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Space Nuts: NASA's Starliner, Retrograde Exoplanets, and the Square Kilometre Array
In this thought-provoking episode of Space Nuts, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson delve into some of the latest developments in space exploration. They kick off with NASA's recent decision to stick with Boeing's Starliner for additional crewed missions, despite its rocky history. The conversation then shifts to the intriguing discovery of the exoplanet GJ 3090B, which is orbiting its star in the opposite direction, raising questions about planet formation and dynamics. Finally, they explore the innovative designs behind the Square Kilometre Array, examining how nature-inspired layouts may enhance its functionality while addressing technical challenges. Join Andrew and Fred Watson as they unravel these cosmic stories with their signature blend of wit and insight.
Key topics
- NASA's ongoing collaboration with Boeing for the Starliner missions and its implications for future space travel.
- The unusual retrograde orbit of exoplanet GJ 3090B and what it reveals about planetary systems.
- The design and challenges of the Square Kilometre Array and its nature-inspired antenna layout.
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction and overview of today's topics
01:20 - Discussion on NASA's partnership with Boeing and the Starliner missions
15:30 - Exploration of the retrograde orbit of exoplanet GJ 3090B
25:00 - Insights into the Square Kilometre Array and its innovative designs
35:15 - Final thoughts and listener engagement
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:00 Professor Fred Watson: Hi there.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Andrew Dunkley: Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. My
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 name is Andrew Dunkley, your host. And thanks
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 for joining us today and every day you've
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 listened to us in the last decade or more.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 It's fabulous. Uh, coming up, what are we
00:00:13 --> 00:00:14 going to talk about? All right, uh, we're
00:00:14 --> 00:00:16 going to talk about NASA and its association
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 with Boeing Starliner. There's news there.
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 We've also got a report of an exoplanet
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 that's orbiting its star, um, backwards.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Um, don't know why, and I don't think anyone
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 has figured it out yet. And the Square
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 Kilometre Array is in the news because it's
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 getting help from nature. Or maybe it's not.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 We'll unravel that as well. That's all coming
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 up on this episode of space nuts.
00:00:41 --> 00:00:43 Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:46 --> 00:00:47 sequence start.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:48 Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts reported meals good.
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 Andrew Dunkley: Joining us, as always, is his good self,
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at
00:01:02 --> 00:01:03 large. A very patient man you are,
00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 Fred Watson. How many times did we try to get
00:01:05 --> 00:01:06 this episode started?
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Professor Fred Watson: Well, um, I can't, um,
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 say anything because I was late joining you
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 anyway, so it's been one of those days.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 Andrew Dunkley: It has. Like everything went wrong.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:19 Professor Fred Watson: Everything went wrong.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 Andrew Dunkley: That's the way it goes sometimes. Um, um. And
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 that's the Internet, isn't it? But we used to
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 have these problems in radio as well. You'd
00:01:26 --> 00:01:27 be just in the middle of doing something and
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 then there'd just be a blackout and all hella
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 break loose. That was never fun.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:36 Uh, or you'd have a blackout. And when the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 power came back, because it was later
00:01:39 --> 00:01:40 in my career, because it was digital
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 technology, the microphone worked, but
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 nothing else. And you just
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 had to keep talking and talking and talking
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 until everything rebooted. Like
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 with analogue gear, it just turned back on
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 and you press play. But with digital
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 gear, no, it's not that simple. And that's
00:01:59 --> 00:02:02 what we had today. I'm scared to touch my
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 panel because I'm worried that it might chuck
00:02:05 --> 00:02:07 a wobbly at me. And, you know,
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 um, it has been known to do some
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 really weird things sometimes. Oh, see?
00:02:16 --> 00:02:17 Very scary stuff.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:19 Professor Fred Watson: Didn't know you were playing an LP there.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:21 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I don't know what this button does.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:24 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 Andrew Dunkley: Uh, I don't know what else is on this.
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 Anyway, um. Oh, here's a famous one.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:34 The nasatone. Yeah,
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 I've got that one on my system now. I've got
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 to find where I need to be so that we can
00:02:40 --> 00:02:42 actually do this show.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 And I think that's about it. All right,
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 Fred Watson, thanks for your patience. Um,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:50 what are we talking about? Let's get started
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 with this NASA, uh, announcement that's, uh,
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 been came out recently.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 Well, Monday our time, but by the time this
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 podcast's released, it'll be a few weeks
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 back. But, um, yeah, it's a really
00:03:02 --> 00:03:04 interesting announcement because a lot of
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 people want to work with NASA and
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 I think this is a case of, um, had options
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 and they've decided they might stick with
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 Boeing in this regard.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:18 You might want to fill in the blanks because
00:03:18 --> 00:03:20 I might be crossing up stories here.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, not at all. Uh, so
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 the current status, uh,
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 of affairs in terms of
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 getting astronauts up and down to the
00:03:31 --> 00:03:34 International Space Station is that, uh,
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 SpaceX, with their Crew Dragon spacecraft and
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 their, uh, Falcon 9 launch vehicle have
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 been basically successfully flying
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 NASA astronauts up to the space station
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 and back for more than six years. It seems
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 like. It doesn't seem like that long, but
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 that's how long it is. And, but
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 right at the beginning of this process, um,
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 NASA also, as well as inviting
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 SpaceX, uh,
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 to bid for this job, this taxi job,
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 running astronauts up and down, Boeing
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 also were invited. And
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 their, uh, equivalent of the Crew Dragon is
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 the Starliner vehicle. Uh, but
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 it's had problems, um,
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 significant problems in 2019 and
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 2022, uh, and
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 then again in June 2024
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 when there were two astronauts on board
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 and there was this, uh, epic,
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 um, decision not to return those
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 astronauts in the Starliner
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 because there'd been thruster issues as it
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 docked with the International Space Station.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 There was no appetite for taking the risk of
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 those cre. Uh, um,
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 uh, you know, returning in a, in a vehicle
00:04:54 --> 00:04:56 that was unsafe. So the Starliner was.
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 Andrew Dunkley: There was a worry they wouldn't return at
00:04:58 --> 00:04:59 all, if that's correct.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Yeah. Uh, and the
00:05:02 --> 00:05:04 Starliner did actually, they sent it back on
00:05:04 --> 00:05:07 its own and it did in the end make a perfect
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 landing. But that left those two crew members
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 stranded for how long? It was eight months
00:05:13 --> 00:05:14 or something, wasn't it?
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 Andrew Dunkley: It was a long time. And part of the reason
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 was their spacesuits weren't compatible with,
00:05:20 --> 00:05:22 um. Was it the crew Dragon?
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 Professor Fred Watson: That's right, that's correct.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:26 Yeah.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 Andrew Dunkley: It's crazy.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:30 Professor Fred Watson: So, yeah, so, so Boeing has been
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 so picking up the pieces of that and um,
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 essentially modifying the design of
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 Starliner. And uh, there's
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 been sort of negotiations in terms of the
00:05:41 --> 00:05:43 amount of money that's involved because of
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 course these are not cheap options.
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 Um, but uh, there is now,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:52 um, a deal that uh,
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 is. It may have surprised
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 Boeing, probably not because they've got
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 their ears to the ground in terms of what
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 the deals are going to be. But NASA will
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 exercise its options
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 to order two additional crewed missions
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 in Starliner and that will bring the total
00:06:12 --> 00:06:15 number of spaceflights that they've bought
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 on Starliner to six.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 And I think probably, I don't know how many
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 of those have happened already because I
00:06:23 --> 00:06:25 don't know whether the one that stranded
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 those astronauts counts among those. But
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 um, the thing that really interests me
00:06:31 --> 00:06:32 in this article,
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 Andrew, is that there is
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 a comment from the
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 NASA administrator, the boss of NASA,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 uh, Jared Isaacman, who said, I
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 do not think it's a secret that SpaceX
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 intends to sunset older platforms like
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 their next generation capability, Starship.
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 Uh, and that tallies with things I was
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 hearing, uh, when I listened recently to
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 the launch of Starship Flight 14.
00:07:06 --> 00:07:08 Some of the commentary was along the lines
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 that, um, SpaceX is
00:07:11 --> 00:07:14 absolutely devoting its future launch
00:07:14 --> 00:07:16 vehicle activities to Starship.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:20 And it looks as though the Falcon, for
00:07:20 --> 00:07:22 all it's been an absolutely historic and epic
00:07:23 --> 00:07:26 and very reliable launch vehicle, um,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:28 ever since they learned to land it back, uh,
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 on the ground to reuse it back in 2015.
00:07:32 --> 00:07:34 It looks as though its time is numbered or
00:07:34 --> 00:07:37 its days are numbered. Uh, and
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 that tallies with the almost
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 boundless enthusiasm that Elon Musk has
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 for getting Starship into a state where
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 he can launch. Wait for this, Andrew. A
00:07:49 --> 00:07:50 thousand starships a year.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 That's what he has in mind. What's that,
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 three a day? Yeah, endless.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:00 Andrew Dunkley: And they'll be carrying who knows what a lot
00:08:00 --> 00:08:02 of his stuff. Of course.
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 Professor Fred Watson: Yes, yeah, um, uh,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 Starlink, uh, satellites will be part
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 and parcel of that. That test flight 14
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 recently, um, there were 26
00:08:13 --> 00:08:15 of the version 3 Starlink satellites which
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 have a much greater capability in terms,
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 uh, um, the
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 telecommunications. It's a much bigger
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 bandwidth, uh, um,
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 um, that was a test. I think they can launch
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 up to 60 of those, uh, in
00:08:32 --> 00:08:34 an empty, uh, Starship. 60
00:08:36 --> 00:08:38 Starlink satellites and an empty Starship.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:41 But of course, uh, the other aspect of this,
00:08:41 --> 00:08:43 and this is where SpaceX really does have to
00:08:43 --> 00:08:44 get its act together.
00:08:46 --> 00:08:48 Starship is one of the two
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 crew landing vehicles that are selected
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 for testing in a competitive way for
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 The Artemis Project Artemis
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 3. The flight that will do that, uh,
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 is scheduled for early next
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 year. Um, I beg your pardon, late
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 next year. It's scheduled for late 2027,
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 uh, where both Blue Origin's blue moon
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 landing vehicle and SpaceX's
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 Starship landing vehicle will be tested, uh,
00:09:18 --> 00:09:21 in orbit along with the Orion
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 capsule, which will carry the astronauts, uh,
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 to the moon, um, or to the vicinity of the
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 moon. One of these two landers will actually
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 be what puts them down on the surface and we
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 don't yet know which it'll be. Um,
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 I'm not a betting man, but uh, to
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 be honest, given the terrain that they're
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 going to try and land in, uh, near the moon's
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 south pole, I'm not sure that something long
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 and thin and 52 metres high actually cuts the
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 mustard given how many things have fallen
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 over on the moon's surface before.
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, that does seem to be a factor. Uh,
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 and if he's steering his
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 attention into other things,
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 maybe that's going to come into play when
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 they make their decision. Um,
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 I'm intrigued by how competitive private
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 space ventures are becoming because you've
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 got Blue origin, you've got SpaceX, you've
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 got Boeing and you've also got
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 Airbus because they work very closely with
00:10:19 --> 00:10:21 ESA and
00:10:22 --> 00:10:24 you know, there are several other countries
00:10:24 --> 00:10:26 that um, are running space programmes
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 these days and it's just getting more and
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 more competitive, but it's also advancing at
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 a rate of knots. We're seeing technology now
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 that's being developed so very quickly.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:39 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 Andrew Dunkley: And I suppose if you look back to when it all
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 started, it was a slow burn, so to speak.
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 It was. Now it's accelerating
00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 at an incredible rate.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I mean, so
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 I guess what you've highlighted there is
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 uh, the fact that when it wasn't
00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 competitive, when it was just NASA doing
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 things, uh, they really took
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 very small steps to advance things
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 in order to play safe. Uh, but when
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 you've got competition thrown in there, they
00:11:14 --> 00:11:17 will take risks. And certainly Elon Musk has
00:11:17 --> 00:11:20 taken risks in the past, although, um, he was
00:11:20 --> 00:11:22 very risk averse with the starship, uh,
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 uh, Flight 14. Uh, and I think that was
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 one reason why they cut it short. It was uh,
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 cut short from six hours, I beg pardon, six
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 orbits down to, I think two. Uh, from um,
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 ten hours in space down to three. Uh,
00:11:37 --> 00:11:40 so that's symptomatic of that slightly
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 more gung ho attitude. But nevertheless,
00:11:43 --> 00:11:44 I think, um, the,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 clearly the space industry, the commercial
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 ventures, take uh, the safety of their
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 crews extremely seriously. Uh, but
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 they can advance it um, much more quickly if
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 they've got financial backing behind them
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 that doesn't have to go through government
00:12:01 --> 00:12:03 approval and things of that sort, which is
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 basically what's happening. Uh, in this
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 space. Um, just another snippet that
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 sort of plays into this, um, this
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 discussion Andrew, is that there
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 is consideration by NASA
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 in extending the lifetime of the
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 International space station to 2032.
00:12:22 --> 00:12:24 They've been saying for ages that it will
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 come to an end by 2030, but it looks as
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 though it might be extended. And of course
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 that uh, actually uh,
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 highlights the need for Starliner because
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 it's likely that crew Dragon will
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 be retired before
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 2030. Uh, and so Starliner
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 will be the only U.S. vehicle that can access
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 the space station. The Soyuz flights will
00:12:47 --> 00:12:50 still be going, I'm sure, but Starliner um,
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 will be the um, that'll be the
00:12:53 --> 00:12:55 vehicle of choice to get people up and down.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 Andrew Dunkley: So it makes sense that NASA has announced
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 those options to continue with them. So,
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 uh. Yeah, quite so.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:06 Yeah. It's a good deal. And uh,
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 I think we're still only at the very early
00:13:11 --> 00:13:12 stages of
00:13:14 --> 00:13:14 Professor Fred Watson: private
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 Andrew Dunkley: um, operators in space. And
00:13:17 --> 00:13:19 what's it going to be like in 50 or 100
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 years? It's just hard to imagine.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. Well,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 um, Elon wants us all on Mars by then.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:30 Andrew Dunkley: Yes. I think in the meantime we'll probably
00:13:30 --> 00:13:32 have a, um, a couple of hotels in space in
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 the next hundred years and you'll be able to
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 take a holiday up there if you want to.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:37 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe so.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:37 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:38 Professor Fred Watson: And if you're rich enough.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:41 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, well that'll be the thing, won't it?
00:13:41 --> 00:13:44 Although I think once going into space
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 becomes more and more common,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 the price will come down. But there
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 was a time where flying, flying was only for
00:13:53 --> 00:13:53 the rich.
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 Professor Fred Watson: This is true. It is true.
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 But, um, let me just give you some figures.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 Um, uh, this is a quote from an article
00:14:02 --> 00:14:05 in uh, Ars Technica for the
00:14:05 --> 00:14:07 Starliner 2 through Starliner 6
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 missions, NASA and Boeing have agreed to a
00:14:10 --> 00:14:13 price point of approximately US$90 million
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 per seat. So yeah,
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 that's quite a fair, um,
00:14:20 --> 00:14:21 Andrew Dunkley: that's getting up there.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 I hope it's business class, but anyway,
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 Professor Fred Watson: I'm not sure that it is actually probably.
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 Andrew Dunkley: It's certainly a quicker flight than going
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 from Sydney to Istanbul, that's for sure.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Um, and again that's one
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 of the um, uses that uh, Elon sees
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 in Starship. The fact that you can do
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 suborbital flights so that you could get to
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 Istanbul in 45 minutes
00:14:49 --> 00:14:49 from here.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I think that is where the future will
00:14:51 --> 00:14:52 be.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:53 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe so. Maybe so.
00:14:54 --> 00:14:55 Andrew Dunkley: Won't be far down the track.
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 If you'd like to read all about that
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 particular deal with NASA and Boeing
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 Starliner you can do that. As Fred Watson
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 said@arstechnica. Uh.com. this
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 Professor Fred Watson Watson.
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 Space Nuts. Okay Fred Watson, let's move on
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 to a weird planet. And when I
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 say a weird planet, there are many weird
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 planets that we have discovered. Exoplanets.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Uh, over five and a half thousand such
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 planets now have been catalogued and there
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 are many, many more waiting in line for their
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 name to be put in the little black book.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 Um, but uh, this one uh, in
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 particular, uh, particular GJ,
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 uh 3090B
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 uh is um, doing some weird stuff
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 and they don't really know why. But if they
00:15:49 --> 00:15:51 can figure out why, it might answer some
00:15:51 --> 00:15:53 really interesting questions about planet
00:15:53 --> 00:15:53 formation.
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 Professor Fred Watson: Indeed. That's exactly right. Um, so
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 this is research that's from Queen Mary
00:15:59 --> 00:16:02 University in London. Uh and
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 it's uh, as you said, it's a star.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 A planet by the way, um, a planet. I beg your
00:16:08 --> 00:16:09 pardon.
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 GJ3090B. It's about
00:16:12 --> 00:16:15 the size of Neptune. Uh, um,
00:16:15 --> 00:16:18 I can't remember what its orbital
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 period is. I think it's quite short. These
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 things usually are. But it's going
00:16:23 --> 00:16:25 backwards. It's going in the opposite
00:16:25 --> 00:16:28 direction around the
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 star which is going to be called
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 GJ3090. Uh the parent
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 star. It's going in the opposite direction to
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 what that star rotates in. And
00:16:39 --> 00:16:41 that's a big surprise because
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 uh, um, all our um,
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 models of planet formation they
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 start with uh, a cloud of gas and
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 dust which collapses under its own gravity.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 And as it collapses, uh, that induces a
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 spin uh in a particular direction.
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 And out of that spinning blob of material
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 both the star and its planets form. And
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 that's why in our solar system certainly
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 the planets are all in a single plane. They
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 used to be in a disc, uh, um, call a
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 protoplanetary disc. But they're all going in
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 the same direction as the sun is rotating.
00:17:17 --> 00:17:20 And that's the fossilised rotation. So
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 the suggestion is that this particular
00:17:24 --> 00:17:26 planet uh is
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29 going the wrong way because of
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 some interaction that has taken place
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 during its lifetime. Uh, it's
00:17:35 --> 00:17:38 the first known planet around
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 um, an M dwarf to
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 follow, um, what we call a retrograde
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 orbit. A backward orbit. Retrograde. In the
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 case of the solar system, something going
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 retrograde would be going clockwise as seen
00:17:51 --> 00:17:53 from above the North Pole. Um
00:17:54 --> 00:17:56 so it's a ah, backward orbit. And in fact
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 it's not only backwards, it's slightly
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 inclined to the equator of
00:18:02 --> 00:18:05 the parent star. Remember all the planets of
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 the solar system are in orbit In a plane
00:18:08 --> 00:18:10 that's more or less coincident. It's not
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12 quite, but more or less coincides with the
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 equatorial plane of the sun, its
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 equatorial plane of rotation. Uh, this one's
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 tilted at quite a significant angle to it,
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 if I remember rightly. I can't see the number
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 here, but I think It's. Was it 136
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 degrees, which is well over 90 degrees.
00:18:28 --> 00:18:29 Um, that would make it
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 revolve over the star's poles.
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 Uh, but, um, this is going
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 further away than that. It's actually going
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 backwards. And I think, um, just to
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 basically tie up the loose end, I think this
00:18:43 --> 00:18:46 comes from observations made with the
00:18:46 --> 00:18:48 James Webb Space
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 Telescope. Uh, it's certainly an
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 instrument, uh, which is a near infrared
00:18:54 --> 00:18:56 spectrometer. And I'm guessing
00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 that's where it has been,
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 um, where that, um, instrument, uh, is
00:19:03 --> 00:19:03 mounted.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 Andrew Dunkley: It, um, does have an orbital
00:19:07 --> 00:19:10 period of 2.85 to 2.9 Earth
00:19:10 --> 00:19:10 days.
00:19:11 --> 00:19:11 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:19:11 --> 00:19:11 Professor Fred Watson: Quick.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. And, um, just in case
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16 people are saying, well, how do you know it's
00:19:16 --> 00:19:19 going backwards? Well, there's a GJ
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 3090C, which is going the other way.
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 So the question you've raised there, how do
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 you know it's going backwards? Is one
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 that depends on a phenomenon
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35 whose name I can never remember. And it
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 really annoys me. I should look it up. You
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 might be able to look it up. It's. It's, uh,
00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 the phenomenon that lets you
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 see the direction of rotation.
00:19:46 --> 00:19:48 Sorry, the direction of revolution of a
00:19:48 --> 00:19:51 planet around its star. You can measure
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 the star's revolution very easily by,
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 uh, its spectrum, the way its spectrum
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 behaves. Um, it's a bit less
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 easy with a planet, but you can do it with
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 the spectrum. But there is a phenomenon,
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 and I can never remember its name. But don't
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 worry about it because, um, I bet you can't
00:20:10 --> 00:20:10 either.
00:20:11 --> 00:20:14 Andrew Dunkley: No, I can't find it. Need more information?
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17 Yeah, you would. Uh, so the bottom line
00:20:17 --> 00:20:20 here is they don't think this has been caused
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 by some kind of collision event.
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 Um, they think it might be that this
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 star has ventured into, um,
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 some material that was a completely different
00:20:32 --> 00:20:35 angle and may have
00:20:35 --> 00:20:36 created a planet that was
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 in retrograde orbit.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. Yes. Um, there's a couple
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 of. I think, you know, I think you're right.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 I think you're absolutely right. There's a
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 couple of comments. One comes from, uh,
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 Vincent Bourier of the University of
00:20:52 --> 00:20:54 Geneva, uh, who says
00:20:54 --> 00:20:57 the idea that a planetary system could be
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 rebuilt from a second
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 differently orientated disc is particularly
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 Exciting. It suggests that the environment
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 around a young star can play a much bigger
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 role in determining the architecture.
00:21:09 --> 00:21:10 Architecture of its planets that we might
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 have expected. So what he's suggesting, um,
00:21:13 --> 00:21:16 is that you've got not one, but
00:21:16 --> 00:21:19 two protoplanetary discs,
00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 uh, which are orientated differently.
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 And that is, uh, as he says, very
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 exciting. It's an extraordinary suggestion.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:30 Uh, but there is another comment, uh, also
00:21:30 --> 00:21:33 from, uh, somebody at the University of
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 Geneva. Um, we looked for the
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 kind of massive companion that could have
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 forced the planet into such an extreme orbit.
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 Orbit. But we don't find evidence for one.
00:21:43 --> 00:21:44 That suggests we may need to think
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 differently about how this system acquired
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 its unusual architecture. Which is basically
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 going back to that comment that I just made.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 So it's really um, uh, really a, uh,
00:21:55 --> 00:21:56 very interesting issue.
00:21:56 --> 00:21:58 And uh, I think this is quite a significant
00:21:58 --> 00:22:01 story. Um, a surprise to find something
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 revolving backwards like that.
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I mean, we've got planets in our own
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09 solar system that do weird stuff like,
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 um, they rotate backwards or they
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 rotate on sides. But we've put all that down
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 to probable early collisions in their
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 history. Being individuals. But
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 we don't have a planet that's actually going
00:22:22 --> 00:22:23 the other way.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27 Professor Fred Watson: We do, however, have some satellites.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 I think it's Neptune, uh,
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 maybe Uranus. But at least one of those two
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 ice giants has planets that go the wrong way
00:22:34 --> 00:22:37 around. And that's suggesting that
00:22:37 --> 00:22:39 it's something that's been captured. Probably
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 a trans neptunian object, One of these icy
00:22:42 --> 00:22:45 asteroids deep in the solar system. That's
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 less likely, um,
00:22:49 --> 00:22:52 in the wider interstellar space if you've got
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 a star. Unless it's been very
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 unlucky and there's been a rogue planet or an
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 orphan planet that's just wandered by and
00:22:58 --> 00:23:01 been captured. But that would be, I think,
00:23:01 --> 00:23:03 uh, um, an extremely rare event
00:23:03 --> 00:23:06 if it could ever happen at all. Uh, so it's a
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 bit different from the situation in our solar
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 system where you've got candidate objects,
00:23:11 --> 00:23:14 um, to be made into moons going the wrong way
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 around. You've got those sprinkled across the
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 outer solar system in the form of these trans
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 neptunian objects. So yeah, interesting
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 stuff. Uh, fascinating. There might be more
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 research on it, which I hope we will be able
00:23:25 --> 00:23:26 to bring to our ah, listeners.
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 Andrew Dunkley: Yes, indeed.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 Um, maybe there'll be something to learn from
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 this that will answer other questions. You
00:23:32 --> 00:23:35 never know. It's the nature of astronomy,
00:23:35 --> 00:23:37 isn't it? Okay, M.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:39 If you'd like to read that story,
00:23:39 --> 00:23:42 it's@scitechdaily.com or you can
00:23:42 --> 00:23:44 read the whole paper, which has been
00:23:44 --> 00:23:47 published in Astronomy and Astrophysics
00:23:47 --> 00:23:50 Letters. You're listening to Space Nuts,
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53 the podcast with Andrew Dunkley and Professor
00:23:53 --> 00:23:54 Fred Watson Watson.
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 Professor Fred Watson: I'm going to step off the land now.
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 That's one small step for man,
00:24:06 --> 00:24:06 one
00:24:08 --> 00:24:10 Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:13 Andrew Dunkley: And I want to send a shout out to Alan in
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 Melbourne who's listening, uh, live this
00:24:15 --> 00:24:16 morning.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:16 Professor Fred Watson: Fred Watson.
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 Andrew Dunkley: Um, you'll be amused to know that Alan is a
00:24:18 --> 00:24:20 postman and he listens to us while he does
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 his deliveries. Uh, and he says keep up the
00:24:23 --> 00:24:26 great work. Yeah, that's nice. See that's the
00:24:26 --> 00:24:28 thing about these kinds of um, programmes.
00:24:28 --> 00:24:31 You can listen to them anywhere, anytime. Uh,
00:24:31 --> 00:24:32 indeed. Fantastic.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 Uh, now our final story today takes
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 us to wa, Western Australia, uh,
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 and it is about the Square Kilometre
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 Array. And this story's a little bit
00:24:45 --> 00:24:48 different in that they have um, now
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 they're still building the thing but uh, it's
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52 got all those little Christmas tree antennas
00:24:53 --> 00:24:54 uh, that they're spreading around. But uh,
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 it's the way they've spread them around that
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 is um, is detailed in this story.
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03 But there might be an issue with it
00:25:04 --> 00:25:05 I think.
00:25:05 --> 00:25:07 Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. Uh, that's correct. Um, and
00:25:08 --> 00:25:11 the reason I chose this story to cover today
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 Andrew, is that um, when I was astronomer at
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 large I was very close to the action in
00:25:16 --> 00:25:19 the design and construction of the Square
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 Kilometre Array Low Ska Low as it's called.
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25 This is the Low Frequency Arm, um, of the
00:25:25 --> 00:25:28 uh, Square Kilometre Array Observatory. The
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 Mid Frequency Arm um of it is in
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 South Africa and the headquarters ah are in
00:25:34 --> 00:25:36 the United Kingdom, in the north of England
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 at Jodrell bank and I think, I can't remember
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 how many um, uh, uh,
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 um, participating nations there are now in
00:25:44 --> 00:25:47 Skao. It was seven when I was
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 involved. I think it's a bit more now. So,
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 um, the uh, Western Australian
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 site, it is at a place called
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 Inyarimana Ilgari Bundara, the
00:25:58 --> 00:26:01 CSIRO Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 That's a uh, Wodgery name meaning
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 sharing sky and stars. It's a lovely
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09 um, first nations name for the observatory.
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 Andrew Dunkley: So 16 nations.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:13 16.
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 Professor Fred Watson: Very good. That's good to know. Thank you.
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 Things have moved on since I was involved
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 quite a lot. Um, so uh,
00:26:21 --> 00:26:24 the Squake and Metre Array Low is
00:26:24 --> 00:26:27 not a radio telescope of the kind that
00:26:27 --> 00:26:30 we're all used to thinking of, which is a big
00:26:30 --> 00:26:33 dish on a mounting that'll let you point it
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 anywhere. And indeed um,
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 the Ska Mid, that's the mid
00:26:39 --> 00:26:41 frequency arm, um, of this telescope in uh.
00:26:41 --> 00:26:44 South Africa. It consists of I think it will
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 be 197uh, dishes which can
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 be steered around, which is what you need to
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 do at these mid frequencies. But at the low
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53 frequency you can do something a bit more
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 clever. You can stick your antenna
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59 vertically and it's just like
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 uh, one of these old fashioned TV antennas
00:27:02 --> 00:27:03 that we used to see on everybody's rooftop.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:06 Except instead of pointing horizontally it's
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 pointing vertically. And it's also uh,
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 got two uh, segments to it. So it actually
00:27:11 --> 00:27:14 looks a lot like a Christmas tree, a metal
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 Christmas tree about two metres high. There
00:27:16 --> 00:27:19 are going to be 131 of these,
00:27:19 --> 00:27:22 uh, spread out in groups
00:27:22 --> 00:27:25 of, I think it's 512,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 um, might be 512 groups
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 that there. No, 512 stations. Each
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 of them has 256 of these
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 antennas. Um, and
00:27:37 --> 00:27:40 the stations themselves are what lead to
00:27:40 --> 00:27:41 this story. Because
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 the crucial uh, point about using
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 these vertically pointing arrays,
00:27:50 --> 00:27:52 sorry, vertically pointing antennas
00:27:52 --> 00:27:55 is that when you have enough of them
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 you've got what's called a phased array feed,
00:27:59 --> 00:28:02 uh, which is a way of detecting
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 radio signals, uh, without actually
00:28:05 --> 00:28:07 pointing the telescope in any given
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 direction. They're all sitting vertically
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 but they can basically each one of those
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 antennas can pick up signals effectively from
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 all over the sky. Not quite, but a lot of
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 the sky, uh, each single one.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:22 So if you only had one of those you'd get
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 this total um, cacophony of
00:28:25 --> 00:28:28 signals coming from different, you know,
00:28:28 --> 00:28:30 different celestial objects all around the
00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 sky. But when you've got
00:28:32 --> 00:28:35 131 of them, you
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 basically can time the signals so that you're
00:28:38 --> 00:28:40 effectively pointing the array electronically
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 in different directions. Um, but there's
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 a caveat to all this. It's the spacing
00:28:47 --> 00:28:50 uh, of these antennas that is
00:28:50 --> 00:28:52 crucial. If you just put them all in straight
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 lines you'd have peculiar
00:28:55 --> 00:28:57 effects that come from the fact that
00:28:57 --> 00:29:00 the signals have a particular wavelength.
00:29:00 --> 00:29:02 And if they're all in straight lines it would
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 act like something we call a diffraction
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 grating. And you'd have null regions where
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08 you couldn't see anything coming from the sky
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 because the waves would cancel out.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 So the design has always been to
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 use a um, sort of
00:29:17 --> 00:29:20 random, quasi random
00:29:20 --> 00:29:23 layout, uh, that would um,
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 actually reflect uh, the
00:29:27 --> 00:29:30 shape of what we call
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 sometimes called a Vogel spiral. Uh,
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 it's often called a Fibonacci
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 spiral. And um, I know that because
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 I'd recently been giving a talk on um,
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 mediaeval mathematics. Fibonacci,
00:29:44 --> 00:29:46 uh, put his sequence together in A
00:29:46 --> 00:29:48 publication? Not a publication, a manuscript
00:29:48 --> 00:29:51 that he wrote in 1202. And it turns
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 out that you can derive from that Fibonacci
00:29:54 --> 00:29:56 sequence, uh, where you just add
00:29:57 --> 00:29:59 the previous two numbers together to get the
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01 next one in the sequence. That's the recipe
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 for it. Um, you can plot that out in a
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 graphical way. And what you get is a spiral
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 shape. Um, and it turns out that that spiral
00:30:09 --> 00:30:12 shape comes frequently in nature,
00:30:12 --> 00:30:15 from seashells to galaxies to
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 sunflower seeds. Uh, and that is the
00:30:18 --> 00:30:21 shape that was chosen to lay out these
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 antennas, um, with this kind of
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 spiral. Now,
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 um, they built a prototype, uh,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 doing that. In fact, they've built more than
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 one. The second one was the Aperture Array
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 Verification System number two, AAVS
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 two. Uh, and that, um,
00:30:41 --> 00:30:44 essentially mimicked this spiral.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 But, uh, it turns
00:30:47 --> 00:30:50 out that in the test that they did. I
00:30:50 --> 00:30:52 beg your pardon. This is an AF
00:30:52 --> 00:30:54 AAVS3. It's the third
00:30:55 --> 00:30:58 prototype. I'm sorry. The second one was
00:30:58 --> 00:30:59 random, simply random.
00:30:59 --> 00:31:02 AAVS2 was a random distribution
00:31:02 --> 00:31:05 of the 256 antennas in each of these
00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 512 pads. Um,
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 AAVS3 is a Vogel
00:31:10 --> 00:31:13 spiral or a Fibonacci spiral. Um,
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 but when they built the test
00:31:15 --> 00:31:18 setup, uh, it turns out
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 that if you point the
00:31:21 --> 00:31:24 telescope directly overhead, which
00:31:24 --> 00:31:26 is where the Milky Way centre of the
00:31:26 --> 00:31:28 Milky Way galaxy passes through,
00:31:29 --> 00:31:31 um, then you have a problem
00:31:32 --> 00:31:34 because there's a drop off in sensitivity,
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 uh, at one of the wavelengths. 125
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 MHz exactly. Caused by that
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 point, uh, um, that you've got
00:31:43 --> 00:31:46 this null region, uh, directly overhead.
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 So what they're going to do is just
00:31:50 --> 00:31:53 modify the, uh, the spiral a little
00:31:53 --> 00:31:55 bit in order to check, uh, that
00:31:55 --> 00:31:58 this will work. Uh, they call their
00:31:58 --> 00:32:01 solution a perturbed Vogel pattern. Um,
00:32:01 --> 00:32:04 they're not calling it a perturbed Fibonacci
00:32:04 --> 00:32:07 pattern, but that will be the same thing. It
00:32:07 --> 00:32:09 basically puts in a little sort of almost an
00:32:09 --> 00:32:12 error, uh, into the position of each antenna.
00:32:12 --> 00:32:15 And that means that you never get two that
00:32:15 --> 00:32:17 are close enough together for their
00:32:17 --> 00:32:19 wavelength sensitivity to cancel out, which
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 is what this is all about. Very technical,
00:32:21 --> 00:32:24 but nevertheless showing how, uh, we take
00:32:24 --> 00:32:26 lessons from nature, but sometimes we have to
00:32:26 --> 00:32:27 modify them slightly.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 Andrew Dunkley: That, uh, Vogel spiral pattern's beautiful,
00:32:31 --> 00:32:32 isn't it?
00:32:32 --> 00:32:33 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah.
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 Andrew Dunkley: It's worth looking it up online, uh, just,
00:32:36 --> 00:32:38 uh, to have a look at it. But, uh, yeah,
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 quite amazing. I have to make a correction.
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 Sixteen countries in the SKA
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 project as a whole, but six on the SKA low.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:48 Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:51 Andrew Dunkley: Including Australia, China, Italy, Malta, the
00:32:51 --> 00:32:52 Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
00:32:53 --> 00:32:54 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that Sounds right.
00:32:55 --> 00:32:58 Andrew Dunkley: So, uh, every 16 involved in everything
00:32:58 --> 00:33:01 but six on the low band
00:33:01 --> 00:33:03 network, if you want to call it that.
00:33:03 --> 00:33:06 Yeah. Uh, really good story,
00:33:06 --> 00:33:08 which you can read about@universetoday uh,
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 dot com. I'm sure there's a paper somewhere
00:33:12 --> 00:33:13 that's been published.
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 Professor Fred Watson: Um, yes, it's in these
00:33:17 --> 00:33:20 journals of the, uh, sps, which is the
00:33:20 --> 00:33:21 Society of
00:33:21 --> 00:33:23 Photoelectronic
00:33:23 --> 00:33:25 Instrumentation Engineers. I think that's
00:33:25 --> 00:33:27 what it stands for. I used to be a member of
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 it, uh, when I was working on fibre optics
00:33:29 --> 00:33:30 back in the day.
00:33:31 --> 00:33:34 Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. Fantastic. Uh,
00:33:34 --> 00:33:35 and that brings us to the end. Fred Watson,
00:33:35 --> 00:33:36 thank you very much.
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, it's a pleasure, Andrew. I'm glad we
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 finally got there after all our, uh,
00:33:41 --> 00:33:44 tribulations at the start. Good to talk to
00:33:44 --> 00:33:44 you again as always.
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 Andrew Dunkley: And you. We will catch you very, very soon.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 And in between episodes, don't forget to
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00:34:29 --> 00:34:31 you listen to us. And thanks to Huw in the
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00:34:35 --> 00:34:38 He'll be back sometime next week. And from
00:34:38 --> 00:34:40 me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company.
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42 We'll see you on the next episode of Space
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 Nuts. Bye Bye. You've been
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46 listening to the Space Nuts
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