In this captivating episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson take listeners on a journey through the latest astronomical discoveries and ongoing missions. From the stunning advancements in telescope technology to the bustling activity aboard the International Space Station, this episode is packed with cosmic insights that will leave you in awe.
Episode Highlights:
- Revolutionary Telescope Images: The episode kicks off with a discussion about a groundbreaking 8.4-meter telescope, now known as the Charles Simon Telescope. Fred shares how this state-of-the-art instrument captures breathtaking images of nebulae and galaxies in stunning detail, thanks to its massive 3.2-gigapixel camera.
- The Importance of Long-Term Projects: Heidi and Fred delve into what it takes to commit to a 30-year project in the scientific community. Fred highlights the visionaries behind the telescope's development and the significance of their dedication to uncovering the mysteries of the universe.
- Busy Times on the International Space Station: As the ISS hosts a record 11 astronauts, the hosts discuss the challenges and experiments taking place, including innovative studies on human physiology in microgravity. Among the crew is veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson, leading the AX4 mission, which focuses on understanding human interactions in space.
- Mysterious Martian Landscapes: The episode wraps up with a fascinating look at newly discovered ridges on Mars, termed "boxwork lattice" landforms. Fred explains their formation and the implications for understanding Mars' watery past, while also touching on the human tendency to see familiar shapes in alien landscapes.
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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 Space Nuts. I'm your host for
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 this episode, Heidi Campo. And joining us
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 today is Professor Fred Watson.
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 Voice Over Guy: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 10, 9. Ignition
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3,
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
00:00:19 --> 00:00:22 3, 2, 1. Space nuts astronauts
00:00:22 --> 00:00:23 report it feels good.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 Heidi Campo: Fred, how are you doing today?
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 Professor Fred Watson: Very well, thank you. It's a bit soggy in
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 Sydney. Uh, I understand it's been a bit
00:00:31 --> 00:00:34 soggy in Houston as well with rainy
00:00:34 --> 00:00:34 weather.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 Heidi Campo: It has. We've been getting rain like crazy.
00:00:37 --> 00:00:39 But I'll tell you what, this time of year
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 here in Space City is so beautiful because we
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 have these trees. I can't remember what
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 they're called, but they guess they get the
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 most beautiful flowers on them. So we have
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 all these floral, fragrant trees everywhere.
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 So it's amazing. If you guys could come visit
00:00:53 --> 00:00:55 Space center, come check out Johnson Space
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 center, do the tours and see our beautiful.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 This is a great time of year to visit.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 Professor Fred Watson: I think it was this time of year when we
00:01:03 --> 00:01:05 actually did that as well now, a little bit
00:01:05 --> 00:01:08 earlier. Um, so it was
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 last year, uh, but it was a little bit
00:01:10 --> 00:01:12 earlier. I think it was about April. So we
00:01:12 --> 00:01:14 probably didn't see the best of the trees.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:16 But we certainly saw the Space Center. And
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 your museum Houston's got the most fabulous
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 science museum. Absolutely brilliant.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 Heidi Campo: We do pretty good. I'm sure you, uh, probably
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 met some of our local mosquitoes around that
00:01:25 --> 00:01:26 time of year as well.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:27 Professor Fred Watson: Maybe.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 Heidi Campo: Yes, with, uh, it being in a swamp,
00:01:30 --> 00:01:31 the bayou, we certainly get a lot of
00:01:31 --> 00:01:33 mosquitoes. But,
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 uh, with our story today, there's no
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 mosquitoes out there in space, which is, I
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 think, one of the attractive, uh, properties.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 We have some incredible stories today talking
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 about some of the new images coming in from a
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 revolutionary telescope. We're going to be
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 talking a little bit about what's going on on
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 the International Space Station. And then
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 the last story is the one that I hope you
00:01:59 --> 00:02:00 guys stick around for because this is
00:02:00 --> 00:02:02 something I'm a little bit excited to talk to
00:02:02 --> 00:02:05 Fred about. It's these mysterious,
00:02:05 --> 00:02:08 um, ridges on Mars. And I'm so
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 excited to hear about this, Fred.
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 So let's, let's just kind of jump in with
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 this telescope. I, I'm
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 looking at these images and it's. I
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 say this with almost everything. So you guys
00:02:20 --> 00:02:21 probably think I'm just lying at this point.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 But it's so beautiful. I just am. So
00:02:25 --> 00:02:28 I'm never, um, not in awe of the
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 images I see from these telescopes.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, and I guess, um,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 what revolutionized the images that we
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 see from modern day telescopes was the
00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 fact that we've got color in them, which
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 certainly when I was a young astronomer back
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 in the 1850s or whenever it was, um,
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 there wasn't, everything was black and white,
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 there was no color because the color
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 emulsions weren't sensitive enough. And then
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 my colleague David Merlin came along at the
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 Anglo Australian telescope, figured out how
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 to do three color imagery and put it all
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 together to give us true color images. And
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 that's now done electronically with um,
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 charge coupled devices, uh,
00:03:06 --> 00:03:08 and the wonderful software
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 that people have access to to turn these
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 images into these beautiful, beautiful,
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 uh, artistically graceful images
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 that we see. Uh, and that's my segue I
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 guess into the story. Because
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 the camera is one of the key components.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 This is a brand new telescope. And the images
00:03:28 --> 00:03:30 that you're talk, talking about, Heidi, which
00:03:30 --> 00:03:32 include nebulae and galaxies and all the
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 usual stuff that we're used to seeing, but
00:03:34 --> 00:03:37 this time in such detail and with
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 such, uh, imposing
00:03:40 --> 00:03:41 colors is perhaps the wrong way to say it.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 But um, you know, you really feel as though
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 you're actually in the action there with the,
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 with the um, the nebulae and the galaxies.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 Uh, the, the secret of that is first of all
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 the telescope itself is an 8.4 meter
00:03:54 --> 00:03:57 diameter telescope. That's the biggest
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 scale of telescopes that we have access to at
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 the moment, the 8 meter telescopes. It's on a
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 mountaintop called Cerro Pashon in uh,
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 northern Chile. I've, uh, not actually
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 visited the mountain, but I've seen it uh,
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 from the other side of the valley. Uh, there
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 uh, are several telescopes up there. But um,
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 what makes it special is two things. The wide
00:04:17 --> 00:04:19 angle of view that the telescope can see.
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 So instead of just homing in on a tiny fine
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 little bit of detail, uh, in the sky,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 it does that, but it does it with a very wide
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 angle of view. So you see detail everywhere.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 And that is partly because the design of the
00:04:33 --> 00:04:35 telescope, but also and the segue I was
00:04:35 --> 00:04:37 getting to. It's taken me a while. Uh, the
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 camera, which is a 3.2,
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 3200 megapixel or
00:04:43 --> 00:04:45 3.2 gigapixel camera, I think it's the
00:04:45 --> 00:04:48 biggest camera of its kind in the world. It's
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 the size of a small car. Uh, and it sits
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 at the focus of this telescope, recording
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 these breathtaking wide angle images.
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 Um, the instrument we're talking about,
00:05:00 --> 00:05:02 uh, we used to, it's been, this has been in
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 construction for best part of
00:05:05 --> 00:05:06 30 years. We've been talking about this
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 telescope in the world of astronomy. And at
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 first it was called the lsst, which was the
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 Uh, it's now called, I think I'm right in
00:05:17 --> 00:05:19 saying it's the Charles Simony Telescope
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 because I think Charles Simony, a very well
00:05:22 --> 00:05:24 known name in space, um,
00:05:25 --> 00:05:26 philanthropy, I think I can put it that way.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 I think he was the first paying customer on
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 the International Space Station back in the
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 early 2000s. So a wealthy
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 person, but somebody who can put that wealth
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 to good use in a scientific sense. But the
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 observatory itself, where this
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 telescope is, uh, is named after one of
00:05:46 --> 00:05:48 my favorite characters in the whole of
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 astronomy, Vera C. Rubin, uh,
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 whose name might be familiar to you. She
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 is, uh, she was a compatriot of yours. I
00:05:57 --> 00:05:58 can't remember where she grew up actually.
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 Should, should have checked that, shouldn't
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 I? Vera We. She was one of the, the
00:06:03 --> 00:06:06 pioneering, uh, uh, astronomers of her
00:06:06 --> 00:06:09 time. She died in 2016,
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 Christmas Day, if I remember rightly. She
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 passed away. She was a good age, wonderful,
00:06:14 --> 00:06:17 wonderful person. Um, very great
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 champion for women in science, uh, and
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 uh, somebody who put her stamp
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 not just on the science itself, but on
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 the capabilities for astronomers. She
00:06:28 --> 00:06:31 basically was the person who put dark matter
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 not so much on the map, uh, but raised
00:06:34 --> 00:06:37 awareness that this was a real issue,
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 uh, that there was something out there that
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 weighed, um, much more than the normal matter
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 that we can see. Uh, that was,
00:06:44 --> 00:06:47 um, basically, uh, something we
00:06:47 --> 00:06:50 needed to explain. Dark matter. She wrote a
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 series of really influential papers in the
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 late 1970s. That's amazing.
00:06:56 --> 00:06:57 Yeah, so she was an extraordinary woman. So
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 it's fabulous that this telescope carries, or
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 the observatory carries her name. So the Vera
00:07:02 --> 00:07:03 C. Rubin Observatory.
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 Heidi Campo: So Fred, I've kind of got a little bit of a
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 detour question for you. So get your thinking
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 cap on. You know, when we talk about these,
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 these telescopes, you said a couple things
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 that stood out to me. You know, one about,
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 ah, this woman who sounded like just an
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 incredible human being who really left her
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 mark on the world. But the one thing that
00:07:24 --> 00:07:25 really stuck out to me is you said this
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 telescope took 30 years to build. And
00:07:28 --> 00:07:31 so I know a lot of our listeners are people
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 who are still maybe in school or considering
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 a field in these sciences or they're early
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 career professionals. Can you talk a
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 little bit about what it's like to put,
00:07:42 --> 00:07:45 to dedicate yourself to a project that's
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 going to take 30 years? It's your life's
00:07:47 --> 00:07:50 work. How do you choose to, at maybe
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 25 years old to say, I'm going to.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 This is Something I'm passionate about. And
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 I'm going to work on this for 30 years. Like,
00:07:57 --> 00:07:58 how do people do that?
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 Professor Fred Watson: Well, they do. It's a really good question.
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 Um, so with the, with the
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 telescope, um, it was the brainchild
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 of a few people. Um, and I haven't really
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 got to the main issue that this telescope
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 will do. I'll keep talking about your,
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 your question. Uh, but the main point about
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 this telescope is that it can survey
00:08:21 --> 00:08:23 the entire southern sky every
00:08:23 --> 00:08:26 three nights. So it's got
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 the capability to record the whole sky in
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 detail every three nights. So what it's
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 really looking for are things that change,
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 and that includes things changing their
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 position, which is asteroids. In the first 10
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 hours of observing, it discovered 2
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 asteroids, which is, you know, it's going to
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 really start changing our view of
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 the Earth's, uh, locality in space. Uh, and
00:08:51 --> 00:08:53 also things that go bump in the night, you
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 know, the supernova explosions, things of
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 that sort. This will be the telescope for
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 picking that up. So, yes, 30 years ago,
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 people were thinking, what we need
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 is, uh, something that can tell us
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 about an aspect of the universe.
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 Excuse me. That had never really been thought
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 about before. And that is the way things come
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 and go. Because we, you know,
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 in traditional astronomy, uh, okay,
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 things change in the solar system. The
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 planets are going around on short timescales.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:26 But, uh, it's only recently been
00:09:26 --> 00:09:28 realized that there are things
00:09:28 --> 00:09:31 happening everywhere that happen on short
00:09:31 --> 00:09:33 timescales. You know, like black hole
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 mergers, like neutron star collisions, like
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 supernova explosions. Stars that have got to
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 the ends of their lives and basically blown
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 themselves to pieces. So that was
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 the vision for. That was seen by a few
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 scientists yet 30 years ago, um,
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 and they began working towards
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 raising the funding, raising the technology.
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 The technology just didn't exist back then to
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 build a telescope of this kind, uh, and
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 eventually to get it made. So some of those,
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 um, people right at the outset were quite
00:10:05 --> 00:10:06 senior people with the vision to see what
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 might, you know, what might occur. And they
00:10:09 --> 00:10:10 are, probably, some of them are no longer
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 with us, but they would have had students
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 and postdoctoral fellows working with them.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:18 And they're the people, uh, in exactly the
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 way that you've just described. They have
00:10:21 --> 00:10:24 seen what the potential is for a project
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 like this, and they've put their noses to the
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 grindstone, uh, and stuck in
00:10:30 --> 00:10:33 there to, um, eventually see,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 ah, the moment that we're seeing now, the
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 start of this telescope, the first light in
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 images that we're seeing. So for those
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 people, you know, this must feel like a
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 triumph for Those postdocs and PhD students
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 who were working on that. Um, just
00:10:48 --> 00:10:50 another example though, of this. And we're
00:10:51 --> 00:10:52 spending a bit longer than we probably should
00:10:52 --> 00:10:55 on this story, but, um, the
00:10:55 --> 00:10:58 same is true in space missions, and
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 in fact, uh, even more so because,
00:11:01 --> 00:11:03 uh, there's no quick fix if you're doing a
00:11:03 --> 00:11:06 science space mission. Um, and the one
00:11:06 --> 00:11:08 example that, um. Excuse me, I've got an itch
00:11:08 --> 00:11:11 on my nose. Uh, the one example that comes,
00:11:11 --> 00:11:13 uh, to mind is somebody who Marnie and
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 I know quite well, Linda Spilker. She was
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 the, uh, project scientist for the Cassini
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 mission, uh, NASA's mission,
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 uh, in orbit around Saturn from. Was it
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 2004 to 2017. It was in orbit
00:11:28 --> 00:11:30 around Saturn. And she basically dedicated
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 her life, uh, to that
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 project. She started off working
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 on Voyager, in fact, at the beginning of her
00:11:39 --> 00:11:41 career, which was one of the pioneering ones,
00:11:41 --> 00:11:44 but then switched to a mission to go to
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 Saturn and worked on that for
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 probably more than 20 years, uh,
00:11:49 --> 00:11:51 culminating in being the mission scientist.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 I think that was one of the best space
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56 missions that's ever, ever happened because
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 we learned so much. But she's now working on,
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 um, uh, the possibility of sending
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 spacecrafts to some of Saturn's moons, like,
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 um, Enceladus, where we think, well, we know
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 there's an ocean of water underneath the icy
00:12:08 --> 00:12:11 surface. So, um, in some
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 ways people start off, you know, with one
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 project, but it germinates into something
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 else that does become their life's work.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 That's certainly what happened with Linda.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 So, uh, yes, for the people who were involved
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 right at the outset of the Vera C. Rubin
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 Observatory, or the LSST as we used to call
00:12:29 --> 00:12:32 it, um, this must be a moment to savor.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 And, you know, I'm, um, sure there are people
00:12:34 --> 00:12:37 out there who are in exactly the situation
00:12:37 --> 00:12:37 that you've described.
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 Heidi Campo: That is the. That is such a cool part of
00:12:41 --> 00:12:44 these sciences is the things that we do. We
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 may never see the fruits of those labors in
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 our lifetime. And so the people who really
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 commit to the true visionaries, not
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 just the people who want to do it for a title
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 or, you know, getting the Netflix
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 documentary, the people who really want to
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 change the future is usually a future they
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 may never live to see. And they know that,
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 but they commit to, uh, dedicating their life
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 to this work. And it's. That's just amazing
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 and selfless to me. And, you know, there's.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 There's a lot, um, to be said about
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 the leaps that we make with the people who
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 think that way. But we also need the people
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 who are going to go out there and then, you
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 know, do the work. The people who are going
00:13:23 --> 00:13:25 to make that vision, actualize it. And those
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 are the astronauts who are out there living
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 on the space station right now. These are the
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 people who are building on the sciences
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 that we've been working on since,
00:13:35 --> 00:13:38 you know, Galileo. This is stuff
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 humanity's been working on for a long time.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:46 Space nuts.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:48 So with that being said, I think that's a
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 good segue into talking about what's going on
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 on the space station right now.
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 Professor Fred Watson: Um, and it's a busy time. Um,
00:13:57 --> 00:14:00 um, I was, ah, struck when I
00:14:00 --> 00:14:02 looked, you know, kept an eye, try and keep
00:14:02 --> 00:14:03 an eye on what's going on on the space
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 station. But we've got, um,
00:14:06 --> 00:14:08 it's getting a bit crowded up there, I have
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 to say. So at the moment we
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 have 11 astronauts, uh, living on the
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 space station. Um, and I was
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 interested to read that they've all sort of,
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 um, divvied up all the sleep stations that
00:14:22 --> 00:14:24 there are. And the various people are
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 sleeping in effectively cupboards and,
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 you know, um, work rooms and things of that
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 sort, uh, so that they all have their sleep
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 stat. Ah. So what's caused this? There are
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 currently seven astronauts,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 uh, NASA astronauts who are the
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 working sort of standard astronauts, uh,
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 on the space station. Uh, they are a member
00:14:45 --> 00:14:48 of what's called Expedition 73, um, those
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 seven astronauts, but they've been joined by
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 four privately funded astronauts, uh,
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 on a mission called the AX4 mission. It's
00:14:56 --> 00:14:59 AXION Space that is doing that with
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 specific, um, requirements for
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 experiments. I think Axiom have got something
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 like they've got two weeks on the space
00:15:07 --> 00:15:09 station and I think they've got, I don't
00:15:09 --> 00:15:12 know, three, five dozen or something
00:15:12 --> 00:15:14 experiments that they've got to do, uh, some
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 of which, um, are very much along the lines
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 of your own interests. Heidi, because
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 it's all about human, you know, the way
00:15:21 --> 00:15:23 humans interact with space. I was really
00:15:23 --> 00:15:25 interested to read that one of the
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 experiments was something called the thigh
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 cough. And uh, a thigh
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 cuff is a tight cuff on your
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 thigh, obviously. Uh, and it's all about
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 trying to change the way the fluids move in
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 your body. Because in weightlessness the
00:15:41 --> 00:15:44 fluids in your body do unusual things,
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 uh, and they tend to pool inside your head,
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 which is not a good thing. Um, and so
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 basically, um, that's uh,
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 one of the experiments that's been done. I
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 don't know whether you're familiar with, uh,
00:15:57 --> 00:15:58 the use of thigh.
00:15:59 --> 00:16:01 Heidi Campo: Yeah, so I was reading this right now and,
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 and at the risk of sounding foolish in case,
00:16:04 --> 00:16:06 um, anyone out there is listening who knows a
00:16:06 --> 00:16:08 lot more about this than me, I was reading
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 this article to try and see if they specify
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 if this thigh cuff is BFR technology
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 or if it's separate. Because, you know, I
00:16:15 --> 00:16:17 don't. I don't know everything. But, um,
00:16:18 --> 00:16:20 I think I'm saying think and italicized
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 right now. I think when they're talking about
00:16:23 --> 00:16:24 a thigh cuff, what they're talking is
00:16:26 --> 00:16:28 talking about is what they call BFR
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 technology, which stands for blood flow
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 restriction technology. That is, um,
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 a training and exercise technique that's used
00:16:36 --> 00:16:38 here on Earth. It's actually become quite
00:16:38 --> 00:16:40 popular with bodybuilders because they've
00:16:40 --> 00:16:43 realized that they can get, um, greater
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 muscular hypertrophy benefits when training
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 that way. And if you guys don't know what
00:16:48 --> 00:16:51 muscular hypertrophy means, that's increasing
00:16:51 --> 00:16:54 the muscle size. So in space, one of our
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 big problems is muscle atrophy. We're losing
00:16:57 --> 00:16:59 muscles, we're losing bone density. So
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 when we train with blood flow restriction, it
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 helps sort of expedite, you know, there's
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 no shortcuts, but it does enhance the effects
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 of exercise. And the more
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 interesting thing, I don't know if it's more
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 interesting, but an additional benefit is
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 they're actually using it to help mitigate
00:17:17 --> 00:17:19 the effects of Sands right now as well.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 Professor Fred Watson: The effect of. Sorry, I missed the word you
00:17:23 --> 00:17:23 said there.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 Heidi Campo: Sans. Sans. S A, N, S.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 I'm, um, surprised you haven't heard about
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 that one. I got to teach you something. Um,
00:17:31 --> 00:17:34 Sans is a neuro ocular
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 syndrome which affects vision of
00:17:37 --> 00:17:38 astronauts in space.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:39 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:39 --> 00:17:40 Heidi Campo: So their vision.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:41 Professor Fred Watson: Didn't know it was called that.
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah, it has a. Has its own
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 acronym, just like everything else up there.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 Professor Fred Watson: So, um, yeah, that's quite a serious one
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 because that's one of the. I think that's one
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54 of the deleterious effects that spaceflight,
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 um, has that does not recover when you get
00:17:57 --> 00:17:59 back to normal, uh,
00:17:59 --> 00:18:00 gravity.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 Heidi Campo: Sometimes it does. Okay, so
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 sometimes it improves, sometimes it doesn't
00:18:06 --> 00:18:07 improve. Sometimes they make a little bit of
00:18:07 --> 00:18:10 progress. And there have been cases, believe
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 it or not, where crew members have gone up
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 needing prescription glasses and
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 have had to wear prescription glasses their
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 whole life. And they go up there and they
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 come back and their, their prescription is
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 fixed. And they've joked, uh, the joke was
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 made when I was at this presentation. They're
00:18:27 --> 00:18:28 like, yeah, that was the most expensive eye
00:18:28 --> 00:18:29 corrective surgery ever.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 Professor Fred Watson: But, yeah, that's, uh, that's fantastic. Um,
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 look, I had not heard that. So, yeah, if
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 you want to fix your eye problems, um, go
00:18:40 --> 00:18:41 into space.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 Heidi Campo: Or make it worse. It's a roll the dice.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. My way. Yes, it's. It's,
00:18:46 --> 00:18:49 uh, it's a bit of a toss up as to which way
00:18:49 --> 00:18:50 it goes.
00:18:50 --> 00:18:53 Um, um, so just, you know,
00:18:53 --> 00:18:55 celebrating the fact that we do have such a
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 busy space station at the moment. Um, the,
00:18:58 --> 00:19:00 um, leader of expedition, uh,
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 70. I beg your pardon. The leader of the
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 Axion crew. Axion 4 crew
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 is, uh. And this is the privately
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12 funded one, uh, is actually Peggy
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 Whitson, who's a big name in
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 astronaut circles. I think she holds one
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 of the records for, uh.
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 Yes, the record for the most time in space by
00:19:23 --> 00:19:26 an American and worldwide by a woman.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 So she is very much a veteran of
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31 spaceflight. And what, um, you know,
00:19:32 --> 00:19:34 you didn't really imagine a better leader for
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 a flight crew than somebody like Peggy. And
00:19:37 --> 00:19:40 the other thing I liked is that, um,
00:19:40 --> 00:19:43 not only is the space station getting pretty
00:19:43 --> 00:19:45 full, but all the parking spaces are getting
00:19:45 --> 00:19:48 used up as well because there are three
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 docked crew spacecraft,
00:19:52 --> 00:19:54 uh, at the moment, and there are two docked
00:19:54 --> 00:19:57 cargo spacecraft at the moment as well. And
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 you know, there's not that many docking ports
00:19:59 --> 00:20:02 on the International Space Station. So I
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 think they're running out of space up there.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 It's great to see it being so busy at
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 the moment, given that we're probably going
00:20:09 --> 00:20:12 to use it, lose it in five years time. So
00:20:12 --> 00:20:13 make the most of it.
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 Heidi Campo: Yeah, yeah, it'll be, uh. It's a. It's
00:20:16 --> 00:20:17 amazing what's going on up there. It really
00:20:17 --> 00:20:18 is.
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 And I actually, I just forgot to also
00:20:20 --> 00:20:22 mention, speaking of busy, I think today's
00:20:22 --> 00:20:23 International Asteroid Day.
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 Professor Fred Watson: Uh, okay.
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 Heidi Campo: I think I saw that on LinkedIn.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, it's, uh. So that celebrates. I think,
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34 if I remember rightly, International Asteroid
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 Day is the day of the Tunguska,
00:20:37 --> 00:20:40 uh, um, meteorite or asteroid impact,
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 which happened in, um, in Siberia in
00:20:43 --> 00:20:44 1908.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 Heidi Campo: Uh. Is that the one that got the dinosaurs?
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 Professor Fred Watson: No, no, that's right. No, that was 66 million
00:20:50 --> 00:20:52 years ago. Yeah, this was only
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 a century ago. Uh,
00:20:55 --> 00:20:56 let's just do.
00:20:57 --> 00:20:58 Heidi Campo: Just trying to keep our listeners on their
00:20:58 --> 00:20:58 feet.
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, absolutely. Asteroid day
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 2025. Um. Oh, yes, it's
00:21:04 --> 00:21:07 yesterday our time. It's the 30th of June.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 You're absolutely right. And it's what, um,
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 that's the celebration that you, uh, that
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 it's the date of the, um. The same day as
00:21:15 --> 00:21:17 the 1908 Tunguska event, so.
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 Heidi Campo: Well, Happy asteroid day, Fred.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:20 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, and you too.
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 I did my master. Sorry, go on, you go.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 No, I was just going to say I did my master's
00:21:27 --> 00:21:30 degree on um, researching um, asteroid orbits
00:21:30 --> 00:21:31 with these newfangled things called
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 computers. Um, and uh, in those days it was
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36 very unfash fashionable to be interested in
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38 asteroids, but it's not now because we're all
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 interested in asteroids. Who knows what they
00:21:40 --> 00:21:41 might do.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 Heidi Campo: Space nuts. Yeah.
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 Speaking of asteroids, do they have anything
00:21:50 --> 00:21:52 to do with these weird
00:21:52 --> 00:21:55 landscapes on Mars? I have been, I
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 was uh, scrolling on social media a couple
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 days ago and I came across these images of
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 these weird ridges and
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 craters on Mars. And it's weird, the
00:22:05 --> 00:22:07 shadows almost, some of the pictures I was
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09 looking at, the shadows almost looked like
00:22:09 --> 00:22:12 trees. And for a second I had this weird. And
00:22:12 --> 00:22:14 I was fantasizing Mars terraformed,
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 but it not looking like Earth, it looking
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 like an alien Earth, you
00:22:20 --> 00:22:21 know, and I was like, wow, that'd be so
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23 weird. But yeah. What is going on with this
00:22:23 --> 00:22:24 landscape?
00:22:25 --> 00:22:28 Professor Fred Watson: Um, it's a surprise actually to everybody,
00:22:28 --> 00:22:30 uh, including you and me. So
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 uh, and this comes from Curiosity, uh,
00:22:34 --> 00:22:36 the rover that's been working hard on
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 the uh, surface of Mars for, What
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42 was it, 2012 when
00:22:42 --> 00:22:44 Curiosity landed? I think it was a long time
00:22:44 --> 00:22:47 ago. Um, so Curiosity is at a
00:22:47 --> 00:22:50 place called uh, um, Gale Crater
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 2014. Okay. Gale Crater
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 has a mountain on it called Mount Sharp. And
00:22:56 --> 00:22:59 uh, that's what the spacecraft was designed
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 to explore, which has done very well. But
00:23:02 --> 00:23:05 we've got um, in Gale Crater we've
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 now got this new form of a
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09 landform that has never been seen before.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:13 Um, and it's, they're calling it the boxwork
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 lattice, uh, landform.
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 Um, and that sort of gives you an
00:23:18 --> 00:23:21 idea of what it might look like. You know,
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 some of these, I'm m actually thinking
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26 perhaps it's just the way my mind works. But
00:23:26 --> 00:23:28 I'm thinking of those inserts that sometimes
00:23:28 --> 00:23:31 go in a box of a dozen bottles of wine,
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 uh, because they have cardboard inserts uh,
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 in them that are sort of like this lattice
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38 shape. And I think that's the shape of these
00:23:38 --> 00:23:41 ridges that have been found. They're not, you
00:23:41 --> 00:23:42 know, they're not very deep, they're only a
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 few inches high, but
00:23:46 --> 00:23:49 they're ridges in an absolute pattern,
00:23:49 --> 00:23:51 um, very boxy looking pattern
00:23:52 --> 00:23:55 and they haven't been seen before. And so uh,
00:23:55 --> 00:23:58 that is exciting. The planetary scientists
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 who are looking at the results coming from
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 Curiosity. Um, and so of course the
00:24:03 --> 00:24:04 first thing you have to do is work out what
00:24:04 --> 00:24:07 you think Might have caused them. Uh,
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10 and the current theory is
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 that uh, when Mars was drying
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15 out, and this is probably 3.8 billion years
00:24:15 --> 00:24:17 ago, because we know it was warm and wet
00:24:17 --> 00:24:19 before that. But when it was drying out,
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 there was probably a very dry surface,
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 but with groundwater that was underneath
00:24:25 --> 00:24:28 the surface. And um, that
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 groundwater would have been rich in minerals.
00:24:31 --> 00:24:33 And basically, uh, what it did was
00:24:34 --> 00:24:36 came up through cracks in the bedrock. So the
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 bedrock itself has had to crack and let
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 the groundwater up through the cracks. And
00:24:42 --> 00:24:44 what we then see, uh, is
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 the groundwater disappears, it leaves the
00:24:48 --> 00:24:50 minerals behind. The minerals are harder than
00:24:50 --> 00:24:53 the, the bedrock itself. And so as the
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 bedrock wears away with the effect of
00:24:55 --> 00:24:58 dust and wind over the last 3.8
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 billion years, you're left with this, um,
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 almost a structure that looks a bit like a
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 curb, uh, you know, on a roadway. Uh,
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 but it's, but it's shaped in a, in a boxy
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12 pattern. So. Yes, quite remarkable
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 that uh, we're seeing new
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 landforms that have not been identified
00:25:17 --> 00:25:19 before. And of course all of this helps by
00:25:19 --> 00:25:21 telling us about the history of Mars and the
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 confirming, uh, perhaps yet again that Mars
00:25:24 --> 00:25:26 once had a lot more water than it does now.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 Heidi Campo: I'm also looking at some searches and the
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 conspiracy theorists are going crazy with
00:25:32 --> 00:25:33 it's remnants of a city.
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 Professor Fred Watson: Okay. Oh, yes, I never thought of that.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 Yeah. Remnants of a city. Well, that's right,
00:25:42 --> 00:25:44 you know, um, of course, um,
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 pareidolia. That's the, uh. Ah, do you
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 know about pareidolia? It's a lovely word.
00:25:51 --> 00:25:54 It's, I'm sure you've come across it. Yeah,
00:25:54 --> 00:25:56 it's when you see familiar things,
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 uh, in objects that have nothing to do with
00:26:00 --> 00:26:02 them. So when you see figures in
00:26:02 --> 00:26:05 clouds, or when you see rocks that are
00:26:05 --> 00:26:07 shaped like um,
00:26:08 --> 00:26:11 a truck tire or a spoon
00:26:11 --> 00:26:14 or whatever, um, it's our inbuilt
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 ability to recognize shapes in things that
00:26:17 --> 00:26:20 are quite unrelated. Um, and of course the
00:26:20 --> 00:26:22 classic one on Mars was the face on Mars from
00:26:22 --> 00:26:25 the Viking orbiters back in 1976. This
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 clearly a human face on Mars. And
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 uh, it gained so much. It
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 was a giant, it was a landform actually. But
00:26:34 --> 00:26:37 it gained so much publicity that NASA
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 actually changed the orbit of their next
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42 spacecraft so that it would fly over this
00:26:42 --> 00:26:44 area and take images. And of course we could
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 see it was just a crumbling mountaintop, uh,
00:26:47 --> 00:26:48 not a face at all.
00:26:48 --> 00:26:51 Heidi Campo: It inspired that weird movie Mission to Mars.
00:26:51 --> 00:26:51 Did you see that one?
00:26:52 --> 00:26:53 Professor Fred Watson: Um, may have done.
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57 Heidi Campo: It was goofy. It scared me when I was a
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 little kid. There's like A tornado and
00:27:00 --> 00:27:00 an alien.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 Professor Fred Watson: And probably scared me too.
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 Heidi Campo: Yeah, it's, you know, the humans, the human's
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 ability for recognition. You know, I think
00:27:09 --> 00:27:12 about, um, AI and how AI is getting
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14 really good at recognizing things, but the
00:27:14 --> 00:27:16 human brain's ability to make these
00:27:16 --> 00:27:19 recognition, I. I still think it's unmatched.
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21 I don't know. The technology is probably
00:27:21 --> 00:27:24 catching up, but it really is fascinating,
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 like recognizing emotion and very, very
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 subtle changes on the human. On the human
00:27:29 --> 00:27:30 face.
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32 Have you ever heard of the term the uncanny
00:27:32 --> 00:27:32 valley?
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 Professor Fred Watson: Oh, no, I haven't. No.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:38 Heidi Campo: It's a. It's a term used a lot in,
00:27:38 --> 00:27:41 um, like, film design, like, in, like,
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 scary movies. But it's, uh,
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 also in, like, art and anthropology. But long
00:27:46 --> 00:27:49 story short, the uncanny valley, if you're
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 looking at a cartoon face of Mickey Mouse
00:27:51 --> 00:27:52 where it's like, okay, it's kind of like
00:27:52 --> 00:27:54 human, there's an eyes, nose and mouth.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 Mickey Mouse's face is not scary at all. It's
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 just cute and cartoony, but the more
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 realistic it gets. But it's still
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 cartoonish. There's a point where it starts
00:28:05 --> 00:28:07 becoming scary. And that's where a lot of,
00:28:07 --> 00:28:10 like, people will. Will use the example of
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 the movie the Polar Express, where the
00:28:12 --> 00:28:15 CGI was really good, very human,
00:28:15 --> 00:28:18 like, but there was like a blank, blank stare
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 and the emotions weren't quite right. So they
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 call it the uncanny valley because it's.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:26 It's a point where we
00:28:26 --> 00:28:29 see something that's almost human, but it's
00:28:29 --> 00:28:31 not quite human and we don't like it. It
00:28:31 --> 00:28:32 makes us feel unsettled.
00:28:32 --> 00:28:33 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:36 Heidi Campo: And it's crazy that humans have that built in
00:28:36 --> 00:28:38 unsettledness with something that's almost
00:28:38 --> 00:28:39 human but not human.
00:28:40 --> 00:28:43 Professor Fred Watson: M. No. That's very telling
00:28:43 --> 00:28:46 about something deep in our, you know, in our
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 psyche that probably goes
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51 back to ancient times in our
00:28:51 --> 00:28:53 evolutionary makeup.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:54 Heidi Campo: There's lots and lots of theories. Let us
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 know what you guys think, if you guys have
00:28:56 --> 00:28:59 any, um, thoughts or theories on the
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 uncanny valley and how that relates
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 to our pattern recognition of the man
00:29:05 --> 00:29:08 on the moon or the face on Mars or having.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 How I saw these images of these, uh,
00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 rocks on Mars and I thought of trees right
00:29:13 --> 00:29:13 away.
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18 Professor Fred Watson: Obviously. Some others thought about cities
00:29:18 --> 00:29:18 as well.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 Heidi Campo: Yeah. What did you see when you looked at
00:29:21 --> 00:29:21 this, Fred?
00:29:22 --> 00:29:24 Professor Fred Watson: Um, I saw pretty well what I was being told
00:29:24 --> 00:29:25 to look for.
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 Ridges. Oh, it's ridges. Yeah.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31 Heidi Campo: Good analytical mind.
00:29:31 --> 00:29:34 Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Well, that's not. Perhaps it's not a
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 good analytical mind. I just take it for
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 granted. Yeah, it's a good point. I did,
00:29:39 --> 00:29:41 actually. There's quite a nice, um, on one of
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 the websites, uh, and I'm sure it's well
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 available. Uh, There's a nice 360
00:29:47 --> 00:29:50 degree panorama from Curiosity that you can
00:29:50 --> 00:29:52 scan around and you can actually see these
00:29:52 --> 00:29:54 ridges from Curiosity's viewpoint.
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 So it's worth a look. I think that's, um,
00:29:58 --> 00:30:00 come from jpl, which of course is the
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 organization that is operating the
00:30:03 --> 00:30:04 spacecraft.
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 Heidi Campo: That's fantastic. Fred. This has been so much
00:30:07 --> 00:30:10 fun today. Thank you for joining me and
00:30:10 --> 00:30:12 bringing some sunshine to our rainy day,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 um, keeping us all curious.
00:30:15 --> 00:30:18 Professor Fred Watson: It's always a pleasure, Heidi. And, um, yeah,
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 we've got rain coming here too, so I might
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 need a bit of your sunshine when the. When
00:30:22 --> 00:30:23 the sky's clear in Houston.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 Heidi Campo: All right, well, hopefully the rest of you
00:30:25 --> 00:30:28 are all staying warm and dry. And, uh, we
00:30:28 --> 00:30:30 thank you so much for joining us. And this
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 has been another fun, exciting, enlightening
00:30:32 --> 00:30:34 episode of Space Nuts.
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36 Voice Over Guy: Space Nuts. You've been listening to the
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 SpaceNuts podcast,
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