00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Andrew Dunkley: Hello there. Thanks for joining us on Space
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 science and sometimes canines.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 And coming up in this
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 episode, does anybody really know what time
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 it is on Mars? Well,
00:00:17 --> 00:00:19 apparently they've worked out a way, and it's
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 really fascinating. And there's a good reason
00:00:21 --> 00:00:23 for it, too. We're also going to talk about
00:00:23 --> 00:00:26 the weird orbit of TOI
00:00:26 --> 00:00:29 3884B. I
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 was only there last week. And chewing gum on
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 Asteroids. It's a thing. That's all coming
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 up on this episode of space nuts.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:40 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 10, 9, ignition
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 sequence. Star space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:45 --> 00:00:48 2, 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 3, 2', 1. Space nuts.
00:00:51 --> 00:00:52 Astronauts report it feels good.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:54 Andrew Dunkley: And he's back again.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 For more, here's Professor Fred Watson,
00:00:57 --> 00:00:58 astronomer at large. Hello, Fred.
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Complete with the dog.
00:01:01 --> 00:01:03 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, yes. good old Jordy.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 He's great value. I still laugh at
00:01:07 --> 00:01:09 the way he greeted us when we went to your
00:01:09 --> 00:01:10 place a month or so back and
00:01:12 --> 00:01:13 came tearing down the stairs.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 Professor Fred Watson: That's right. That's it. But that's his,
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 modus operandi. Yes, it is. And it's
00:01:20 --> 00:01:23 not aggressive. It's just, exciting.
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 Hello, how are you? But it just goes beside
00:01:25 --> 00:01:26 himself when.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:28 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:01:28 --> 00:01:29 Professor Fred Watson: Anyway, he's already had a session this
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 morning, standing at the bottom of our stairs
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 yelling at something, and I have no idea what
00:01:33 --> 00:01:34 it was.
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 Andrew Dunkley: Probably a blade of grass that got.
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 Professor Fred Watson: Blown in the weed. Yeah, yeah. That's the
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 level at which he gets excited. Absolutely.
00:01:41 --> 00:01:42 Oh, blade of grass.
00:01:43 --> 00:01:44 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. I love it.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 Okay, we have got some really interesting
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 topics today. We've always got interesting
00:01:50 --> 00:01:52 topics, but this is a really great
00:01:52 --> 00:01:54 combination. we're talking time, weird
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 orbits, and chewing gum. let's start
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 on mar. and to quote the famous
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 song, does anybody really know what time it
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 is? Mars is a
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 bit of a problem when it comes to time. And
00:02:07 --> 00:02:10 so is the moon to a certain degree, because
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 time doesn't run the same way in those places
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 as it does on Earth. And going forward, that
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 could become an issue because we're going to
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 ultimately spend time on Mars,
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 wandering around growing potatoes. But,
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 we need to be able to get the time right.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 Professor Fred Watson: We do. and, I mean, there are some
00:02:32 --> 00:02:34 sort of basic facts before you get into the
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 nitty gritty, which include the
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 fact that a day on Mars is 40
00:02:39 --> 00:02:42 minutes longer than a day on Earth. So,
00:02:42 --> 00:02:45 about 24 hours and 40 minutes. And of course,
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 a year on Mars is longer, too. It's, 600 and
00:02:48 --> 00:02:51 something days of our days. 687,
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 is the length of time a Martian year.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 So they're the easy
00:02:57 --> 00:03:00 bits, they're the givens. But if
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 you're trying to synchronize your
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 clocks, between Earth and Mars,
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 and this is kind of already happening, with
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 the rovers, the fact that the rovers are
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 actually controlled from Earth. But, because
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 of the time delay for signals to get to Mars,
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 there's a degree of autonomy in all the
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 rovers that are roving on Mars. That's not
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 the issue at the moment. The issue is how you
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 make your clocks on Earth agree, with clocks
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 on Mars. And there's two subtleties,
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 that come into this. And I should, credit the
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 organization that's done the work on this,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 which is the United States National Institute
00:03:37 --> 00:03:39 of Standards and Technology, or nist.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 they've actually done detailed calculations,
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 about exactly how time
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 varies on Mars. And so you've got two
00:03:49 --> 00:03:50 things, Andrew, when you're trying to
00:03:50 --> 00:03:52 synchronize with clocks on Earth, apart from
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 the time, you know, the time
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 delay with signals going to Mars,
00:03:58 --> 00:04:01 the two things that come into being both are,
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 to do with Einstein's theories of
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 relativity. and we've talked about these
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 ad infinitum. We've gone on about them
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 a lot for a long time. and you from that
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 will know that, when you put a clock into a
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 gravitational field, it runs slower. and
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 that's the time dilation effect of general
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 relativity. So we know that, clocks
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 on the surface of the Earth run slightly
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 slower than clocks either in space or even in
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 the air. We've now got clocks that are so
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 accurate you can tell the difference between
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 time ticking away on a jet plane at 10 km
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 high and time ticking away on the surface of
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 the Earth. But Mars, of course, also has
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 a gravitational field. It's got a
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 gravitational pull, but it's only a sixth or
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 thereabouts of what we have here on our
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 planet. So that means because the
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 gravity is lower, a clock runs
00:04:54 --> 00:04:57 faster on the surface of Mars.
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 if you're on Mars, your clock is ticking away
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 at the same rate, but to an outside observer
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 it runs, slower. And to an observer on the
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 Earth whose clocks are running even slower,
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 it seems to be running faster. And the
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 calculation has been that from the
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 nist, the National Institute of Standards and
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 Technology, a clock on Mars would run
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 477 microseconds
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 faster per day compared with a clock
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 on the earth. So 477 millionths of a
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 second doesn't actually sound much except
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 that when you've got communications,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 like the 5G network you're working to,
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 you know, the internal clocks work to better
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 than a millionth of a second. and
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 so 477 of those millionths of a second is
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 yes, throwing messy M messy
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 indeed. But it actually gets messier
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 because as you know, we've talked
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 about this too. the special theory of
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 relativity says that if you have a clock
00:05:59 --> 00:06:02 on a moving object and you observe it from
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 not a moving object, then you will
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 also get time dilation. That clock will look
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 as though it's going slower even though it's
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 ticking away at the same rate to the person
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 who's on the moving object. To an outside
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 observer who's stationary, it looks as though
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 it's going slower. And so we've got an
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 effect because of the motion of Mars
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 relative to the motion of Earth. Now Mars is
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 in an orbit around the sun just like we are,
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 but it's actually quite an eccentric orbit.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 In other words, it's rather elongated, more
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 so than Earth's orbit is. And so that means
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 it's always got a motion towards or away from
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 the Earth. And that adds another
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 uncertainty, which can go
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 either way because if it's coming towards us
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 then you get a different effect. it's
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 226 microseconds,
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 the daily offset, in the course
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 of a Martian year the
00:06:56 --> 00:06:58 difference between us and there, and
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 I just said something that I want to correct
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 there because the thing is always the same
00:07:05 --> 00:07:06 sign, it doesn't matter of whether it's going
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 towards us or away from us. you've still got
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 the offset in terms of the
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 relativistic time dilation, which is
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 not what I said, so I'm correcting that now.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:20 but yeah, so you've got this additional 226
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 microseconds, so 477
00:07:23 --> 00:07:25 microseconds, with up to
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 226 microseconds added to that. It
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 means you've got actually quite a messy
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 difference in time. It's almost a thousandth
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 of a second.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, this relates to a
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 time where we've got long term human
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 presence on Mars and we need to,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 and the technology doesn't exist yet, but we
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 need to be able to communicate with Earth
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 in real time. Technically they're going
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 to probably develop ways of setting up
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 communication systems so that the
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 radio signal issue doesn't
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 impinge on that communication. Because at the
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 moment it's like, what, 24 minutes
00:08:04 --> 00:08:05 to send in.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 Professor Fred Watson: I think at maximum, it can be. Yeah. And
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 you're not going to be able to get away from
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 that. But you can build that in because, you
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 know, Mars is distance very precisely. Yeah.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 So you can build in a time delay.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 Andrew Dunkley: So this is more about working out
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 a time system
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 that is in sync with Earth. Does
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 that mean we have to invent a new kind of
00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 clock to use on Mars? So that it's.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 Professor Fred Watson: I think, what it means, it's really about
00:08:36 --> 00:08:39 the internal consistency of time signals
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 on Mars. So,
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 you're absolutely right. The synchronization
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 with Earth comes into play here.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 But you also want to make sure that
00:08:51 --> 00:08:54 your communication's actually on Mars, which
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 would be vital. are. All right. And that's,
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 in a way, okay. Because the
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 relativistic effects don't come in there
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 because you're all in the same gravity and
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 you're all basically moving, on a planet at
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 the same speed. It's like, we don't have to
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 take these effects into consideration when
00:09:12 --> 00:09:15 we're talking between ourselves on the
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 surface of the Earth. It's only when you're
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 talking up to satellites above the Earth,
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 which we do through GPS and through
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 communications, then you need to take those
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 minute differences into account. And
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 in a sense, that's what this is all about.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 So, you know, you've got the basic property
00:09:32 --> 00:09:33 that you can't get away from the speed of
00:09:33 --> 00:09:35 light, 300 kilometers per second. That's,
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 the speed at which radio signals go to and
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 from Mars. that you can deal with because we
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 know the distance. But then on top of that,
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 you've got this added tweak in
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 terms of synchronizing our clocks with the
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 clocks on Mars, which makes for a very
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 interesting, you know, a very interesting
00:09:53 --> 00:09:54 scenario. yeah.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 Andrew Dunkley: Well, here's a dumb question. Why can't we
00:09:56 --> 00:09:59 just do what we do on Earth across
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 the entire solar system and use
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 Zulu time? Would that not work?
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 Andrew Dunkley: Just Zulu time on Earth basically means it's
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 the same time everywhere on the planet.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:18 Professor Fred Watson: That's an expression I haven't heard before,
00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 actually.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 Andrew Dunkley: Oh, it's. It's a real thing. Is it Zulu time?
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 Yeah, it's used by the military,
00:10:24 --> 00:10:24 specifically.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 Professor Fred Watson: But, yeah, that might be why, I heard of it.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 Andrew Dunkley: I'll look it up. because right now it's set
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 on, Greenwich Mean Time. But, you know, Zulu
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 time applies across the entire planet.
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 Professor Fred Watson: So that's what we would call Universal
00:10:36 --> 00:10:37 time.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:38 Same thing in the world of astronomy.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah. Why can't we do that?
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 Professor Fred Watson: well, we do. I mean, you know, we do in
00:10:44 --> 00:10:47 space, but that's fine. That
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 gives you a time base, but
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 you've got to tweak it for all these
00:10:52 --> 00:10:53 relativistic differences.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 Andrew Dunkley: So you've got the time slip problem
00:10:55 --> 00:10:56 regardless of how you run the clock.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 Professor Fred Watson: It doesn't matter how you run the clock.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 Yeah. So if you're on
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 one of the moons of Uranus, then
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 you'd probably still work on Universal time
00:11:07 --> 00:11:08 or Zulu time.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 But when you synchronize that with Earth,
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 you've got to take all these things into
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 consideration. And that's the bottom line.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 Andrew Dunkley: Okay, I get it. Gosh, it's so complicated
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 and yet, you know, Mars is as close to Earth
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 as you probably going to find in another
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 planet. The daytime
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 difference is only 40 minutes. But when
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 we actually set up
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 long term stays on Mars, that in
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 itself is going to be a problem for humans
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 because we are tuned to our own environment.
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 Having an extra 40 minutes a day is going to
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 throw everything into a, into a spear. And
00:11:45 --> 00:11:47 I think we talked about this some time ago
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 and the only way around it would be,
00:11:50 --> 00:11:52 you have to have a daytime snooze.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 Professor Fred Watson: Well, we kind of know about this already
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 because and again we've talked about this
00:11:58 --> 00:12:00 before that the people who actually operate,
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 perseverance and curiosity and all the other
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 rovers that are on Mars, the
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 ones that, the only other one that's
00:12:08 --> 00:12:09 operational is the Chinese one.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 the people who operate those actually change
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 onto a 24 hours and 40 minute
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 schedule. So they're isolated
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 in a sense from their
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 community and I think they quite quickly
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 adapt. I think it's a bit rough for the first
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 few days. It's a bit like jet lag. but
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 I think they quite quickly adapt to that
00:12:30 --> 00:12:31 longer day, a Martian day.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 Andrew Dunkley: So if you start work at 9:00 on a Monday, you
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 start at 9:40 on Tuesdays.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Salami.
00:12:39 --> 00:12:41 Andrew Dunkley: By, by end of the week you've.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So, actually it's the other way around,
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 isn't it? You'd. Yeah. Would it be. Yeah,
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 you'd have to start earlier by the, by
00:12:47 --> 00:12:48 Monday.
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 Andrew Dunkley: Well, it's the same as trying to figure out
00:12:51 --> 00:12:53 daylight saving, isn't it just, am I going to
00:12:53 --> 00:12:54 be early or late?
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 Oh, imagine trying to do that every day.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 Gosh, no, it's fascinating. And so
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 yeah, and the bottom line is that this, this
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 team has has more or less figured it all
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 out and worked out what we have to do to make
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 the time right when we get to Mars.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 Professor Fred Watson: You're right. And you, you were right
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 actually. You would start. So to everybody
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 else, your day, you'd be starting 40
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 minutes late Tuesday. but you're
00:13:21 --> 00:13:24 still starting at midnight or you know,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:27 whatever time you, you started. Nine o' clock
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 in fact. Nine o' clock
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 Martian time. Yeah, yeah.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 Andrew Dunkley: It's just a bit crazy isn't it? But yeah,
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 it's a fascinating story. If you'd like to
00:13:35 --> 00:13:37 read about it, it's on the website scitech
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 Daily or you can read the paper that's
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 been published in the Astronomical Journal.
00:13:43 --> 00:13:45 This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 Professor Fred Watson.
00:13:52 --> 00:13:53 Space Nuts.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 All right, we're going to focus on a target
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 of interest. Now I only just figured out what
00:13:58 --> 00:13:59 that means.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 TOI3884B.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 This is a planet orbiting a star. And
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 at this point in time they've only found this
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 one planet. But the weird thing is
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 its orbit is just so out of kilter
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 with what we would consider normal. And they
00:14:15 --> 00:14:16 don't know why.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 Professor Fred Watson: They don't. So you're absolutely right. We're
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 talking about an object by the name of TOI
00:14:23 --> 00:14:24 3884B.
00:14:26 --> 00:14:28 I was just talking to a radio presenter,
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 in actually in Coffs Harbour in
00:14:33 --> 00:14:34 northern what's it called? The Mid North
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 Coast? Yeah, New South Wales.
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 about this very topic, and he wants to
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 rename it the Hula Hoop. That's a good idea.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 Yeah, because as he said, with Hula Hoops the
00:14:46 --> 00:14:49 problem is always keeping the Hula Hoop at
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 the same angle to your waistline. he said it
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 tends to wander off and that's exactly what's
00:14:54 --> 00:14:55 happened with this planet.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:57 So Luke Ryan, this is one for you.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 it's the Hula Hoop, the Hula Hoop planet. so
00:15:01 --> 00:15:03 what's the story? Well this is a, ah, planet
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 going around a red dwarf star. it's one of
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 the 7 odd now exoplanets
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 that we know about. it's at a distance of
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 something like 130 light years
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 from Earth. This red
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 dwarf is pretty you
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 know, unspectacular
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 in that it's just a typical red dwarf star.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 But it's got spots on it. Now a lot
00:15:30 --> 00:15:32 of stars we know have spots on it. And
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 actually here in Australia we've got a group
00:15:34 --> 00:15:36 who I work with quite often up in the
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 University of Southern Queensland whose
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 speciality is star spots and understanding
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 how we can learn about them. And they do,
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 they. So, you know, I've seen some of the
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 papers that they've written and sometimes
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 these star spots, you know, they're almost,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 ah, a quarter of the size of the disk of the
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 star itself. Unlike the sunspots that we see,
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 which are yes, bigger than Earth, many of
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 them, but the Earth's 100 times smaller than
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 the sun. So, our sunspots are quite
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 tiny compared with some of the star spots
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 that we know exist on other stars. And this
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 particular, red dwarf has at least one big
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 spot, which they're cooler than,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:14 the rest of the atmosphere. They're cool
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 spots and that's why they look darker. and
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 it's because of that, even though you can't
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 see the spot directly, what you can see is
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 the way the light from that star
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 changes as the star rotates,
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 bringing the spot towards us. And then on the
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 other side of the star, when the spot's
00:16:33 --> 00:16:35 towards us, it's a little bit dimmer. And so
00:16:35 --> 00:16:38 what they've done is, these scientists,
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 and I should acknowledge, where they are.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 I'll come to that in a minute. they
00:16:43 --> 00:16:46 have, figured out, first of all
00:16:46 --> 00:16:48 from that spot rotation,
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 they figured out that this planet, sorry,
00:16:52 --> 00:16:55 this star itself rotates every 11
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 days, which is of course,
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 shorter than the Sun. It's kind of half the
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 Sun's rotation. But that 11 days is
00:17:04 --> 00:17:07 the key, to understanding how the
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 star itself rotates. Now enter the planet
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 into this. The planet itself
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 goes around in something like four days.
00:17:16 --> 00:17:18 so it sort of whizzes around the parent star.
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 but what the scientists have done
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 is used some very, very careful
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 measurements and a phenomenon which is
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 called the Rossiter McLachlan effect,
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 which is to do with the way,
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 the appearance of a star's spectrum
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 changes as a planet rotates around
00:17:40 --> 00:17:43 the star or revolves around the star.
00:17:43 --> 00:17:46 And using that effect, they have,
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 basically discovered that this
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 planet orbits the star at an
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 angle of 62
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 degrees to the star's equator.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 and contrast that with the solar system,
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 where the planets all orbit more or less in
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 the same plane. Mercury is the outlier in
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 that it's tilted, but,
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12 that plane is more or less the same as
00:18:12 --> 00:18:14 the, as the equator of the sun.
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. If you compare it to Earth,
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 that planet's 40 degrees off. We're
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 23.44 and they're 60. Whatever you
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24 said. that's a heck of a tilt.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:26 Professor Fred Watson: No, it's a different tilt you're talking
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 about there. Oh, that's the tilt of the
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 Earth's. Oh, that's the axis rotation axis.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:32 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Right, right.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 Professor Fred Watson: But the tilt of the Earth's, orbit to the
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 sun, to the sun's equator, is effectively
00:18:37 --> 00:18:38 zero.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:38 Andrew Dunkley: Right, Gotcha.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 Professor Fred Watson: as. As most of the planets are, with
00:18:40 --> 00:18:41 exception.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 Andrew Dunkley: So it's not the tilt. It's the actual orbit
00:18:43 --> 00:18:43 itself is.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yep, that's right. It's the orbit itself.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 Not. Not the rotation of the planet. That's
00:18:48 --> 00:18:50 right. Good. Good to clarify that.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:50 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 Professor Fred Watson: Thanks, Andrew. so, yeah, and that's peculiar
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 because, you know, we. We conventionally
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 understand that the way planets form is,
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 in a. In a, what we call a protoplanetary
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 disk which surrounds the infant
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 star. And because both
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 the star and the planets have come from a
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 collapsing cloud of dust and gas, which is
00:19:11 --> 00:19:13 itself rotating. And it's that sort of
00:19:13 --> 00:19:16 fossilized rotation, that we see in the
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 rotation of the planets or the revolution of
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 the planets around the sun and the rotation
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 of the sun. And they're all in the same
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 plane. This one's not. So how has
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 that happened? And the
00:19:29 --> 00:19:30 suggestion is.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 Andrew Dunkley: Oh, I know, I know. Theo did
00:19:33 --> 00:19:33 it.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, that's. It could be a Thea
00:19:37 --> 00:19:39 effect. Something that's. Something that's
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 actually collided with this object.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 But this apparently, as you pointed out right
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 at the beginning, there isn't another.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 There isn't another. There's no other
00:19:50 --> 00:19:53 objects known to be, in orbit around this
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 star. It seems to be a single planet.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 That's not to say that there wasn't something
00:19:57 --> 00:20:00 that collided with it and moved its orbit.
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 But even, you know, something like Theia
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 hitting the Earth, which is how we think the
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 Moon was formed, that didn't push the Earth
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 out of its orbit until the orbit. It's a very
00:20:09 --> 00:20:11 peculiar effect. I mean, it may be
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 that this star has had an interaction
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 gravitationally at some time in the past and
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 shifted the, orbit of the planet by
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 the gravitational interference of something
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 else going past. But that's,
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 you know, that's just conjecture. and the
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 bottom line is, for a single planet going
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 around a star, this is the most peculiar one
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 we've ever found. It's because of this tilt
00:20:36 --> 00:20:37 in its orbit.
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 Andrew Dunkley: And that's what we keep seeing every time we
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 find something new in another solar system,
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 we Find. Not every time, but
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 we are, ah, starting to find something new
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 and different and unexplainable. And,
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 nothing's normal really when it comes to all
00:20:53 --> 00:20:54 these new discoveries.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:56 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. That's right.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 it's a universe out there that's full of
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 diversity. That's probably the best way to
00:21:04 --> 00:21:05 put it.
00:21:05 --> 00:21:08 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. and quite a strange
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11 place. Do we know what kind of planet it is?
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14 Professor Fred Watson: yeah, it's a super Earth, I think it's got a
00:21:14 --> 00:21:16 mass of 39 Earths. So it's, something less
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 than Jupiter. but, but I think it's, not
00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 as big, not as big in diameter as Jupiter is.
00:21:22 --> 00:21:24 I think that's right. But you know, it
00:21:24 --> 00:21:26 probably means it's a hot Jupiter, basically,
00:21:26 --> 00:21:27 or a hot sub Jupiter perhaps.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:28 That's the best way to put it.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 Andrew Dunkley: Right. Okay. Well, it's another
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 interesting find. I'm sure
00:21:33 --> 00:21:36 they'll keep looking at it to try and figure
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 out how it ended up where it is and why. but
00:21:38 --> 00:21:41 yeah, it sounds. Now, logic, logic, if you
00:21:41 --> 00:21:43 tear it all down, you go with the most
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 obvious answer. It's probably been hit
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 by something. Probably Steve Smith's cricket
00:21:49 --> 00:21:50 bat would be my theory.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:54 Professor Fred Watson: I think you've probably just baffled, two
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55 thirds of our listeners.
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 Andrew Dunkley: Probably look up Steve Smith, cricketer,
00:21:58 --> 00:21:59 and you'll know what I'm talking about.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03 been having a great season, Absolutely
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 wonderful season. But I won't gloat because I
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 know we're heard in England and I, I don't
00:22:09 --> 00:22:10 want to, you know, it's not over yet.
00:22:12 --> 00:22:13 so if you would like to read up on that
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 story, you can do so@the
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 dailygalaxy.com website. Or you can read the
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 paper in the
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 Astronomical Journal. I think it is. Let me
00:22:23 --> 00:22:25 just double check that. Yes, the Astronomical
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 Journal. This is Space Nuts with Andrew
00:22:28 --> 00:22:30 Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.
00:22:33 --> 00:22:35 Roger, you're live right here. Also Space
00:22:35 --> 00:22:36 Nuts.
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 Our last story is about
00:22:39 --> 00:22:41 one of my favorite things, and that is
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 chewing gum. I grew up on that stuff. I
00:22:43 --> 00:22:45 didn't eat food. I just chewed gum
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 ad infinitum. I, I used to
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 stick it on the bedpost when I went to sleep
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 and start again as soon as I woke up. I just
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 was addicted to this stuff. Especially the
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 stuff we had called Big Charlie. I don't know
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00 if anyone remembers Big Charlie, but it came
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02 in a stick about one foot long
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 and good. Yeah, it was amazing.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:09 Anyway, I can't find that anymore. the
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 point I'm trying to make is that this is all
00:23:11 --> 00:23:14 about a discovery that's been made on the
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 samples of the Bennu
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 asteroid that were returned to Earth in the
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 deserts of Utah a couple of years ago. And
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 they've been sort of looking at it ever since
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 and they have found something
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29 unusual. It's not chewing gum, but it is like
00:23:29 --> 00:23:32 chewing gum because, it's
00:23:32 --> 00:23:32 a.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:33 Professor Fred Watson: Kind of a polymer.
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 Yeah. I'm still grappling with you and
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 your chewing gum on the BET post m.
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 If I remember rightly, it was Lonnie Donegan
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 who in the 1950s had a big hit
00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 with does your chewing gum lose its flavor in
00:23:49 --> 00:23:51 the bedpost overnight?
00:23:51 --> 00:23:52 Andrew Dunkley: The answer is yes.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so straight from there
00:23:57 --> 00:23:58 to Asteroid Bennu.
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02 I think it was Lonnie Donegan anyway.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:03 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I can't remember, but I know.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 Professor Fred Watson: The race skiffle artist of the
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07 1950s.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:11 Andrew Dunkley: there's a photo of Big Charlie. I don't know
00:24:11 --> 00:24:12 if you can see that now. You can't.
00:24:12 --> 00:24:14 Professor Fred Watson: I can't. No. It's just disappearing because
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 you. All I can see now is the moon.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Anyway.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 Professor Fred Watson: A Big Charlie. We did Charlie.
00:24:21 --> 00:24:23 Ah, lucky one.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it was a monster packet. Like, you
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29 know, you couldn't put it in your pocket.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:30 You'd poke a m out.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:37 Professor Fred Watson: Well, I have to say, it's something
00:24:38 --> 00:24:40 not at all like that that we're talking about
00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 with asteroid Bennu because all these
00:24:43 --> 00:24:45 observations have made. Been made with an
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47 electron microscope, which you probably
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 didn't need for a Big Charlie. but
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 what's it all about? It's what's
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 been found in the dust,
00:24:56 --> 00:24:59 which was returned by the Osiris Rex
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 spacecraft, I think in
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 2023, if I remember rightly. Samples from
00:25:04 --> 00:25:06 asteroid Bennu. It's a NASA project.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 what has been found in there is what the
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11 scientists call nitrogen rich
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 polymeric sheets,
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 which you and I would call gum. It's a
00:25:17 --> 00:25:19 polymer basically. and
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 polymers, ah, are materials where you've got
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 these long chains of molecules that
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 give them that sort of flexible and sticky,
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 sticky flavor. or not flavor, but,
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 demeanor, let me put it that way. so
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 it's. Yeah, it's got it's got
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 these long chain molecules on it. And so the
00:25:39 --> 00:25:42 scientists are calling it space gum. it's
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 not gum as we would know it. But what they've
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 done is, they've found, sort of
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 almost like shards of this stuff within the
00:25:50 --> 00:25:52 dust samples from
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55 Bennu. And in order to analyze it,
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 they've actually had to coat it with a
00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 layer of I think it's
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 platinum. Yeah. That
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 they've. They've reinforced it with so that
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 they can take samples from it, with a
00:26:09 --> 00:26:11 tungsten micro needle. and you see
00:26:11 --> 00:26:13 pictures of all this stuff going on on the
00:26:13 --> 00:26:15 Web. The Universe Today's got a nice story
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17 about it. and,
00:26:18 --> 00:26:21 then with the microneedle, then you can
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 take the samples and, you know, analyze them.
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 With all the various pieces of kit that
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 we use to make these analyses.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 And it turns out, yep, there's, There's gum
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 there. I think the puzzle is
00:26:34 --> 00:26:36 how it got there. because.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 Well, let me just, since we're mentioning
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 Universe Today and the lovely article,
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 by Andy Thomas Twick, I think is his name,
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 might not be how you pronounce it. But,
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 what, he says is. One question remains.
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 One question remains. How exactly did the
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 space Gump survive on Bennu for so long? We
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 know that Bennu was part of a larger asteroid
00:26:58 --> 00:27:00 that had hydrothermal vents.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03 Meaning the asteroid itself was subjected to
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 water. Complex organic molecules like the
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 space gum. Usually either dissolve or
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 break up when subjected to hot water.
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 So how had this particular sample,
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 avoided that fate? And what
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 they're saying then is that perhaps the
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 sample might have formed, basically
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 during a phase when Bennu was
00:27:26 --> 00:27:29 cold. Before it actually got hot enough for
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 nuclear processes to heat it up.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34 and they're saying that these samples
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 actually date from that time. and that
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 basically, what they say
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42 is, By the time radioactive elements inside
00:27:42 --> 00:27:45 the asteroid. And this again is quoted from
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 Universe, today, by the time the radioactive
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 elements inside the asteroid had heated up
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 enough to create the water, the plastic in
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 inverted commas, sheets of polymer were
00:27:54 --> 00:27:56 already formed and were, in fact, water
00:27:56 --> 00:27:58 resistant, thereby getting trapped by the
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 rocks on the asteroid surface. Where they
00:28:01 --> 00:28:03 were eventually picked up by an intrepid
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 space probe, namely Osiris,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 Rex. So, yeah, and here's the really
00:28:08 --> 00:28:11 interesting bit. we've got other
00:28:11 --> 00:28:14 asteroid samples, as you know, Andrew,
00:28:14 --> 00:28:17 from, the two Japanese spacecraft that have
00:28:17 --> 00:28:19 brought back asteroid samples. and
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 neither of those have polymers in them.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 so, Bennu is different. It's a different,
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 body. It's still a rubble pile asteroid, as
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 far as we know, but different in its chemical
00:28:30 --> 00:28:31 makeup.
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33 Andrew Dunkley: So I suppose that throws up questions about,
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 asteroid formation and why this
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 is different. Or is it. Is it normal and the
00:28:39 --> 00:28:41 other two were different? You don't know, do
00:28:41 --> 00:28:41 you?
00:28:41 --> 00:28:42 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. That's the thing. Yes.
00:28:43 --> 00:28:43 Yeah.
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 Andrew Dunkley: Very interesting indeed. If, you'd like to
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48 read about it. Universetoday.com has
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 that great article that, Fred was talking
00:28:50 --> 00:28:53 about. And, yeah, we'll probably learn more
00:28:53 --> 00:28:55 and more as they keep going through those
00:28:55 --> 00:28:56 samples from Bennu.
00:28:58 --> 00:29:00 Fred, we're, we're all done. Thank you so
00:29:00 --> 00:29:01 much. That was quick.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 Professor Fred Watson: It was, wasn't it? M. And they were. They
00:29:04 --> 00:29:07 were quite complex stories as well. Yeah.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 Andrew Dunkley: Probably why we didn't spend much time on
00:29:09 --> 00:29:11 them. Brains.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:12 Professor Fred Watson: Neither of us understands them either.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:14 Yeah.
00:29:15 --> 00:29:16 Andrew Dunkley: All right, thanks, Fred. We'll, catch you
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 shortly, for our final
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 program of the year officially. So we'll see
00:29:22 --> 00:29:23 you then. Thanks, Fred.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:24 Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great.
00:29:24 --> 00:29:25 Well done, Andrew.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:28 Andrew Dunkley: And, thanks to Huw in the studio who couldn't
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 be with us today because of a weird, object
00:29:30 --> 00:29:33 that, he's gone to see the Doctor about. and
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 don't forget to visit us online. And, you can
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00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. We
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