Episode Highlights:
- Fires on the Moon: Andrew and Fred Watson discuss NASA's upcoming Flammability of Materials on the Moon Experiment (FM2), designed to investigate how fire behaves in lunar gravity. With safety as a priority, they explore the implications of this research for future lunar habitats and the challenges posed by combustion in a 1/6 gravity environment.
- Interstellar Glaciers: The hosts delve into the findings from NASA's SphereX, which has revealed the presence of galactic ice and the building blocks of life within molecular clouds. They discuss the significance of these discoveries for our understanding of water in the universe and the potential for life beyond Earth.
- The Mayan Calendar and Mathematics: In a fascinating exploration of ancient knowledge, Andrew and Fred Watson examine new research highlighting the sophisticated mathematical techniques used by the Mayans to predict astronomical events. They discuss how this insight reshapes our understanding of their civilization's intelligence and longevity.
- Artemis 2 Records: The episode wraps up with a quirky revelation about the Artemis 2 mission, where the distance between astronauts aboard Artemis and those on the Chinese space station Tiangong set a new record for human separation in space. The hosts reflect on the implications of this milestone for the future of human exploration.
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Andrew Dunkley: Ah, hi there. Thanks for joining us on
00:00:02 --> 00:00:04 another episode of Space Nuts, where we talk
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 astronomy and space science. My name is
00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 Andrew Dunkley, your host, and it's, uh,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:11 always good to have your company wherever you
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 are, whatever you're doing. You might be in
00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 traffic, you might be in bed, staying awake.
00:00:15 --> 00:00:17 Um, we generally put people to sleep, but,
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 uh, staying awake, um, or you could be
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 just hanging around the house doing whatever
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 you need to do. Vacuuming, mowing the lawn.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 Yeah, all of that. Uh, coming up in
00:00:29 --> 00:00:32 this edition, we're going to be talking about
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 fires on the moon.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:34 Professor Fred Watson: What?
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 Andrew Dunkley: How? Yes, it's a thing. Yes, it is,
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 Jordy. We're
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 also. We're also
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 talking interstellar glaciers.
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 Wow. Uh, the Mayan calendar. And
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 another Artemis 2 record that's
00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 been set. We'll find out all about it on this
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 episode of space nuts. 15
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 Professor Fred Watson: 10, 9. Ignition
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 sequence start. Uh, space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:01:07 --> 00:01:08 3, 2, 1.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:11 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts. Astronauts report it feels
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 good. Back again to help us understand
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 all of that is Professor Fred Watson Watson,
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 Professor Fred Watson: Hi, Andrew. Good to see you. And, um, good to
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 speak with you. Chilly day.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:24 Andrew Dunkley: What's up Jordy's nose today?
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, I think our, uh. Um.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 I think somebody's just arrived at the door.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 Andrew Dunkley: That's usually how he welcomes them.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it is, it is. I might just
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 need, um, to go and cheque, actually, if you
00:01:37 --> 00:01:38 don't mind. Oh, okay.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we can do that.
00:01:40 --> 00:01:41 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. You can talk to yourself for a minute.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I'm very good at talking to myself.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 Yes. Um, Jordy's, um. I don't know what
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 kind of terrier he is. He's a tiny little
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 dog, but he's very, very loud. And whenever
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 anybody turns up, he absolutely goes
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 off his buns. And,
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 um, when Judy and I visited there late
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 last year, we, um. We were welcomed by Jordy
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 tearing down the stairs and, um, barked
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 like a maniac. But, um, yeah, he's
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 harmless. He's absolutely harmless. All
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 is well. Fred Watson, is he okay?
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, well, he's all right, yeah. He's, uh.
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 The people who turned up at the door, nobody.
00:02:19 --> 00:02:20 Nobody, um, opened the door for them, so they
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 just let themselves in. That's right. Oh,
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 right.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:24 Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:25 Professor Fred Watson: Well known to us.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Queenslanders do that a lot,
00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 apparently.
00:02:28 --> 00:02:28 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, do they?
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 Andrew Dunkley: When we moved to Queensland in 1987, after we
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 got married, um, our neighbours walked in
00:02:34 --> 00:02:35 and introduced themselves
00:02:38 --> 00:02:39 Professor Fred Watson: and we
00:02:39 --> 00:02:40 Andrew Dunkley: thought, oh, that's so weird. But no, it's
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 not. It's just the Way Queenslanders are ah
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 up in, up in the northern tropics.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 Andrew Dunkley: Completely different uh, mindset. But um,
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 you get used to it. It's, it's a lovely
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 lifestyle. Uh, shall we get down to
00:02:53 --> 00:02:53 business, friend?
00:02:54 --> 00:02:57 Professor Fred Watson: Well I suppose so. All right, if we
00:02:57 --> 00:02:57 must.
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 Andrew Dunkley: We, we probably should.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:00 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:02 Andrew Dunkley: Let's start off with this um Storey about
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 fires on the moon. Now I've looked at the
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 moon many times. I've never seen any brush
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 fires or bush fires or forest fires or
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 you know, dune fires or mountain
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 fires or crater fires. Uh, I
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 got a suspicion this has got something to do
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 with um, something
00:03:23 --> 00:03:25 humanity is going to do
00:03:27 --> 00:03:28 um when they get on the moon.
00:03:29 --> 00:03:29 Professor Fred Watson: Yep.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 Andrew Dunkley: Let's talk about this because uh, fires on
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 the moon sounds a little bit um,
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 I don't know, impossible but
00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 it's a, it's a thing.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 Professor Fred Watson: Or will it is a thing. It's, it's a thing.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 And it's all about understanding how
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 fires burn on the moon. Um, it's something
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 called the Flammability of
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 Materials on the Moon Experiment, uh
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 Otherwise abbreviated to FM2. Uh
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 developed by NASA uh in a number of their
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 research centres, the Glenn Research Centre,
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 Johnson Space Centre east, sorry uh
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 Case Western Reserve University. What they're
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 doing is they're sending uh
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 what's called a self contained combustion
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 chamber to the moon and it's going on one
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 of these commercial lunar payload services
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 flights uh that we sort of know
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 about from uh, from discussions
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 we've had before where the you know, uh,
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 basically private companies provide
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 hardware uh to uh,
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 send on robotic missions to the moon to
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 set up things for when humans are exploring
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 the moon, um a few years down the track.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 So it's all about um
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 safety actually Andrew, uh, that's the
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 bottom line for this. It's the uh,
00:04:52 --> 00:04:54 motivation because
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 um, there is a gap in our understanding of
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 how fireworks uh
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 and that is because we understand how
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 fire works here on the Earth. Um how the
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 convection brings oxygen into
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 the flame and keeps the fire burning. We
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 understand how it works in zero
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 gravity because experiments have been done
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 uh, on the International Space Station
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 that uh, allow uh,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 scientists to uh, estimate,
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 estimate um basically
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 what the behaviour of a fire would be in
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 zero gravity. Apparently a candle
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 flame in zero gravity is just spherical.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 Andrew Dunkley: I read that um, that's strange. And
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 uh, I mean we all know how
00:05:44 --> 00:05:47 horrible fires can be in terms
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 of um, space travel. There have been
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 tragedies over the years, um,
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 uh, Apollo 1 in particular. But um, uh there
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 have been other incidents with fires and
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 uh, certain issues. But um,
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 what happens on Earth and what happens in
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 zero G. We know about
00:06:08 --> 00:06:10 what happens on the moon, that's
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 Professor Fred Watson: what we don't know about. Yeah, uh, and so
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 that's the um, that's the reason for these
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 tests, uh, because scientists have
00:06:19 --> 00:06:21 actually raised concerns about the way fire
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 might behave on the moon. Because it is
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 different when you're in 1/6 of the Earth's
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 ah, gravity which is basically lunar
00:06:29 --> 00:06:29 gravity.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:30 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, there is a standard, um,
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 that is measured by NASA
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 in terms of how things burn. It's called
00:06:39 --> 00:06:39 NASA
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 STD6001B
00:06:44 --> 00:06:46 and it's what's called a vertical burn test.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 And I'm reading now from uh, a
00:06:50 --> 00:06:52 Space AstroDailyPod article that describes
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 this all very nicely. The current standard is
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 a vertical burn test. A 6 inch flame is held
00:06:58 --> 00:07:00 to the bottom of a vertically mounted
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 sample. If the flame climbs more than
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 6inc up the sample or if molten
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 debris drips off and keeps burning, the
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 material fails. It's a straightforward
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 repeatable procedure and it's kept crews safe
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 on Shuttle International Space Station and
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 every commercial vehicle that has followed
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 the test has hidden assumptions baked in. The
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 buoyancy driven convection will behave the
00:07:25 --> 00:07:27 same way in flight as it did in the lab for
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 low Earth orbit. Engineers have patched
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 around this assumption with experience for
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 the lunar surface. There is no equivalent
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 flight heritage driven fall back on. In other
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 words we don't have any experience of how
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 things behave in 1/6 gravity.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 Andrew Dunkley: I would assume that knowing um, what we
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 know about fire on Earth and in zero
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 gravity, with a little bit of gravity on the
00:07:52 --> 00:07:54 moon, it'd be different again.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:57 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Um,
00:08:00 --> 00:08:03 once again um, looking at uh,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:06 Space AstroDailyPod piece which is very very
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 nicely uh, encapsulates what these
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 experiments are about, um, there have
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 been tests done
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 uh, inside uncrewed,
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 um, actually they were the Cygnus ones,
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 not the Dragon capsules, Cygnus
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 cargo capsules, uh, uh, before they
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 re enter and burn up in the atmosphere there
00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 have been uh, what are called sapphire
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 tests, the spacecraft fire safety series.
00:08:35 --> 00:08:36 I think you and I spoke about that, ah,
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 probably a couple of years ago. Um,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 so what you do is you deliberately
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 ignite samples of the material, uh,
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 and look at how the flames
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 behave and sometimes actually they
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 spread in the opposite direction to the way
00:08:53 --> 00:08:56 the airflow is coming. Um, and also
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 apparently they burn hotter on thinner
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 materials and that's all great but
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 that's microgravity, that's effectively zero
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 gravity. And it is a different
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 physical regime as they put it from partial
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 gravity combustion, uh, which is what
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 we will experience on the Moon,
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 uh, all these items, uh, once again
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 a uh, very nice summary here. The flame
00:09:20 --> 00:09:22 shape, the flow structure, the soot chemistry
00:09:22 --> 00:09:25 and the spread rate all respond non
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 linearly to the gravitational acceleration.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 So uh, you can't really, it's not something
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 you can simulate. Um, you can,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 you know, you can certainly simulate
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 weightlessness either with, by dropping
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 things off big towers. Uh, that's one way of
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 simulating weightlessness. Yeah. And it's
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 what was in Einstein's head when he worked
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 out the special theory, sorry the general
00:09:48 --> 00:09:50 theory of relativity, how gravity works. And
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 then there are those parabolic aircraft
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 flights that we often refer to as the vomit
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 comet, uh, for um, for humans. But
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 none of those are uh, long enough
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 period, um, in order to
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 simulate how things go when something catches
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 fire. Uh and of course they're all
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 microgravity. Uh so this
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 FM2 experiment is designed to
00:10:14 --> 00:10:16 be self contained. It's uh, a sealed
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 um, chamber contains four solid fuel
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 samples. Uh and they will go to one of these
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 commercial lunar programme uh,
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 landers, uh, on the surface. Um,
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 and apparently the samples, the burning
00:10:32 --> 00:10:35 samples are lit one after another. Uh and
00:10:35 --> 00:10:36 there are all sorts of cameras and
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 radiometers and oxygen sensors,
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 temperature gauges, all of that stuff to
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 look at the, the flame geometry and uh, how
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 much heat comes from it, how much of the
00:10:47 --> 00:10:50 oxygen is, is consumed. So all
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 that is um, is going to teach us
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 what might happen if something went wrong.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 When you have astronauts walking on the moon,
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 uh, if you have a, you know, some sort of um,
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 habitat. Yeah. Where a, where a fire
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 is induced or catches fire, whatever.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 Um, we should, from, from these experiments
00:11:10 --> 00:11:12 we should know how to deal with it, which we
00:11:12 --> 00:11:13 don't at the moment.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, uh, one of the points in the article I
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 thought was interesting was that uh,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 there could be materials that exist on Earth
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 that are uh, certified, you know, a grade
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 fire retardant, you know, nothing to worry
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 about here. That might not be the case with
00:11:31 --> 00:11:32 the same material on the moon.
00:11:33 --> 00:11:35 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. So that's what this is
00:11:35 --> 00:11:37 all about. And it is, it's common sense
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 really when you think about it. Yeah, it's,
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 it's a lot better to send a self
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 contained experiment to the moon. Um,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 rather than getting somebody standing on the
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 moon to light a match in a habitat and see
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 what happens. It's yes, that will not
00:11:52 --> 00:11:53 be good.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 Andrew Dunkley: And I suppose long term we're going to see
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 all sorts of facilities on the moon. We're
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 going to have uh, as you said, habitat, but
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 there'll be, there'll be labs um,
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 um. Um. All sorts of, uh, spaces for all
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 sorts of different things. Probably things we
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 haven't even thought of yet. Uh, there'll be,
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 um. You know, uh. They're talking about
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 making rocket fuel on the moon now. There's
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 a fire hazard if.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 Professor Fred Watson: If ever there was one. That's right. If
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 you're separating hydrogen and oxygen, when
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 they come back together they. Yep, there's a
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 fire hazard. Absolutely right.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. So there's, there's a lot to take into
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 consideration. So it's uh, it's.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:33 It's obviously something that they really
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 need to figure out. And this sounds like a
00:12:36 --> 00:12:37 very good way of doing it. A controlled
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 experiment. Um, and, and
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 they. Does it say when they're planning to do
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 this? It shouldn't be too long away.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 Professor Fred Watson: No, that's right. I think it's on uh, an
00:12:46 --> 00:12:49 upcoming uh. Uh, one of these commercial
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 flights. I can't see a date in it, uh,
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 in this piece. But uh, yeah, I'm sure we'll,
00:12:55 --> 00:12:57 we'll find about the results when they've.
00:12:57 --> 00:12:58 When they've actually happened.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, indeed. All right, uh, if you'd like to
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 read all about it, you can find that
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 storey@space daily.com and you
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 could probably find it on the NASA website as
00:13:08 --> 00:13:09 well.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:12 This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 Professor Fred Watson: Tranquilly Base here. The Eagle has landed.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:22 Space Nuts.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 Andrew Dunkley: Now, Fred Watson, we move from the moon to
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 beyond. Uh, we're going way out
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 in fact, uh, to interstellar regions
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 of the universe, uh, where
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 NASA has um,
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 discovered galactic ice.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 They're describing them as interstellar
00:13:41 --> 00:13:42 glaciers.
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 Professor Fred Watson: Indeed, that's right. So yes, from fire to
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 ice. It's almost like being on
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 Iceland where you've got them together.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 Um, and this is um, uh, a storey that
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 comes from um, research that
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 has been done using a spacecraft that you and
00:13:59 --> 00:14:00 I, I think we talked about it when it was
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 launched, um, but we don't often
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 mention it. And it is producing some quite
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 significant results. It's called Sphere X
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 uh, which is an acronym for
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 Spectrophotometer for the History of the
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 Universe, Epoch of Reionization
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 and ice's Explorer.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 Andrew Dunkley: I would have guessed that.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, I'm sure you would if you were, you
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 know, 20 years to think about what it might
00:14:26 --> 00:14:27 be because I certainly wouldn't.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 Um, but what it's been doing is uh, so
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 that it's ah, basically a survey spacecraft.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 It's got wide angle telescopes. Uh,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 it has um. It's
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 basically. It takes images but it takes them
00:14:43 --> 00:14:44 through. I think it's one Hundred and two
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 different, different colour
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 filters, uh, which, which uh,
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 these colour filters are centred on
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 uh, key wavelengths in the spectrum, uh,
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 which allows you to image, you know,
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 see what, where all the iron
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 atoms are, see where all the calcium atoms
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 are, see where all the hydrogen atoms are,
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 see where all the oxygen atoms are. All of
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 that stuff comes from this ability
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 to see the sky in As I said,
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 102 colours. Uh, they're in the
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 infrared. So it sort of mimics the James
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 Webb telescope. Um, it's
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 however, as I said, a wide field telescope,
00:15:25 --> 00:15:26 which means it's doing surveys rather than
00:15:26 --> 00:15:28 homing in onto uh,
00:15:29 --> 00:15:31 small areas of space where you want to
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 magnify things so you can see all the fine
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 detail. Uh, it was launched um, only a
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 year ago, a year or so ago, March 11, 20,
00:15:39 --> 00:15:41 20, 25. Um,
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 and it's uh, already sending back some really
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 quite spectacular results. Uh,
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 so by the end of last year it
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 had completed uh, uh,
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 the first of its all sky
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 infrared maps of the sky of the
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 universe, basically. Um, and it's,
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 it's basically measured hundreds of millions
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 of galaxies. Uh, it does it
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 essentially, uh, in three dimensions rather
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 than two. Uh, an imaging telescope you might
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 think, can only see uh, everything
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 as if it was plastered on the celestial
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 sphere. And that's an imaginary concept
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 of uh, you know, where you say everything's
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 at the same distance and it represents a
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 sphere and you can measure the positions of
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 objects on that sphere very accurately in a
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 science we call astrometry. But with all
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 these 102 filters,
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 um, you can also use this instrument to
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 get uh, estimates of redshift.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 And um, by that I mean the,
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 effectively the way the spectrum of a distant
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 galaxy is shifted towards the red end of the
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 spectrum. Uh, and you could do that by
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 choosing your filters carefully so that
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 um, as certain features in the spectrum
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 of a galaxy drop in and out as the
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 redshift increases, you could get an estimate
00:17:03 --> 00:17:04 of what the redshift is without actually
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 making a spectrum. It's um, a technique
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 that's been known for many years,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 um, essentially called um,
00:17:12 --> 00:17:15 photometric redshifts. That's what we call
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 it. Uh, and um, so what they're doing
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 is basically measuring the 3D positions of
00:17:21 --> 00:17:24 galaxies by the hundreds of millions. Uh, and
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 that will tell us a lot about um,
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 the state of the union in uh,
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 galaxies at very great distances as well as
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 the nearby ones. And it'll tell us about the
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 evolution of uh, things like
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 uh, the amount of water that there is in a
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 galaxy, the amount of ice, essentially. Um,
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 but they can also use this instrument not
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 just to look at distant galaxies, but to look
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 at the gas clouds in our own galaxy.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55 Uh, and that's where this storey comes from.
00:17:55 --> 00:17:57 They've looked at what we call m molecular
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 clouds, which you might not be surprised to
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 hear are clouds of molecules. Uh, and
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 um, they are, they're where we think
00:18:06 --> 00:18:08 stars are born, uh, giant molecular
00:18:08 --> 00:18:11 clouds. Um, they've looked at some of
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 the regions uh, of the Milky Way which are
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 richest in these clouds of gas.
00:18:16 --> 00:18:19 Uh, and um, essentially use the
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 fact that infrared can penetrate
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 dust rather well. At least near infrared
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 can. As we see when we look at some of the
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 pictures from the James Webb telescope. Uh,
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 that um, uh, dust penetrating ability
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 allows you to see deep into some of these
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 giant molecular clouds which are otherwise
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 opaque to visible light. And then you can
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 look at what sort of chemicals are there
00:18:42 --> 00:18:45 and what sort of ices there are,
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 uh, in um, these
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 clouds. Um, and the ice we know
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 from other studies the ice tends to form on
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 dust grains. These are tiny dust grains, we
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 call them dust. It's really smoke, uh, in
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 space because smoke here on Earth is solid
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 particles, very, very tiny. Um,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 uh, that's how dust exists in space,
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 in these very tiny particles which are often
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 coated with uh, ices because the ice
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 condenses on these cold
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 dust particles. One of my former colleagues,
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22 uh, somebody I actually studied with when I
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25 was at uni about 100 years ago, uh, has spent
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 his career in the United States, uh, looking
00:19:28 --> 00:19:29 at this kind of thing, looking at
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 interstellar dust and interstellar. I.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:34 Excuse me. I don't think he's actually
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 involved with this research. Uh, but he would
00:19:36 --> 00:19:38 have said he would certainly understand and
00:19:38 --> 00:19:39 probably knows the people who are working on
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 it, ah, would understand the results. So what
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 they found is um, a whole
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 range of different, uh, molecules
00:19:48 --> 00:19:51 as well as water ice. Um, there are,
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 uh, some of the complex
00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 molecules like polycyclic aromatic
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 hydrocarbons. And these are things that are
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 uh, I mean the carbon containing, which is
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 why they are, ah, called organic molecules.
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 Um, and finding those really
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 gives you an insight into chemistry that goes
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 on inside some of these giant molecular
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 clouds. And indeed, we know from other
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 studies that uh, some of those ices represent
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 the building blocks of life, uh, that we find
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 all kinds of molecules that are important in
00:20:22 --> 00:20:24 life processes. So we haven't discovered life
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 yet, but we discovered the, the building
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 blocks. Uh, and uh, and the point I
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 was going to make, the point of this storey
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 is there are huge quantities out there, more
00:20:33 --> 00:20:34 than anybody expected.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:38 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, we, we have talked about the fact that
00:20:38 --> 00:20:41 water is plentiful in the universe.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 That's certainly something that's becoming
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 more and more evident. But this sheds a whole
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 new light on it. Like
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 it's out there in a. In abundance.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. Um, I mean it.
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 As you and I have said many times, the um,
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 most common two element molecule in the whole
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 universe is water, H2O. And
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 so it shouldn't surprise us that we've got
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 ice everywhere. I mean it's the same in our
00:21:10 --> 00:21:12 own solar system. We didn't know until
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 comparatively recently that ice is abundant,
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 particularly in the moons of the outer
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 planets, uh, Saturn,
00:21:20 --> 00:21:23 um, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 They've all got moons that are very icy. And
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 then you go out to the Kuiper Belt and the
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29 Trans Neptunian objects, they're all icy too.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:29 Andrew Dunkley: Ah.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, as are the comets that reside in the
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 Oort cloud. So it's everywhere. Water is
00:21:35 --> 00:21:36 absolutely everywhere.
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 Andrew Dunkley: And the liquid oceans in the um, ice
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 moons and uh, the list goes on. And
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 of course the way water is ended up
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 in certain places. One
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 theory uh, we talked about some time back is
00:21:51 --> 00:21:53 that uh, when Earth, uh, formed the water was
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 already here because like this
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 where water is attached to those dust
00:21:58 --> 00:22:00 particles, dust molecules.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 Same with all the material that made Earth.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:06 And it's just eventually, as conditions
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 changed, seeped into the places where
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 it's now become oceans and clouds and
00:22:12 --> 00:22:15 rivers and created a whole ecosystem.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:18 Professor Fred Watson: It's exactly. That's right. That's certainly.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 So we think maybe the worst the Earth's water
00:22:21 --> 00:22:22 has two sources, one of which you've
00:22:22 --> 00:22:25 mentioned, it's actually hydrolated
00:22:25 --> 00:22:27 rocks that um, formed the Earth,
00:22:28 --> 00:22:30 but also the possibility that some of it came
00:22:30 --> 00:22:33 from comets. And we've discussed one of the
00:22:33 --> 00:22:34 problems with that theory and that um,
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 sometimes the comets, uh, heavy water to
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 normal water ratio doesn't match what the
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 oceans of the Earth have. Uh, and I
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 think there are some comets that do, but some
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 don't. So it's kind of open question.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 Andrew Dunkley: Doesn't match on Mars either.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 Professor Fred Watson: Compared to Earth, I believe not. That's
00:22:51 --> 00:22:52 right, yeah.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 Andrew Dunkley: Ah, it's all fascinating. I love it. Really.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 You didn't think water was so interesting,
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 but it's pretty, pretty amazing stuff.
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 Yeah. Great storey this one. You can read
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 it@fizz.org or you can read the paper that's
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 been published recently at the
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 Astrophysical Journal
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 Space Nuts. This is with Andrew Dunkley and
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 Professor Fred Watson: Okay. We checked all four systems and team
00:23:18 --> 00:23:19 with a go Space Nuts.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:22 Andrew Dunkley: Righto. Fred Watson. Couple of Storeys to
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 finish up a couple of quick ones.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 Um, I was reading an article the other day
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 and it just sort of jumped out at me. A new
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 uh, paper has been published after
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 a study into um, the way the
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 Mayans used to calculate time
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 and used mathematics to, to
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 um, predict um, things that most
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45 civilizations would have thought were pretty
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47 random and damn scary like
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 eclipses and uh, seasons
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 and the list goes on. Um, but what the
00:23:53 --> 00:23:55 Mayans did was probably
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 far superior to most other civilizations.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:00 Their mathematics was
00:24:02 --> 00:24:04 beyond comprehension for most of us. I think
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 um, this is all brand new information. I know
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 we know about how clever they were but this
00:24:09 --> 00:24:12 kind of sheds a bit, bit of new light onto it
00:24:12 --> 00:24:13 by the look of things.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 Professor Fred Watson: Um, that's correct.
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 It's um, the result of some
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 research that uh, goes
00:24:25 --> 00:24:28 back to a document called the Dresden
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 Codex, uh, which is
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34 essentially a manuscript that dates from the
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 Maya civilization which was
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 actually extremely long lived. Um, I
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 think it sort of kicked off uh, something
00:24:43 --> 00:24:46 like 2000 BC or
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 BCE and uh, lasted until the
00:24:48 --> 00:24:51 1600s, uh uh, AD
00:24:51 --> 00:24:54 or CE common era. And um,
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 so that's perhaps a hint
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00 as to why their
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 mathematics and astronomy were
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 so effective because they
00:25:06 --> 00:25:09 had a long long time uh,
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 to count the years between certain
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 events and to um, you
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 know, do that over many many
00:25:18 --> 00:25:20 years so that you get a really
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23 accurate idea. And the kind of thing I'm
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 thinking of Andrew is the um, lunar
00:25:26 --> 00:25:28 cycle. Uh, the moon has a cycle of
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 18.6 years and on that
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 scale eclipses more or less repeat
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38 throughout the year. Uh, they don't exactly
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 repeat so you don't get total eclipses
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 occurring in exactly the same place. But
00:25:43 --> 00:25:46 uh, you can use that cycle in
00:25:46 --> 00:25:49 order to predict when there are uh,
00:25:49 --> 00:25:51 likely to be eclipses. So if you've got a
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53 long established civilization with a long
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 memory uh, that 18.6
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 year cycle would be well known and well
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 understood. Uh, and I think
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 um, what's um, made the particular
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06 study that we're talking about, it's uh,
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 published in the journal Science Advances is
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 that some of the tables that are in the
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 Dresden Codex uh have
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 now been interpreted as being the
00:26:18 --> 00:26:21 method um, by which the Maya people actually
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 did do things like eclipse
00:26:23 --> 00:26:26 predicting eclipses. And
00:26:26 --> 00:26:28 it differs from from uh,
00:26:29 --> 00:26:32 uh, what people thought happened. People
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 thought these tables were just sort of one
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 off things that um, didn't really
00:26:36 --> 00:26:38 talk to you know, have anything to do with
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 each other, the tabulated information.
00:26:41 --> 00:26:44 But it now looks as though it's uh, much more
00:26:44 --> 00:26:46 cat clever than that. A kind of iterative
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 approach with tables that Overlap. And
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 um, basically as time goes on you
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 eliminate any kind of errors uh, that might
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 be there until you end up with something very
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 accurate in indeed. Um, yeah. So
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 it's quite an interesting storey, uh,
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 for people who are interested in
00:27:05 --> 00:27:07 archaeoastronomy, which we are of course on
00:27:07 --> 00:27:08 space age.
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think it talks about the
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 minds having two completely
00:27:13 --> 00:27:16 different systems, but when they put them
00:27:16 --> 00:27:18 together and looked at them they went, hey,
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21 wait a minute, they work together and
00:27:21 --> 00:27:24 they are so incredibly accurate.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 And um, it opened up a whole
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 new realm of uh, understanding about how the
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 minds did what they did. Uh, and
00:27:34 --> 00:27:35 I suppose when you think about it, they had
00:27:35 --> 00:27:37 4 years, as you said, they had a long
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 period of time to collate this data.
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 So, um, yeah, pretty amazing stuff.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:47 And it brings me back to that old chestnut
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 that we assume we are all
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 knowledgeable, we are the cleverest humans
00:27:52 --> 00:27:55 that ever existed. We're not, we're no more
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 intelligent than the first humans.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 We've just progressed over time
00:28:01 --> 00:28:04 to reach the point we are. But the Mayans are
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 exhibiting an intelligence that um,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:09 predates, um, the modern
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11 era if you like. And
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 they've shown that the intelligence of Homo
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 sapiens is long lived. It's not just
00:28:17 --> 00:28:19 something that's happened in the last few
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 hundred years. It's, it's been,
00:28:23 --> 00:28:26 it's always been there, I guess, is what I'm
00:28:26 --> 00:28:26 saying.
00:28:26 --> 00:28:29 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. So it's, that's Homo
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 sapiens. That's right. It's uh, it's. We
00:28:32 --> 00:28:35 are gifted with um, a brain of 100
00:28:35 --> 00:28:37 billion neurons, uh, which
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 um, can still outdo computers and
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 AI although of course AI is catching up. Uh,
00:28:43 --> 00:28:46 but it's still not human. Um, and
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 uh, I don't think it ever will be.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51 Andrew Dunkley: I hope not, I hope not.
00:28:52 --> 00:28:53 Judy and I read an article the other day
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56 about um, how they're going to use
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 AI robots, uh,
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 in nursing homes in the not too distant
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 future to help people with
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 simple, um, things like uh, communication.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 Just having a conversation because they get
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 lonely. Um, and they're going
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 to use AI robots to do things like
00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 that. They'll be able to have intelligent
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 one on one conversations with a
00:29:23 --> 00:29:26 human being like this just that blows my
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 mind. I know you can kind of do that at the
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 moment with, you know, your Google homes and
00:29:31 --> 00:29:32 all these, but this is a whole new level.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:34 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 Andrew Dunkley: And it looks like they're going to roll that
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 out in parts of Australia in the not too
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42 distant future. So, yeah, it's a brave new
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 world. Um, just. I hope
00:29:44 --> 00:29:46 they remember the Three Laws. We better not
00:29:46 --> 00:29:47 forget that. Yeah.
00:29:48 --> 00:29:49 Professor Fred Watson: Of robotics.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, the three Laws of robotics.
00:29:51 --> 00:29:52 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:54 Andrew Dunkley: But if you want to read about that Storey,
00:29:54 --> 00:29:57 it's uh, @futura,
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 uh-sciences.com about
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 the Mayan calendar and their mathematical
00:30:03 --> 00:30:04 brilliance.
00:30:04 --> 00:30:06 One quick one to finish off, Fred Watson.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 We're going back to Artemis 2. Uh, we talked
00:30:09 --> 00:30:11 about uh, not so long ago. Um, not like the
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 whole mission and everything they did, but
00:30:13 --> 00:30:16 the fact that they, the, the astronauts
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 on that particular mission were the
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 humans that achieved the furthest distance
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 from humanity in history because of how
00:30:24 --> 00:30:27 far out they had to go to loop back around
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29 the moon. But now they've made another
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 quirky little um, discovery about a record
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 that was set that somebody just by chance
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 decided to follow up and went oh, hang on a
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 minute, I've actually found something. What's
00:30:39 --> 00:30:40 this one about?
00:30:41 --> 00:30:43 Professor Fred Watson: Well it goes back to um, one of the
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 veteran commentators on space flight and
00:30:46 --> 00:30:48 satellites. Somebody whose work over the
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51 decades has been invaluable in telling us
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 what the, you know, how crowded space is and
00:30:54 --> 00:30:55 things like that. His name's Jonathan
00:30:55 --> 00:30:58 McDowell. He um, is
00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 always, I think his head is full of
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04 numbers that ah, relate to spacecraft.
00:31:04 --> 00:31:07 Uh, but he noted that
00:31:07 --> 00:31:08 um,
00:31:10 --> 00:31:13 there is something different
00:31:14 --> 00:31:17 from what was being widely touted during the
00:31:17 --> 00:31:19 Artemis mission. And that is that
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 the distance between the humans on board
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 Artemis and uh, the
00:31:25 --> 00:31:27 humans on the International Space Station
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 was a record for the separation of, of
00:31:31 --> 00:31:32 humans. And it was actually
00:31:32 --> 00:31:35 419
00:31:35 --> 00:31:38 kilometres. That's the integrity to
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 International Space station distance. Um,
00:31:42 --> 00:31:44 260 and a half
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 miles if you want that. But um,
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 Jonathan McDowell took a closer
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 look at what was in space at the time and
00:31:52 --> 00:31:55 realised that uh,
00:31:55 --> 00:31:57 the um,
00:31:58 --> 00:32:00 Chinese space station
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 Tiangong, uh, was further
00:32:03 --> 00:32:06 away with its three taikonauts on board. In
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 fact, um, it's about 62
00:32:09 --> 00:32:11 kilometres further away at
00:32:11 --> 00:32:14 419
00:32:14 --> 00:32:17 kilometres. So that's the maximum separation
00:32:17 --> 00:32:19 of humans. It uh, was between Chinese
00:32:19 --> 00:32:22 taikonauts on Tiangong and Hume and
00:32:23 --> 00:32:25 the ah, Artemis crew on board
00:32:26 --> 00:32:29 Integrity. Uh, it's
00:32:29 --> 00:32:32 very typical of uh, Jonathan McDowell to
00:32:32 --> 00:32:35 pull little statistics like this
00:32:35 --> 00:32:38 out of the air. But um,
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 he was interviewed by Space.com uh,
00:32:41 --> 00:32:44 and um, they asked him lots of questions like
00:32:44 --> 00:32:47 is this significant, this Artemis 2 record?
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 And what he said was, was uh, I think quite
00:32:50 --> 00:32:51 profound in its own way. I think the
00:32:51 --> 00:32:54 significance is that it's the beginning of a
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 shift from how far from Earth are our
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 most distant people to how spread out
00:33:00 --> 00:33:03 is human Civilization. Um, and he said
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 there may come a day when it's Mercury to the
00:33:05 --> 00:33:07 moons of Saturn, which is true.
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. I was going to actually suggest that,
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 uh, when we go to Mars, the records will be
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 set there. Um, and it'll just
00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 keep growing. And I'd say In
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 the next one or 200 years
00:33:22 --> 00:33:25 we'll probably have people on Mercury at the
00:33:25 --> 00:33:27 same time as we have people on Pluto or
00:33:27 --> 00:33:30 something like that. It's very
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32 possible. Uh, so the numbers will just keep
00:33:32 --> 00:33:33 growing.
00:33:33 --> 00:33:34 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 Andrew Dunkley: And in time to come they'll probably go
00:33:36 --> 00:33:38 beyond that too. Who knows?
00:33:38 --> 00:33:41 Professor Fred Watson: One day perhaps, if we don't
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 do ourselves a fatal injury before then.
00:33:45 --> 00:33:45 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:45 --> 00:33:48 Andrew Dunkley: Like Buster, um, poofu valve, as we're.
00:33:49 --> 00:33:49 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:33:49 --> 00:33:51 Andrew Dunkley: Running around the solar system. Yeah. Who
00:33:51 --> 00:33:51 knows?
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 Um, great, Storey, if you'd like to read
00:33:54 --> 00:33:56 about the statistical separation of human
00:33:56 --> 00:33:59 beings, it's, uh, as Fred Watson said, It's
00:33:59 --> 00:34:00 Space.com
00:34:02 --> 00:34:04 and we're all done. Fred Watson, thank you
00:34:04 --> 00:34:04 very much.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:07 Professor Fred Watson: Great pleasure, Andrew. Always good to chat
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 over these things. And I, uh, look forward to
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 talking about some questions with you at some
00:34:11 --> 00:34:12 time down the track.
00:34:12 --> 00:34:14 Andrew Dunkley: I think we'll do that very, very soon.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:17 Probably sooner than most people think. Uh,
00:34:17 --> 00:34:18 thanks, Fred Watson. Professor Fred Watson
00:34:18 --> 00:34:19 Watson, Astronomer at large. Don't forget to
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 visit us online while you're on the
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00:34:55 --> 00:34:58 all@spacenutspodcast.com
00:34:58 --> 00:35:01 and thanks to Huw in the studio. Funny, uh,
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 Storey, he saw us log in so he logged out.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06 And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your
00:35:06 --> 00:35:08 company. We'll see you on the next episode of
00:35:08 --> 00:35:09 Space Nuts.
00:35:09 --> 00:35:09 Professor Fred Watson: Bye.
00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 Andrew Dunkley: Bye. You've been listening to
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