00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another exciting episode of
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Space Nuns. I'm your host for this season,
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 Heidi Campo. And joining us is Professor
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Fred. Watch it. Fred Watson,
00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 astronomer at large.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 Professor Fred Watson: Actually, that's quite a nice, uh. It's quite
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 a nice epithet. It should be Fred watching,
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 uh, because I watched the universe. Fred
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 watching here loud and clear.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 Looking forward to speaking again, Heidi.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 Heidi Campo: We, uh. We, uh. We're off to a great start.
00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 No, that's. That is fun. We are. We are. We
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 are all observers in this universe. And you
00:00:35 --> 00:00:37 are listening to space nuts.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 10, 9. Uh, ignition
00:00:43 --> 00:00:43 sequence.
00:00:43 --> 00:00:45 Professor Fred Watson: Star space nuts.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 nuts. Astronauts report it feels good.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 Heidi Campo: Um, today we have some very interesting
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 articles. Uh, we're. We're kind of kicking
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 things off. It's a. It's kind of a mystery
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 episode. I feel like this is a very, very
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 detective heavy episode. We've
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 got mysteries being solved,
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 we have mysteries unsolved, and we have clues
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 to mysteries. So our first
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 article this week is we are talking about a
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 mystery that, uh, might be
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 solved. So this is, uh. We're looking
00:01:23 --> 00:01:26 at what this is, is the home address
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 for some missing matter.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Um, uh, it's a
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 story that, um, I find really
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 interesting because the
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 groundwork for this work was laid down five
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 years ago here in Australia,
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 um, with, um, work that's
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 been carried out on something you and I have
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 spoken about before. Briefly.
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 Uh. Briefly is the word, because we're
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 talking here about fast radio bursts,
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 uh, which are things that have only been
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 known in the last. It's getting on for 20
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 years now since the first observations were
00:02:02 --> 00:02:04 made. But, uh. But they're still
00:02:04 --> 00:02:07 relatively new in the
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 armory that astronomers can bring to
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 bear on the universe. And what they are
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 is pretty well what the name says. They're
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 bursts of radio radiation. These are detected
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 with radio telescopes, not visible light
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 telescopes. Uh, and they are.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 Fast, uh, is probably a misnomer. Uh,
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 short would be a better word. Uh,
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 but they, uh. Because they only last for
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 typically a millionth of. Sorry, uh, a
00:02:34 --> 00:02:35 millisecond, a thousandth of a second,
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 thereabouts, roughly. Often they've got
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 structure in them as well, which is
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 interesting when you look at the profile of
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 the intensity of that millisecond
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 burst spread out. If you can magnify the,
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 uh, sort of time domain, you can see that
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 there are features in that, uh, peaks and
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 troughs, uh, squashed into that millisecond.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 So very, very fascinating
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 objects. Their origin is still not
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 certain. Um, I think the best
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 guess of my colleagues who work on this kind
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 of thing is that they are flares on
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 magnetars. And magnetars are
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 highly magnetized neutron stars.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 And these things apparently are able
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 to have flares on their surface which can be
00:03:21 --> 00:03:23 very intense. These radio bursts are very,
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 very bright in the radio spectrum.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 So that's one thing.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:30 Heidi Campo: Real quick, Fred. I'm sorry.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:31 Professor Fred Watson: No worries.
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 Heidi Campo: I have noticed, um, based on the questions
00:03:33 --> 00:03:35 lately, that we are getting a lot of new
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 listeners lately. Can you, um, maybe
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 specify to some of our newer listeners the
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 difference between a neutron star and
00:03:43 --> 00:03:44 perhaps our star?
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 Professor Fred Watson: I can, um. Yeah, sorry. That's a really good
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 question and a really good point to make. Um,
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 so, um, neutron stars are, uh,
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 stars that have reached the end of
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 their life, their hydrogen fuel, which
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 is what powers stars like our sun that's
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 being powered by hydrogen fuel. As we speak.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 That fuel has run out on
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 a neutron star. And
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 the stars are really interesting because
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 there's a constant battle going on between,
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 uh, the radiation that is coming from
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 these nuclear processes, which is pushing
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 outwards, and gravity, which is pulling
00:04:24 --> 00:04:27 inwards and trying to compress, uh, a star
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 like the sun. So it achieves a balance
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 between, uh, radiation and gravitation.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 And so you can imagine what would happen if,
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 at the end of a star's life, um, the
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 radiation stops because the nuclear
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 processes have actually changed. They don't
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 stop, but they change. What's going to happen
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 is gravitation wins and compresses, uh,
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 the star down. And that, uh, sometimes
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 happens explosively in the case of what we
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 call a supernova, an exploding star. And so
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 one possible remnant from such
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 an event is a neutron star, uh,
00:05:01 --> 00:05:04 in which, uh, the thing
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 has collapsed. And the only thing that's
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 stopping that central core of
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 the X star, the star that is now
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 no longer a star. The only thing,
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 um, that stops it collapsing completely to a
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 black hole, uh, is the outward
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 resistance of the neutrons within it.
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 Um, and so those neutrons have an
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 outward pressure, and that limits the
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 collapse. Uh, so what you have is
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 a star that used to be perhaps like our Sun.
00:05:35 --> 00:05:38 1.3. Probably more actually, in the case of a
00:05:38 --> 00:05:39 neutron star, because they're bigger than the
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 sun anyway. 1.32
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 million kilometers across. Suddenly, uh,
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 it's collapsed to something, um, 10
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 kilometers, 7 miles across,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 uh, but with incredibly high density.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 And all sorts of unusual phenomena take place
00:05:57 --> 00:05:58 in those stars. They are generally
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 magnetized. Um, many of them
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 squirt, um, beams of radiation out, um,
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 and because they're rotating, those Beams
00:06:06 --> 00:06:08 have this sort of lighthouse effect that we
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 see them flashing. Uh, but we believe
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 as well some are so highly magnetized that
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 they form a different species, though what
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 are called magnetars. And apparently they
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 have flares on them. Uh, and these flares are
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 what we think gives rise to fast radio
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 bursts. So that's
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 where the science is. Uh,
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 astronomers have been now observing these
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 fast radio bursts for
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 best part of a decade. Uh,
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 and, uh, one or two of them repeat,
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 which are a bit mysterious because it
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 suggests that something's rotating because
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 you get this repeating appearance of the
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 burst. Uh, often though, they just come
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 out of nowhere. Uh, and there are several
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 radio telescopes in the world that are
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 actively looking for these objects. One
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 of them is down, uh, here in Australia,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:01 uh, the ascap, the Australian Square
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 Kilometer Array Pathfinder. And that actually
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 was one of the ones that contributed to the
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 work that was carried out that I mentioned a
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 minute ago, uh, about five years ago.
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 Um, in looking at how
00:07:14 --> 00:07:16 what these fast radio bursts might tell us
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 about not just magnetars, but about
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 the space through which the bursts of
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 radiation travel. Because we now know
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 that most of these radio bursts take place in
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 very distant galaxies. They're galaxies that
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 are, ah, you know, where distances are
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 measured in billions of light years. They're
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 a long, long way off. And so the radio
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 bursts have traveled through a lot of empty
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 space. Apparently empty. Um,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 and so I'm getting near the story here.
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 This is the introduction to the story. We're
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 nearly there. Um, what we
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 find with fast radio bursts is that the
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 bursts are, ah, um, dispersed.
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 That's the technical term, which is a little
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 bit like the way a prism breaks up the light
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 of the sun or a white light into a
00:08:06 --> 00:08:09 spectrum, spectrum of colors. The same
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 sort of thing happens as radio waves travel
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 through space. You've got this spike of
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 radiation, but as it goes through space,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 this dispersion phenomenon takes place. And
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 the result is, uh, that the different
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 frequencies are spread out in time. So,
00:08:26 --> 00:08:28 um, if I remember rightly, I'm not a radio
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 astronomer, the, um,
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 short wave, the higher frequencies arrive
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 before the lower frequencies. Is that right?
00:08:37 --> 00:08:40 I think that's right. Yes, it is. Um,
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 and the high frequencies are high first. But
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 this burst, um, in different frequencies,
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 it's still a spike of radiation. But you're
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 now looking at almost like you've dispersed
00:08:50 --> 00:08:51 it into a spectrum.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 You're looking at different frequencies.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 And so the lower frequencies arrive later.
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 Now that tells you
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 something about the space that the
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 radio waves have been traveling through.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:06 Because there is what we call the
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 intergalactic medium. Uh, and
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 that is basically a very
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 rarefied, um, gas, if
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 you like. Although you're talking about one
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 atom per cubic meter or thereabouts. It's
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 that sort of rarefaction. Uh,
00:09:22 --> 00:09:23 but there's enough of it. Because you're
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 coming through these great distances. There's
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 enough of that gas to have the effect of
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 dispersing this radiation. So the amount of
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 dispersion tells you how much
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 gas there is. That the radio waves have
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 traveled through. And that was the
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 breakthrough made about five years ago. By a
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 team of Australian scientists. Led by
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 a, um, fantastic young gentleman called
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 J.P. marchant. I think it was Jean Pierre,
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 um, uh. A wonderful radio
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 astronomer in Western Australia. A young man,
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 uh, two weeks after this breakthrough paper
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 had been, uh, released, he died.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 Uh, an absolute tragedy, this huge
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 breakthrough. Yeah. And uh, I think he had a
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 heart attack, if I remember rightly.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:12 Heidi Campo: It, uh, was probably the paper.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 Professor Fred Watson: Whatever it was, um, it was.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 It absolutely rocked the Australian
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 astronomical community. This new knowledge
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 that had been created. And he was the lead
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 author on the paper. Sadly, he died.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 Um, however, that work has now been
00:10:29 --> 00:10:30 carried on at other
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 radio astronomy observatories.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 Which brings us to the story today. And
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 this is a paper that has been released, um,
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 by astronomers at the center for
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 Astrophysics, uh, the Harvard
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, cfa. Uh,
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 and what they've done is they've taken this
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 work a step further. Because they've looked
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 at many, many more fast radio bursts. As
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 you'd expect, these things are coming, um,
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 um, um, are being constantly observed.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 Um, and what they've done is they have
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 looked again at, uh. The structure
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 or the constituents of the
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 intergalactic medium. The space between the
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 galaxies. And exactly as the Maaschant,
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 uh, uh, uh, work. Um, proposed
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 five years ago. They're able to use this
00:11:21 --> 00:11:23 as a measure of just what the.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 What the contents of the intergalactic
00:11:26 --> 00:11:29 medium are. Ah, and they find that it
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 is enough to account for what
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 we call the missing matter. Now, this is not
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 dark matter that we're talking about. This is
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 normal matter. Um, protons,
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 electrons. The normal stuff which we are
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 familiar with. Which in fact, uh. Is only
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 something like 20% of the amount of matter in
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 the universe. The rest of it is the dark
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 matter. That's something else. But even that
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 normal matter that we know about. When we
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 look at the calculations as to what should
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 emerge from the Big Bang. The um, event in
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 which the universe was formed, we can't find
00:12:02 --> 00:12:04 enough of it. That's why we call it the
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 missing matter. But it now Turns out
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 that this combined set of
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 researchers looking at the intergalactic
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 medium find that there is enough matter in
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 the intergalactic medium to account for that
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 missing matter. So this is a problem solved.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:23 As you said at the beginning. Yeah, the two
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 things absolutely dovetail together. The
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 predicted amount of matter in the universe is
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 now exactly what we find when we include
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 this intergalactic medium. So it's
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 amazing research. It's, um, very fitting
00:12:36 --> 00:12:37 that it should be our lead story on this
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 edition of Space Nuts, because, um, as I
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 said, it's got an Australian content. The
00:12:42 --> 00:12:44 thrusters now moved to other observatories,
00:12:44 --> 00:12:47 but we have this global picture now, uh,
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 of what dark matter can tell us. Sorry, what,
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 uh, fast radio burst can tell us about. Not
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 dark matter, but the missing matter of the
00:12:55 --> 00:12:55 universe.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 Heidi Campo: Oh, that's wonderful. Uh, this reminds me
00:12:59 --> 00:13:01 when I'm trying to do math unsuccessfully,
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 and I'm trying to find why I can't get the
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 right answer and I forgot to carry the one.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 It turns out it was there the whole time. The
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 answer was right there. I just forgot to grab
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 that one little piece to pull it in to get
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 the correct answer. But they solved such a
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 complex, uh, problem. And isn't
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 that kind of funny sometimes the answers are
00:13:21 --> 00:13:22 right there in plain sight.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. It's in plain sight.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 Heidi Campo: But it's like you said, one atom per.
00:13:28 --> 00:13:29 What did you say it was?
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 Professor Fred Watson: 1 cubic meter? It's something like that. It's
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 that kind of level. It's very. A few atoms
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 per cubic meter, perhaps. Um, but yes,
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 uh, it's in plain sight. But you need.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 The thing that's made this possible, this
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 detection possible is the fact that these
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 bursts of radiation are so short,
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 they're milliseconds. And that means that as
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 they're dispersed, uh, into different
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 frequency bands as they pass through the,
00:13:55 --> 00:13:57 the, the universe, um, you still can, you can
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 detect this dispersion of the frequency
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 bands, whereas with a constant radio signal,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 you wouldn't, you wouldn't do that. Um, you
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 know that you've just got us radiation
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 coming all the time. There's nothing to tell
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 you whether the, whether the, um,
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 lower frequencies are slower than the faster
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 frequencies. There's nothing to tell you
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 that. Yeah.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 Wonderful detective work. Yeah.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:22 Heidi Campo: Oh, yeah, it's fantastic.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 So by these radio, uh, astronomers then.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 So they do radio astronomy. What is your
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 specialty? And then if you're not. So I also,
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 I also, I have to make a joke, you know, it's
00:14:33 --> 00:14:34 not Space nuts if there's not a few dad
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 jokes. And I've Been. I have not been holding
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 up my end of, um, filling Andrew's shoes. So
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 you may not be a radio astronomer, but
00:14:42 --> 00:14:43 technically you are an astronomer on the
00:14:43 --> 00:14:44 radio.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. Yeah. I like it. I
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 like it. Yes. Your dad jokes will go far,
00:14:50 --> 00:14:53 Heidi. Um, uh, so
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 my specialty, um, and
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 really my work now is in sort of policy and
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 things of that sort rather than observing.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 Uh, but yes, for 40 years I guess
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 I was, um, in fact more than that, nearly 50
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 years, I was an optical astronomer. And that
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 means I use telescopes that look at visible
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 light, um, so giant telescopes
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 that have a very shiny mirror at the
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 base of them. In fact, the one I used
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 principally was the, um, 3.9 meter
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 Anglo Australian Telescope, uh, which we
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 celebrated the 50th birthday on last year.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 Heidi Campo: Oh, happy, happy birthday, telescope.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 Professor Fred Watson: 0G and I feel fine space
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 nuts.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 Heidi Campo: So with the, uh, ESA's Probe 3
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 mission, that telescope, would that count as
00:15:40 --> 00:15:42 a big mirror telescope?
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, um, it's a small mirror telescope.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:46 Heidi Campo: Okay.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 Professor Fred Watson: Um, but it is an optical telescope. That's
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 right. So it's looking at visible light and
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 lovely, uh, segment segue there to the next
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 story, Heidi. Um, so this
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 again, you know, needs a little bit of
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 background to, uh, get over its
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 significance. But this, I think is a
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 fantastic story, uh, because,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 um, it kind of means, um, that
00:16:09 --> 00:16:11 you can make an eclipse of the sun anytime
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 you like. Uh, as you know,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 eclipses, ah, are rare.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 Um, well, in any given place on the Earth,
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 they're a rare phenomenon. Uh, that's to say
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 when the moon exactly blots out the
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 disk of the sun or blacks it out. Uh, that
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 means the Moon's shadow on the Earth's, uh,
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 surface passes over different
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 places. Uh, we call it the path of
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 totality because that's where you see a total
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 eclipse. And that's only narrow. It's only 50
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 to 100 kilometers wide, um, 30 to
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 60 miles, I guess, something like that. So,
00:16:46 --> 00:16:47 uh, um,
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 ah, it's a rare phenomenon at any one place.
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 And that's why, uh, when eclipses come along,
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 people chase all over the world. Uh,
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 everybody here in Australia, or certainly the
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 state I'm in, New South Wales, are, uh,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 looking forward to July 2028, when an
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 eclipse, um, will be seen from this
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 state. And in fact, the Moon's shadow will
00:17:09 --> 00:17:12 pass directly over Sydney. So Sydney's going
00:17:12 --> 00:17:14 to be the center of the world's astronomers
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 for, um, a short time. In
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 2028 it is already, of course, but, uh, in a
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 different sort of way. Anyway. One of the
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 reasons why scientists Asked
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 so keen on watching eclipses is
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 because when the moon's disk blots out the
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 visible disk of the sun, what you see
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 is the sun's outer atmosphere. It's corona.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 And, uh, this is a, it's a almost
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 ethereal glow around the sun
00:17:43 --> 00:17:45 which has got structure in it that comes from
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 the magnetic field of the sun, uh, that
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 dictates what the corona looks like. There
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 are many mysteries, uh, that we don't
00:17:53 --> 00:17:55 understand about the corona. One is why its
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58 temperature is so high. Uh, the
00:17:58 --> 00:18:00 sun's surface temperature, around
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 5 degrees. This
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 is degrees Celsius, the temperature of the
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 corona, about 15 million degrees.
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 Um, you're talking about this huge difference
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 between the bit that we can
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 see and the bit that is invisible
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 except when you have an eclipse.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 That's because it's very faint compared with,
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 you know, with the disk of the sun. Uh, and
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 the mystery is, why is the corona so hot?
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 So, uh, the corona. And it's thought to be.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:33 We actually think it's all about magnetic
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 fields again. Anyway, the corona is an
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 interesting area of study, but you
00:18:39 --> 00:18:41 can't see it unless you're in an eclipse.
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 Now the problem, you might think, okay, well,
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 why don't we make a telescope with a little
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 disk that blots out the light of the sun so
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 that you can see the corona around it. And
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 there are such telescopes, they're called
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 coronagraphs. That's the name,
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 gives away what it's for. They only work
00:18:59 --> 00:19:02 where they really only work in a vacuum
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 because the atmosphere tends to, um, scatter
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 the light and blocks out the view of the
00:19:08 --> 00:19:11 corona. So one or two very high mountain
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 sites have had coronagraphs used on them, and
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 you can also use them in space. But
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 they have their limitations.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 And this gets us to the story that you
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 mentioned, Proba 3. This is actually two
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 satellites which are operated by the European
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 space agen. Um, and they are
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 about, if I remember rightly, 150 meters
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 apart. Uh, they are
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 arranged so that one has
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 a sort of disk, one has got a
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 disk on it. Um, it's disk shaped, if I can
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 put it that way. And if you line that up with
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 the sun as seen from the other
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 spacecraft, which has a telescope on it,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 probably with a shiny mirror in there
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 somewhere, um, and that lets you
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 blot out the sun's disk. And it gives you
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 the best view that we have outside
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 a solar eclipse of the solar
00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 corona. Uh, and the reason why this is in the
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 news at the moment is because we're just
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 starting to see the first images from this
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 Prober 3 mission. It's a European Space
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 Agency mission, uh, and we can see
00:20:16 --> 00:20:19 the uh, corona, uh, of the sun
00:20:19 --> 00:20:21 in great detail, just as we would
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 if we were watching an eclipse from the uh,
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 Earth. Uh, and so this is a step
00:20:27 --> 00:20:30 forward. It's a new technology. Uh, it is
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 going to allow us to monitor the Sun's corona
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 um, in real time, uh, and for
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 a long period. I think they're proposing, uh,
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 is it 1000 hours of observing
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 of the Sun? Yes, it will create about
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 1 hours of images over its two year
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 mission and anyone will be able to download
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 the data. So it's a uh, really
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 interesting step forward by the European
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 Space Agency and the scientists who are
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 working uh, on this piece, um, of equipment
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 to let us see the Sun's corona over the next
00:21:01 --> 00:21:02 two years in great detail.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 Heidi Campo: It's fantastic. I'm looking at the images
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 right now and I've got to say, um,
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 some of you may get this reference. It looks
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 just like the um, late 90s, early
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 2000s Windows media player
00:21:18 --> 00:21:19 visualizers.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 Heidi Campo: Doesn't it? It's got such a,
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 interesting hue to it. I feel like I could be
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 listening to like early 2000s techno music
00:21:28 --> 00:21:29 with these images.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 Professor Fred Watson: We can probably provide that somewhere
00:21:33 --> 00:21:34 some space techno.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 Heidi Campo: My other question, since this will be um,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 available to the public, would this be a good
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 opportunity for any citizen scientists
00:21:43 --> 00:21:45 to tap into and are there any programs that
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 you know of that people may want to be paying
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 attention to if they are interested in
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 getting involved in citizen science?
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's a great question. And um, you
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 know there is a wonderful array of
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 citizen science projects which are ah,
00:21:59 --> 00:22:01 related to astronomy, um,
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 um, various ones. The zooniverse is the
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 sort of, um, I guess you've probably heard of
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 the zooniverse, which is a kind of cluster of
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 citizen science projects, um,
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 that um, brings to bear
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 the resources of our citizen uh, science
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 scientists, uh, to bear on astronomical
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 data. And you can bet your life that there
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 will be, I don't know, uh, particularly that
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 this is the case, but you can bet your life
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 that there will be people poring over these
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 coronagraph Images from Probe 3 looking uh,
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 to see what we might discover about the
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 solar corona. Um, it is uh, I think it's
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 a, uh, really, if I can put it this
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 way, it's a project that is ripe for
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 exploitation with citizen science.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 Heidi Campo: Yeah, and I'm such a, you guys have probably
00:22:53 --> 00:22:55 heard me talk about citizen science programs
00:22:55 --> 00:22:56 on here before because I'm such a big
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 advocate for everybody getting involved
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 Because I, uh, you know, don't save it for
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 the brilliant people with the PhDs. We love
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 you, Fred. You're wonderful. But if we can
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 export some of this work to the whole pool of
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 talent, and I've always learned this, the
00:23:12 --> 00:23:14 more I get involved in the space industry is
00:23:14 --> 00:23:17 don't let. Don't let you know, don't be the
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 person to tell yourself, no, I can't do that.
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 Let somebody else tell you. Just start
00:23:21 --> 00:23:24 pursuing it. If you're interested in it, get
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 involved. There's so many opportunities and
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 there's so much to learn. We still have
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 more questions than we have answers. So there
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 is absolutely. Here's a pun. Here's another
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 pun. I'm. I got two for them today. There's
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 space for you. There's space for you to get
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 involved in space. We need your
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 help. So citizen science program programs,
00:23:45 --> 00:23:48 um, are a fantastic way
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 to get involved. And I think this is
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 a little bit more of my bumpier segue. Unless
00:23:53 --> 00:23:54 you had something you wanted to say, Fred.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 Professor Fred Watson: No, no, I'm just a big fan of cities and
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 science as well. I think it's fabulous what
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 is achieved by that. Um, and I
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 wholeheartedly agree with your comments
00:24:04 --> 00:24:06 there, Heidi, but, yeah, ah, I think you had
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07 a nice segue coming up there, which I
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 probably ruined now.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:10 Heidi Campo: Oh, no, I think it was going to be a pretty
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 bumpy one. So this is. Okay. Um, I will say
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 I do know that actually, um, some.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:19 I remember because I got some, um,
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 they called it the NASA TOPS program.
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 TOPS Standard for something. Open science
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 repository, something like that. But it's,
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 um, it's just a casual certification
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31 that you can get online from. It's an
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 official NASA thing that you can get and just
00:24:33 --> 00:24:35 put it on your LinkedIn. But they just talked
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 about a lot of different citizen science
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 programs. And I believe I remember reading,
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 if I, If I read this correctly, a, um.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 Lot of breakthroughs have happened
00:24:45 --> 00:24:48 with hurricane technology and, um,
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51 early detection of hurricanes through citizen
00:24:51 --> 00:24:54 science. Because that was one of the first
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 places that we tapped into citizen science.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 Don't quote me on the decades. I'm terrible
00:25:00 --> 00:25:01 at my history. But the first,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 um, cited use of citizen
00:25:05 --> 00:25:08 science was the former
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 belief was that wind
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 always moved one direction because if you're
00:25:14 --> 00:25:15 standing in the wind, it's coming at you one
00:25:15 --> 00:25:18 direction. And this guy was the I. And I. I
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 wish I had his name. I'm so sorry. But he was
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23 like, hey, I think wind moves in different
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 patterns. And so what he did is he,
00:25:26 --> 00:25:28 um, had a weather event and he had People
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 posted all over the place and
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 he's like, tell me which direction the wind
00:25:33 --> 00:25:36 was moving. And they reported back to him
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 and he discovered that yes, the
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 weather was not always. The wind was not
00:25:41 --> 00:25:43 always moving one direction. So that was uh.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:44 I don't know if you know more about that
00:25:44 --> 00:25:44 story.
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 Professor Fred Watson: I don't know that but that exactly. It's uh,
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 you know, it, that's. It's wonderful when
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 people have an idea like that and managed to
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 muster the resources that um, he clearly did
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 and get the results. And citizen science is a
00:25:58 --> 00:25:59 lot like that.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 Okay, we checked all four systems and.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 Heidi Campo: Team with a go space navigation. Yeah.
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 So here's my bumpy segue to the last
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 article. Um, I guess we can say if we're
00:26:11 --> 00:26:13 keeping it with the detective, uh, metaphor
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 for this episode is this is a clue. So we
00:26:16 --> 00:26:19 had the first story was we've
00:26:19 --> 00:26:22 solved something. The second one is we have
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 um. Well I guess the second one was the clue.
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 And this last one is there is a mystery. This
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 is a open case yet to be solved, which
00:26:30 --> 00:26:33 is a mysterious link between
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 Earth's magnetism and
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 oxygen. So this is an open
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 mystery. We don't know the answers.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 Professor Fred Watson: We don't uh, um. And it
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 is um, really quite a significant
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 result Heidi, that um,
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52 uh, has come from scientists. Actually
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 One of them is at my alma mater, the
00:26:54 --> 00:26:55 University of St. Andrews in Scotland,
00:26:55 --> 00:26:58 Scotland's oldest university, founded in
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 1413. I was there shortly afterwards, as I
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 always tell people. Um, um. It's
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 uh, the university uh, of um, of St.
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 Andrews and also uh, scientists at the
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 University of leed. So this is work in the
00:27:11 --> 00:27:13 uk. Um, the
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 story is uh,
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 basically uh, that we have
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 this trend, uh, that is
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 detectable um
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 by techniques that
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 are uh, quite um,
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 remote from what we do in the world of
00:27:34 --> 00:27:37 astronomy. Uh, it's um,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:37 what was it?
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 Biogeochemistry I think was one of them.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 So what scientists have looked at,
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 uh, what you might call proxies,
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 uh, um, things that tell you
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 about something else. And uh, for
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 example one of the examples is this, uh,
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 if you look back through the geological
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 record you can find evidence
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 in the geological strata of
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 periods where there were lots and lots of
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 wildfires, um, what we call bushfires here in
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 Australia, forest fires elsewhere.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 So you can find evidence of that. And
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 the scientists are saying that is a proxy
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 for the number of these wildfires, is a
00:28:23 --> 00:28:25 proxy for the amount of oxygen that was in
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 the atmosphere at the time. Because
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 uh, wildfires spread much more readily
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 if you've got an oxygen rich atmosphere than
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 they do if you've got less.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:36 Heidi Campo: Oh, interesting.
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it's that kind of work that's been
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 done. Also, um,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 something that's a little bit more directly
00:28:44 --> 00:28:47 measurable, uh, is the history of
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 the Earth's magnetic field. And that's one of
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51 the ways that we know that the Earth's
00:28:51 --> 00:28:54 magnetic poles reverse every, probably
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 three or four times every million years,
00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 something like that. Uh, so the, the
00:28:58 --> 00:29:00 magnetic field of the Earth is something that
00:29:00 --> 00:29:03 we can get from the alignment of grains
00:29:03 --> 00:29:05 of crystals in rocks. Um,
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 and that tells you, you know, how well these
00:29:08 --> 00:29:10 are aligned, tells you about the intensity of
00:29:10 --> 00:29:13 the magnetic field. Excuse me. So
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16 this group of scientists. Sorry, I've got,
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19 uh, an oxygen rich, uh, throat at the moment.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 It's wanting to come. So these groups of
00:29:22 --> 00:29:24 scientists have looked at something that
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 nobody would have expected, uh, to
00:29:27 --> 00:29:30 correlate, but they find that
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 there is a correlation between,
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 and this is looking back over half a billion
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 years. So they're looking back in time over
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 500 million years. When you plot the strength
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 of the Earth's, uh, magnetic field over that
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46 period and compare it with the
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 amount of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 over that period, the two graphs match
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 very, very closely. Um, there's
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 clearly a link, uh, between the
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, the
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02 intensity of the magnetic field.
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 The mystery is,
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 is that link telling you that
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 more magnetism means more oxygen and,
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 or more oxygen means more magnetism?
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 Or is it telling you that there is something
00:30:16 --> 00:30:19 else going on that affects both the magnetic
00:30:19 --> 00:30:22 field and the oxygen as well, and
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 affects them both in the same way? So some
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 other process that we don't really understand
00:30:28 --> 00:30:31 yet. So a really big mystery, but
00:30:31 --> 00:30:34 the reason why I'm mentioning this on, um,
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 space knots is that it feeds into
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 our understanding of what might,
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 uh, constitute places where life evolves
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 elsewhere in the universe. Because we know,
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 ah, most of the oxygen in the Earth's
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 atmosphere actually comes from biological
00:30:49 --> 00:30:52 processes. It's what we call a biomarker.
00:30:52 --> 00:30:53 Somebody looking at the Earth from outside
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 and seeing that much oxygen,
00:30:57 --> 00:31:00 uh, if they have life of the same
00:31:00 --> 00:31:01 kind that we have, they could say, yes,
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04 that's a biomarker that is marking, uh.
00:31:04 --> 00:31:06 Heidi Campo: Similar to K2 18B, right?
00:31:06 --> 00:31:09 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. Although
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 it was, uh, what was it? Dimethyl
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 sulfide was the biomarker that was
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 caused for the exoplanet
00:31:17 --> 00:31:20 K2.18b, which is still of great
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 interest to astrobiologists. We don't really
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 know first of all whether that, uh,
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 um, finding of dimethyl sulfide is real.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 Or whether it's being confused with some
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 other molecule. The signature in the spectrum
00:31:34 --> 00:31:36 that the James Webb telescope took, um, and
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 we don't actually know whether that is
00:31:38 --> 00:31:41 genuinely a biomarker in
00:31:41 --> 00:31:43 an environment different from the Earth's. So
00:31:43 --> 00:31:46 lots of questions attached to that too. But
00:31:47 --> 00:31:49 this new finding, the link between magnetism
00:31:49 --> 00:31:52 and oxygen, whatever causes it,
00:31:52 --> 00:31:55 uh, may be something that will feed into
00:31:56 --> 00:31:58 the understanding of the way life processes
00:31:58 --> 00:32:01 work, uh, by astrobiologists and perhaps
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 will tell us more about the kinds of places
00:32:04 --> 00:32:06 that we might look for extraterrestrial life,
00:32:07 --> 00:32:09 uh, when we get the next generation of giant
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 telescopes with big shiny mirrors. Uh, and
00:32:12 --> 00:32:14 the biggest shiny mirror of all is going to
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 be the European Extremely Large Telescope.
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 Should come online in 2028. Its mirror is
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 39 meters in diameter.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 It's huge. Anyway.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:27 Heidi Campo: Yeah, well, I mean, uh,
00:32:27 --> 00:32:29 this is, uh, important to consider. This is
00:32:29 --> 00:32:31 one of the first things they teach you
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 anytime you go to any kind of, of STEM
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 related program is okay.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37 Correlation does not mean causation.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:38 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 Heidi Campo: And you said this. I mean, it's like we don't
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 know if it's this, this, or this. And,
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 and it's. I mean, I'm looking at the trend
00:32:46 --> 00:32:47 lines right now. I mean, they are
00:32:49 --> 00:32:51 right there. It's so easy to jump to the
00:32:51 --> 00:32:54 conclusion and say, yeah, these are so
00:32:54 --> 00:32:56 highly correlated. But then we just have to
00:32:56 --> 00:32:59 remind ourselves why. And we don't know. This
00:32:59 --> 00:32:59 one's a mystery.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:03 Professor Fred Watson: It's a mystery. And, um, well, I'm sure
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 it will be the focus of a lot of really
00:33:05 --> 00:33:07 interesting research over the next year or
00:33:07 --> 00:33:10 two. Maybe Heidi, you and I'll talk about
00:33:10 --> 00:33:13 whatever they find in a Space Nuts down the
00:33:13 --> 00:33:15 track sometime. Uh, but yeah, we should,
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 um, keep an eye on this one because it's a
00:33:17 --> 00:33:18 very exciting result.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 Heidi Campo: Well, I think that that is a good segue to
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 kick it back to you, our listeners. We've
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26 talked about a lot of fun things,
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 questions, answers, solutions, and more
00:33:29 --> 00:33:32 questions and citizen science in there. Um,
00:33:32 --> 00:33:34 I think we should just take this time to
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 encourage you guys to stay involved because
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 you can be a part of these breakthroughs.
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 And then instead of writing in just simple
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 questions here on SpaceNets, you can also
00:33:44 --> 00:33:47 say, hey, as a citizen scientist myself, I
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 have discovered this. What do you think about
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 these findings? And I think that would be
00:33:51 --> 00:33:53 really neat to hear those kinds of statements
00:33:53 --> 00:33:53 from you guys.
00:33:55 --> 00:33:56 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. We could then tell the world.
00:33:56 --> 00:33:59 Remember where you heard it first here on
00:33:59 --> 00:33:59 Space Nuts.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:03 Heidi Campo: What a perfect, perfect ending. Um, Fred,
00:34:03 --> 00:34:05 this has been such a fun conversation.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:08 Professor Fred Watson: Thank you so much My pleasure always, Heidi.
00:34:08 --> 00:34:09 And, uh, I look forward to talking to you
00:34:09 --> 00:34:10 next time.
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 Voice Over Guy: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
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