May 26, 2024 • 29 mins
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson for another riveting Q&A edition of Space Nuts. This episode dives into some fascinating listener questions that challenge our understanding of space and science.First up, Mikey from Illinois poses a thought-provoking question: Can we drink water from the moon or Mars? Andrew and Fred explore the potential risks and benefits of consuming extraterrestrial water, including the presence of unknown substances and the impact of heavy water isotopes.Next, Sean from Nottingham inquires about the Nemesis theory, asking whether there could be a small sun or neutron star in our solar system, possibly linked to the elusive Planet Nine. Fred delves into the history and current standing of this hypothesis, examining its implications for mass extinctions and the structure of our solar system.Finally, Rusty from Donnybrook raises a question about the Hubble constant and whether the interstellar medium might be affecting the measurements of standard candles, leading to discrepancies in the universe's expansion rate. Fred explains the intricacies of this cosmic conundrum and why astronomers have considered and largely ruled out this possibility.
From the safety of lunar water to the mysteries of distant stars and the expanding universe, this episode of Space Nuts promises to ignite your curiosity and expand your cosmic knowledge. Tune in and join the conversation!
00:00:00 Andrew Dunkley answers audience questions on Space Nuts Q and a edition
00:01:29 When we get to moon and Mars, should we drink contaminated water
00:09:32 Fred asks whether small sun in solar system could be planet nine
00:16:32 Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the nemesis hypothesis, NASA says
00:19:13 Is it possible that the interstellar medium is causing standard candles to lose intensity
00:26:51 Fred Watson: Andrew, thanks for hosting the Space Nuts podcast
Support Space Nuts and join us on this interstellar voyage by visiting our support page. Your contributions help us continue our mission to explore the wonders of the universe. Clear skies and boundless exploration await on Space Nuts, where we make the cosmos your backyard.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
www.spacenuts.io
www.bitesz.com
Sponsor:
www.bitesz.com/nordpass
From the safety of lunar water to the mysteries of distant stars and the expanding universe, this episode of Space Nuts promises to ignite your curiosity and expand your cosmic knowledge. Tune in and join the conversation!
00:00:00 Andrew Dunkley answers audience questions on Space Nuts Q and a edition
00:01:29 When we get to moon and Mars, should we drink contaminated water
00:09:32 Fred asks whether small sun in solar system could be planet nine
00:16:32 Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the nemesis hypothesis, NASA says
00:19:13 Is it possible that the interstellar medium is causing standard candles to lose intensity
00:26:51 Fred Watson: Andrew, thanks for hosting the Space Nuts podcast
Support Space Nuts and join us on this interstellar voyage by visiting our support page. Your contributions help us continue our mission to explore the wonders of the universe. Clear skies and boundless exploration await on Space Nuts, where we make the cosmos your backyard.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
www.spacenuts.io
www.bitesz.com
Sponsor:
www.bitesz.com/nordpass
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi there, thanks for joining usagain on Space Nuts Q and A edition.
My name is Andrew Dunkley. Lovelyto have your company on this episode.
We're going to be answering some audiencequestions from Mikey. He is asking
a really interesting question. Can wedrink water that is on the moon,
as in moon water or lunar water? Would that be a good idea even
(00:25):
if we clean it. That's agood question. We'll see if we can
come up with an answer for that. Sean is asking us about Nemesis theory,
and Rusty has a question about theHubble constant. That's all coming up
on this Q and A edition ofSpace Nuts fifteen. Second guidance is in
channel ten nine ignition Space Nuts orthree two Space Nurse. As the night
(00:56):
report it. Neil's good and he'sback again to help and say with all
of that, Fred, what's ina stormer? Tell our Fred Tiller?
Undrew, fancy seeing you here.Indeed, it's lucky never left really well,
I did, obviously because I've gota coffee. Now you have,
yes, all right now, wedo have a few interesting questions to deal
(01:22):
with, and we might get straightinto it. Our first question today comes
from Mikey. Hey, Fred,Andrew Mikey from Illinois with a quick question.
So, eventually, when we getto the moon in Mars and start
using the water available to us therefor things such as drinking, should we
(01:47):
drink that water? I mean,I know that we'll use whatever ways and
processes we know how of now toclean that water and purify it like we
do on Earth. But are therechances that there will be stuff in that
water that we might not even knowexists. Yeah, that we might not
(02:07):
have ever seen before that could havedetrimental effects to the human body. It
makes sense to me that you woulddrink the water that's available to you after
purifying it, but like it alsojust raises concern in my brain that maybe
something will be in that water thatwe don't yet know. Would you guys
(02:31):
drink the water after bem purified thefirst time the tenth time? Curious what
you guys have to say about that? Thanks, thank you, Mikey.
Well, I've drunk some pretty horriblestuff in my life, probably worse than
water from the Moon, so Iprobably would. It's an interesting question,
(02:53):
though, Fred, because is itpossible there's something in the water that we
don't know about. There are thingson the Moon that aren't readily available on
Earth. So could it be somethingin the water. And it's a good
question, and thanks Mike for askingit because it goes to the heart of
(03:15):
something we've talked about before as well. But yeah, I mean, I
guess, taking you know, thequestion at face value, what if there's
something that's not known to science thatis in the water that could be harmful
and that we we you know,with all our checking and testing of the
(03:36):
water samples, basically people saying Okay, that's fit to drink, and yet
there's something in it, particularly perhapsperhaps with Martian water, maybe some sort
of Martian microbe that we haven't gotany way of detecting. I still drink
it, Actually, that's I thinkI would, And that's because I,
(04:01):
you know, I'm a scientist.My colleagues would have tested it to death.
And so if there was something init that we didn't know about and
it had an effect on me,So if I grew antlers all of a
sudden or something, it would bea big scientific discovery. That would have
been part of it, right,Fred Watson with antlers, But there is
(04:25):
something a bit more perhaps realistic andthat will clearly have to be dealt with.
That we can discuss, and we'vediscussed it before, because the water
on the Moon and on Mars willprobably not have the same isotope ratio as
(04:46):
the water on Earth. It willhave a different fraction of heavy water it
from the water that we have onEarth. Okay, and we you know,
there'll be a different ratio doing normalwater and heavy water. Remember that
heavy waters it's sometimes called detour ratherthan H two O because the D is
deuterium, which is hydrogen in ain a heavier form, it's called heavy
(05:11):
hydrogen with an added neutron. Soand we're not we're not talking about the
heavy water from a nuclear reactor.Let's get that clear. This is this
is natural heavy water. Yes,it is. That's that's correct, that's
right. Uh. And you knowwe've we've done measurements of comets which are
made device and discovered that the proportionsof heavy water to normal water are different
(05:40):
from what they are on Earth.And so that's something that does make the
water different in a comet. Andit's likely that the water on the Moon
and Mars perhaps came from comets,so it may well have a different isotope
ratio, so different, a differentbasically quantity of portion of heavy water to
(06:00):
normal water now in different balance.Indeed, that's correct, a different balance,
yeah, which we talked about atlength in a previous episode of Space
Nuts. And you know, thequestion is can you drink heavy water?
The answer is you can. Ifyou have smaller amounts, it won't affect
(06:20):
you. But if you drink toomuch of it, you'll start getting a
different effect because it's more dense.That's why it's called heavy water. It's
more dense than normal water. Excuseme. So, you know, if
you've got differences in the density ofthe liquid that's going around in your body,
(06:45):
and in particular, I think thatperhaps the really sensitive region is the
fluids in your ears. If theysuddenly start getting heavier, you might start
getting noisier and things of that sortbefore because your your balance is affected by
the water. But if you drinktoo much of it, then you've got
this higher density running through your body. But it would be very toxic.
(07:09):
It would probably be fatal if youdrink you know, if you drink pure
heavy water for a long period,I don't think you'd be very well.
No, Yeah, we have touchedon that before, and it's yeah,
it's an interesting it's an interesting problemthat they faced. I was doing a
bit of research on this particular questionbecause it fascinated me so much. There
(07:32):
was an article in space dot comin January this year and two of the
major space agencies have said, we'regoing to be using the water on the
Moon ultimately, but we need tofilter it. And they've called for public
assistance on a project called Aqua Lunar. Yeah, and they want people's ideas
(07:58):
on how to filter the water onthe Moon so it could be consumable.
So they are actually thinking about drinkingthe water on the Moon. They might
have to do a bit more homework, but they've opened this competition up to
people in Canada and the United Kingdom. Now. I think the deadline was
April the eighth, so it'll beinteresting to see what comes out of that.
(08:20):
But they're certainly looking pretty seriously atmaking that resource available for consumption.
But if you yes, I mean, but if you do have a significant
ratio of heavy water to normal water, no matter how much you filter it,
you're not going to get rid ofthat. So it's an interesting question.
(08:43):
Should you be drinking if there's alarge amount of it. Indeed,
so, as I said at thebeginning, I probably would have a go.
I would Yeah, I wouldn't mind. I mean, on one glass
of slightly heavy, heavily laden water, wouldn't wouldn't kill you. But if
it's already I had to live onfor a long period of time, Yeah,
(09:07):
it probably would take a while.That's right, probably would. It's
the figure I've read here. Ifyou have the amount of heavy water in
your body, if it reaches twentypercent of the total water in your body,
it could be lethal. So you'vegot to you've got to watch out.
(09:31):
Yeah. Indeed, all right,great question, Mikey, thanks for
sending it in. Our next questioncomes from Sean. I am sure.
I'm from Noting up in England,and I heard about Nemesis theory and that
there might be a small sun inour sailor system somewhere. I wondered whether
(09:52):
there was any possibility of this andwhether this could be planet nine if it's
like a small neutron star. Okay, lot forward, tearing you answer,
bye, Thank you, Sean.Nemesis theory first postulated I love that word
in nineteen eighty four, and youknow, they're talking about the potential for
(10:13):
a small sun around ninety five thousandau from our main son beyond the Oort
cloud is where they're thinking it mightbe. So is that possible thread is
that could that be Planet nine orcould it be something else, or could
it just be a complete myth?So yeah, so you've got to look
(10:35):
at why that was hypothesized. You'reabsolutely right and do it. It's something
that was proposed by astronomers back inthe eighties and it's sort of it's not
been disproved. Actually, it's stillyou know, it's in the background of
what we do in the world ofastronomy. Is there an object which would
(11:00):
have been originally the Sun's binary companionand it still is in the sense that
the hypothesis is that this object isin orbit around the Son, or the
two objects are in orbit around thecommon center of gravity, as distinct from
I'm just going to say this brieflythat there are other theories of things like
(11:22):
this, and perhaps the best knownone is Nimiu. Niberu is the supposedly
hostile star that's going to consume theEarth and we can't see it because he's
on the other side of the Sun. I think Naberia has got its own
cult and it's complete rubbish, absoluterubbish. And in fact, I can
(11:45):
quote Brown Cox. He didn't saythis to me, but I heard it
said, if anybody else mentions thebullshit planet Nibiu, I'm going to throw
a copy of Newton's prink Kipia attheir head. That's right, I remember
that. Yeah, yeah, that'sright. So, you know, Brian,
Brian summarized it in perhaps a moreforth right way than I would,
(12:09):
But yeah, it's rubbish. Nemesis, however, is Nemesis is different,
and it's thought to be you know, it's the hypothesis is that there is
the Sun's binary companion, the star, the companion style that the song was
born with, because we know thatmost stars are born in pairs that which
(12:31):
we've never found. We've never beenable to identify that companion of the Sun.
And the hypothesis is that he isout there lurking, as you said,
you know, one and a halftimes what was it one and a
half light years or something of thatsort away from our own planet. Yeah,
ninety five thousand astronomical units the distancebetween the Earth and the Sun.
(12:54):
So why do people postulate it.Is it just that we, you know,
we do think that the Sun hasa lost companion, a lost sibling
somewhere. Yes, that's partly it. But there is more to it,
and that is and this is reallythe reason why this was hypothesized, and
it actually goes back to some workthat colleagues and mine were involved with around
(13:16):
actually around the same time, infact, before the Nemesis hypothesis, in
about nineteen twenty nine. The idea, and this seems to be supported by
the geological record that on a timescaleof twenty six or twenty seven million years,
you get repeated mass extinctions. Soyou've got this periodicity in mass extinctions,
(13:41):
if I can put it that way. So the geological record, the
fossil record, every you know,as you dig down through the Earth's crust
and you look at the different layers, geological layers, every twenty six million
years or thereabouts, you find thatspecies are being made extinct, they disappear.
(14:01):
And the suggestion is that possibly thisis to do with the orbit of
Nemesis. If it comes closer atpart of one part of this orbit than
another, then it will have tidaldisruption of the Oak Cloud the York Cloud
(14:22):
will then bombard stuff into the innerSolar System and you get mass extinctions.
It was my two colleagues, VictorKlobe and Bill Napier in nineteen seventy nine
who first suggested that. They wrotea book called The Cosmic Serpent. They
were a bit more specific about someof the covets that were involved, but
that was the general theme. Butthey didn't postulate there being a planet,
(14:46):
sorry another star doing this. Theypostulated that as the Sun goes round in
its orbit around the Galaxic center,it periodically passes what we call giant molecular
clouds, which are stellar birthplaces,and in doing that, it feels gravitational
tidal disruption from those objects and youget the same effect. You get stuff
(15:07):
being dropped in from the Oak Cloudinto the Inner Solar System and potentially mass
extinctions. So that's rather different theory, but that both those theories are still
lurking in the background. The searchfor planet nine is much more local.
We're looking for an object that's muchnearer, measured in hundreds of astronomical units
(15:31):
rather than tens of thousands, whichyou'd have to be if you had a
periodicity of twenty six million years orso, you've got to be looking at
something a long long way from theSun. So planet nine is, you
know, nearer nearer objects, anearer object if it exists, which is
(15:52):
perturbing the orbits of trans Neptunian asteroids, things like the Koiper melt objects and
other ic I see worlds out there. So I think Nemesis falls into the
same basket almost as Planet nine.We've got this what you might call circumstantial
evidence that there's something going on there, and there is a theory that sort
(16:15):
of kind of goes some way towardsexplaining that. And that's the case with
planet nine and the Transceptunian objects.With Nemesis and the mass extinctions, a
lot more research I think has beendone on both of them than we're discussing
here. Various ideas have been eliminated. It's instructive to go, as I'm
(16:36):
sure you have Andrew to the Wikipediapage on Nemesis. It's very, very
very instructive. Let me summarize byreading what the last sentence in the Wikipedia
entry on Nemesis is, which reads, according to a twenty eleven NASA news
release, recent scientific analysis no longerreports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen
(17:02):
at regular, repeating intervals, andthus the nemesis hypothesis is known no longer
needed. So you know, itbrings geology and astronomy together, but it
looks as though the geology no longersupports it. We know much more now
about the geological record than we didin nineteen eighty four, so maybe nemesis
(17:22):
a kind of Yeah, well,certainly sounds like it has absolutely nothing to
do with planet nine theory. Andeven if nemesis does exist, it's probably
too far off to have any realeffect by the sound of it, until
you get until it comes close enoughto disturb the outcloud, and we suddenly
(17:44):
get bombarded by comments. Yeah,good point. That's which is the point
that they're making this. Hence thename. Hence the name nemesis. I
suppose indeed, and that's a fact. There's a coincidence here because one of
my colleagues who were mentioned the RoyalObservatory in Edinburgh, Victor cloven Bill,
and the Victor was my boss,actually working on different sorts of stars.
(18:07):
But Bill went on now I livesin Northern Ireland. He wrote a book
called Nemesis. It was a sciencefiction novel. Now I've read it,
you probably read it. It's actuallyokay, just over there. Yeah,
but it was about an asteroid ratherthan a star. Yeah, and it
was how they stopped a hitting Earththat which was an actual workable possibility.
(18:30):
It's one of the theories they've beenworking with to deflect or divert an asteroid
away from Earth should it be athreat. It's a really good book.
Yeah, I read it some timeago and I really enjoyed it. Great,
great idea, and thanks for bringingup the question. Thorn Thorn sean
(18:52):
nemesis. Probably not Planet nine,but yeah, it's certainly something that's got
a lot of people speculating. Thisis space nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
Professor Fred. What's okay. We'lltake your space nuts next up. And
our final question today comes from Rustyand it's Rusty and Dinna Grum just been
(19:18):
listening to your episode four oh seven, and it's just want to ask the
question regarding the Hubble constant. TheCMB method you sixty seven kilometers per second
for megapasic, and the standard candlemethod yields seventy three kilometers per second per
(19:44):
mega parsic. Is it possible thatthe interstellar medium is causing the standard candles
to lose some intensity over distance,In other words, some of the light
being absorbed by the interstellar medium.If that was the case, then it
(20:11):
would appear that the CMB method eelin sixty seven jelem this per second might
be closer to the mark. Isthat possible? Thank you, Rusty.
Rusty always insightful, But again,as I mentioned earlier, has an idea,
so we should discuss that. Butyeah, the Hubble constant we did
(20:33):
speak about recently because of that ongoingdifferential in the expansion rate of the universe
that they can't figure out. Yeah, the Hubble tension is called freends figured
it out. What's the answer,and sly, I think Rusty I was
either, which I'll heill to witha bit, but just let me just
(20:56):
let me explain what the gop theGoog words are that Rusty used. Very
he knows, you know, Russyis well across all this, so these
probably Goog terms that we use arefamiliar to him, but not to everybody.
So those figures measured in kilometers persecond per killer passec, per mega
(21:18):
passecad mega band kilometers per megapast sic. Just giving a blanket understanding of what
that is. It's how fast theuniverse is expanding. Now, it's it's
it's expansion speed. The further outin space you look, the more rapidly
things are moving away from you.And that's all that does. It puts
(21:40):
it into numbers. But as Rustysays, we get two different estimates.
Sixty seven comes from the cosmic microwavebackground radiation what Rusty correctly describes as the
CNB and it's that's cause by lookingat the patterns in the cosmic microwave background
radiation. We mentioned that in arecent episode of the Space Nut's Chat that
(22:03):
there is a pattern of slightly higherand lower temperatures in the cosmic microwing background
radiation, and that pattern gives youa value for the Hubble constant. And
exactly as Rusty says, when youlook at standard candles, and in this
case these are super and over explosionsat great distances, usually then you get
(22:26):
a different anti. You get seventythree kilometers per second per megabasic. Now
rust is thinking is right on themoney. But astronomers think the same way,
and so they would be looking forany evidence of some influence of the
(22:47):
interstellar medium on the You know,the measurements that we make of supernova.
There's an analogue that perhaps second pointto here when we measure the brightness of
stars in this in space normally,if you know what type of star it
(23:08):
is, you know how intrinsically brightit is, And if you measure it's
apparent brightness from the Earth, that'sa measure of how far away it is,
because you know it's again it's astandard candle. You know how intrinsically
bright it is. If you measureits brightness from Earth what we call the
apparent magnitude, then it's a veryeasy calculation to work out how far away
(23:30):
it is. But then maybe interveningmaterial and in fact the nearly always is
because space is pretty dusty, it'sgot dust in it. Yeah, the
dust tends to dim the light fromthe star, and so that means it
looks as it's further away than itactually is. Now, is that the
(23:52):
right way around? Yes, it'sdimmer. It's dimmer, so you think
it's further away. Just got tothink about this. Sometimes these things work
not the way you want them to. So so how can we tell if
there's dust there. Well, itturns out that does something to light,
and we think of it as smoke, but it's it's more like smoke.
(24:14):
What we call it dust. Whatit does is it scatters out the blue
light, just like the atmosphere isscattering blue light. And so a star,
a star's light, if it's passingthrough dust, will be reddened.
And you can measure how much thatreddening is because you know what type of
star it is, so you knowwhat its color is. And if the
color is moved to the red,you'd say, ah, there is dust
(24:37):
there. Something we call the colorindex, and that lets you correct the
distance that you're looking at, soyou can correct the standard candle because you
know that what's happened is the dustin space has kind of put a signature
on the light coming from the star, which tells you that it's not just
empty space in between. And similarly, the light from supernov will have and
(25:03):
printed on them a signature of theinterstellar medium. And that's something that some
of those signatures and mysteries actually therein interstellar space. For a long time,
there's been a signature in space thatwe really didn't know what it was,
but it turns out that it's thingslike bucket balls. It's complex carbon
(25:26):
molecules that absorb light in a particularway. So what I'm saying is that
because the light from these distant standardcandles has been analyzed to death, that
any impact by the interstellar medium willhave been compensated for because it will have
left a fingerprint on the light ora signature on the light which we can
(25:48):
detect. So I think the answerto Russy's question is, Hey, I
like your thinking because you're thinking alongexactly the same lines that astronomers think.
And b I think I think theold tar that we would have known had
it been some effect of the actuallythe intergalactic medium, the space between between
stars, that would be causing thatphenomenon. And there is a standard ruler
(26:15):
method as well that just looks atthe distance, the difference in the characteristic
size of galactic clusters and things ofthat sort, which also gives that seventy
three killing meters per second the megapassex. So it's not just the standard
candles. But thank you, Rusty, a very stimulating question. As always,
Yes, back to the whiteboard andget a new packet of sharpies because
(26:37):
you still calculating to do yes.Not the solution, but I'm glad someone's
thinking about it. I think alot of people are. It's no solution
to the variations in the Hubble constant. Thanks Rusty. Remember last week,
Fred, we answered the question fromCraig, who identified himself as a science
fiction writer, and I said,tell me what you what you run,
(27:00):
what your books are, and I'llhave a look at them. Well,
he sent me a copy of hisbook. It's called Free as Flight and
it's his tribute to Heinland's Juvenile series. So I'm going to read that and
let you know what I think inabout two or three years time i read.
But he also sent me his Amazonpage for Free as Flight Kindle edition
(27:25):
by Craig Miller, if you wantto look it up and ever read of
Craig's book. Who sent us aquestion last week? He said he was
funny because it took me a whileto get that one into the system.
He said, I thought my questionhad fallen off your desk. Well it
virtually did, Craig, because itactually fell off my computer because I did
a computer update and it wiped everythingand it took me ages to find all
this stuff. But it turns outthere was a corruption in my Microsoft one
(27:49):
drive cloud software which was confusing myaccount with another account that I had at
work and they got jumbled, whichhas happened to me a couple of times.
So and then it was trying tofind a drive that didn't exist on
my computer, and dogs and catsended up living together. It was all
over, Red Rover. But thanksfor a copy of the book, Craig.
(28:11):
I'm looking forward to reading that.And yeah, look for Free as
Flight if you want to read Craig'sbook as well. That brings us to
the end, Fred, Thank youso much. We'll catch you next time.
It sounds great, Andrew, andit'll be as exciting as it was
this time, I'm sure, maybemore so more exit. No, not
(28:34):
at all, definitely not all right, See soon Fred, Fred, what's
an astronomer at large? And thanksto hear in the studio for what I
will tell you next week and fromme Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company
and we'll look forward to joining youagain on the next episode of Space Nuts.
Bye bye, Spacenuts. You'll beto the Space Nuts podcast, available
(28:59):
at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadioor your favorite podcast player. You can
also stream on demand at fights dotcom. This has been another quality podcast
production from fights dot com.
Hi there, thanks for joining usagain on Space Nuts Q and A edition.
My name is Andrew Dunkley. Lovelyto have your company on this episode.
We're going to be answering some audiencequestions from Mikey. He is asking
a really interesting question. Can wedrink water that is on the moon,
as in moon water or lunar water? Would that be a good idea even
(00:25):
if we clean it. That's agood question. We'll see if we can
come up with an answer for that. Sean is asking us about Nemesis theory,
and Rusty has a question about theHubble constant. That's all coming up
on this Q and A edition ofSpace Nuts fifteen. Second guidance is in
channel ten nine ignition Space Nuts orthree two Space Nurse. As the night
(00:56):
report it. Neil's good and he'sback again to help and say with all
of that, Fred, what's ina stormer? Tell our Fred Tiller?
Undrew, fancy seeing you here.Indeed, it's lucky never left really well,
I did, obviously because I've gota coffee. Now you have,
yes, all right now, wedo have a few interesting questions to deal
(01:22):
with, and we might get straightinto it. Our first question today comes
from Mikey. Hey, Fred,Andrew Mikey from Illinois with a quick question.
So, eventually, when we getto the moon in Mars and start
using the water available to us therefor things such as drinking, should we
(01:47):
drink that water? I mean,I know that we'll use whatever ways and
processes we know how of now toclean that water and purify it like we
do on Earth. But are therechances that there will be stuff in that
water that we might not even knowexists. Yeah, that we might not
(02:07):
have ever seen before that could havedetrimental effects to the human body. It
makes sense to me that you woulddrink the water that's available to you after
purifying it, but like it alsojust raises concern in my brain that maybe
something will be in that water thatwe don't yet know. Would you guys
(02:31):
drink the water after bem purified thefirst time the tenth time? Curious what
you guys have to say about that? Thanks, thank you, Mikey.
Well, I've drunk some pretty horriblestuff in my life, probably worse than
water from the Moon, so Iprobably would. It's an interesting question,
(02:53):
though, Fred, because is itpossible there's something in the water that we
don't know about. There are thingson the Moon that aren't readily available on
Earth. So could it be somethingin the water. And it's a good
question, and thanks Mike for askingit because it goes to the heart of
(03:15):
something we've talked about before as well. But yeah, I mean, I
guess, taking you know, thequestion at face value, what if there's
something that's not known to science thatis in the water that could be harmful
and that we we you know,with all our checking and testing of the
(03:36):
water samples, basically people saying Okay, that's fit to drink, and yet
there's something in it, particularly perhapsperhaps with Martian water, maybe some sort
of Martian microbe that we haven't gotany way of detecting. I still drink
it, Actually, that's I thinkI would, And that's because I,
(04:01):
you know, I'm a scientist.My colleagues would have tested it to death.
And so if there was something init that we didn't know about and
it had an effect on me,So if I grew antlers all of a
sudden or something, it would bea big scientific discovery. That would have
been part of it, right,Fred Watson with antlers, But there is
(04:25):
something a bit more perhaps realistic andthat will clearly have to be dealt with.
That we can discuss, and we'vediscussed it before, because the water
on the Moon and on Mars willprobably not have the same isotope ratio as
(04:46):
the water on Earth. It willhave a different fraction of heavy water it
from the water that we have onEarth. Okay, and we you know,
there'll be a different ratio doing normalwater and heavy water. Remember that
heavy waters it's sometimes called detour ratherthan H two O because the D is
deuterium, which is hydrogen in ain a heavier form, it's called heavy
(05:11):
hydrogen with an added neutron. Soand we're not we're not talking about the
heavy water from a nuclear reactor.Let's get that clear. This is this
is natural heavy water. Yes,it is. That's that's correct, that's
right. Uh. And you knowwe've we've done measurements of comets which are
made device and discovered that the proportionsof heavy water to normal water are different
(05:40):
from what they are on Earth.And so that's something that does make the
water different in a comet. Andit's likely that the water on the Moon
and Mars perhaps came from comets,so it may well have a different isotope
ratio, so different, a differentbasically quantity of portion of heavy water to
(06:00):
normal water now in different balance.Indeed, that's correct, a different balance,
yeah, which we talked about atlength in a previous episode of Space
Nuts. And you know, thequestion is can you drink heavy water?
The answer is you can. Ifyou have smaller amounts, it won't affect
(06:20):
you. But if you drink toomuch of it, you'll start getting a
different effect because it's more dense.That's why it's called heavy water. It's
more dense than normal water. Excuseme. So, you know, if
you've got differences in the density ofthe liquid that's going around in your body,
(06:45):
and in particular, I think thatperhaps the really sensitive region is the
fluids in your ears. If theysuddenly start getting heavier, you might start
getting noisier and things of that sortbefore because your your balance is affected by
the water. But if you drinktoo much of it, then you've got
this higher density running through your body. But it would be very toxic.
(07:09):
It would probably be fatal if youdrink you know, if you drink pure
heavy water for a long period,I don't think you'd be very well.
No, Yeah, we have touchedon that before, and it's yeah,
it's an interesting it's an interesting problemthat they faced. I was doing a
bit of research on this particular questionbecause it fascinated me so much. There
(07:32):
was an article in space dot comin January this year and two of the
major space agencies have said, we'regoing to be using the water on the
Moon ultimately, but we need tofilter it. And they've called for public
assistance on a project called Aqua Lunar. Yeah, and they want people's ideas
(07:58):
on how to filter the water onthe Moon so it could be consumable.
So they are actually thinking about drinkingthe water on the Moon. They might
have to do a bit more homework, but they've opened this competition up to
people in Canada and the United Kingdom. Now. I think the deadline was
April the eighth, so it'll beinteresting to see what comes out of that.
(08:20):
But they're certainly looking pretty seriously atmaking that resource available for consumption.
But if you yes, I mean, but if you do have a significant
ratio of heavy water to normal water, no matter how much you filter it,
you're not going to get rid ofthat. So it's an interesting question.
(08:43):
Should you be drinking if there's alarge amount of it. Indeed,
so, as I said at thebeginning, I probably would have a go.
I would Yeah, I wouldn't mind. I mean, on one glass
of slightly heavy, heavily laden water, wouldn't wouldn't kill you. But if
it's already I had to live onfor a long period of time, Yeah,
(09:07):
it probably would take a while.That's right, probably would. It's
the figure I've read here. Ifyou have the amount of heavy water in
your body, if it reaches twentypercent of the total water in your body,
it could be lethal. So you'vegot to you've got to watch out.
(09:31):
Yeah. Indeed, all right,great question, Mikey, thanks for
sending it in. Our next questioncomes from Sean. I am sure.
I'm from Noting up in England,and I heard about Nemesis theory and that
there might be a small sun inour sailor system somewhere. I wondered whether
(09:52):
there was any possibility of this andwhether this could be planet nine if it's
like a small neutron star. Okay, lot forward, tearing you answer,
bye, Thank you, Sean.Nemesis theory first postulated I love that word
in nineteen eighty four, and youknow, they're talking about the potential for
(10:13):
a small sun around ninety five thousandau from our main son beyond the Oort
cloud is where they're thinking it mightbe. So is that possible thread is
that could that be Planet nine orcould it be something else, or could
it just be a complete myth?So yeah, so you've got to look
(10:35):
at why that was hypothesized. You'reabsolutely right and do it. It's something
that was proposed by astronomers back inthe eighties and it's sort of it's not
been disproved. Actually, it's stillyou know, it's in the background of
what we do in the world ofastronomy. Is there an object which would
(11:00):
have been originally the Sun's binary companionand it still is in the sense that
the hypothesis is that this object isin orbit around the Son, or the
two objects are in orbit around thecommon center of gravity, as distinct from
I'm just going to say this brieflythat there are other theories of things like
(11:22):
this, and perhaps the best knownone is Nimiu. Niberu is the supposedly
hostile star that's going to consume theEarth and we can't see it because he's
on the other side of the Sun. I think Naberia has got its own
cult and it's complete rubbish, absoluterubbish. And in fact, I can
(11:45):
quote Brown Cox. He didn't saythis to me, but I heard it
said, if anybody else mentions thebullshit planet Nibiu, I'm going to throw
a copy of Newton's prink Kipia attheir head. That's right, I remember
that. Yeah, yeah, that'sright. So, you know, Brian,
Brian summarized it in perhaps a moreforth right way than I would,
(12:09):
But yeah, it's rubbish. Nemesis, however, is Nemesis is different,
and it's thought to be you know, it's the hypothesis is that there is
the Sun's binary companion, the star, the companion style that the song was
born with, because we know thatmost stars are born in pairs that which
(12:31):
we've never found. We've never beenable to identify that companion of the Sun.
And the hypothesis is that he isout there lurking, as you said,
you know, one and a halftimes what was it one and a
half light years or something of thatsort away from our own planet. Yeah,
ninety five thousand astronomical units the distancebetween the Earth and the Sun.
(12:54):
So why do people postulate it.Is it just that we, you know,
we do think that the Sun hasa lost companion, a lost sibling
somewhere. Yes, that's partly it. But there is more to it,
and that is and this is reallythe reason why this was hypothesized, and
it actually goes back to some workthat colleagues and mine were involved with around
(13:16):
actually around the same time, infact, before the Nemesis hypothesis, in
about nineteen twenty nine. The idea, and this seems to be supported by
the geological record that on a timescaleof twenty six or twenty seven million years,
you get repeated mass extinctions. Soyou've got this periodicity in mass extinctions,
(13:41):
if I can put it that way. So the geological record, the
fossil record, every you know,as you dig down through the Earth's crust
and you look at the different layers, geological layers, every twenty six million
years or thereabouts, you find thatspecies are being made extinct, they disappear.
(14:01):
And the suggestion is that possibly thisis to do with the orbit of
Nemesis. If it comes closer atpart of one part of this orbit than
another, then it will have tidaldisruption of the Oak Cloud the York Cloud
(14:22):
will then bombard stuff into the innerSolar System and you get mass extinctions.
It was my two colleagues, VictorKlobe and Bill Napier in nineteen seventy nine
who first suggested that. They wrotea book called The Cosmic Serpent. They
were a bit more specific about someof the covets that were involved, but
that was the general theme. Butthey didn't postulate there being a planet,
(14:46):
sorry another star doing this. Theypostulated that as the Sun goes round in
its orbit around the Galaxic center,it periodically passes what we call giant molecular
clouds, which are stellar birthplaces,and in doing that, it feels gravitational
tidal disruption from those objects and youget the same effect. You get stuff
(15:07):
being dropped in from the Oak Cloudinto the Inner Solar System and potentially mass
extinctions. So that's rather different theory, but that both those theories are still
lurking in the background. The searchfor planet nine is much more local.
We're looking for an object that's muchnearer, measured in hundreds of astronomical units
(15:31):
rather than tens of thousands, whichyou'd have to be if you had a
periodicity of twenty six million years orso, you've got to be looking at
something a long long way from theSun. So planet nine is, you
know, nearer nearer objects, anearer object if it exists, which is
(15:52):
perturbing the orbits of trans Neptunian asteroids, things like the Koiper melt objects and
other ic I see worlds out there. So I think Nemesis falls into the
same basket almost as Planet nine.We've got this what you might call circumstantial
evidence that there's something going on there, and there is a theory that sort
(16:15):
of kind of goes some way towardsexplaining that. And that's the case with
planet nine and the Transceptunian objects.With Nemesis and the mass extinctions, a
lot more research I think has beendone on both of them than we're discussing
here. Various ideas have been eliminated. It's instructive to go, as I'm
(16:36):
sure you have Andrew to the Wikipediapage on Nemesis. It's very, very
very instructive. Let me summarize byreading what the last sentence in the Wikipedia
entry on Nemesis is, which reads, according to a twenty eleven NASA news
release, recent scientific analysis no longerreports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen
(17:02):
at regular, repeating intervals, andthus the nemesis hypothesis is known no longer
needed. So you know, itbrings geology and astronomy together, but it
looks as though the geology no longersupports it. We know much more now
about the geological record than we didin nineteen eighty four, so maybe nemesis
(17:22):
a kind of Yeah, well,certainly sounds like it has absolutely nothing to
do with planet nine theory. Andeven if nemesis does exist, it's probably
too far off to have any realeffect by the sound of it, until
you get until it comes close enoughto disturb the outcloud, and we suddenly
(17:44):
get bombarded by comments. Yeah,good point. That's which is the point
that they're making this. Hence thename. Hence the name nemesis. I
suppose indeed, and that's a fact. There's a coincidence here because one of
my colleagues who were mentioned the RoyalObservatory in Edinburgh, Victor cloven Bill,
and the Victor was my boss,actually working on different sorts of stars.
(18:07):
But Bill went on now I livesin Northern Ireland. He wrote a book
called Nemesis. It was a sciencefiction novel. Now I've read it,
you probably read it. It's actuallyokay, just over there. Yeah,
but it was about an asteroid ratherthan a star. Yeah, and it
was how they stopped a hitting Earththat which was an actual workable possibility.
(18:30):
It's one of the theories they've beenworking with to deflect or divert an asteroid
away from Earth should it be athreat. It's a really good book.
Yeah, I read it some timeago and I really enjoyed it. Great,
great idea, and thanks for bringingup the question. Thorn Thorn sean
(18:52):
nemesis. Probably not Planet nine,but yeah, it's certainly something that's got
a lot of people speculating. Thisis space nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
Professor Fred. What's okay. We'lltake your space nuts next up. And
our final question today comes from Rustyand it's Rusty and Dinna Grum just been
(19:18):
listening to your episode four oh seven, and it's just want to ask the
question regarding the Hubble constant. TheCMB method you sixty seven kilometers per second
for megapasic, and the standard candlemethod yields seventy three kilometers per second per
(19:44):
mega parsic. Is it possible thatthe interstellar medium is causing the standard candles
to lose some intensity over distance,In other words, some of the light
being absorbed by the interstellar medium.If that was the case, then it
(20:11):
would appear that the CMB method eelin sixty seven jelem this per second might
be closer to the mark. Isthat possible? Thank you, Rusty.
Rusty always insightful, But again,as I mentioned earlier, has an idea,
so we should discuss that. Butyeah, the Hubble constant we did
(20:33):
speak about recently because of that ongoingdifferential in the expansion rate of the universe
that they can't figure out. Yeah, the Hubble tension is called freends figured
it out. What's the answer,and sly, I think Rusty I was
either, which I'll heill to witha bit, but just let me just
(20:56):
let me explain what the gop theGoog words are that Rusty used. Very
he knows, you know, Russyis well across all this, so these
probably Goog terms that we use arefamiliar to him, but not to everybody.
So those figures measured in kilometers persecond per killer passec, per mega
(21:18):
passecad mega band kilometers per megapast sic. Just giving a blanket understanding of what
that is. It's how fast theuniverse is expanding. Now, it's it's
it's expansion speed. The further outin space you look, the more rapidly
things are moving away from you.And that's all that does. It puts
(21:40):
it into numbers. But as Rustysays, we get two different estimates.
Sixty seven comes from the cosmic microwavebackground radiation what Rusty correctly describes as the
CNB and it's that's cause by lookingat the patterns in the cosmic microwave background
radiation. We mentioned that in arecent episode of the Space Nut's Chat that
(22:03):
there is a pattern of slightly higherand lower temperatures in the cosmic microwing background
radiation, and that pattern gives youa value for the Hubble constant. And
exactly as Rusty says, when youlook at standard candles, and in this
case these are super and over explosionsat great distances, usually then you get
(22:26):
a different anti. You get seventythree kilometers per second per megabasic. Now
rust is thinking is right on themoney. But astronomers think the same way,
and so they would be looking forany evidence of some influence of the
(22:47):
interstellar medium on the You know,the measurements that we make of supernova.
There's an analogue that perhaps second pointto here when we measure the brightness of
stars in this in space normally,if you know what type of star it
(23:08):
is, you know how intrinsically brightit is, And if you measure it's
apparent brightness from the Earth, that'sa measure of how far away it is,
because you know it's again it's astandard candle. You know how intrinsically
bright it is. If you measureits brightness from Earth what we call the
apparent magnitude, then it's a veryeasy calculation to work out how far away
(23:30):
it is. But then maybe interveningmaterial and in fact the nearly always is
because space is pretty dusty, it'sgot dust in it. Yeah, the
dust tends to dim the light fromthe star, and so that means it
looks as it's further away than itactually is. Now, is that the
(23:52):
right way around? Yes, it'sdimmer. It's dimmer, so you think
it's further away. Just got tothink about this. Sometimes these things work
not the way you want them to. So so how can we tell if
there's dust there. Well, itturns out that does something to light,
and we think of it as smoke, but it's it's more like smoke.
(24:14):
What we call it dust. Whatit does is it scatters out the blue
light, just like the atmosphere isscattering blue light. And so a star,
a star's light, if it's passingthrough dust, will be reddened.
And you can measure how much thatreddening is because you know what type of
star it is, so you knowwhat its color is. And if the
color is moved to the red,you'd say, ah, there is dust
(24:37):
there. Something we call the colorindex, and that lets you correct the
distance that you're looking at, soyou can correct the standard candle because you
know that what's happened is the dustin space has kind of put a signature
on the light coming from the star, which tells you that it's not just
empty space in between. And similarly, the light from supernov will have and
(25:03):
printed on them a signature of theinterstellar medium. And that's something that some
of those signatures and mysteries actually therein interstellar space. For a long time,
there's been a signature in space thatwe really didn't know what it was,
but it turns out that it's thingslike bucket balls. It's complex carbon
(25:26):
molecules that absorb light in a particularway. So what I'm saying is that
because the light from these distant standardcandles has been analyzed to death, that
any impact by the interstellar medium willhave been compensated for because it will have
left a fingerprint on the light ora signature on the light which we can
(25:48):
detect. So I think the answerto Russy's question is, Hey, I
like your thinking because you're thinking alongexactly the same lines that astronomers think.
And b I think I think theold tar that we would have known had
it been some effect of the actuallythe intergalactic medium, the space between between
stars, that would be causing thatphenomenon. And there is a standard ruler
(26:15):
method as well that just looks atthe distance, the difference in the characteristic
size of galactic clusters and things ofthat sort, which also gives that seventy
three killing meters per second the megapassex. So it's not just the standard
candles. But thank you, Rusty, a very stimulating question. As always,
Yes, back to the whiteboard andget a new packet of sharpies because
(26:37):
you still calculating to do yes.Not the solution, but I'm glad someone's
thinking about it. I think alot of people are. It's no solution
to the variations in the Hubble constant. Thanks Rusty. Remember last week,
Fred, we answered the question fromCraig, who identified himself as a science
fiction writer, and I said,tell me what you what you run,
(27:00):
what your books are, and I'llhave a look at them. Well,
he sent me a copy of hisbook. It's called Free as Flight and
it's his tribute to Heinland's Juvenile series. So I'm going to read that and
let you know what I think inabout two or three years time i read.
But he also sent me his Amazonpage for Free as Flight Kindle edition
(27:25):
by Craig Miller, if you wantto look it up and ever read of
Craig's book. Who sent us aquestion last week? He said he was
funny because it took me a whileto get that one into the system.
He said, I thought my questionhad fallen off your desk. Well it
virtually did, Craig, because itactually fell off my computer because I did
a computer update and it wiped everythingand it took me ages to find all
this stuff. But it turns outthere was a corruption in my Microsoft one
(27:49):
drive cloud software which was confusing myaccount with another account that I had at
work and they got jumbled, whichhas happened to me a couple of times.
So and then it was trying tofind a drive that didn't exist on
my computer, and dogs and catsended up living together. It was all
over, Red Rover. But thanksfor a copy of the book, Craig.
(28:11):
I'm looking forward to reading that.And yeah, look for Free as
Flight if you want to read Craig'sbook as well. That brings us to
the end, Fred, Thank youso much. We'll catch you next time.
It sounds great, Andrew, andit'll be as exciting as it was
this time, I'm sure, maybemore so more exit. No, not
(28:34):
at all, definitely not all right, See soon Fred, Fred, what's
an astronomer at large? And thanksto hear in the studio for what I
will tell you next week and fromme Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company
and we'll look forward to joining youagain on the next episode of Space Nuts.
Bye bye, Spacenuts. You'll beto the Space Nuts podcast, available
(28:59):
at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadioor your favorite podcast player. You can
also stream on demand at fights dotcom. This has been another quality podcast
production from fights dot com.
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