Exploring the Outer Solar System: New Dwarf Planets, Iapetus Mysteries, and Primordial Black Holes
In this captivating episode of Space Nuts, host Andrew Dunkley and the ever-knowledgeable Professor Fred Watson delve into the latest astronomical discoveries and theories that are reshaping our understanding of the cosmos. From the potential identification of a new dwarf planet to the intriguing features of Saturn's moon Iapetus and the enigmatic nature of primordial black holes, this episode is packed with cosmic insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Potential New Dwarf Planet: Andrew and Fred Watson discuss the discovery of a new Trans-Neptunian object that could challenge the existence of Planet Nine. With its elongated orbit and significant distance from the Sun, this potential dwarf planet offers fresh perspectives on our solar system's architecture.
- The Peculiar Moon Iapetus: The conversation shifts to Iapetus, a unique moon of Saturn known for its stark contrast in surface coloration and mysterious equatorial ridge. Andrew and Fred Watson explore the various theories regarding its formation and the renewed interest it has garnered in recent discussions.
- Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter: The episode wraps up with a deep dive into the theoretical research surrounding primordial black holes and their potential role in explaining dark matter. Fred shares insights from recent studies suggesting these ancient black holes might be more stable than previously thought, reigniting the debate on their contribution to the universe's missing mass.
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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 Andrew Dunkley and Fred Watson Watson
(01:20) Discussion on the potential new dwarf planet in the solar system
(15:00) Exploring the mysteries of Saturn's moon Iapetus
(25:30) Theoretical research on primordial black holes and dark matter
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 --> 00:00:01 Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us. Andrew
00:00:01 --> 00:00:04 Dunkley here. Ah, this is Space Nuts,
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 where we talk astronomy and space science.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 Thanks for joining us. Coming up on this
00:00:10 --> 00:00:12 episode, lots, to talk about and really
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 interesting stuff for a change. No, as usual.
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 and this one, I saw and thought, gee,
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 we got to talk about this because we're
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 always looking for something in the outer rim
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 of the solar system and now we may have
00:00:26 --> 00:00:28 found something and it's not planet nine. In
00:00:28 --> 00:00:31 fact, it's possibly a new dwarf planet,
00:00:31 --> 00:00:33 which could mean there is no planet nine.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 Interesting. there's a peculiar moon,
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 orbiting Saturn, known as Iapetus. And
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 it's starting to get attention again.
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 We'll tell you why. And
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 primordial black holes. Yep. And
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 the fact that they might be today's dark
00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 matter. Is that a matter we should discuss?
00:00:54 --> 00:00:56 Damn right it is. And we'll do m it.
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 Do it right now on, Space nuts.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:05 10, 9. Ignition
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 report it feels good.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 Andrew Dunkley: And despite his premature announcement,
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 he officially welcome Professor Fred Watson
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Walton at large. Hello.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 Professor Fred Watson: Thank you for that. Yes, I do apologise for
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 being there before. I'm, forgetting that I
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 have to be formally introduced before I,
00:01:29 --> 00:01:30 Andrew Dunkley: More good.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, yes.
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 Andrew Dunkley: Before, that's how I used to run my radio
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 show. I didn't care what happened if some. If
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 someone walked in. They were just part of the
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 show. I didn't, you know, I
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 never cared about standing on ceremony or,
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 or, you know, sticking to the rules of radio.
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 What rules? I mean, it's just people talking,
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 isn't it? And playing music and enjoying
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 themselves. I thought
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 that's how I ran. Even when I worked for the
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 nc, I was.
00:01:57 --> 00:01:58 Professor Fred Watson: I was like, that's right.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 Andrew Dunkley: I've been dropped for it a few times. But
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 eventually they saw. They saw the light and
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 started going, hang on a minute. Listening
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 to this bloke. We might. We might be onto
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 something. anyway, they eventually brought in
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 an expert to teach us how to be human beings
00:02:14 --> 00:02:14 on the radio.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:16 Professor Fred Watson: Really give me dick.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:19 Andrew Dunkley: And when she, when she talked to me, she
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 said, don't change a thing. Which I
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 really. A great endorsement after being told
00:02:25 --> 00:02:26 shut up for several years.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 Professor Fred Watson: No. Well done. That's good.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 Andrew Dunkley: Now, before we get started, how's the weather
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 down in Sydney? Because you've been copping
00:02:34 --> 00:02:35 us spanking with the rain.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 Professor Fred Watson: We did? Yes. one day last week, just
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 overnight, we had 97 millimetres or
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 getting on for five. Well four inches, isn't
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 it in the measure? Yeah, that's right, four
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 inches. that was just one night and all
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 together we probably had something like 150
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 of that wet period.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:53 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 Professor Fred Watson: So it was very wet, very miserable, very
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 soggy. fortunately everything seemed to hold
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 up. Our downstairs granny flat which
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 used to flood when it rained but we had a lot
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 of work done last year. That's was in good
00:03:05 --> 00:03:06 shape.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:09 Everything seemed to be all right.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I shouldn't tell you that right now
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 as we record there's a big
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 rain band headed your way.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 Professor Fred Watson: Yes there is. That's right. We we already.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 Andrew Dunkley: It's easing off now. We had rain all day but
00:03:22 --> 00:03:23 I'm looking out now.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:24 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 Andrew Dunkley: And it stopped raining. This the sky is
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 actually thinning. It's still quite grey but
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 it's moving that way which is more
00:03:32 --> 00:03:32 due me.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Professor Fred Watson: It is. We're expecting that later this
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 afternoon. It sort of started off quite
00:03:38 --> 00:03:39 bright this morning but it is definitely
00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 looking a bit grayer now.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 Andrew Dunkley: So yeah, I, I have some news.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 At 2:37am M.
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 Saturday, oh, our
00:03:50 --> 00:03:51 bedroom door rattled.
00:03:52 --> 00:03:53 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 Andrew Dunkley: And I, my first thought was that was an earth
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 tremor. And guess what it was.
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 It was a five point. Well they keep
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 varying it but at the time it was a 5.3
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 earthquake, centred around north of
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 Ningen which is Ningen's
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 160 kilometres west of us. And the
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 earthquake was north of them by about
00:04:15 --> 00:04:18 98Ks. So it was a bit further
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 than 160 kilometres from us. And
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 yeah it shook because our door doesn't quite
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 latch perfectly, it doesn't hold tight so
00:04:26 --> 00:04:28 it's always a bit loose. So when the air
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 conditioning comes on it usually goes thump.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:33 They said did more than thump on Saturday
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 morning I went and I woke up,
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 went oh, earthquake. And Judy went, you sure?
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 Really? I said yeah, I reckon it was because
00:04:41 --> 00:04:42 nothing else happened. Didn't feel any
00:04:42 --> 00:04:43 vibration.
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 Professor Fred Watson: Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. You didn't
00:04:45 --> 00:04:46 feel it, Just the door did.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 Andrew Dunkley: well we got a great bed. Just very.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:51 Professor Fred Watson: That's quite proof.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 Andrew Dunkley: I had a lot for it. But yeah, it worked. We
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 didn't feel the earthquake but yeah, sure
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 enough next morning I thought I'd check and
00:04:57 --> 00:05:00 Geosciences Australia confirmed it. So
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 5.3 which is 1 of the biggest ever recorded
00:05:03 --> 00:05:03 out here.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Yeah it is. So one of my
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 colleagues at ah, the Australian Astronomical
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 Observatory or former Australian Astronomical
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 Observatory on the Anglo Australian
00:05:14 --> 00:05:15 Telescope, he is One of the telescope,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 operators, Andre Phillips, he
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 was sitting in the control chair for the
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 telescope and he felt something as well.
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 He felt the chair being sort of moved,
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 as though somebody was shaking it from
00:05:30 --> 00:05:30 behind.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that's what it feels like. Yeah.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 Because I was in Newcastle earthquake and I'd
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 done an overnight shift when it hit and it
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 was 5.5. And
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 it felt to me like somebody just got the end
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 of the bed and was just bouncing, bouncing it
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 up and down and. Yeah, it was much more
00:05:47 --> 00:05:48 violent than what we experienced.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 Professor Fred Watson: It would be. Yeah. yeah, actually, Andre,
00:05:51 --> 00:05:53 interestingly, this same gentleman I was just
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 talking about, he also runs, a very sensitive
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 seismograph at home because he's quite
00:05:58 --> 00:06:00 interested in seismometry. so, yes, I think
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 he went home at the end of his night shift,
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 had a look, and sure enough there was a 5.3
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 or 5.2 earthquake, from
00:06:07 --> 00:06:08 Lingen.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, he would have felt more of it in
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 Coonabarabran than he
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 calculation because, I looked at the clock
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 immediately and it was 2:37.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 And I know that was the exact time because it
00:06:21 --> 00:06:24 was an apple watch. So it was synchronised.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:24 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 Andrew Dunkley: And I worked out that the vibration took
00:06:27 --> 00:06:28 40 seconds to reach us.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:30 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 Andrew Dunkley: At approximately 300 kilometres an hour.
00:06:32 --> 00:06:33 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:34 Andrew Dunkley: Just round.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 Professor Fred Watson: Yes. Yeah, something like that.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Anyway, give, Or take, because I
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 don't. It wasn't exactly 236, but you know
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 what I'm saying. yeah. So
00:06:47 --> 00:06:48 exciting. Exciting. Haven't been any
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 aftershocks that I'm aware of. But, there's a
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 lot of tremors out here that you don't ever
00:06:52 --> 00:06:54 feel or notice because they're just so small.
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 But, nothing that big.
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 We better get on with it, Fred Watson.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 And our first story,
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 from the cosmos or closer to home, is a
00:07:05 --> 00:07:07 possible new dwarf planet, in the
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 extremities of our solar system. This is,
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 really exciting, if it holds true and
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 it's sort of stacking up that way.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 Professor Fred Watson: I think so, yes. this is
00:07:19 --> 00:07:20 relatively straightforward,
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 astrometry, which is the measurement of
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 celestial objects in space, their actual,
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 direction. and it,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 comes from, information
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 collected over quite a long period of time,
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 with, telescopes around the world.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 so a lot of this discovery is due to archival
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 data where you can look at images of
00:07:46 --> 00:07:48 particular bits of the sky and accurately
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 work out the position of objects in those
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 images. it's actually what you do, Andrew.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 Just as an aside here, when a near Earth
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 asteroid is detected
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 the first thing astronomers do is look back
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 through archival, data. To see if there are
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 any, images, photographic images
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 or electronically detected images that will
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 show it. Because the longer you can observe
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 something for, the more accurately you can
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 deduce its orbit. And that is true with
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 this object, which turns out to be a
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 tno, a Trans Neptunian object.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:24 it's been, studied by,
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 astrophysicists at the Institute for Advanced
00:08:27 --> 00:08:30 Study in Princeton. Very, very
00:08:30 --> 00:08:32 distinguished, institution. and what
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 they found, is an object with the
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 very unmemorable name of 2017 of
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 201. it is
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 an. An object. A trans Neptunian object
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 in a very, very elongated orbit.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 its nearest point to
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 the solar system is. I think
00:08:54 --> 00:08:56 it's 42,
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 thereabouts astronomical unit. Is that right?
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 No. 44,
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 44.5. That's its closest point to the
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 Sun. What we call the perihelion. 44.5
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 times that of the Earth's orbit. In other
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 words, 44.5 astronomical UN.
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 But the staggering thing is that it's
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 aphelion. the furthest point,
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 is, Now let me find
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 the number. It's much, much higher. You might
00:09:25 --> 00:09:26 have 32.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 I think it's more than that. where are
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 we? I think it's in the thousands. it's,
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 very, very distant. So
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 when it was found. I beg your
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 par. Yeah, when it was found, it was about 90
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 astronomical units away.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 and there are enough observations that it's
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 sort of continuing its orbit.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 1600. Yeah, 1600
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 astronomical units. That's its
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 furthest. And, that means that,
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 it's only going to be visible to Earth. based
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 telescopes for a few percent of its orbit.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:10 When it's, when it's at its nearest,
00:10:11 --> 00:10:12 point to Earth.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 Andrew Dunkley: They're actually saying, Fred Watson, that
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 it's going far enough out to be
00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 entering the Oort cloud.
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Part of the inner Oort cloud,
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 which makes it a very interesting object
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 indeed with an orbital period,
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 if I remember rightly, of. What is it, 25
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 light years or something ridiculous like
00:10:30 --> 00:10:30 that.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 Andrew Dunkley: 25 years to complete an orbit.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 Professor Fred Watson: Sorry, 25 years, not 25 light years.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 Yeah. So it's a very, very distant object.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 In fact, it's probably, Apart from
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 comets, it's probably one of the most distant
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 objects ever discovered.
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 because at its nearest, it's roughly the same
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 distance from the sun as Pluto is. But it's
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 furthest, as you've said. It's skimming the
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 inner edge of the Oort Cloud, that cloud of,
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 icy debris that we recognise as being the
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 source of comets, comets that drifting
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 towards the inner solar system. So a,
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 really, remarkable,
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 set of observations. It's been observed 19
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 times, so it's got a very high certainty
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 in its orbit. but the
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 quirky part of this, which you've already
00:11:18 --> 00:11:21 alluded to, is that,
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 when the team, the research team who've
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 done this work, actually looked at the
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 simulations of, the way the
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 orbit of 2017, of
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 201, behaves,
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 they found that, its
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 orbit is only stable and long
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 term without Planet Nine.
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 so if you have Planet Nine in the
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 equation, then it gets thrown out within
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 100 million years, which means that's a short
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 time in astronomical terms. So,
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 yeah, it's it's that if.
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 Andrew Dunkley: Its existence is confirmed,
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 then Planet nine can't exist.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:04 That's what they're saying.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 Professor Fred Watson: That is what they are saying, yes. That it's.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 This is, a quote from the media.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 It's one of the strongest pieces of evidence
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 yet against the existence of Planet Nine.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 yeah, that's right. it, it, it does
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 suggests that there are more objects of the
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 same kind. We haven't found them yet. but
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 yes, the figure I was looking for earlier, it
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 spends only 1% of its time in
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 orbit, near enough to be able to be
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 detected from Earth because
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 it's such a. It's a relatively small object
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 thought to be around 700 kilometres, which
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 probably makes it a dwarf planet rather than
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 a large asteroid. and, the,
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 that's imagining that something that size
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 can only be visible for 1% of its
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 orbital period because the rest just takes it
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 too far away. It gives you a good idea of
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 just how elongated its orbit is.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 Andrew Dunkley: Gee, we're lucky to have spotted it given the
00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 timeframe.
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 Professor Fred Watson: Well, that's right, yes. because it'll drift
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 away and will very soon be, invisible
00:13:06 --> 00:13:07 to our planet.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 Andrew Dunkley: And it's a lot of weight to a theory we
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 talked about some time ago from one
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 scientist who said there is no Planet Nine.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 I think there's a whole bunch of stuff out
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 there that's causing the same effect.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:24 And this sounds like one of those things.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. And it's similar. There
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 was a similar argument around the same time
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 by another group of scientists, one of whom I
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 actually spoke to in Canada a couple of years
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 ago, who said effectively that
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 the evidence for Planet Nine is based on.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 I don't know it's probably a dozen or so
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 of these icy asteroids all of whose
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 elongated orbits sort of line up in the same
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 way. And the suggestion that was being
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 made by these other scientists is that
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 actually it's not so much
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 that it's a selection effect. We just haven't
00:13:58 --> 00:14:00 found all the other ones that aren't aligned
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 in the same way. that would
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 contradict the idea of Planet nine. So
00:14:05 --> 00:14:08 yes, this object might be the poster child of
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 the anti Planet nine lobby. but it
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 does seem to suggest that it does not
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 Planet nine does not exist. And just to
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 underline what we're saying earlier, it has
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 actually been officially confirmed
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 as an asteroid by the International
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 Astronomical Union. So it will no doubt
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 get a name because once it's confirmed by the
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 IAU then you can give it a name.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 Andrew Dunkley: Asteroid or dwarf planet.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 Professor Fred Watson: I mean a, ah, name like you know, Pluto
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 or Makemake or one of
00:14:44 --> 00:14:44 those names.
00:14:45 --> 00:14:46 Andrew Dunkley: But we're calling it a dwarf planet.
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 Professor Fred Watson: That's, that's right, that's right, yeah. At
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 700 kilometres. I don't think the IAU
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 makes a distinction when they, when they
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 actually confirm its orbit. They don't
00:14:57 --> 00:14:58 say anything about its size
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 because that's dependent on, but that, that
00:15:02 --> 00:15:03 depends on measurements that are a lot more
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 difficult to do. But once its orbit's been
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 confirmed then it becomes an official object
00:15:09 --> 00:15:10 which could be either a dwarf planet or an
00:15:10 --> 00:15:11 asteroid.
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 Andrew Dunkley: Okay, all right, so the jury might still be
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 out for a bit but yes, it's there and
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 it looks like that's put the kibosh on
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 Planet Nine. More to come on
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 that one I'm sure. Yes. Now
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 if you'd like to read all about it you can do
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 that@sciencealert.com
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 this is space Nuts, Andrew Dunkley here with
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 Now let's take a quick break from the show to
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00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 Now back to Space Nuts.
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 Space Nuts. Let's move on to our, next story.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 Fred Watson, I find this one fascinating for
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 one reason. This is going to sound
00:18:29 --> 00:18:30 strange. I've never heard of this place.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 Professor Fred Watson: Oh really? I think I heard of it.
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 Andrew Dunkley: it's a moon of Saturn known as
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 Iapetus now. And I say I've never
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 heard of it. When I saw the picture I went,
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 oh, yeah, I know I've seen that picture
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 before. Yes, because it's
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 unique. That's why, this moon is
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 so very interesting. Because
00:18:50 --> 00:18:52 questions are still being asked as to how it
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 looks the way it does. It's a strange place
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 and it's getting, a fair bit of attention
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 in social media at the moment,
00:19:02 --> 00:19:04 amongst other things. But, yes, it's back in
00:19:04 --> 00:19:04 the news.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 Professor Fred Watson: It is back in the news. I think it is really,
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 as you say, I think it really is social media
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 that stirred this up. we. So,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 you know, until 2017, when the
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 spacecraft plunged into the atmosphere of
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 Saturn, we were absolutely,
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 swamped by marvellous photographs of
00:19:24 --> 00:19:27 the moons of Saturn from the Cassini
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29 spacecraft. told us more about the moons of
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 Saturn than we could ever have guessed that
00:19:31 --> 00:19:34 we'd learn. and I think,
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 So Iapetus was certainly very much in the
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 headlines then because it is such a peculiar
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 world. but it sort of. Because
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 so many of the questions don't really have
00:19:44 --> 00:19:46 proper answers, that's
00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 allowed it to sort of fade from, from
00:19:49 --> 00:19:52 the attention of planetary scientists. But
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 it's been spotted by, I mean
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 spotted in the media by social, Social
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 media people who have really raised it
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 once again, you know, as a place of
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 great interest. And maybe that will encourage
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 some of the planetary, scientists who've
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 certainly had an interest in Iapetus, to go
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 back to some of the Cassini data, maybe
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 using, you know, more modern AI
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 methods to analyse it and actually check out
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 what is going on there.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 so it's the first thing you'd find
00:20:25 --> 00:20:28 out about Yapetus. And it
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 was when it was discovered back in
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 the 17th century, Giovanni
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 Cassini, that great, observer who
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 discovered the Cassini Division since the
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 name, made
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 the discovery that this, this little
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 world orbiting Saturn, is
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 peculiar because one side of it was very
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 much darker than the other. I remember
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 actually at the start of my career, back in
00:20:55 --> 00:20:58 the, early 1970s when I was working at
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 the Nautical Almanack Office of the Royal
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 Greenwich Observatory with one of my
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 colleagues there, Andy Sinclair was a
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 specialist on Iapetus and he kept telling me
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 it was a very peculiar world. but it was only
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 when Cassini flew by a few decades later that
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 we realised just how peculiar it is. So
00:21:15 --> 00:21:16 it is covered in craters,
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 but it's got this dark side which
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 just looks as though it's been spattered with
00:21:23 --> 00:21:26 soot. Looks as though, you know, somebody's
00:21:26 --> 00:21:28 put a pile of soot out there and Iapetus,
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 has run into it. and you've. So
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 you've got this very dark face to it,
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 contrasting with a very highly reflective
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 surface. now
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 that's peculiar in itself because
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 it's only on one side and that's the forward
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 facing side. Iapetus goes around Saturn
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 tidally locked, so that it always keeps the
00:21:50 --> 00:21:52 same face to Saturn. That means there's
00:21:52 --> 00:21:54 always a forward side and a backward side.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:57 This stuff's on the forward side. If I'm
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 actually remembering from my, talks on
00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 Cassini, ah, back in the day, I haven't done
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 one of those for nearly a decade. But anyway,
00:22:05 --> 00:22:08 that's the one peculiar thing about it, but
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 the other one is even weirder. And this is
00:22:11 --> 00:22:14 this equatorial ridge, a ridge that goes
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 all the way around it. It's something like 10
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 kilometres, or thereabouts.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:22 It's a line of mountains, effectively, but
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 it's right along the equator
00:22:25 --> 00:22:26 of Iapetus.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:29 Andrew Dunkley: It reminds me of a walnut.
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 Professor Fred Watson: It is. That's right. I used to think it
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 looked like a walnut. Exactly that. and
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 so, I mean, there's various
00:22:37 --> 00:22:39 theories as to how it got there. And the one
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 that I thought was the most common
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 one, was that,
00:22:45 --> 00:22:48 it was caused by the contraction of the crust
00:22:48 --> 00:22:49 of Iapetus.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:50 Andrew Dunkley: That makes sense.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:51 Professor Fred Watson: the, you know,
00:22:53 --> 00:22:55 Iapetus cooled after its creation.
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 it's rotating on its axis. the
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 crust contracts until you get a
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 bulge which naturally forms around the
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 equator of rotation, right angles to the axis
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 of rotation. But, I think other
00:23:09 --> 00:23:12 hypotheses have, have
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 been put forward. One is
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 that perhaps there was a ring system
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 around Iapetus that actually
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 collapsed and fell onto the surface and
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 generated the ring of mountains.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 another one is possibly icy material
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 coming out from beneath the surface of
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 Iapetus. We know that, many of the
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37 moons of the, of those outer planets,
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 got ice or perhaps icy
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 slush underneath the surface.
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 because of, the fact that they're what we
00:23:46 --> 00:23:49 call ice worlds with a, with a central rocky
00:23:49 --> 00:23:52 core, a, liquid ocean above it, which
00:23:52 --> 00:23:55 may be quite slushy. and then a crust of
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 solid ice on top of that. That could be the
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 construction. Once again, if you've got stuff
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 coming up from beneath the surface and the
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 object is spinning fast enough, then you
00:24:04 --> 00:24:07 will get, perhaps a ring of mountains
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 like we see on the apertus,
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 none of which come from the original idea,
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 which was contraction. So I'm very
00:24:15 --> 00:24:18 interested to know where the scientific,
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21 you know, the scientific, consensus
00:24:21 --> 00:24:23 is going on this little world. And, it's
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 great that it's, it's cropped up again, it's
00:24:25 --> 00:24:27 welled up again into the public
00:24:27 --> 00:24:27 consciousness.
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 Andrew Dunkley: It has, yeah. Another theory I read was just
00:24:30 --> 00:24:32 a high spin rate at some stage.
00:24:32 --> 00:24:33 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that would Cause a bulge rather
00:24:36 --> 00:24:37 than a mountain range. I would, I would
00:24:37 --> 00:24:38 expect that.
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 Professor Fred Watson: Well you'd normally that causes a
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 planet to flatten slightly so that it's
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 it's. Yes it's a bulge. It's the ah, Earth's
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 shape is that ah, what we call an oblate
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 spheroid. Saturn itself actually is the
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 most extreme example in the solar system
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 because it's the diameter
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 between the poles is significantly less than
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 the diameter across the equator. and it's
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 this kind of oval shape in cross section.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 so that's what you'd expect from something
00:25:10 --> 00:25:12 rotating quickly not as a
00:25:12 --> 00:25:15 well defined ridge of mountains like
00:25:15 --> 00:25:17 we see on Iapetus.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:19 Quite an amazing world.
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 Andrew Dunkley: Another weird factor I suppose is its
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 proximity to Saturn. It's actually a long way
00:25:24 --> 00:25:24 away.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 Professor Fred Watson: Very far. Yes, that's right. So what is it?
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 3.2 million millimetres or
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 thereabouts? It's a long, long way,
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 3.22 million kilometres from Saturn.
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 Andrew Dunkley: Could the dark face be some sort of reaction
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 with Saturn radiation or something like that?
00:25:43 --> 00:25:46 Professor Fred Watson: It's the thinking back in the
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 Cassini era and I suspect it's probably
00:25:48 --> 00:25:51 similar is that it consists of organic
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 chemicals that form this kind of
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 soot. I think solens might have
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59 been in invoked as well. These are
00:25:59 --> 00:26:02 particular organic chemicals that we
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04 know coat a lot of the outer worlds because
00:26:05 --> 00:26:07 they're generated by I think the impact of
00:26:07 --> 00:26:09 cosmic rays on material.
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 but it's the peculiar thing is that
00:26:13 --> 00:26:15 it's ah, only on one side. It looks as though
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 it's just kind of run into something that's
00:26:17 --> 00:26:19 splattered all over the front of it.
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 Andrew Dunkley: It's got that impression. Yeah. Somebody
00:26:21 --> 00:26:21 spilled the paint.
00:26:23 --> 00:26:24 Professor Fred Watson: Just what it looks like. That's why.
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 Andrew Dunkley: Really odd. Yeah. If you'd like to take a
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 look at it. Yapetis is all over the Internet,
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 lots of social media. But there's a great
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 article@dailygalaxy.com worth
00:26:34 --> 00:26:37 reading on Yapetis. It starts with an I. It's
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 spelled I A P E T U S
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 Yapetus. This is Space Nuts with Andrew
00:26:43 --> 00:26:44 Dunkley and Fred Watson Watson.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 Roger, you're last Nuts.
00:26:50 --> 00:26:53 Our final story today Fred Watson ah,
00:26:53 --> 00:26:55 takes us to the very rare
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 area of black hole discussion.
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 we get so many questions on this. I mean
00:27:02 --> 00:27:05 it's, it's unbelievable. In fact I think
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 there was a question popping up about black
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 holes in our next episode as
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 a matter of fact. But and, and I think the
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 reason is quite simple. People just want to
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18 understand Them and there's so much we don't
00:27:18 --> 00:27:18 know.
00:27:20 --> 00:27:23 this particular story focuses on
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 primordial black holes and the possibility
00:27:26 --> 00:27:29 that they may well be responsible for today's
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 dark matter. Please
00:27:31 --> 00:27:32 explain.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:37 Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, this is a piece of theoretical
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 research which is good
00:27:40 --> 00:27:42 because you need it. it's ah,
00:27:43 --> 00:27:45 this is research by Japanese scientists
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 in Tokyo and elsewhere. and
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 what you have got here is
00:27:52 --> 00:27:54 people who are ah, looking
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 sort of almost with new eyes if I can put it
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 that way, at the dark matter problem because
00:28:01 --> 00:28:04 dark matter is a big problem. We've got this
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 stuff that seems to have a gravitational hold
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 on galaxies so that they don't fly ap.
00:28:09 --> 00:28:12 and a ah, gravitational hold on galaxy
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 clusters so they don't fly apart as well. and
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 yet we can't detect it. We cannot detect it
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 in any way other than by its gravitational
00:28:20 --> 00:28:21 pull.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:23 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we've never captured any of it or
00:28:24 --> 00:28:25 anything like that.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 Professor Fred Watson: No, that's right. So this, the, the you know,
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 what, what, what have we got to go on?
00:28:31 --> 00:28:34 Not very much, ah, in terms of
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 our understanding. however
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 there was quite early on in the black, in
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 the dark matter story, a number
00:28:44 --> 00:28:47 of experiments carried out on on
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 big telescopes. One of which was actually
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 here in Australia a very historic
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 telescope called the 50 inch at Matt
00:28:55 --> 00:28:57 Strongloe, previously known as the Great
00:28:57 --> 00:28:59 Melbourne Telescope because it's very old but
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 it had been modernised with new equipment.
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 And they did an experiment which was called
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 macho. And it was
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 designed to look for the gravitational
00:29:10 --> 00:29:13 lensing effect of large objects
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 in the, in the
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 universe, basically in the vicinity of our
00:29:18 --> 00:29:20 galaxy. And by large objects I mean things
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 that aren't subatomic particles. So I mean
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 things like orphaned planets,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:29 dead stars or black holes.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 MACHO was actually an acronym for Massive
00:29:31 --> 00:29:34 Compact Halo Objects. Now they
00:29:34 --> 00:29:37 didn't see as many
00:29:37 --> 00:29:40 of these gravitational lensing
00:29:40 --> 00:29:40 phenomena,
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 in other words the space around one of these
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 objects being bent so it magnifies an object
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 behind it. They didn't see any in
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 numbers that were sufficient to make
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 machos the missing
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 dark matter. And so that was in
00:29:58 --> 00:30:01 the 90s that really ruled
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 out things like black holes as being
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 the culprits for dark matter.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 And so that's when we were you know, our
00:30:09 --> 00:30:11 attention was shifted to the idea that dark
00:30:11 --> 00:30:14 matter is actually some species of subatomic
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 particles, perhaps many species, but ones
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 that don't interact in any way with normal
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 matter. And that's where things remain today.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:23 So it's interesting to find a paper which
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 kind of goes back to an older idea that
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29 maybe black holes actually do
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 contribute to the dark matter. and the
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 reason why I think this paper has been
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 published. Is that there is a slightly new
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 twist to it. Because these are,
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 The postulate is that these are primordial
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 black holes. Black holes which were created
00:30:45 --> 00:30:47 at the same time as the universe was. In
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 other words, during or immediately after the
00:30:50 --> 00:30:53 Big Bang. so that
00:30:53 --> 00:30:54 you, you basically,
00:30:56 --> 00:30:59 find these objects potentially. We,
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 we've never observed a primordial black hole.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 People just kind of guess that they are
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 there. And we do see black
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 holes that, that, that
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 maybe fall within the mass range of a
00:31:11 --> 00:31:14 primordial black hole. But, we don't
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16 actually know that they exist. But,
00:31:17 --> 00:31:19 to come to the point, I'm not being very
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 clear here. What has actually
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 led, to this research is that the lifetime of
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 a black hole is possibly much,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 much longer than Hawking predicted
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 that these primordial black holes would last.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:36 He gave them because they were smaller. He
00:31:36 --> 00:31:39 gave them a relatively short lifetime. Black
00:31:39 --> 00:31:41 holes, we know, do evaporate because they
00:31:41 --> 00:31:43 release Hawking radiation. This quantum,
00:31:43 --> 00:31:45 mechanics phenomena. and,
00:31:48 --> 00:31:50 the idea, even though that is a very, very
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 slow process. If you've got these sort of
00:31:52 --> 00:31:55 mini black holes that were formed in the,
00:31:55 --> 00:31:58 origin of the universe, our thinking was that
00:31:58 --> 00:32:00 they might all have evaporated by now. And
00:32:00 --> 00:32:02 that's where this new research comes in.
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 Because they're proposing a new mechanism,
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 which has got an interesting name. It is,
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 something called. I've lost
00:32:12 --> 00:32:14 the name of it. M It's basically,
00:32:15 --> 00:32:17 yes, the memory burden effect. Work that one
00:32:17 --> 00:32:20 out. Yeah, the memory
00:32:20 --> 00:32:23 burden effect, suggests that,
00:32:24 --> 00:32:27 the information stored, if I can put it that
00:32:27 --> 00:32:30 way, in the black hole. Actually stabilises
00:32:30 --> 00:32:33 it and keeps it, from decaying. So
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 that the. To cut to the quick, the
00:32:36 --> 00:32:38 idea is that these primordial black holes.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 Might last a lot longer than Hawking
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 predicted they would. And perhaps they are,
00:32:43 --> 00:32:45 after all, the missing dark matter.
00:32:46 --> 00:32:49 Now, that still has to account for why we
00:32:49 --> 00:32:51 didn't detect them by gravitational lensing.
00:32:51 --> 00:32:53 During the Macho experiment. And similar
00:32:53 --> 00:32:55 experiments carried out elsewhere in the
00:32:55 --> 00:32:58 world. But it is an interesting possibility.
00:32:58 --> 00:32:59 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, yes.
00:33:01 --> 00:33:03 it's probably the best theory we've got, I
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 suppose, at the moment.
00:33:06 --> 00:33:08 Professor Fred Watson: yeah. I'm not sure that it is. Oh,
00:33:08 --> 00:33:11 okay. I, think, You
00:33:11 --> 00:33:14 know, I, I Because
00:33:14 --> 00:33:16 we don't even know whether primordial black
00:33:16 --> 00:33:19 holes actually exist. we don't know that
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 these subatomic particles exist either. but
00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 it seems to me that the bill is better
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 fitted by what black holes might be.
00:33:28 --> 00:33:31 sorry, by what dark matter might be. by
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 the subatomic particles rather than
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 primordial black holes.
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 Andrew Dunkley: Well, they won't be letting you do a peer
00:33:38 --> 00:33:39 review, will they?
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 Professor Fred Watson: They won't. No, that's about me. I've made my
00:33:41 --> 00:33:43 mind up already, you see, but we don't know
00:33:43 --> 00:33:45 what they are. What? You know, are they
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 neutralinos? Are they WIMPs?
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 Weakly interacting massive particles?
00:33:50 --> 00:33:52 Sterile neutrinos? There's all kinds of
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 things that have been proposed for these,
00:33:54 --> 00:33:57 subatomic particles, but none have yet been
00:33:57 --> 00:33:57 detected.
00:33:57 --> 00:34:00 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, all right, interesting. I'm sure
00:34:00 --> 00:34:02 that'll spawn no questions whatsoever from
00:34:02 --> 00:34:03 our audience.
00:34:04 --> 00:34:06 Professor Fred Watson: Heidi will have to deal with them next time.
00:34:06 --> 00:34:07 Yes, he will.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, she will indeed.
00:34:10 --> 00:34:12 so if you'd like to chase that up, there's a
00:34:12 --> 00:34:14 great article, on fizz
00:34:16 --> 00:34:18 detecting the primordial black holes that
00:34:18 --> 00:34:20 could be today's dark matter. Fred Watson
00:34:20 --> 00:34:23 thinks not. But, that's what science
00:34:23 --> 00:34:26 is about, tossing these ideas around. And
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28 that brings us to the end of yet another
00:34:28 --> 00:34:30 episode of Space Nuts. Thanks, Fred Watson.
00:34:31 --> 00:34:33 Professor Fred Watson: It's a pleasure, Andrew. Always good to talk.
00:34:33 --> 00:34:34 And, I look forward to our next time.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:38 Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. And thanks, to Huw in the
00:34:38 --> 00:34:40 studio who couldn't be with us today. He
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42 found himself a primordial black hole and.
00:34:42 --> 00:34:45 And we've not seen him since him since
00:34:46 --> 00:34:49 Baron Feed Love Spaghetti. with me,
00:34:49 --> 00:34:50 Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company.
00:34:51 --> 00:34:53 Catch you on the next episode of Space Nuts.
00:34:53 --> 00:34:54 Bye. Bye.
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