, in that short period of time. But that's
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 for the cosmologists, not for us. Um,
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 they'll work it out. It'll be okay. Uh, the
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 bottom line, though, is that if you could
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 forget about the journey, because we can't
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27 travel the sort of speeds that you need. But
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 if you imagined yourself, uh,
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 instantly transported from
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 our, uh, vantage point here on Earth to
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 one of These early galaxies, 13.52
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 billion years, billion light years away, what
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 you would see would be a galaxy that might
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 look a lot like ours. It has evolved
00:19:47 --> 00:19:48 because you're seeing it. I mean, you've got
00:19:48 --> 00:19:51 to imagine we're being
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 transported instantaneously. So that what we
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 see is what's happening now. That galaxy will
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 have had 13.52 billion years of evolution.
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 It'll be quite different. It might actually
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 be quite a boring galaxy compared with the
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 very, uh, energetic, uh, infant galaxy that
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 we look at with the James Webb telescope.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 Complicated answer to a simple question, but
00:20:12 --> 00:20:13 David's right on the money.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 Heidi Campo: That is such an interesting way of thinking
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 about that. I, um, I'm going to be
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 spending, I'm going to be spending a while
00:20:21 --> 00:20:22 wrapping my head around that one.
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 Professor Fred Watson: Okay, we checked all four systems and seeing
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 where to go space nets.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 Heidi Campo: Um, our last, our last question of the
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 evening is from Daryl Parker of
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 South Australia. Daryl says,
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 G' day, space nuts. I'm not sure of
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 the best way to ask this question, so I'll
00:20:42 --> 00:20:45 just ask it the best way I can. That's
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 usually, that's usually the, the best way.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 Uh, do objects, meteors, asteroids,
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 comets, planets, stars,
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 solar systems and galaxies
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 produce heat as they move through space? Is
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 it friction or is friction a thing
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 in the vacuum of speed and the vacuum of
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 space? Thank you in advance. And that's
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 Daryl from South Australia.
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, another great question. Um,
00:21:13 --> 00:21:16 so if space was a complete
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 vacuum, and as I'll explain in a minute, it's
00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 not quite. But if it was a perfect vacuum
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 with nothing in there, then, uh,
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 there would be no friction,
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32 uh, as Daryl's calling, um,
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 would be, uh, uh, you know,
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 there'd be nothing to, uh, to limit the
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 speed of motion, uh, of an object moving
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 through it. And it wouldn't get hot. There
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 would be no friction to heat it. And
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 I think the way Daryl's thinking here, and
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 it's quite right to, uh. When a spacecraft
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 enters the Earth's atmosphere, uh, it's the
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 friction between the spacecraft itself moving
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 against the air molecules that causes it to
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 be heated and gives us this heat of reentry.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:00 There are a few subtleties to that, but
00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 that's basically the way it works. So things
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 moving through an atmosphere get hot. Um,
00:22:05 --> 00:22:08 now, uh, space
00:22:08 --> 00:22:10 beyond the Earth's, uh,
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 atmosphere is not a vacuum.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 It's very nearly a vacuum. And that's why you
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 can put a satellite up and it'll stay up for
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 200 years or whatever. And it's why, you
00:22:21 --> 00:22:22 know, the Moon doesn't come crashing down to
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 Earth. In fact, the moon's going the other
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 way. It's moving away from the Earth very
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 slowly, but the, um,
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 it's nearly a vacuum, but it's not quite
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 so. Uh, there is basically, um,
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 a very, very slight braking effect,
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 uh, which in the Earth's vicinity, the
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 Earth's atmosphere doesn't just stop, it sort
00:22:45 --> 00:22:46 of fades away. So even
00:22:47 --> 00:22:50 10 kilometers away, there's still a
00:22:50 --> 00:22:51 little bit of residual atmosphere, which
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 would have a slowing effect on a spacecraft.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:57 When you get into interplanetary space,
00:22:57 --> 00:23:00 there's a lot of dust and there's, there's
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 also subatomic particles there. When you get
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 to interstellar space, the space between the
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 stars, there is something that we call the
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 interstellar medium, uh, which is
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 basically the radiation and
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 particle environment of interstellar space.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:17 There are subatomic particles all through
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 space. Now there, it's still so much of
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 a vacuum that there's nothing really to heat
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 a spacecraft. So Voyager, as it ventures
00:23:25 --> 00:23:28 through interstellar space, is on the brink
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 of interstellar space. Now that, uh, won't
00:23:30 --> 00:23:33 get hot because of that, um, because the
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 friction is far too small. But when you do
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 see its effects, uh, they are on
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 very big scales. And we do see,
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 uh, when we look at some objects
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 deep in space, for example in a gas cloud,
00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 uh, a nebula, where, um,
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 maybe there are stars forming, sometimes you
00:23:52 --> 00:23:54 see objects which are moving through that gas
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 cloud. And what you can see is a shock wave,
00:23:57 --> 00:24:00 uh, being generated. And sometimes
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 that causes star formation, that shockwave of
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 the gas cloud. Um, now, yes, that's
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 Jordy agreeing with me there. Uh, he's
00:24:09 --> 00:24:11 just come back from his walk, so he's very
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 enthusiastic about this idea. Uh, he's
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 probably seen a shockwave. Um, and a
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 shockwave is what you get when something
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 moves rapidly through the atmosphere. You
00:24:20 --> 00:24:22 know, that's what causes the sonic boom of a
00:24:22 --> 00:24:24 supersonic jet. Um, so
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 with very big objects in gas
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 clouds in space, then you do get that sort of
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 effect. The interaction between the moving
00:24:32 --> 00:24:35 object and its surroundings generates a
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 shockwave and would generate heat as well. So
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39 under certain circumstances the answer is
00:24:39 --> 00:24:41 yes, Darrell, but probably for most things
00:24:41 --> 00:24:42 it's no.
00:24:44 --> 00:24:44 Heidi Campo: So.
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 So, Fred, I don't know if you'd have time for
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 a follow up question of my
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 own. Yes, um, so
00:24:53 --> 00:24:56 I guess I never really thought of, um, the
00:24:56 --> 00:24:59 gravity atmosphere around planets having
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 different layers. It's like, I knew there was
00:25:01 --> 00:25:02 layers, but it's like to really think, okay,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 you know, it gets thinner and thinner and
00:25:04 --> 00:25:05 thinner, but there's still particles, uh,
00:25:06 --> 00:25:08 being pulled into that atmosphere. But it
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 just, it spreads out quite a ways well
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 beyond our atmosphere. Are there points of
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 space, and you may have already mentioned
00:25:15 --> 00:25:16 this, but are there points of space where
00:25:16 --> 00:25:18 there's particles floating around that are
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 not being affected by any gravity at all? Or
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 is every part of space affected
00:25:24 --> 00:25:25 by something's gravity?
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29 Professor Fred Watson: Um, yeah, pretty well. Um, the thing about
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 gravity is it, it goes on for
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 infinity. Um, it's, ah, it's a
00:25:35 --> 00:25:36 bit like actually light is the same.
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 Electromagnetic radiation will not stop. It
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 just keeps going until it gets too weak
00:25:42 --> 00:25:43 to be detected. You're talking about a
00:25:43 --> 00:25:46 dribble of, you know, hardly any photons.
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 Gravity is the same. We don't know whether
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 gravity has a subatomic particle equivalent.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 We think it might have, and we call them
00:25:53 --> 00:25:54 gravitons, but they haven't been discovered
00:25:54 --> 00:25:57 yet. But yes, uh, that's actually,
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 you know, it's why, uh, an object
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 like Pluto, way out there in the depths of
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 the solar system, is still in orbit around
00:26:05 --> 00:26:08 the sun, even though it's all these, what is
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 it, five, six billion kilometers away.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 Um, the gravity of the sun is still
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 a force because gravity goes on
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 forever. Uh, but of course, when
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 you get way out into interstellar space,
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 then you might feel the sun's gravity, but
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 you'd also feel the gravity of other stars.
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 Uh, and so I think you're right that there is
00:26:31 --> 00:26:32 always going to be a sort of gravity
00:26:32 --> 00:26:35 background, uh, because of the
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 objects which are in the universe. Maybe
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 it's pretty near zero in the space between
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 galaxies, uh, which is pretty empty, although
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 there are subatomic particles there too. Uh,
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 but, uh, yeah, but no, it's a. It's a very,
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 um, A very compelling force is
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 gravity, which is just as well because
00:26:53 --> 00:26:55 otherwise we wouldn't exist.
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 Heidi Campo: There's always something pulling. It's just
00:26:59 --> 00:27:01 going to be stronger or weaker. No matter if
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 it's. No matter if it's the biggest gap in
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 the known cosmos,
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 there's still a little thread pulling us
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 together. Oh, that's so beautiful. That's
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 kind of cool. We're all connected somehow.
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 Professor Fred Watson: That's a connection. That's right. Yeah.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 Heidi Campo: Um, Fred. Well, this has been a
00:27:20 --> 00:27:23 very enlightening Q and A episode
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 of Space Nuts. Thank you so much for
00:27:26 --> 00:27:29 sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:32 Um, while your rooster. I'm sorry, your dog.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 Sings his song in the background.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 Professor Fred Watson: That's what he sounds like. I know. Um, his
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 voice hasn't broken yet.
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 Heidi Campo: It's kind of cute. It's endearing. Um, thank
00:27:43 --> 00:27:44 you so much.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:44 Professor Fred Watson: This has been, been.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 Heidi Campo: This has been fantastic. And, um, we
00:27:47 --> 00:27:50 will, we will, I guess, catch you guys next
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 time. Please keep sending in your amazing
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55 questions. And, um, real quick, before
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 we go, we are going to play a, uh,
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 another, um, another
00:28:01 --> 00:28:03 update for you. So this is your little Treat
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 for listening to the whole thing. We've got
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 an update from Andrew, your beloved
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 regular host. I know you guys probably miss
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 him because your questions are still
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 addressed to him, but, um, he's on his trip
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 around the world. Going to let that, um,
00:28:18 --> 00:28:19 play back now.
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 Andrew Dunkley: Hi, Fred, hi, Heidi, and hello, Huw
00:28:22 --> 00:28:23 in the studio.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:26 Andrew back again, reporting from the Crown
00:28:26 --> 00:28:28 Princess on our world tour. Uh, since I spoke
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 to you last, our, uh, cruise has made news
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 all over Australia. You might have seen some
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 of the reports or heard some of the news
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 about some of the conditions we've had to
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 deal with. When I last spoke to you, I was
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42 explaining how we were heading into rough
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 weather. We got off to a pretty rocky start.
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48 Well, it got much, much worse. We
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 were having lunch in one of the restaurants
00:28:50 --> 00:28:53 at the back of the ship and we got hit by
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56 a weather front. It felt like we'd been
00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 rammed and the. The ship tilted
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 over 7 degrees and it stayed there for the
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 rest of the day. It just hit us out of
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 nowhere. The captain had to do some heavy
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 maneuvering to get us, uh, into. Into a, you
00:29:09 --> 00:29:12 know, better position. And they had to move,
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 um, the ballast to, uh, keep the
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 ship, uh, balanced and upright as
00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 much as they could. Uh, yeah, it was pretty
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 harrowing. And the weather never got better,
00:29:23 --> 00:29:26 uh, until we got into Adelaide and were in
00:29:26 --> 00:29:28 protected waters. But, um, the Adelaide was
00:29:28 --> 00:29:31 fantastic. Went to, uh, Handorf, as I
00:29:31 --> 00:29:33 mentioned, that little German village where
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 the German people. People came in all those
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 years ago. They were, um, they were basically
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 escaping, uh, Prussian oppression when they
00:29:40 --> 00:29:43 came out here in the 1800s. And, um, yeah,
00:29:43 --> 00:29:44 made it, made a German town, which is
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 fantastic. Had, uh, a good look around
00:29:47 --> 00:29:48 Adelaide, although the weather was terrible.
00:29:48 --> 00:29:50 We went to Mount Lofty, which is one of the
00:29:50 --> 00:29:52 best views in Australia. And all we saw was
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 cloud and very strong winds. It
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 was, uh, it was quite nasty. Got
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 back on board, uh, we had to stay the night
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02 in Adelaide because of the conditions, hoping
00:30:02 --> 00:30:04 they'd settle down. And we did have some good
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 sailing until we got to the West
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 Australian border and then another weather
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 front hit us and it got rough again
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 and. Yeah, gosh. And just to top it all
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 off, we had a galley fire in the middle of
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 the night at one point, which they dealt with
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 very, very quickly. So it's been a bit of a
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 dog's, uh, breakfast of a cruise in some
00:30:25 --> 00:30:27 respects, but we're still having a fantastic
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29 time. We stopped at Fremantle again,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 um, because of the weather. We were very late
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 and so we stayed the night. We have friends
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 in Fremantle so We spent the evening with
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 them. It was fantastic. And we set
00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 sail again yesterday, headed west. We
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 leave Australia now, headed for Mauritius.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 That'll be a seven day crossing of the Indian
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 Ocean. So that's where things are at with
00:30:49 --> 00:30:52 our uh, current tour. Um,
00:30:52 --> 00:30:55 we're really enjoying ourselves. I must
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57 confess. The crew here is fantastic.
00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 And uh, you know, with over 2 Aussies on
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 board, we outnumber everybody about 10 to 1.
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 Which is, which is good. But so many
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 nationalities. Hope all is well back home and
00:31:09 --> 00:31:11 in Houston of course. Heidi, look forward to
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 talking to you next time. Uh, no, Aurora.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:13 Heidi Campo: Australa.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 Andrew Dunkley: Australis. Missed out completely. Couldn't
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 see that. So um, hopefully when we get up
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 north we'll see the other end of the uh,
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23 country and ah, see if there's any lights up
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 there. North. So until next time, Andrew
00:31:25 --> 00:31:26 Dunkley signing off.
00:31:27 --> 00:31:30 Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts.
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00:31:47 --> 00:31:48 Heidi Campo: See you later, Fred.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:49 Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.