00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another fun and exciting Q
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 and A episode of space nuts.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
00:00:20 --> 00:00:21 report it feels good.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:24 Heidi Campo: This episode is driven by listener
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 questions where you send your questions to us
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 and we answer them. Well, it's not
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 we. It's Professor Fred Watson who is
00:00:33 --> 00:00:35 joining me here. My name is Heidi Campo. I'm
00:00:35 --> 00:00:38 your host for this episode, and Fred
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 is our resident astronomer at
00:00:41 --> 00:00:43 large. Fred, how are you doing today?
00:00:45 --> 00:00:46 Professor Fred Watson: Very well, thanks, Heidi. And you shouldn't
00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 underrate, um, the contribution, uh, that
00:00:49 --> 00:00:51 you make to this show. Because I couldn't
00:00:51 --> 00:00:53 answer these questions without you being
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 there. And often you are
00:00:55 --> 00:00:58 somebody who illuminates the questions in
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 a way that I wouldn't think of, which I enjoy
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 very much. So thank you again for welcoming
00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 me to the show.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 Heidi Campo: Thank you so much, Fred. That was. That was
00:01:06 --> 00:01:07 sweet.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 Well, our first question, um,
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 today comes from Patrick. Um,
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 I don't see Patrick's location,
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 but Patrick says hello.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 Heidi and Professor Watson, what is
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 the likelihood of an object or objects
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 currently orbiting our sun not being native
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 to our solar system? Could they have been
00:01:30 --> 00:01:32 rogue objects or perhaps objects from a
00:01:32 --> 00:01:34 passing star that was captured by our sun?
00:01:35 --> 00:01:36 Thanks for taking my question.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I love this question, Heidi. Um,
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 because it has echoes of something we were
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 talking about in the last episode. The object
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 that's not, uh, from our solar system, that
00:01:47 --> 00:01:49 is whizzing through the solar system.
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 And, um, basically Patrick is right,
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 uh, in suggesting that
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 maybe some of the, uh,
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 objects in the solar system. And by that I'm
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 thinking of things like asteroids, um,
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 perhaps even comets that are in orbit around
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 the sun that, uh, are in a closed orbit
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 that are, you know, something that goes
00:02:12 --> 00:02:13 around regularly rather than something that
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 just comes through once and zooms away. Uh,
00:02:16 --> 00:02:18 which is what, uh, Three Eye Atlas that we
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 were talking about last time. Um, that is
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 doing that. Um, uh, so
00:02:24 --> 00:02:26 it's possible that, um, there could be things
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 that have been captured. We know,
00:02:28 --> 00:02:31 uh, that some of the moons of the
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 outer planets are, uh,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 ones that have been captured by those
00:02:36 --> 00:02:38 planets, uh, from
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 the region, uh, beyond
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 Neptune, what we call the Trans Neptunian
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 region, uh, where there are these
00:02:46 --> 00:02:49 icy asteroids, which we now know to be very
00:02:49 --> 00:02:51 numerous. Um, we didn't know about them at
00:02:51 --> 00:02:54 all when I started my career, even though
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 somebody had predicted them in 1950. Uh,
00:02:57 --> 00:02:59 um, Gerard, uh, Kuiper, uh, and his
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 colleague Dr. Edgeworth. Can't remember
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 Edgeworth's first Name. Uh, but they
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 predicted that there would be these icy
00:03:05 --> 00:03:07 objects way in the depths of the solar
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 system. And one of the belts of those objects
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 is now called the Kuiper Belt. And, uh, we
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 know that some of the planets, uh, sorry,
00:03:14 --> 00:03:16 some of the satellites, the moons of the
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 outer planets, started their lives as Kuiper
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 Belt objects. So they have actually been
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 captured by the planets. And
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 so, um, you know, the scenario
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 that Patrick puts forward, uh, of something
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 like that being captured by the sun
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 having come from a distant, uh, object,
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 uh, or a distant solar system from well
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 beyond our solar. It's absolutely possible.
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 Uh, and it's the kind of thing,
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 I guess, that people who study
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 asteroids, and there's a large body of, uh,
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 interest in that topic now, uh, people who
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 study asteroids perhaps have in the back of
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 their mind, because you can learn a lot about
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 an asteroid by looking at the spectrum of the
00:04:00 --> 00:04:03 light reflected from it in the infrared.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:05 Uh, uh, that spectrum is affected
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 by the surface features of the asteroid. And
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 if you start picking up, uh, indications
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 of perhaps a different sort of chemistry on
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 the surface of an asteroid, uh, that,
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 uh, we wouldn't expect from one of our
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 homegrown asteroids, that might be the kind
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 of thing that would lead you to, uh,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 perhaps speculate that this might have an
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 extra solar origin, something that's come
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 from another solar system. How would you test
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 for that? Uh, well, it's possible these days,
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 uh, to run simulations of
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 the way orbits of objects in
00:04:41 --> 00:04:44 the solar system have evolved. So you can
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 sort of pick an asteroid, look at its current
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 orbit and then sort of play it backwards.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 Uh, and it may be that you would do that
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 with an object and find that, uh,
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 at some time in the past its orbit was
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 unstable, uh, which
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 might suggest that it has actually come from
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 another solar system. So
00:05:06 --> 00:05:08 it's not impossible. And it is something that
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 I'm sure actively is being pursued by
00:05:11 --> 00:05:13 researchers in this topic. So. Good question,
00:05:13 --> 00:05:14 Patrick.
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 Heidi Campo: That was a way to break in the episode.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:18 Excellent question, Patrick.
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 Um, our next question is an audio
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 question from Frederick. And
00:05:25 --> 00:05:28 I'm going to just give Fred and I
00:05:28 --> 00:05:31 a second to cue that question up and we're
00:05:31 --> 00:05:32 going to play that question for you now.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 Professor Fred Watson: Hello, this is Frederick Arthur Noldi
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 from originally Duluth,
00:05:38 --> 00:05:40 Minnesota, usa.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 My question is, if
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 black holes are evaporating through
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 Hawking's radiation,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 what is left with over?
00:05:53 --> 00:05:55 Is it the point of singularity?
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 And could that be dark matter
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 because they are so
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 dense, yet very probably small
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 and don't interact with anything.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 Just wondering if I solved what a great
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 question um, and it's one that set me
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 thinking like so many of our listeners do.
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 Um, if you have a black hole that evaporates,
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 what is left behind? Is it still a
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 singularity? Uh, and could that be
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 the dark matter? So there
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 is a problem with that scenario? Well, there
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 are a number of problems. Um, one is
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 that the evaporation of black holes, which,
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 exactly as Frederick, uh, Arthur says, is,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 uh, caused by Hawking radiation. This is
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 radiation that leaks out of the black hole.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 Uh, that is a very, very slow process indeed.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 So the timescale for a black hole
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 evaporating is measured in many billions.
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 In fact, sometimes tens of billions of years
00:06:59 --> 00:07:02 longer than the age of the universe. So,
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 uh, unless black holes are very, very small,
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 uh, their evaporation time is long.
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 Smaller black holes would be
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 evaporating quickly. And yes, maybe some
00:07:13 --> 00:07:16 might have evaporated already by now, but
00:07:16 --> 00:07:18 they would have such a tiny mass that it's
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 hard to imagine it could contribute to,
00:07:22 --> 00:07:25 um, uh, the background
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 that we, uh, understand as dark
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 matter. This stuff that is there because we
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 can detect its gravitational, uh, influence,
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 but we can't see it. Now,
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 the question of what's left when a black
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 hole evaporates is
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 an open one. Uh, and it is
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 really an interesting one because there isn't
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 an answer to it. Um, you can
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 kind of have a look, uh, online
00:07:53 --> 00:07:56 and check out, um, you know, what
00:07:56 --> 00:07:58 the remnant is of a black hole.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:00 Uh,
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 I guess, um, the jury is out
00:08:06 --> 00:08:08 on what is left. Um,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 there is a suggestion that what you're left
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 with is an object
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 of tiny mass, uh,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:19 that is stable,
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 doesn't disappear. Uh,
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 but really nobody knows. That's the
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 bottom line with this. My thinking
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 was a bit different. I expected that if a
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 black hole evaporates, basically all the mass
00:08:34 --> 00:08:36 goes and you're left with nothing, uh,
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 not even a singularity, because it's the mass
00:08:39 --> 00:08:42 that causes the singularity, that point
00:08:42 --> 00:08:43 of infinite density.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:47 So, um, uh, it seems that
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 some physicists think something is left. It's
00:08:50 --> 00:08:51 got a tiny mass
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 and therefore is not in any way
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 significant in contributing to the dark
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 matter of the universe. That's a very,
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 uh, sort of gobbledygook
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 answer to a simple question. But
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 the bottom line is nobody really knows. We
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 don't know what the end product of Hawk
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 Hawking radiation is. Uh, and it's very
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 hard to find out as well. It would have to be
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 by modeling with physical
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 processes that we really don't understand
00:09:20 --> 00:09:23 because we have no physics that describe
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 what happens to a point of infinite density,
00:09:26 --> 00:09:29 which is What a black hole is. So many
00:09:29 --> 00:09:31 thanks for the question. Uh, an interesting
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 thing to think about, but we don't know the
00:09:33 --> 00:09:33 answer.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 Heidi Campo: Maybe, uh, maybe one day one of our listeners
00:09:37 --> 00:09:38 will be the one to find that out.
00:09:39 --> 00:09:40 Professor Fred Watson: That might be the case.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 Heidi Campo: If you guys have the answers, you definitely
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 need to write in and let us know.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:50 Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 Heidi Campo: Um, our next question comes from James.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 James says, good day, Fred, Andrew,
00:09:57 --> 00:10:00 Heidi, and Huw. That's our
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 producer, he doesn't always get a shout out,
00:10:02 --> 00:10:04 so that's nice. Um,
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 James says, I've got an ethical question
00:10:07 --> 00:10:10 I'd like to propose to you. In a hypothetical
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 scenario, let's suppose we find
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 alien life as advanced as us and
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 we're able to meet in person and start
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 sharing knowledge and culture with each
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 other. Ethically, assuming nothing
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 would go wrong from eating alien food, would
00:10:26 --> 00:10:29 it be acceptable for humanity to
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 eat the cuisine of this new life?
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 Uh, sorry? Eat the cuisine of this new life?
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 If it is equivalent to a hamburger or chicken
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 nugget, would we stick to
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 their fruits and veggies? Or are we going
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 space nuts about the Andromeda Cosmic Ray?
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 Fried chicken? Thanks for all you do,
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 Fred. This one is, uh,
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 different from our usual questions. This is,
00:10:57 --> 00:10:58 uh, an opinion.
00:10:58 --> 00:10:59 Professor Fred Watson: It is.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:00 Heidi Campo: Would you eat the fried chicken?
00:11:02 --> 00:11:04 Professor Fred Watson: So I guess the issue is,
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 um. And, you know,
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 uh, essentially James is making a
00:11:10 --> 00:11:11 distinction between
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 vegetable, uh, food. Fruit and veggie.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 Fruit and veggies. Or the meat, the
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 stuff that has once been a living animal.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:26 Uh, and it's a really
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 great question. I'd be interested to hear
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 your thoughts on this, Heidi, because you've
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 got as much.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 Heidi Campo: Oh, man, my brain already started rolling
00:11:35 --> 00:11:36 as soon as this started.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:38 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, Um, I.
00:11:39 --> 00:11:40 So
00:11:43 --> 00:11:46 let me try and put it into context. So I
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 think ethically here
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 on Earth, we've got nothing that stops us
00:11:51 --> 00:11:54 from eating the food that originated with
00:11:54 --> 00:11:57 a different culture from our own. And we
00:11:57 --> 00:12:00 enjoy that. We relish the fact that we can
00:12:00 --> 00:12:03 eat food from different cultures.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:06 Now, the difference here is that the
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 raw material, whether it's meat or whether
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 it's vegetable or whatever it is,
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 um, has come from Earth.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 So we've got the same raw materials. We've
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 just got a different process that turns it
00:12:19 --> 00:12:22 into food, uh, in this different culture.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 And I think that's the difference with, uh,
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 some sort of alien, um, you know, if you
00:12:29 --> 00:12:31 were invited to a meal by
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 a friendly alien on their home planet,
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 uh, my guess
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 is, um, that.
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 I don't know, maybe I'm just being too polite
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 here, uh, in the interests of good
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 relationships, you would probably do
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 what they would ask you to do. Now, I'm
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 taking James's caveat here that,
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 you know, that we don't,
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 uh, have any risks health
00:13:01 --> 00:13:04 wise, as he says, assuming nothing could go
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 wrong from eating alien food. Would it be
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 acceptable for humanity to eat the cuisine of
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 this new life if it's the
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 equivalent of a hamburger or a chicken
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 nugget? I think it,
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 my humble opinion is that it would be, uh,
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 that, uh, if, you know, maybe
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 you have to broaden, uh, your
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 mind to try and incorporate the ethical
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 system of the species who are
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 looking after you, who are providing you with
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 this, you might have a different view.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:37 Heidi?
00:13:37 --> 00:13:40 Heidi Campo: Well, there's two things I want to say, and
00:13:41 --> 00:13:43 I'll say, so one of them falls under a
00:13:43 --> 00:13:44 philosophical bucket, and the other one falls
00:13:44 --> 00:13:46 under the science bucket. So let's start with
00:13:46 --> 00:13:49 the philosophical. What we eat
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 always comes down to and when we're talking
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 about these kind of instances is there's a
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 lot of moral questions
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 that come down into it because it's like,
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 ethically, you know, as long as,
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 um, you know, I mean, I guess
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 even ethics is. Some people do run on
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 different ethical codes or moral codes.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 Religious, um, codes can dictate our diets as
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 well. Um, a lot of people don't eat
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 pork. There's cultures that don't eat beef.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 There's cultures that don't eat shell food,
00:14:19 --> 00:14:21 shellfish. Um, I personally do not eat
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 pork. Pork, Um, I found out that they wag
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 their tails when they're happy and I
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 stopped. But, um, I found out
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 cows do the same and I just can't, I love
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 cheeseburgers too much. So that aside, so
00:14:34 --> 00:14:35 the morality aside,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 sentient creatures, I mean, are we talking
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 about eating these friendly aliens or are we
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 talking about eating their, their foods? And
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 then that just comes down to the whole, you
00:14:47 --> 00:14:49 know, well, maybe people should all be
00:14:49 --> 00:14:52 a vegan or vegetarian, because some cultures
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 eat dogs or cats and subcultures don't.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 But now the scientific side of it is really
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 interesting what, um, NASA does in their
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 foods lab. And I had the, um,
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 privilege of touring their foods lab a few
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 years ago. I got invited, um,
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 as a media person to go to the Crew 7
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 launch. That was two years ago.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 Crew 7. Um, and so part of that
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 is we got to sit down with subject matter
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 experts and we got a tour of the foods lab
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 and thinking, um, about the benefits
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 of food from other planets or food grown in
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 space. I think it's very interesting
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 and it's something that I would love to see
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 hypothetically, if this food was better for
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 me as a former athlete. If this is more
00:15:41 --> 00:15:43 protein and it's easier for me to consume and
00:15:43 --> 00:15:45 it's going to make me a better athlete,
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 absolutely I would eat it. But if it's full
00:15:47 --> 00:15:49 of weird radiation that's going to give me
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 cancer in five minutes, probably not.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:55 So a lot of hypotheticals here, a lot of what
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 ifs, but fun question nonetheless.
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, indeed. I think James tried to rule that
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 out, you know, the radioactive food by
00:16:03 --> 00:16:04 saying that it wouldn't harm us. But, yeah,
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 it's a really interesting question. And I,
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 uh, I mean, the scientist in me, um,
00:16:10 --> 00:16:11 is a little bit,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 I guess, upset by the idea of eating what
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 you're studying. Because if
00:16:19 --> 00:16:22 you're an astrobiologist and you're talking
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 about life forms, whether they're vegetable
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 or animal, on a different planet, then that's
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 part of the scope of astrobiology.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 Uh, and, uh, should you eat what you're
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 trying to study? I don't know. Great
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 question, James. Uh, like all our questions,
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 one that gets us thinking
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 zero G and I feel fine, space nuts.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 Heidi Campo: Well, our very last question is, uh, another
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 audio question, and this one is from
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 Dan in California. So I'm
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 going to go ahead and cue that question up
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 now, and you guys can listen to Dan's
00:16:57 --> 00:16:57 question.
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 Professor Fred Watson: Hi, Heidi, Fred and Andrew. It's
00:17:01 --> 00:17:04 Dan from California. I haven't sent in a
00:17:04 --> 00:17:05 question for a while, but I thought I would
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 ask one about the sun. Uh, recently with
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 the Parker solar probe, getting, uh, some
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 more data back to us, uh, it made me think
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 about the temperature difference between the
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 corona and the photosphere and whether we
00:17:19 --> 00:17:21 expect the same thing to happen to other
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 stars that we have observed.
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 Great show. Love every moment of it. I try
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 and listen every time. Thank you.
00:17:30 --> 00:17:32 Thanks, Dan. Thanks for listening.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 Um, another great question, um,
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 and this is one that I think astrophysicists
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 have got more of a handle on than the ethical
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 question that we've just heard or the one
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 about evaporating black holes is something
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48 that we do understand
00:17:50 --> 00:17:52 at a certain level. Um,
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 so Dan is asking to what
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 extent other stars mimic
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 the behavior of the sun, part of which is
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 still a puzzle. And the bit I'm talking about
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 is the fact that we have, uh,
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 the surface of the sun. And using the word
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 surface figuratively because it doesn't have
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 a solid surface. Uh, it's the point at which
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 the sun, um, you know, where the radiation of
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 the sun seems to come from the visible light,
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 what we call the photosphere. That's
00:18:22 --> 00:18:22 about
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 uh, degrees Celsius or so.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33 Uh, but the atmosphere
00:18:33 --> 00:18:36 above that, the outer atmosphere, the corona,
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 which is that uh, ethereal
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 glow that we see when the sun is in
00:18:42 --> 00:18:44 eclipse and you can't see the photosphere,
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 the photosphere is blocked out. We know the
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 temperature of that is measured in millions
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 of degrees. And the question
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 that's still an active question in
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 astrophysics, in solar physics is
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 how does that solar corona get
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 to be so much hotter than the
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 surface of the sun, the visible surface of
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 the Sun. The mechanisms
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 are poorly, ah, understood. Uh, we
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 think it is due to um,
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 magnetic, you know, the tangled
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 magnetic fields on the surface of the sun.
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 Magnetic activity is really what
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 gives you the transport of energy from
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 the surface up to the corona. Uh, but
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 the exact mechanism is still
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 basically not, you know,
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 fully worked out. And um, in
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42 fact Dan mentioned the Parker Solar Probe.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 It's a NASA spacecraft that is uh,
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 orbiting the sun more closely than any other
00:19:47 --> 00:19:50 spacecraft has, uh, and is detecting
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 things like these intense magnetic fields. So
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55 hopefully the physicists will
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 sew up all those details, pull them together
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 and get an answer as to why the corona
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 is so much hotter. But the point of Dan's
00:20:04 --> 00:20:05 question is not about the sun, it's about
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 other stars. And indeed, uh,
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 our understanding is that
00:20:12 --> 00:20:15 uh, other stars have this equally hot corona.
00:20:15 --> 00:20:18 Other sun like stars. I should qualify that
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 because stars come in widely different
00:20:20 --> 00:20:23 varieties. But other sun like stars, uh,
00:20:23 --> 00:20:26 we expect to find a similar corona.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 Whether um, that has
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 been detected directly, uh,
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 I'm not sure about because we detect the
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 corona uh, through um,
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 basically high energy radiation, X rays
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 and ultraviolet. Uh, they
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 are what betray the high temperature of the
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 corona. Whether we've been able to detect
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 those emissions from other stars, I'm not
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 sure. But I wouldn't mind betting that we
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 have because uh, those coronas are expected
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57 to behave just as the sun's corona does.
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 The sun's a very, very typical star. There's
00:21:00 --> 00:21:02 not really anything extraordinary uh, about
00:21:02 --> 00:21:05 it except it has a planet, a family of
00:21:05 --> 00:21:07 planets, one of which has an intelligent
00:21:07 --> 00:21:10 species on it. And that might even make it
00:21:10 --> 00:21:10 unique.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14 Heidi Campo: Well, there you go. That's, that's
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 a wrap with the questions. Um,
00:21:17 --> 00:21:20 what, what a, ah, great bunch of questions
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 you guys. Thank you so much for sending those
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 in. Um, I think I maybe mentioned this on
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 our, on our last episode, but it's finally
00:21:28 --> 00:21:29 summer, um, break for me for a few short
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31 weeks. So please keep those questions coming
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 in so we can keep listening to them and
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 answering them and um, enjoying
00:21:36 --> 00:21:39 interacting with you guys. Fred,
00:21:40 --> 00:21:43 that's the end of this. Ah, Q and A episode.
00:21:43 --> 00:21:44 Do you have anything else you want to add
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46 before we sign off?
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 Professor Fred Watson: Um, not only to reiterate what you've just
00:21:49 --> 00:21:52 said, uh, this is the thing about spacenots.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 We've got such an active,
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 energetic, enthusiastic, and
00:21:58 --> 00:22:01 very erudite audience, uh, that it's
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 great to hear from, uh, all our
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 listeners. Uh, and yeah, please keep sending
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 in the questions, audio or text. We're happy
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 with either. And a quick thank you from me,
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 too. You mentioned him already. It's not
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 often Huw gets the rap, but, uh, usually
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 from Andrew, he got an insult. Um, but we're
00:22:19 --> 00:22:21 not going to do that, Heidi. We think Hugh's
00:22:21 --> 00:22:24 doing a great job. Uh, and I'm delighted
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 to receive a, um, bunch of new questions from
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 him yesterday afternoon at very short notice
00:22:29 --> 00:22:30 indeed. So thank you for that, Huw.
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 Heidi Campo: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 listening and we will see you all next time.
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