In this thought-provoking Q&A episode of Space Nuts, hosts Heidi Campo and Professor Fred Watson tackle a variety of intriguing listener questions that delve into the realms of astrophysics and the possibilities of life beyond Earth. From the complexities of time dilation to the potential for extraterrestrial communication, this episode is a treasure trove of cosmic knowledge.
Episode Highlights:
- Time Dilation and Space Travel: The episode kicks off with a fascinating question from listener Peter about the implications of time dilation as depicted in Queen's song "39." Fred explains the calculations needed to understand how a journey at 99.995% the speed of light could allow travelers to experience just one year while 100 years pass on Earth, revealing the mind-bending effects of Einstein's theory of relativity.
- Observing Gravitational Waves: Trent from North Georgia poses a compelling question about how observatories can detect light from events that have already emitted gravitational waves. Fred clarifies the relationship between different types of radiation and their detection, using gamma-ray bursts as a prime example of how various signals can provide insight into cosmic events.
- Limits of Biological Detection: Listener Chris wonders why organisms on Earth can only sense a limited part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Fred discusses the potential for extraterrestrial life to communicate using different frequencies, exploring the limits of biology and the intriguing possibilities of non-verbal communication in the cosmos.
- Earth-Sized Moons Around Gas Giants: Martin raises an interesting question about the possibility of Earth-sized moons orbiting gas giants in other solar systems. Fred elaborates on the feasibility of such moons and their potential to harbor life, while also considering the dynamic challenges posed by their environments.
For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.
Episode Highlights:
- Time Dilation and Space Travel: The episode kicks off with a fascinating question from listener Peter about the implications of time dilation as depicted in Queen's song "39." Fred explains the calculations needed to understand how a journey at 99.995% the speed of light could allow travelers to experience just one year while 100 years pass on Earth, revealing the mind-bending effects of Einstein's theory of relativity.
- Observing Gravitational Waves: Trent from North Georgia poses a compelling question about how observatories can detect light from events that have already emitted gravitational waves. Fred clarifies the relationship between different types of radiation and their detection, using gamma-ray bursts as a prime example of how various signals can provide insight into cosmic events.
- Limits of Biological Detection: Listener Chris wonders why organisms on Earth can only sense a limited part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Fred discusses the potential for extraterrestrial life to communicate using different frequencies, exploring the limits of biology and the intriguing possibilities of non-verbal communication in the cosmos.
- Earth-Sized Moons Around Gas Giants: Martin raises an interesting question about the possibility of Earth-sized moons orbiting gas giants in other solar systems. Fred elaborates on the feasibility of such moons and their potential to harbor life, while also considering the dynamic challenges posed by their environments.
For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, X, YouTube Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another fun and exciting Q and A
episode of Space Nuts Perfecting.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Channel ten nine Ignition sik.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Wench Space Nuts Yo three two one Space Nuts.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
As I reported, good, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Your host for this episode, Heidi Compo and joining us
is Professor Fred Watson. Watson, I don't know why I've
done that twice now, mispronounced your name Astronomer at Large, Fred,
how are you well?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Thank you don't don't really care how the name's pronounced.
It's Fred's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
When I go to Scandinavia, I've probably said this before, Heidi,
there are freds. I see Fred everywhere because it's the
Scandinavian word meaning peace, and so fred Gutten is a
peace street, and I've got lots of photographs standing underneath
peace streets because they're called Fred.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That's lovely. I love that. I guess my name is
a German name is short for Adehyde and it means noble.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Here you go, So mind's German as well. It's from Freed,
same same word. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, our first question from today is from Peter wondering
if I don't think I know the history of that one.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I think it's'rean, it's very old. It goes back to
biblical times.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yeah, the rock, Peter is the rock Petra.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's what it means, is the rock.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I love that. Let's see if let's see if we
can figure out the etymology of all the names today.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I think we've we've probably run out now.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
All right, So yeah, our first question is from Peter,
and he says high Space Nuts. Queen's great nineteen seventy
five album A Night at the Opera has a song
called thirty nine, written by astrophysicist Brian May. Of course,
in the song, the a band interpret band of intrepid
volunteers leave Earth in a spaceship to find another planet
(02:08):
for human habitation. They leave in the year thirty nine,
we don't know what century, and their trip takes one year.
They must have had a good warp drive because when
they return it is the year thirty nine in the
next century, so they have been away for one hundred
years in Earth time. The protagonist of the song laments
his remaining life, with his wife and children dead and
(02:32):
just his great granddaughter remaining now a very old lady.
My question is these my questions are these approximately? How
far out into the galaxy might they have gone in
that time and what would their average speed have been?
At first I thought that they only traveled for a year,
and the near star is more than year four light
(02:53):
years away, so it is a wasted trip. But then
they were away from the Earth for one hundred years.
Maybe they checked out many stars with planetary systems. Now
I'm just confused, that's our question from Peter.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, so it turns out that it's reasonably easy to
do the calculation that Peter's interested in, because what he's
talking about is something we call time dilation. It comes
from in this case, it comes from Aindistein's special theory
of relativity that covers the effects of things that are
(03:33):
moving close to the speed of light. And so you've
got to be moving close to the speed of light
to experience this. So what we've got here is a
fraction of one hundred. It's been a year on Earth.
Sorry it's been a year for the travelers, but it's
been one hundred years on Earth. So that means that
(03:54):
the time dilation effect is one hundred. It's one hundred times. Now,
there's a formula for time dilation which is reasonably simple.
I'll just quote it's in silent in relativity one hundred
years ago. The time dilation is and it's a fraction.
(04:15):
It's one over the square root of one minus V
squared over C squared via is the velocity that you're
traveling at, and see is the velocity of light. So
it's a relatively straightforward formula. And so yesterday what I
did was I put the numbers into it to work
out what speed they would have to travel for that
ratio of one hundred years on Earth to one year
(04:40):
on the spacecraft. And it turns out to me, here's
my calculation.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The probably yeah, spread back before everyone outsourced their brains
to chat GPT. That is a handwritten math everybody.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
And the bottom line you probably can't see it. They
would have to travel at ninety nine point five percent
of the speed of light. So ninety nine point nine
nine five percent of the speed of light. If you
travel for a year, then on Earth you've got one
hundred years elapsed. Now that probably means that they they
(05:16):
went out for fifty light years and then came back again,
so they could have visited many stellar systems in that time,
although they wouldn't have seen much of it going past
them at nineteen nine point nine ninety five percent of
the speed of light. So yeah, that's the answer. Check
it out. You can look up time dilation on the
web and you'll find all the formulae there. And that's easy.
(05:39):
You know, it's a relatively easy question to answer. So Peter,
thank you for getting my brain working on these questions again,
because I appreciate that, and I've always so it was
a good thing to have at the back of your mind,
the relativistic time dilation travel near the speed of light,
just in case you ever find your off doing that.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Fred I am tickled at the amount of times you
said easy and time dilation equation in that answer. I
think you use the word this is easy or the
phrase this is easy at least two or maybe three times.
So that's just I don't know if I need to
work on my bath skills or if you're just that brilliant.
But that was that's adorable, it's not.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
It's a lot easier than some of the ones I
used to stumble over back when I was This must
not go beyond these four walls, Heidi. But there's a
mass exam at university that I failed five times. It
took me six attempts to pass it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh my goodness. So there's hope for the rest of us.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Oh, Gosha still shudder at that. It was the wrong
kind of mathematics. You had to do it. It was
pure mathematics, and my brain just didn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, mine does not either.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
What space nuts.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, our next question is from Trent, and this is
an audio question that we're going to queue up and
we're going to play for you right now.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Hello, Heidi, and for sir Watson. My name is Trent.
I'm from North Georgia, USA, and I had a question
in reference to Ben's question from Northwestern University in episode
five point thirty. I was wondering how an observatory could
(07:36):
view something that's already happened, for example, and his question
he asked about an observatory turning to look at a
source of gravitational wave, and I was thinking, so, gravitational
waves move it to speed of light, and the light
(07:58):
from that source is also moving at the speeded light.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
After the gravitational waveservatory has already observed.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
The phenomenon, how can a radio observatory or a light
observatory observe the same phenomena since.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
The other waves would have already passed us. So hope
this question piqued your interest. I would love to hear
the answer and you'll have a wonderful time. I love
your show, never miss an episode. Y'all are fantastic.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Bye bye, that was sweet. Thank you so much, Trent.
That that was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
So Trens questions is a great one and his points
is absolutely well made. You know that if you've got
a phenomenon that causes gravitational waves and also beams out lies,
then the two travel at the same speed. So how
can a detection in gravitational waves then be used to
(09:03):
you know, somebody phones up in observatory and says, oh,
we've seen these gravitational waves. Can you point your telescope
in this direction? What you're going to see the I
guess Trend's hypothesis is that it will be nothing. But
it's not quite that straightforward because often the counterpart of
(09:26):
an event seen in one way, for example by gravitational waves,
the counterpart in the visible light spectrum for example, or
the radio spectrum. Whilst the radiation travels at the same speed,
there are sometimes delays because you've got different mechanisms that
(09:47):
give rise to that signal with what you might call
the follow up radiation, I'm thinking mostly Perhaps the best
example of this is in what we call gamma ray bursts,
which were discovered back in the seventies by spacecraft which
(10:07):
were put into orbit to look for people breaking atmosphere
nuclear test bands. The idea was to detect gamma rays
from illicit nuclear test bands that might be going on
on the Earth's surface in the atmosphere because they were banned,
but people wanted to police that until these spacecraft were
(10:30):
developed and put into orbit and they didn't find any
illicit nuclear tests. What they found was these phenomena in
deep space we call gamma ray bursts, which are caused
we think by cataclysmic events in principally in distant galaxies. Now,
what you really want to find as well as the
(10:50):
gamma rays is whether there's another you know, another frequency
or something that's carrying information. And so it was what
we call the opt counterparts of those bursts that people
were looking for, and by that I mean the visible
light flash. And to do that you would want to
first of all detect the gamma ray burst and then
(11:11):
alert visible light telescopes to the direction that that had
come from so that they could home in on the
target as quickly as possible after the event to try
and work out what these things were, because if you've
got information from gamma rays and information from visible light,
then you've got a chance of working it out. And
(11:34):
indeed that's the case because the visible light flash is
it's usually caused by whatever caused the gamma rays interacting
with the environment that's around it, and that means rarefied
gas usually, and it's the effect of that rarefied gas,
perhaps by a shockwave moving through it, that gives you
(11:54):
the visible light flash, and that's going to be after
the original gamma ray burst.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Self.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Gammay bus last a few seconds. They're sort of second long,
a bit different from the millisecond fast radio bus that
we also see. So all these phenomena have different counterparts,
different components to them, and you're not trying to see
(12:20):
back in time when you're following up the you know,
the target of opportunity observations, which is what we're talking
about previously. You're actually just looking at a different aspect
of whatever that cataclysmic event has been I don't know
whether that's a satisfactory explanation, but that's what's happening. So
(12:41):
you chase it up as quickly as you can to
try and learn as much as you can.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Thank you so much, Trent. Our next question is from Chris,
and Chris says, thank you for the podcast, folks. Good stuff. Indeed,
on Earth, living organisms can sense a small part of
the EM spectrum from infrared through visible light up to
the ultraviolet, but as far as we know, no organism
(13:07):
can detect lower or higher frequencies such as radio or
X rays on Earth. This could be because such senses
don't convey usefulness, but elsewhere it could. So is there
any limiting factor in biology, chemistry, or physics that prevents
organisms detecting this different this, different parts of the spectra
(13:29):
spectrum and therefore possibly communicating with each other like this?
Could extraterrestrial life use radio to communicate with each other?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Isn't that a great question, Heidi, because yeah, it's thinking
outside the box, and I like that very much. You
might have a comment on that, actually, because science fiction
looks at these things quite a lot.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, I'm such a science fiction nerd. Well, I'm
just thinking of our episode a few weeks ago about
the whale bubbles.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. The whale bubbles might well be
a way of communicating, although of course you're using visible
light there, and I think that's a little bit different
from the sort of thing that that Chris is thinking of.
So it's not quite true that we're not sensitive to
(14:23):
some of these other electromagnetic radiations, because, for example, X
rays can damage tissue, and so in a sense, what
you've got there is a detector. It's albeit it's the
wrong kind of you don't You know, you don't really
want your tissue to be damaged, but you know that
is an organism being able to detect a high frequency
(14:47):
radiation such as X rays, gamma rays too. So that's
all what we call ionizing radiation. It's damaging radiation, and biology,
biological organisms can detect that, but it's usually in a
very destruct way. There have been many experiments done and
tests done to see whether the radiation emitted by mobile
(15:12):
phones has a damaging effect on people's well being, and
the evidence that I've read is that no, the radiation
levels are too low to have any kind of effect
but I think higher, you know, higher intensities, and I'm
thinking now of microwaves. Your microwave oven is cooking by
(15:36):
means of radiation that causes things to get hot, and
if you flood your brain with that, it's going to
get hot. And in fact, and it was Andrew Dunkley
who told me this because I didn't know the way
your microwave does four or five beeps at the end
of every every cooking session when it reaches the prescribed time.
(15:58):
Is not just for music, is to give your give
you a few seconds for the microwaves inside it to
settle down before you open the door. Oh, radiate yourself
with microwaves.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So I always thought I was terribly clever because I
always would try and time it. So I opened the
door right before the beeps go off. So I've just
been cooking myself with radiation.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, yeah, So I think the bottom line here is
that it is possible to imagine that there could be
ways in which, you know, extraterrestrial species might be able
to communicate by using these different electromagnetic frequencies in a
(16:45):
way that we haven't thought of. And that's I suppose
one of the other things that leads us to that
movie that both you and I have raved about Arrival. Yeah,
that you know you're looking for. You've got to think
outside the box as to what you might how you
might communicate with extraterrestrial organisms and whales too. I think
(17:10):
blowing bubble rings is a great way of thinking outside
the books or outside the ring.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I mean, just communication is so interesting in general. I
don't know the exact percentage. I want to say it's
somewhere in the eighties, but we'll just say for discussions sake,
that eighty percent of our communication is nonverbal. I have
a patient that I work with who had a TBI
and he can't talk, but he says so much. I
(17:38):
work as a graduate assistant research coordinator at university, and
I'm always telling all the new students who are coming
in and working with him. I'm like, he says a lot.
You just have to learn to listen better because he
communicates with you like you wouldn't believe. We can have
full conversations with just the movements of his eyebrows and
his expressions and gestures, and it's really amazing. So I
(18:00):
like this about communication, and who knows, maybe there's some
rock creatures out there that their shells are thick enough
the radio radio frequencies would be good. What was that
movie about the military kids that go to space? I gosh,
it's a little bit of an older one. I can't
think of the title right now. Or they're fighting the
(18:21):
bugs in space?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Okay, okay, I so seldom watched science fiction movies that
I'm no use to you whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It was kind of a funny one, Space Nuts. Well,
I guess that brings us to our last question from Martin,
And this one is also an audio question, so I'm
going to go ahead and cue up that last audio
question from Martin.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
Now, Hello space Nuts, Martin Berman borvine here, writer extraordinary
in many genres, with a.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Question that I know I've tried to ask before and
somehow it hasn't ever quite gotten through. And it's inspired
again by your discussion of Titan in the latest episode
that I'm listening to. Is there any reason to rule
(19:29):
out the existence of moons with roughly the mass of
the Earth orbiting gas giants, and we know some of
those are quite a bit larger than Jupiter in other
(19:51):
solar systems, And if you could have an Earth mass moon,
is there again, and in principle, any reason to think
you could not have an earth like environment where life
could evolve. I can't wait for the answer. And thanks
(20:18):
for doing such a great job, including Heidi Compo, who
is marvelous when she comes in instead of Andrew. Though
nobody can replace our Andrew Martin Berman Gorvine over and
out out out.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Oh Martin, that was so sweet. We appreciate that so much.
It is true nobody can replace Andrew. And I know
I probably have been really not doing my job of
the dad jokes, but I think I got my own
brand of the sci fi. By the way, that movie
was called Starship Troopers. I had to just look it
up because it was right. You know. It's a kind
of a commentary on communism. But yeah, great question, Martin.
(21:07):
That's let Fred take it away.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
As they always are. And yeah, thanks Martin. Thanks for
sticking in there with a question that we might have
overlooked at some time in the past. Ize I don't
know how we manage that, because it's a good question.
And so I was thinking about this too, and I
don't think there is any reason why you shouldn't have
(21:30):
been able to have an earth sized moon or satellite
of a large gas giant because and in some ways
you'd think it will be natural to do that. We
see what we call super Jupiter's planets around other stars,
(21:51):
extraplanets which are bigger than Jupiter, not that much bigger,
because if you go up to thirteen times the massive Jupiter,
it's not a planet anymore, becomes a brown dwarf star
because you've got reactions that can take place, low level
nuclear reactions that can take place and mean that it
radiates in the infrared. Jupiter itself radiates in the infrared too.
(22:13):
It's got these low level reactions, but it's not big
enough to be a brown dwarf star. But if you had,
you know, something, with twice the massive Jupiter, there's no
reason why as far as I can see. And I'm
not a planetary scientist per se, but I do hang
out with them, so I know the sort of things
(22:33):
that they think about. I don't think there's any reason
why you shouldn't actually manage to generate a large rocky planet, sorry,
a large rocky moon which was planet sized from the
same part of the swirling disc of gas and dust
(22:54):
from which planets have formed. Some of my colleagues might
correct me on that, but I don't think there is
a limit. And in that regard, I don't think there's
a limit as to whether such a planet or such
a moon might actually be habitable. The only thing is
that most of these hot most of these large jupiters
that we find in other solar systems, are very close
(23:18):
to their parents star. And so if you imagine, you know,
you've got a planet that goes around its parents star
in just a few days, the Moon would have to
go around its parent planet quicker than that, or else
all sorts of dynamic interactions would take place and it
would probably lose its moon. But then, so then you've
(23:40):
got this phenomenon where you've got something very hot whose
temperature is changing very rapidly as it orbits its parent planet.
So I suspect that it might not be the kind
of ideal world for life to evolve because of these
(24:00):
perhaps rapid changes of temperature. Now, Martin, being a writer
in many genres, is usually looking for story for ideas
for science fiction stories, and this might be one that
you know, maybe in a year or two is time
we might read about species on the planet on the moon.
The size of the Earth going around the hot Jupiter
(24:22):
somewhere deep in the Solar System with a new, new
and completely different kind of life form that uses radio
for communications. So that would would solve all our issues,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, the best writers, I think, the best science fiction
writers use fringe science. And I'm going to butcher his
last name, I always do, Michael Creighton. Oh yes, yeah,
Jurassic Perk. I always wanted to die, so I said
it right, Okay, Thank goodness, usually say Christian people like
it's Cretan.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I mean he did an amazing job of writing books
that were just right on the fringe of possible, and
that's always so fun to think of.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Well, as Martin does as well, I think, Yeah, I'm
going to have.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
To look up some of Martin's books. It sounds like
they're right up my alley, and probably a lot of
our other listeners too.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Yeah, that's right. But a great question, Martin, and thank you,
and I hope I've given you the right answer. I'll
check next time I talk to some of my planetary
specialists whether I've overstepped the mark.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Well, Fred, this has been so much fun. I always
have a great time with these Q and A episodes.
It's so fun to hear how just so smart people
are asking great questions.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Indeed they are, and they're challenging too sometimes.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, keep them coming, guys. These questions are really really fun.
It's good when you get a mix of questions that
aren't just black hole questions.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
That's right, yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Well, this concludes today's episode, and we hope to see
you guys back here next time for another regular episode,
and then Q and A episodes and on and on
for eternity. How about that, Fred.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Or as long as we can do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It for Ah. That works too, Thank you so much, everybody.
We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Hi, Fred, Hi, Heidi, Hello Hugh. In the studio, Andrew
reporting from the Crown Princess Cruise ship. We are currently
rounding the Cape of Good Hope, which was also once
known as the Cape of Storms, and that's actually what
it's been like. The last time I spoke to you,
we'd been to Mauritius. Unfortunately we could not get to
(26:39):
Cape Town on the other side of Africa in time
because of the storms, so we just hung around Durban
for a while, going backwards and forwards, and then finally
they arranged for us to go ashore in Durban, so
we did that and Judy and I did a tour
out to the place where Nelson Mandela was captured in
nineteen sixty two and arrested, and they've got this fantastic
(27:03):
sculpture there of Nelson Mandela's head face. It's fifty metal
poles that have been put in the ground and they
just look like a bunch of poles sticking up out
of nowhere. But when you stand on a specific spot
you can see his face. It is quite remarkable. And
(27:23):
the museum they're telling the life and times of the apartheid,
anti apartheid movement, starting with Mahat mcgandhi and then the
formation of the ANC African National Congress and ultimately the
leadership of Nelson Mandela and him becoming president and wiping
out apartheid. Fantastic place to visit if you ever get
(27:44):
a chance. Really remarkable. I was also struck by how
the landscape around Durban is so much like home, grasslands
and eucalyp trees, and it just looks so much like
Australia with taller mountains compared to where I live in Dubbo.
But we're just working our way around the Horn of Africa,
(28:07):
due into Cape Town tomorrow morning. We spend a couple
of days there and we're going on a safari, so
we're looking forward to that. It hasn't been too bad
on board. The captain's taking his time so we don't
get caught up in heavy swells. But right now it's
looking very angry outside and all the decks have been closed,
(28:27):
so we're inside staying nice and cool, nice and warm.
It's pretty cold out there and it looks like it'll
be raining when we get to Cape Town. But because
we're two days behind schedule as a consequence of the weather,
we'll be missing out on a few ports, so we
won't be going to any of the stops that we'd
previously planned, such as the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and
(28:51):
we're also going to miss out on Gibraltar, very sadly,
but we're picking up ten of Reef, so we got Durban,
we got ten of Reef, We miss those other three
and then yeah, we'll move on from there, hopefully get
to Barcelona on time because there's a big change of
passengers there so they can't be late for that. Otherwise
(29:12):
people will be pitching tents. It's about it. I think
we're having a great time, feeling relaxed, and hope all
is well with everybody on the Space Nuts team and
the audience around the wider world. If you're anywhere where
I'm stopping, maybe you can wave if you're close by.
But I'll talk to you again next week.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
For now, You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast.
Speaker 7 (29:39):
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite
podcast player.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
Welcome back to another fun and exciting Q and A
episode of Space Nuts Perfecting.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Channel ten nine Ignition sik.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Wench Space Nuts Yo three two one Space Nuts.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
As I reported, good, I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Your host for this episode, Heidi Compo and joining us
is Professor Fred Watson. Watson, I don't know why I've
done that twice now, mispronounced your name Astronomer at Large, Fred,
how are you well?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Thank you don't don't really care how the name's pronounced.
It's Fred's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
When I go to Scandinavia, I've probably said this before, Heidi,
there are freds. I see Fred everywhere because it's the
Scandinavian word meaning peace, and so fred Gutten is a
peace street, and I've got lots of photographs standing underneath
peace streets because they're called Fred.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That's lovely. I love that. I guess my name is
a German name is short for Adehyde and it means noble.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Here you go, So mind's German as well. It's from Freed,
same same word. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, our first question from today is from Peter wondering
if I don't think I know the history of that one.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I think it's'rean, it's very old. It goes back to
biblical times.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yeah, the rock, Peter is the rock Petra.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's what it means, is the rock.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I love that. Let's see if let's see if we
can figure out the etymology of all the names today.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I think we've we've probably run out now.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
All right, So yeah, our first question is from Peter,
and he says high Space Nuts. Queen's great nineteen seventy
five album A Night at the Opera has a song
called thirty nine, written by astrophysicist Brian May. Of course,
in the song, the a band interpret band of intrepid
volunteers leave Earth in a spaceship to find another planet
(02:08):
for human habitation. They leave in the year thirty nine,
we don't know what century, and their trip takes one year.
They must have had a good warp drive because when
they return it is the year thirty nine in the
next century, so they have been away for one hundred
years in Earth time. The protagonist of the song laments
his remaining life, with his wife and children dead and
(02:32):
just his great granddaughter remaining now a very old lady.
My question is these my questions are these approximately? How
far out into the galaxy might they have gone in
that time and what would their average speed have been?
At first I thought that they only traveled for a year,
and the near star is more than year four light
(02:53):
years away, so it is a wasted trip. But then
they were away from the Earth for one hundred years.
Maybe they checked out many stars with planetary systems. Now
I'm just confused, that's our question from Peter.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, so it turns out that it's reasonably easy to
do the calculation that Peter's interested in, because what he's
talking about is something we call time dilation. It comes
from in this case, it comes from Aindistein's special theory
of relativity that covers the effects of things that are
(03:33):
moving close to the speed of light. And so you've
got to be moving close to the speed of light
to experience this. So what we've got here is a
fraction of one hundred. It's been a year on Earth.
Sorry it's been a year for the travelers, but it's
been one hundred years on Earth. So that means that
(03:54):
the time dilation effect is one hundred. It's one hundred times. Now,
there's a formula for time dilation which is reasonably simple.
I'll just quote it's in silent in relativity one hundred
years ago. The time dilation is and it's a fraction.
(04:15):
It's one over the square root of one minus V
squared over C squared via is the velocity that you're
traveling at, and see is the velocity of light. So
it's a relatively straightforward formula. And so yesterday what I
did was I put the numbers into it to work
out what speed they would have to travel for that
ratio of one hundred years on Earth to one year
(04:40):
on the spacecraft. And it turns out to me, here's
my calculation.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
The probably yeah, spread back before everyone outsourced their brains
to chat GPT. That is a handwritten math everybody.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
And the bottom line you probably can't see it. They
would have to travel at ninety nine point five percent
of the speed of light. So ninety nine point nine
nine five percent of the speed of light. If you
travel for a year, then on Earth you've got one
hundred years elapsed. Now that probably means that they they
(05:16):
went out for fifty light years and then came back again,
so they could have visited many stellar systems in that time,
although they wouldn't have seen much of it going past
them at nineteen nine point nine ninety five percent of
the speed of light. So yeah, that's the answer. Check
it out. You can look up time dilation on the
web and you'll find all the formulae there. And that's easy.
(05:39):
You know, it's a relatively easy question to answer. So Peter,
thank you for getting my brain working on these questions again,
because I appreciate that, and I've always so it was
a good thing to have at the back of your mind,
the relativistic time dilation travel near the speed of light,
just in case you ever find your off doing that.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Fred I am tickled at the amount of times you
said easy and time dilation equation in that answer. I
think you use the word this is easy or the
phrase this is easy at least two or maybe three times.
So that's just I don't know if I need to
work on my bath skills or if you're just that brilliant.
But that was that's adorable, it's not.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
It's a lot easier than some of the ones I
used to stumble over back when I was This must
not go beyond these four walls, Heidi. But there's a
mass exam at university that I failed five times. It
took me six attempts to pass it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh my goodness. So there's hope for the rest of us.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Oh, Gosha still shudder at that. It was the wrong
kind of mathematics. You had to do it. It was
pure mathematics, and my brain just didn't work that way.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, mine does not either.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
What space nuts.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Well, our next question is from Trent, and this is
an audio question that we're going to queue up and
we're going to play for you right now.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Hello, Heidi, and for sir Watson. My name is Trent.
I'm from North Georgia, USA, and I had a question
in reference to Ben's question from Northwestern University in episode
five point thirty. I was wondering how an observatory could
(07:36):
view something that's already happened, for example, and his question
he asked about an observatory turning to look at a
source of gravitational wave, and I was thinking, so, gravitational
waves move it to speed of light, and the light
(07:58):
from that source is also moving at the speeded light.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
After the gravitational waveservatory has already observed.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
The phenomenon, how can a radio observatory or a light
observatory observe the same phenomena since.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
The other waves would have already passed us. So hope
this question piqued your interest. I would love to hear
the answer and you'll have a wonderful time. I love
your show, never miss an episode. Y'all are fantastic.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Bye bye, that was sweet. Thank you so much, Trent.
That that was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
So Trens questions is a great one and his points
is absolutely well made. You know that if you've got
a phenomenon that causes gravitational waves and also beams out lies,
then the two travel at the same speed. So how
can a detection in gravitational waves then be used to
(09:03):
you know, somebody phones up in observatory and says, oh,
we've seen these gravitational waves. Can you point your telescope
in this direction? What you're going to see the I
guess Trend's hypothesis is that it will be nothing. But
it's not quite that straightforward because often the counterpart of
(09:26):
an event seen in one way, for example by gravitational waves,
the counterpart in the visible light spectrum for example, or
the radio spectrum. Whilst the radiation travels at the same speed,
there are sometimes delays because you've got different mechanisms that
(09:47):
give rise to that signal with what you might call
the follow up radiation, I'm thinking mostly Perhaps the best
example of this is in what we call gamma ray bursts,
which were discovered back in the seventies by spacecraft which
(10:07):
were put into orbit to look for people breaking atmosphere
nuclear test bands. The idea was to detect gamma rays
from illicit nuclear test bands that might be going on
on the Earth's surface in the atmosphere because they were banned,
but people wanted to police that until these spacecraft were
(10:30):
developed and put into orbit and they didn't find any
illicit nuclear tests. What they found was these phenomena in
deep space we call gamma ray bursts, which are caused
we think by cataclysmic events in principally in distant galaxies. Now,
what you really want to find as well as the
(10:50):
gamma rays is whether there's another you know, another frequency
or something that's carrying information. And so it was what
we call the opt counterparts of those bursts that people
were looking for, and by that I mean the visible
light flash. And to do that you would want to
first of all detect the gamma ray burst and then
(11:11):
alert visible light telescopes to the direction that that had
come from so that they could home in on the
target as quickly as possible after the event to try
and work out what these things were, because if you've
got information from gamma rays and information from visible light,
then you've got a chance of working it out. And
(11:34):
indeed that's the case because the visible light flash is
it's usually caused by whatever caused the gamma rays interacting
with the environment that's around it, and that means rarefied
gas usually, and it's the effect of that rarefied gas,
perhaps by a shockwave moving through it, that gives you
(11:54):
the visible light flash, and that's going to be after
the original gamma ray burst.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Self.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Gammay bus last a few seconds. They're sort of second long,
a bit different from the millisecond fast radio bus that
we also see. So all these phenomena have different counterparts,
different components to them, and you're not trying to see
(12:20):
back in time when you're following up the you know,
the target of opportunity observations, which is what we're talking
about previously. You're actually just looking at a different aspect
of whatever that cataclysmic event has been I don't know
whether that's a satisfactory explanation, but that's what's happening. So
(12:41):
you chase it up as quickly as you can to
try and learn as much as you can.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Thank you so much, Trent. Our next question is from Chris,
and Chris says, thank you for the podcast, folks. Good stuff. Indeed,
on Earth, living organisms can sense a small part of
the EM spectrum from infrared through visible light up to
the ultraviolet, but as far as we know, no organism
(13:07):
can detect lower or higher frequencies such as radio or
X rays on Earth. This could be because such senses
don't convey usefulness, but elsewhere it could. So is there
any limiting factor in biology, chemistry, or physics that prevents
organisms detecting this different this, different parts of the spectra
(13:29):
spectrum and therefore possibly communicating with each other like this?
Could extraterrestrial life use radio to communicate with each other?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Isn't that a great question, Heidi, because yeah, it's thinking
outside the box, and I like that very much. You
might have a comment on that, actually, because science fiction
looks at these things quite a lot.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, I'm such a science fiction nerd. Well, I'm
just thinking of our episode a few weeks ago about
the whale bubbles.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. The whale bubbles might well be
a way of communicating, although of course you're using visible
light there, and I think that's a little bit different
from the sort of thing that that Chris is thinking of.
So it's not quite true that we're not sensitive to
(14:23):
some of these other electromagnetic radiations, because, for example, X
rays can damage tissue, and so in a sense, what
you've got there is a detector. It's albeit it's the
wrong kind of you don't You know, you don't really
want your tissue to be damaged, but you know that
is an organism being able to detect a high frequency
(14:47):
radiation such as X rays, gamma rays too. So that's
all what we call ionizing radiation. It's damaging radiation, and biology,
biological organisms can detect that, but it's usually in a
very destruct way. There have been many experiments done and
tests done to see whether the radiation emitted by mobile
(15:12):
phones has a damaging effect on people's well being, and
the evidence that I've read is that no, the radiation
levels are too low to have any kind of effect
but I think higher, you know, higher intensities, and I'm
thinking now of microwaves. Your microwave oven is cooking by
(15:36):
means of radiation that causes things to get hot, and
if you flood your brain with that, it's going to
get hot. And in fact, and it was Andrew Dunkley
who told me this because I didn't know the way
your microwave does four or five beeps at the end
of every every cooking session when it reaches the prescribed time.
(15:58):
Is not just for music, is to give your give
you a few seconds for the microwaves inside it to
settle down before you open the door. Oh, radiate yourself
with microwaves.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So I always thought I was terribly clever because I
always would try and time it. So I opened the
door right before the beeps go off. So I've just
been cooking myself with radiation.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, yeah, So I think the bottom line here is
that it is possible to imagine that there could be
ways in which, you know, extraterrestrial species might be able
to communicate by using these different electromagnetic frequencies in a
(16:45):
way that we haven't thought of. And that's I suppose
one of the other things that leads us to that
movie that both you and I have raved about Arrival. Yeah,
that you know you're looking for. You've got to think
outside the box as to what you might how you
might communicate with extraterrestrial organisms and whales too. I think
(17:10):
blowing bubble rings is a great way of thinking outside
the books or outside the ring.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I mean, just communication is so interesting in general. I
don't know the exact percentage. I want to say it's
somewhere in the eighties, but we'll just say for discussions sake,
that eighty percent of our communication is nonverbal. I have
a patient that I work with who had a TBI
and he can't talk, but he says so much. I
(17:38):
work as a graduate assistant research coordinator at university, and
I'm always telling all the new students who are coming
in and working with him. I'm like, he says a lot.
You just have to learn to listen better because he
communicates with you like you wouldn't believe. We can have
full conversations with just the movements of his eyebrows and
his expressions and gestures, and it's really amazing. So I
(18:00):
like this about communication, and who knows, maybe there's some
rock creatures out there that their shells are thick enough
the radio radio frequencies would be good. What was that
movie about the military kids that go to space? I gosh,
it's a little bit of an older one. I can't
think of the title right now. Or they're fighting the
(18:21):
bugs in space?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Okay, okay, I so seldom watched science fiction movies that
I'm no use to you whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It was kind of a funny one, Space Nuts. Well,
I guess that brings us to our last question from Martin,
And this one is also an audio question, so I'm
going to go ahead and cue up that last audio
question from Martin.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
Now, Hello space Nuts, Martin Berman borvine here, writer extraordinary
in many genres, with a.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Question that I know I've tried to ask before and
somehow it hasn't ever quite gotten through. And it's inspired
again by your discussion of Titan in the latest episode
that I'm listening to. Is there any reason to rule
(19:29):
out the existence of moons with roughly the mass of
the Earth orbiting gas giants, and we know some of
those are quite a bit larger than Jupiter in other
(19:51):
solar systems, And if you could have an Earth mass moon,
is there again, and in principle, any reason to think
you could not have an earth like environment where life
could evolve. I can't wait for the answer. And thanks
(20:18):
for doing such a great job, including Heidi Compo, who
is marvelous when she comes in instead of Andrew. Though
nobody can replace our Andrew Martin Berman Gorvine over and
out out out.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Oh Martin, that was so sweet. We appreciate that so much.
It is true nobody can replace Andrew. And I know
I probably have been really not doing my job of
the dad jokes, but I think I got my own
brand of the sci fi. By the way, that movie
was called Starship Troopers. I had to just look it
up because it was right. You know. It's a kind
of a commentary on communism. But yeah, great question, Martin.
(21:07):
That's let Fred take it away.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
As they always are. And yeah, thanks Martin. Thanks for
sticking in there with a question that we might have
overlooked at some time in the past. Ize I don't
know how we manage that, because it's a good question.
And so I was thinking about this too, and I
don't think there is any reason why you shouldn't have
(21:30):
been able to have an earth sized moon or satellite
of a large gas giant because and in some ways
you'd think it will be natural to do that. We
see what we call super Jupiter's planets around other stars,
(21:51):
extraplanets which are bigger than Jupiter, not that much bigger,
because if you go up to thirteen times the massive Jupiter,
it's not a planet anymore, becomes a brown dwarf star
because you've got reactions that can take place, low level
nuclear reactions that can take place and mean that it
radiates in the infrared. Jupiter itself radiates in the infrared too.
(22:13):
It's got these low level reactions, but it's not big
enough to be a brown dwarf star. But if you had,
you know, something, with twice the massive Jupiter, there's no
reason why as far as I can see. And I'm
not a planetary scientist per se, but I do hang
out with them, so I know the sort of things
(22:33):
that they think about. I don't think there's any reason
why you shouldn't actually manage to generate a large rocky planet, sorry,
a large rocky moon which was planet sized from the
same part of the swirling disc of gas and dust
(22:54):
from which planets have formed. Some of my colleagues might
correct me on that, but I don't think there is
a limit. And in that regard, I don't think there's
a limit as to whether such a planet or such
a moon might actually be habitable. The only thing is
that most of these hot most of these large jupiters
that we find in other solar systems, are very close
(23:18):
to their parents star. And so if you imagine, you know,
you've got a planet that goes around its parents star
in just a few days, the Moon would have to
go around its parent planet quicker than that, or else
all sorts of dynamic interactions would take place and it
would probably lose its moon. But then, so then you've
(23:40):
got this phenomenon where you've got something very hot whose
temperature is changing very rapidly as it orbits its parent planet.
So I suspect that it might not be the kind
of ideal world for life to evolve because of these
(24:00):
perhaps rapid changes of temperature. Now, Martin, being a writer
in many genres, is usually looking for story for ideas
for science fiction stories, and this might be one that
you know, maybe in a year or two is time
we might read about species on the planet on the moon.
The size of the Earth going around the hot Jupiter
(24:22):
somewhere deep in the Solar System with a new, new
and completely different kind of life form that uses radio
for communications. So that would would solve all our issues,
wouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, the best writers, I think, the best science fiction
writers use fringe science. And I'm going to butcher his
last name, I always do, Michael Creighton. Oh yes, yeah,
Jurassic Perk. I always wanted to die, so I said
it right, Okay, Thank goodness, usually say Christian people like
it's Cretan.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
I mean he did an amazing job of writing books
that were just right on the fringe of possible, and
that's always so fun to think of.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Well, as Martin does as well, I think, Yeah, I'm
going to have.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
To look up some of Martin's books. It sounds like
they're right up my alley, and probably a lot of
our other listeners too.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Yeah, that's right. But a great question, Martin, and thank you,
and I hope I've given you the right answer. I'll
check next time I talk to some of my planetary
specialists whether I've overstepped the mark.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Well, Fred, this has been so much fun. I always
have a great time with these Q and A episodes.
It's so fun to hear how just so smart people
are asking great questions.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Indeed they are, and they're challenging too sometimes.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, keep them coming, guys. These questions are really really fun.
It's good when you get a mix of questions that
aren't just black hole questions.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
That's right, yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Well, this concludes today's episode, and we hope to see
you guys back here next time for another regular episode,
and then Q and A episodes and on and on
for eternity. How about that, Fred.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Or as long as we can do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It for Ah. That works too, Thank you so much, everybody.
We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Hi, Fred, Hi, Heidi, Hello Hugh. In the studio, Andrew
reporting from the Crown Princess Cruise ship. We are currently
rounding the Cape of Good Hope, which was also once
known as the Cape of Storms, and that's actually what
it's been like. The last time I spoke to you,
we'd been to Mauritius. Unfortunately we could not get to
(26:39):
Cape Town on the other side of Africa in time
because of the storms, so we just hung around Durban
for a while, going backwards and forwards, and then finally
they arranged for us to go ashore in Durban, so
we did that and Judy and I did a tour
out to the place where Nelson Mandela was captured in
nineteen sixty two and arrested, and they've got this fantastic
(27:03):
sculpture there of Nelson Mandela's head face. It's fifty metal
poles that have been put in the ground and they
just look like a bunch of poles sticking up out
of nowhere. But when you stand on a specific spot
you can see his face. It is quite remarkable. And
(27:23):
the museum they're telling the life and times of the apartheid,
anti apartheid movement, starting with Mahat mcgandhi and then the
formation of the ANC African National Congress and ultimately the
leadership of Nelson Mandela and him becoming president and wiping
out apartheid. Fantastic place to visit if you ever get
(27:44):
a chance. Really remarkable. I was also struck by how
the landscape around Durban is so much like home, grasslands
and eucalyp trees, and it just looks so much like
Australia with taller mountains compared to where I live in Dubbo.
But we're just working our way around the Horn of Africa,
(28:07):
due into Cape Town tomorrow morning. We spend a couple
of days there and we're going on a safari, so
we're looking forward to that. It hasn't been too bad
on board. The captain's taking his time so we don't
get caught up in heavy swells. But right now it's
looking very angry outside and all the decks have been closed,
(28:27):
so we're inside staying nice and cool, nice and warm.
It's pretty cold out there and it looks like it'll
be raining when we get to Cape Town. But because
we're two days behind schedule as a consequence of the weather,
we'll be missing out on a few ports, so we
won't be going to any of the stops that we'd
previously planned, such as the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and
(28:51):
we're also going to miss out on Gibraltar, very sadly,
but we're picking up ten of Reef, so we got Durban,
we got ten of Reef, We miss those other three
and then yeah, we'll move on from there, hopefully get
to Barcelona on time because there's a big change of
passengers there so they can't be late for that. Otherwise
(29:12):
people will be pitching tents. It's about it. I think
we're having a great time, feeling relaxed, and hope all
is well with everybody on the Space Nuts team and
the audience around the wider world. If you're anywhere where
I'm stopping, maybe you can wave if you're close by.
But I'll talk to you again next week.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
For now, You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast.
Speaker 7 (29:39):
Available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite
podcast player.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
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