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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Andrew Dunkley: Hello. Thanks for joining us. This is Space
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Nuts. A fresh, crisp episode for you
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 to devour, I hope. My name is Andrew Dunkley.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Uh, your host. Great to have your company.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Uh, a bit of a water theme in this particular
00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 episode, or partly.
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 There's a question being raised in, uh,
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 space science about what causes the
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 gullies on Mars. Well, we know that gullies
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 are caused by, uh, water flows and rainfall
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 on Earth. But, um, that can't be the case on
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 Mars. Or can it? They think they've figured
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 it out and it's quite a surprising thing.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 Uh, we're also going to look at water on the
00:00:38 --> 00:00:40 moon, or the lack of which could threaten
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 future cities and the search for
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 ocean worlds. They think they know how. We'll
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 tell you all about it on this episode of
00:00:48 --> 00:00:49 space nuts.
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 10, 9, ignition
00:00:54 --> 00:00:55 sequence.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:56 Professor Fred Watson: Star space nuts.
00:00:56 --> 00:00:59 Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 5, 5, 4, 3, 2', 1.
00:01:01 --> 00:01:02 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 Generic: Astronau. But it feels good.
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 Andrew Dunkley: To help us with all of that is Professor
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 Fred Watson Watson, Astronomer Large,
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 sporting his new knee because he
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 wanted to be needed.
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, uh, dear. That's all
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 right. Um, that's, uh,
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 that's as good as they get today.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 Andrew Dunkley: I think it's, you know, that's. That's dad
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 joke. Yeah, that's just beyond
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 a dad joke. That's. That's weird.
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 Professor Fred Watson: So it was three, three weeks ago yesterday
00:01:37 --> 00:01:39 that I got my new knee. So progress is
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 happening. I am walking pretty well now.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 Um, I have yet to
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 have my first drive in the car, but that'll
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 be this week, I think. I'm told that I'm
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 allowed to do that now. I'm off the
00:01:52 --> 00:01:55 high, um, intensity medication. Uh,
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 and, uh, so far, so good. There was a
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 bad week last week when things took a turn
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 for the worse, uh, because I had an allergic
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 reaction to the dressings that were on the
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 knee. That can be
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 quite dangerous, it turns out. They didn't
00:02:10 --> 00:02:11 tell me that until after they'd fixed the
00:02:11 --> 00:02:14 problem. Um, so, yeah,
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 anyway, so it's all good. Everybody's happy
00:02:16 --> 00:02:16 at the moment.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:17 Generic: Yeah.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 Andrew Dunkley: Uh, the only downside is you've got the
00:02:20 --> 00:02:22 hybrid knee, which means every night you've
00:02:22 --> 00:02:23 got to plug it in to charge it.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 Professor Fred Watson: A bionic knee would be good for that. You
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 could perhaps get up to speed a bit faster
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 than I do at the moment, but no, it's working
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 very well. All credit to the team who did the
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 job. Dr. Parker and his friends and
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 stuff. Uh, we had a great. We had a great
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 time. I.
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 Andrew Dunkley: It reminds me of Something my son told me
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 about because he's always online looking for
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 the next weirdest thing. And he said, um, the
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 Chinese, I think the Chinese have invented,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 uh, an exoskeleton that you can
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 wear that will walk for you so you
00:02:55 --> 00:02:56 don't have to make the effort.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah. And run.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:00 Andrew Dunkley: Oh my goodness.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:01 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, they're good.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 Andrew Dunkley: Isn't technology going in strange places,
00:03:04 --> 00:03:05 directions?
00:03:05 --> 00:03:05 Professor Fred Watson: That's right, yes.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 Andrew Dunkley: But that, that I think is going to be great
00:03:08 --> 00:03:10 for people in the future who are um, uh,
00:03:11 --> 00:03:12 have paralysis problems or.
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Profoundly disabled. That's right.
00:03:14 --> 00:03:15 Andrew Dunkley: Sort of thing.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:15 Professor Fred Watson: Mhm.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:18 Andrew Dunkley: And probably good for rehabilitation. Who
00:03:18 --> 00:03:18 knows?
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe. Yeah, maybe.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 Andrew Dunkley: All right, uh, let's uh, talk about these
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 storeys that are in the news at the
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 moment. And the um, the
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 focus is on Mars in terms of uh,
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 uh, images of Martian Gul. Now a lot of
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 things about Mars are so strikingly similar
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 to Earth. The canyons and the, and the
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 ocean beds and all that. The only thing
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 lacking is well, you know, a breathable
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 atmosphere, liquid water on the surface,
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 weather, uh, etc. Gravity, um.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 But the question has come up as to what
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 causes the gullies on Mars. Now my first
00:03:56 --> 00:03:57 thought was well hang on a minute, they were
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 already there. I mean they happened billions
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 of years ago and that was when water was
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 liquid on the surface. But they've been
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 changing without water.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:09 So what's going on?
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, indeed, that is a good
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 question. So um, probably you and I spoke
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 about um, gullies on Mars a long
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 time ago because there was a time when
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 uh, it was being suggested that
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 some of these gullies were due to
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 the fact that on the equator on Mars in the
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 Martian summertime you can actually
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 get temperatures that are high enough for
00:04:37 --> 00:04:39 liquid water to exist. And the theory was
00:04:39 --> 00:04:42 that maybe, you know, there's a permafrost of
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 uh, ice that come mid
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 summer it melts and you get these water
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 flows down slopes which are uh, what cause
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 the gullies. Gullies I guess they're, you
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 know, they're the beginnings of rivers really
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 in a way. They're the sort of
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 little gentle impressions
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 in a landscape which are made by
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 flowing water which always wants to go
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 downhill. Uh, and eventually you carve out a
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 river valley. Um, but as you say,
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 uh, some of the early observations, I think
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with Mars
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 Express, um, those two
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 venerable orbiting uh, spacecraft, it was
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 quickly realised that these things change on
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 a seasonal basis. And that was why
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 uh, the thinking was that maybe there's uh,
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 enough water to do it. However, um,
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 it turns out that you get these
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 gullies in regions of Mars where the
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 temperature never gets high enough for liquid
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 water to exist on the surface. In other words
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 the, you know, the higher latitude regions,
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 the regions towards the poles. And so
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 what has happened is that a group of
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 scientists actually in uh, one of the
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 Parisian uh universities in France,
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 uh, they've looked at the
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 alternatives for water. So ruling out water
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 you uh, can do it uh, because there's that
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 we know what the temperature is, we know what
00:06:04 --> 00:06:05 the pressure is, uh, it's just not possible
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 for liquid water to exist uh in
00:06:08 --> 00:06:11 some of these regions. But they did actually
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 go even a step further. They
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 uh, looked um, uh,
00:06:18 --> 00:06:20 from the data from Mars Express and Mars
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 Reconnaissance Orbiter, they looked at the
00:06:22 --> 00:06:24 spectrum of some of these
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 uh, at melting ice fields where
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 you're looking really near the poles, ah of
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 Mars where some of these gullies are. And
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 they found um, there's
00:06:37 --> 00:06:40 no signature for water in uh, other words,
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 water ice is definitely not
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 ah, a player or liquid water is definitely
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 not a player, um,
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 in this storey. And so the alternative
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 which we know is present on Mars and
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 we know that at least some of Mars's polar
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 ice caps are made of this is
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 uh, solid carbon dioxide or
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 carbon dioxide generally. We
00:07:04 --> 00:07:06 on Earth are familiar with solid carbon
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 dioxide as dry ice. Uh, uh,
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 on Mars it does exist.
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 We know there's a frost of dry ice near the
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 poles. Uh but because the pressure is
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 lower on Mars, um, it's got slightly
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 different uh mechanisms of
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 behaviour. Uh so uh, it
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 is possible for dryas, dry ice and
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 Earth just sublimes. It goes straight from a
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 solid to a gas. But I think under
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 certain conditions on Mars it can be a liquid
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 for a short time. So uh,
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 what's the storey? These researchers
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 uh had two theories uh which
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 were to try and explain the origin
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 uh of the gullies. Uh
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 one is something which is um, a
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 geyser, um, mechanism. The idea is
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 you've got geysers which we're familiar with
00:07:59 --> 00:08:02 as jets of hot water uh, coming
00:08:02 --> 00:08:05 up from uh, underneath the surface of
00:08:05 --> 00:08:08 Earth being heated by magmatic heat.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 I think both of us, you and I, Andrew, have
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 been to the place that gives those things
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 their name. Geysir in Iceland
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 did visit the guys there.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 Andrew Dunkley: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually the best one
00:08:20 --> 00:08:21 I've ever seen was in New Zealand.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, at Rotorua.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:25 Andrew Dunkley: Wow.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 Professor Fred Watson: Rotorua, that's right, yeah. Uh, so
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 anyway, um, we don't call them Rotoruas, we
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 call them geysers. That's because of the one
00:08:33 --> 00:08:36 In Iceland. So what's the theory there?
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 The theory is that
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 um, you've got basically
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 a sheet of, of dry
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 ice of solid carbon dioxide that
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 forms in the wintertime.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 And as spring comes,
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 the heat passing through that sheet of
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 dry ice, uh, basically warms up the
00:08:59 --> 00:09:02 soil underneath and that
00:09:02 --> 00:09:05 turns some of the ice, this
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 carbon dioxide ice, into gaseous carbon
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 dioxide. So you've got a buildup of pressure
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 underneath the sheet of ice and eventually
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 the ice basically ruptures bang and out
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 comes this high velocity jet of carbon
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 dioxide. Um, and the theory
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 is that that takes a lot of soil and
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 uh, you know, dust and stuff with it and that
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 gives you, gives rise to the gullies. It
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 gives you the, basically the
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 discoloration that we see in the gullies.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 Uh, and that is a mechanism that
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 they looked at. But uh, what
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 has caused them to discard that idea
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 is that the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 geyser action would appear
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 um, around the spring
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 equinox on Mars. Ah,
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 but you don't see this
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 gully activity, these darkenings of the
00:10:03 --> 00:10:06 gullies until later in
00:10:06 --> 00:10:07 the year. You don't see them until
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 getting on almost for the Martian summer when
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 those geysers should have shut down. So
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 they ruled that out as the
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 origin. Um, and this
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 is the uh, start of what they looked at
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 instead, which is something
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 a bit similar. But rather than an
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 sort of explosive process with the carbon
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 dioxide sort of, you know, bursting out from
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 underneath these sheets of dry ice, uh, what
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 you've got is the idea that there are, there
00:10:40 --> 00:10:43 are small, um,
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 there aren't, you know, there might be small
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 cracks in the ice but there's nothing big.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 But what happens instead of the gas
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 bursting out through a large
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 crack in the ice, the gas stays underneath
00:10:57 --> 00:11:00 the sheet of ice but kind of lubricates
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 it, uh, uh, so that you've got
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 essentially a floating sheet
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 of dry ice and of course gravity takes over
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 so it slides down the slope and actually
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 can cause the appearance of these
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 gullies. Uh, and so uh,
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 that's their current favourite theory for
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 how these gullies uh, form. And their
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 modelling shows that in the end what you've
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 got uh, is exactly what we see in uh the
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 gullies on Mars. Uh, and they make a comment
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 um, that Earth, uh, like features don't
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 always require Earth like physics. I think
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 that might actually be a comment from
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 Universe Today, uh, which is where this
00:11:40 --> 00:11:41 article comes from.
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 An old friend of ours, Univers, uh,
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 uh, uh, with Fraser Cain and others,
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 uh, um, involved with that. So no liquid
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 water on Mars. But uh, dry ice gullies
00:11:52 --> 00:11:53 perhaps?
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. I like the way they
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 describe it for people like me to get
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 into our heads what might be going on.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:02 They call it the air hockey effect.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:03 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:03 Generic: Ah.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 Andrew Dunkley: If anyone's ever been to an arcade and played
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 air hockey, it's um, it's played on a
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 table with lots of little pinholes in it
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 blowing air up, uh, which causes a
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 disc to be able to hover when you hit it. And
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 that's, that's what they think might be the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 effect that's changing and causing the
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 gullies on Mars. So really fascinating,
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 really fascinating. Um, the other effect
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 is um, is comparing a human bodily
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 function. It's not as big and powerful as a
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 trumpet, but it could be a silent but deadly.
00:12:40 --> 00:12:42 Professor Fred Watson: I'm going to leave that one completely alone,
00:12:42 --> 00:12:43 Andrew.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 Andrew Dunkley: Just leave that one hanging in the
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 Professor Fred Watson: air Fred Watson, as you would, yes.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 I'm afraid we've got a dog that does that.
00:12:49 --> 00:12:51 You don't see that side of Jordy's
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 personality. Um, but we do.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 Andrew Dunkley: Hearing, hearing him's enough.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 Professor Fred Watson: Yes it is. Yeah, yeah. Oh, uh,
00:12:59 --> 00:12:59 gosh.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 Andrew Dunkley: But uh, no, it's fascinating and if you want
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 to read about IT, universetoday, uh.com is
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 the website where you'll find that very
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 interesting storey. This is Space Nuts with
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson
00:13:12 --> 00:13:13 Watson.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 Generic: 0G and I feel fine.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 Andrew Dunkley: Space Nuts, our uh, next storey takes us from
00:13:20 --> 00:13:23 not water on Mars to a particular
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 lack of water on the moon. And the reason
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 they're saying that is because of
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 um, you know, the potential for people living
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 long term on the lunar surface.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 And up until now they've thought well there's
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 a ready supply of water, everything will be
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 fine, we can build a million person
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 city there and um, yeah, it'll be
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 great. Uh, now they don't think that's the
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 case. They don't think there's nearly enough
00:13:49 --> 00:13:51 water to sustain uh, even a small
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 city on uh, on the moon. So
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 what's um, what's going on there,
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 Fred Watson? And there's Earth.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, Earth just making a comment there. Um,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 so thank you Jordan. Yeah,
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 uh, very tiring. Yeah. One day
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 we'll, I hope he'll end up on the moon.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 So yes, that we've got. And look the
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 whole, it's really interesting the extent to
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 which our explanation, you know, our
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 exploration of the moon in terms of human
00:14:23 --> 00:14:26 landing is focused on this idea
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 of there being copious water uh, on the
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 moon. Uh, I'm doing a talk this weekend
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 uh, at Macquarie uh, University. I'm their
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 Keynote speaker for their open astronomy
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 night, which I'm very honoured to be doing.
00:14:39 --> 00:14:42 Um, and it's. My talk's about the future
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 of Artemis and uh, other ventures
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 to the Moon. And it all focuses
00:14:48 --> 00:14:50 on the southern polar region of the Moon
00:14:51 --> 00:14:51 where
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 uh, there is a cluster
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 of quite deep craters which
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 never see sunlight, uh, because they're
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 at the south pole. Um, the
00:15:05 --> 00:15:08 sun always misses their depths. Uh,
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 some of them are quite deep. The one
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 actually at the south pole, which is called
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 Shackleton Crater, that's four kilometres
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 deep, it's 20 kilometres across. Um,
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 and uh, the evidence from previous space
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 missions is that there is water ice
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 in the base of these craters that may be
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 billions of years old. Andrew because, uh,
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 it's never seen the sun, so it's never been,
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 you know, warmed up enough to turn into a
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 gas. And the temperature in some of these
00:15:35 --> 00:15:37 craters is extremely low, um, minus
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 200 or thereabouts. So it's frozen
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 solid. So, um, we've got this whole
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 focus now on getting um,
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 spacecraft and humans eventually with
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 Artemis 4, hopefully, uh,
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 early in 2028, uh, actually
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 landing on the Moon in this region. Uh, and
00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 it's quite a hazardous thing to do because
00:16:00 --> 00:16:02 the south pole of the Moon is very
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 mountainous. It's got all these craters. It's
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 not smooth, uh, sailing in terms of
00:16:07 --> 00:16:09 finding nice, um, flat places to land,
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 as happened with the Apollo missions, which
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 were all in much less
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 challenging parts of the Moon's surf. So the
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 focus on water on the Moon is
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 enormous and uh, I don't
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 know that it's really been
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 looked at in great detail before,
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 but we now have some work that
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 suggests that, uh, yes, there probably
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 is water on the Moon's surface,
00:16:38 --> 00:16:41 but, uh, there might not
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 be enough of it to make it,
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 um, you know, uh, available on an industrial
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 scale, if I can put that. A place where
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 humans could survive, uh, permanently or
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 where you could have permanent presence.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 So it's um, a theory
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 that really I think will start, uh, you know,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:03 raising a few eyebrows.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 Um, uh, it's come from,
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 I guess, um, the idea of
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 uh, just how much water there
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 is there, um, you know, on the basis of the
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 geography, if I can put it that way, the fact
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 that you have got these deep craters, um,
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 I, I uh, think the
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 jury is still out on, on
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 um, uh, just how much
00:17:30 --> 00:17:33 water there is, what form it takes, because
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 it, you know, it could be buried under,
00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 under rock.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:39 Uh, we're really in a, in a region
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 of um, very big unansw
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 and um, I don't think we've Talked about
00:17:46 --> 00:17:49 this, uh, Andrew, but um, Chang'
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 E7 which is a Chinese ah, mission
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 to land, uh, very near Shackleton Crater,
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 actually the one I've just mentioned, uh,
00:17:57 --> 00:17:58 which was supposed to launch,
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 actually I think the day before my knee
00:18:02 --> 00:18:03 operation it was supposed to launch but it
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 was cancelled at very short notice
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 with a fairly brief note from the China
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 uh, space Agency, uh,
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 and uh, that now looks as though it won't
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 happen till 2027. But that spacecraft
00:18:18 --> 00:18:21 carried uh, not just a rover, there's an
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24 orbiter, a rover and a lander of course, but
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 also a hopper, a little
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 vehicle that will hop into
00:18:29 --> 00:18:32 craters rather than try and go down
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 into craters on wheels. And
00:18:35 --> 00:18:37 that's um, the idea is to use that hopper,
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 uh, to try and find the water chang' uh e7
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 when it is launched, might be the first we
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 know of, uh, you know, first, first hand,
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 um, experience, if I can put it that way, of
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 what the water is like in these craters.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:53 Sadly uh, we're going to have to wait a bit
00:18:53 --> 00:18:56 longer than we thought we did. But uh, that's
00:18:56 --> 00:18:57 one step forward.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00 And the hopper by the way is unlike anything
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 that NASA is planning for the Artemis
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 mission. So really interesting area.
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 Uh, we, I think we're still groping in the
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 dark a bit, if I can put it that way, given
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 that these craters are definitely in the dark
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15 about just how much water there is. But it's
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16 possible that there might not be enough to
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18 make it that uh, well worthwhile.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I suppose you've got to consider the
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 limitations in our capacity to look for it.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 At the moment they've only got the
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 ability to look to shallow depths.
00:19:29 --> 00:19:32 So there could be water uh, deeper in
00:19:32 --> 00:19:35 the Moon's, um. Yes,
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 yes, that, that we haven't found. So
00:19:38 --> 00:19:39 there may be more.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 But based on what we know now,
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 putting a um, a city on the
00:19:46 --> 00:19:49 moon for you know, hundreds of
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 thousands of people, it's just not feasible.
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 It wouldn't uh, it wouldn't last. I think
00:19:53 --> 00:19:54 they said it wouldn't last a year.
00:19:55 --> 00:19:55 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 Andrew Dunkley: Based on the resources that exist on current
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 estimates, I couldn't
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 imagine that many people living on the Moon,
00:20:04 --> 00:20:04 can you?
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 Professor Fred Watson: No, not really. Uh, I think um,
00:20:08 --> 00:20:11 it's not a place you'd want to.
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 I can imagine there being things like the
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 outpost we have in Antarctica. I think that's
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 a sort of reasonably sustainable model for
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 exploring the Moon. But yeah, cities of
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 tens of thousands of people I think is a non
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 starter and this perhaps
00:20:29 --> 00:20:30 underlines that. That's, I guess the point
00:20:31 --> 00:20:31 uh, of
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 Andrew Dunkley: the article, uh, they do
00:20:34 --> 00:20:37 go on to say that, um, a village of a
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 thousand, maybe ten thousand people would
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 last centuries though, if they kept
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 the numbers down. So, um,
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 the resources that exist at the moment are
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 feasible to an extent.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:50 Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:54 Andrew Dunkley: Um, and you
00:20:54 --> 00:20:56 also have to bring into play things
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 like recycling, uh, of water. Uh, they
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 use recycled water on the International Space
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 Station and I think it's got over 98
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 efficiency. You'd have to do that on the
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 moon, otherwise you're going to go through it
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 like a packet of salt and
00:21:12 --> 00:21:13 quite.
00:21:14 --> 00:21:15 Professor Fred Watson: And.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 Andrew Dunkley: And then you've got a real problem. The only
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 other way of dealing with it, well, two ways
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 would be to transport water from Earth. But
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 do we really want to do that? Uh, or harvest
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 it. Harvest it from somewhere else.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 Professor Fred Watson: That's the whole point of going to the moon.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 Uh, and of course, this water is not just for
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 keeping a city running, it's to act as rocket
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 fuel for future, uh, exploration beyond the
00:21:39 --> 00:21:42 moon. So that's one of the appealing features
00:21:42 --> 00:21:44 about it. Yeah, very interesting. Um,
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 and, uh, it does
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 beg the question as to whether strategies
00:21:51 --> 00:21:54 will change dramatically, uh, once
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 we've had a chance to see it firsthand just
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 how much water there is there. Because
00:21:59 --> 00:22:00 that's still.
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it might force Elon to, uh, he's
00:22:03 --> 00:22:05 abandoned Mars already. Too hard.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 Um, now that the moon's lacking water, he
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 might go, well, we won't go there either.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 What's Enceladus doing at the moment?
00:22:15 --> 00:22:16 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right.
00:22:16 --> 00:22:17 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:18 Professor Fred Watson: Could be squirting water out.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, that'd make it easy to
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 collect. Uh, if you want to read about that,
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 it's on the Phys P h y s fizz.org website.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 Or you can read the study that was published
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 in Frontiers in Space Technologies.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:33 You're, uh, listening to Space Nuts with
00:22:33 --> 00:22:35 Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson
00:22:35 --> 00:22:36 Watson.
00:22:38 --> 00:22:40 Generic: I think we need to do a little more all
00:22:40 --> 00:22:41 weather testing.
00:22:42 --> 00:22:43 Professor Fred Watson: Amen, Space Nuts.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 Andrew Dunkley: Our final storey. Fred Watson, uh, continues
00:22:46 --> 00:22:49 to look for water, but on a
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 much larger scale. Uh, we've been looking
00:22:52 --> 00:22:55 for exoplanets for yonks now
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 and we've found five and a half thousand
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 plus. But we haven't found a water world,
00:23:01 --> 00:23:04 an ocean world. And they think they
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 now know how to look for them, I
00:23:07 --> 00:23:08 think is the gist of this storey.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. That's right.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:14 Um, yeah. So, yeah, this
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 is actually a storey I like a lot because I,
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 um, remember being very excited,
00:23:19 --> 00:23:22 uh, back in the early 2000s,
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 I guess, uh, when this.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 Exactly this same technique, uh, that is
00:23:27 --> 00:23:30 being discussed here was used
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 to demonstrate that
00:23:33 --> 00:23:36 uh, Saturn's moon Titan has
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 liquid ocean, not liquid oceans, I beg your
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 pardon, liquid seas and lakes near its north
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 pole. Uh, and it was uh,
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 images made by the Cassini spacecraft
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 in its early period of uh, orbiting
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 around Saturn. The problem with Titan
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 is it's got a thick atmosphere, uh,
00:23:56 --> 00:23:59 that is almost completely opaque. And
00:23:59 --> 00:24:02 so uh, you can use infrared to penetrate
00:24:02 --> 00:24:04 through it for a while, but uh,
00:24:06 --> 00:24:08 to some depth of clarity.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:10 But um,
00:24:12 --> 00:24:15 the real way of exploring uh, Titan, which
00:24:15 --> 00:24:18 is what Cassini did, is by radar,
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21 uh, you do it by radar. And that's
00:24:21 --> 00:24:23 uh, one of the reasons that we've been able
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 to map uh, these seas and lakes.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 But the way they were first detected was
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 when Cassini, uh, when its
00:24:32 --> 00:24:35 cameras were aimed at Titan,
00:24:35 --> 00:24:38 Uh, uh, at a time when
00:24:39 --> 00:24:41 the angle between the
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 spacecraft, the moon,
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 Titan itself and the sun
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 was such that you would get a direct
00:24:49 --> 00:24:52 reflection off the liquid
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 surface that was thought to be near the north
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 pole of Titan. And sure enough,
00:24:57 --> 00:25:00 uh, there was uh, what we call a glint,
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 uh, which is a sun glint comes from a
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05 liquid water surface that was detected.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:08 That's how Cassini, Cassini first established
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 that there are lakes and seas, uh,
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 uh, on Titan. And it was then they were
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 subsequently mapped uh, very accurately
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 by uh, Cassini's radar. I've still
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 got some extraordinary maps that came from
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 that era showing uh, these seas and
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 lakes um, near Titan's north pole. So
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 the question that is being asked in this
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 piece of research that we're talking about
00:25:32 --> 00:25:33 once again this comes to us courtesy of
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 Universe today, uh, is
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 can you do the same thing with
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 exoplanets? Supposing you
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 have uh, a suspicion that uh,
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 One of the 5
00:25:48 --> 00:25:51 now known exoplanets, planets orbiting
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 uh, other stars, if you have a suspicion that
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 one of them might have conditions where
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59 liquid water could exist, or in the case
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 of, as in the case of Titan, liquid
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 hydrocarbons, liquid natural gas.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 Um, could you use this glint technique
00:26:07 --> 00:26:10 uh, to try and establish if you
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 did have a ah, water world, in other words
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 a world covered completely by oceans.
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 Uh, and those things have been hypothesised,
00:26:20 --> 00:26:21 actually we've talked about them before,
00:26:21 --> 00:26:24 these so called Hycean worlds. Uh,
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 Hycean is basically a
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 term that's been uh, concocted to represent
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 a world with an atmosphere of hydrogen.
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 That's where the high comes from. Uh, but a
00:26:34 --> 00:26:37 liquid ocean surface, uh, hence the shen.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 So it's a Haitian world. How could you use
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 this glint technique to demonstrate
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 that a suspected Haitian world really
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 was a Haitian world? So two
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 scientists at the University of
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 Arizona, uh, which is in Tucson, Uh, I've got
00:26:54 --> 00:26:56 some good friends there, but they don't
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 include these people. I don't know them well
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 or all I know is their names. Uh, what
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03 they've done is they've, they've
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 done what you might call the physics of how
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 glints might work. Uh, and
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15 the bottom line is that
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18 it's potentially a good
00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 way of doing this. But there are certain
00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 conditions that have to be
00:27:23 --> 00:27:25 fulfilled, um, because
00:27:26 --> 00:27:29 you've got to get the angles right first of
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 all. Um, and, and that
00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 angle is all about
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 the object being relatively near to
00:27:38 --> 00:27:41 its parent star. So you get this
00:27:41 --> 00:27:44 um, sort of grazing angle almost
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 of the water, sorry, the light hitting the
00:27:46 --> 00:27:49 water and then being reflected back. Now that
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 itself presents a problem because,
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 um, at the moment most
00:27:54 --> 00:27:56 of the exoplanets that have been discovered
00:27:57 --> 00:27:59 uh, are ah, only known because they
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 uh, have an effect on their parent star.
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 Whether it's blocking the light of the parent
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06 star as they pass in front of it or whether
00:28:06 --> 00:28:09 it's pulling it slightly out of position by
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11 what we call the Doppler wobble, um,
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 technique. Uh, these mean that you
00:28:14 --> 00:28:15 never see the planet that you're trying to
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 observe. You just see its effect on the star.
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 So really what we're talking about here could
00:28:20 --> 00:28:22 only apply if you've got direct
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 observations of the planet. And if you
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 need the planet to be close to the star to
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29 get the angle right, then that's a chance
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 because the star is um, sometimes billions of
00:28:33 --> 00:28:34 times brighter than the planet that you're
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37 looking for. However, it's not impossible.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:39 And there are things called coronagraphs,
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 which are essentially uh, devices that
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 suppress the light of a star so that you can
00:28:44 --> 00:28:47 look for planets uh, nearby. And
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 so, uh, what um, these
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 scientists are doing is feeding this
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 information into people who are working
00:28:56 --> 00:28:58 on uh, something that I think is still a, ah,
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 hypothetical spacecraft, uh, something
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 called the Habitable Worlds Observatory,
00:29:04 --> 00:29:07 uh, which will look at the possibility of
00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 there being habitable worlds among some of
00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 these, uh, five and a half thousand
00:29:12 --> 00:29:14 known exoplanets. Uh, what they've done is
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 they've fed uh, these conditions,
00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 this information into the designers to
00:29:20 --> 00:29:22 say, yeah, you can probably do this, but you
00:29:22 --> 00:29:24 need to do this, this, this and this when you
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 build your spacecraft in order for uh,
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 potential water worlds to be discovered. So
00:29:29 --> 00:29:30 quite a nice piece of research.
00:29:31 --> 00:29:33 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed. I hope they do find something
00:29:33 --> 00:29:36 like that eventually. I think it'd be really
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 exciting to find a water world,
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 ah, ice moons, I suppose count
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 because, um, they have
00:29:45 --> 00:29:48 oceans inside them, but, um.
00:29:48 --> 00:29:48 Professor Fred Watson: Correct.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 Andrew Dunkley: An actual planet that is
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 covered in water. Um, we know of
00:29:55 --> 00:29:56 only one. But
00:29:58 --> 00:30:01 there's got to be more, surely. There's got
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 to be more. Statistically,
00:30:04 --> 00:30:05 there's got to be more.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, one would think that's right. Whether
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 they are findable by our current technology
00:30:11 --> 00:30:12 is of course, another question.
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well, um, in time, maybe.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:18 But then the Vera Rubin Observatory,
00:30:19 --> 00:30:22 who knows, um, that
00:30:22 --> 00:30:23 we'd never even thought of.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. And of course an anti Grace
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 Roman, uh, spacecraft recently launched,
00:30:29 --> 00:30:30 which we hope we'll see results from early
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 next year, that does have a coronagraph. Uh,
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 so it does have a device to look at some of
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 these planets directly.
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed. Uh, very exciting times ahead
00:30:42 --> 00:30:44 and, um, won't be long before we start
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 getting, um, some information back from,
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 uh, that telescope either. Uh, it's on its
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 way. Uh, yes. Uh, so if you'd like to read
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 about that particular storey in the search
00:30:54 --> 00:30:57 for water Worlds UniverseToday, uh, dot com
00:30:57 --> 00:31:00 again is, uh, is a source that's, uh, very
00:31:00 --> 00:31:02 well worth visiting.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:05 And that brings us to the end of the show.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:06 Fred Watson, thank you so much.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 Professor Fred Watson: You're welcome, Andrew. Um, it's been a
00:31:10 --> 00:31:11 pleasure and a privilege to talk to you and
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 I. I do hope we can do it again sometime.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:16 Andrew Dunkley: I, I hope we can do it really, really,
00:31:16 --> 00:31:17 really, really soon.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:20 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe so.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 Andrew Dunkley: Catch you soon, professor, uh, Fred Watson
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24 Watson, astronomer at large. And while you're
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 waiting for a new episode, um, please visit
00:31:27 --> 00:31:29 our website. Uh, you can send us a message as
00:31:29 --> 00:31:32 you, um, as you like. Uh, we've had a couple
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00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 venture, uh, out with his studies in computer
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00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 lovely. Uh, but, yeah, our website,
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts
00:31:59 --> 00:32:02 IO where you can send us messages. You can,
00:32:02 --> 00:32:04 um, do, uh, that through the AMA link and,
00:32:04 --> 00:32:06 and all sorts of other things. Uh, visit the
00:32:06 --> 00:32:07 shop while you're there. Some new books in
00:32:07 --> 00:32:08 the shop.
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 Yeah. Uh, and plenty of other things
00:32:12 --> 00:32:14 to do. And thanks to Huw in the studio.
00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 Couldn't, um, be with us today. Uh, we were
00:32:18 --> 00:32:20 talking about sun glints. Well, uh, Huw did a
00:32:20 --> 00:32:22 bit of a flashing of his own, so I've got to
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 go down and bail him out after this. And from
00:32:24 --> 00:32:26 me, Andrew Dunkley thanks for your company.
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 We'll catch you on the next episode of Space
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 Nuts. Bye bye, Space Nuts. You've been
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 listening to the Space Podcast,
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37 available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
00:32:40 --> 00:32:41 player.
00:32:41 --> 00:32:43 You can also stream on demand at bytes.
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 Professor Fred Watson: Com. This has been another quality podcast
00:32:46 --> 00:32:48 production from Bytes.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:48 Generic: Com. Um.