In this engaging Q&A episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson tackle a series of intriguing listener questions that delve into the mysteries of our universe. From the potential origins of solar system objects to the ethical dilemmas of encountering alien life, this episode is packed with thought-provoking insights that will spark your curiosity.
Episode Highlights:
- Captured Celestial Objects: The episode opens with a question from Patrick about the likelihood of objects orbiting our sun being captured from other star systems. Fred elaborates on how some asteroids and comets could have originated beyond our solar system, shedding light on the fascinating dynamics of celestial mechanics.
- The Fate of Evaporating Black Holes: Next, an audio question from Frederick prompts a discussion on Hawking radiation and what remains after a black hole evaporates. Fred navigates through the complexities of this topic, addressing the ongoing mysteries surrounding black holes and their potential remnants.
- Ethical Dilemmas of Alien Cuisine: James presents a unique ethical question regarding the consumption of alien food if humanity were to encounter advanced extraterrestrial life. Heidi and Fred engage in a lively debate about cultural differences and the moral implications of eating alien cuisine, providing a fun twist to the episode.
- The Sun's Corona Mysteries: Finally, Dan's question about the temperature difference between the sun's corona and photosphere leads to an exploration of solar physics. Fred discusses the ongoing research related to solar activity and how it compares to other stars, highlighting the importance of the Parker Solar Probe in unraveling these cosmic secrets.
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Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
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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.
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 Voice Over Guy: You'll be listening to the Space Nuts
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