Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Andrew Dunkley here and this is
Space Nuts, a Q and A edition. Thanks for joining
us. Coming up we're going to oh gosh,
talk about something never before spoken of on
Space Nuts. A black hole. A little
bit of a different twist on this one though. We're also going to look at
the. Dimension of time, our obsession
with life, the malinkov cycles
of Mars and Paddy's got an idea for
me to write a book. That's all coming up
on this edition of space nuts.
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
10, 9. Ignition
sequence start. Space nuts. 5, 4, 3.
2. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4,
3, 2, 1. Space nuts. Astronauts
report it feels good.
Andrew Dunkley: And with all the answers is Professor Fred Watson
Watson, astronomer at large. Hello friend.
Professor Fred Watson: Hello Andrew. It's not all the answers but
well, two or three of them, that's all
we need.
Andrew Dunkley: I thought I'd show you my background today.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, I was to ask you about that.
Andrew Dunkley: All these rockets launching into space. That's from
the sphere in Las Vegas. I took that photo
when we went to a show there called Postcard From
Earth. And the basis of the
story is that Earth's become
uninhabitable due to global warming. So everyone
basically went let's get out of Dodge. And that's the
scene of all the rockets taking off as humanity
leaves the planet. And the whole
storyline basically is about people coming back
to visit but we can't live here anymore because we messed it
up so bad. And that, yeah, so that's the
launch sequence from all the humans leaving the planet
after we decimated it with global warming and climate
change. and it's a 360
degree sphere in Las Vegas, which you
can walk around and it has
pictures on the outside, but on the inside it's a
visual screen that goes all around you.
not only is it showing you pictures but you can also
experience weather while you're there.
So you fly over snow fields and you can feel the cold
and the wind. you fly over an
orchard in California, you can smell the citrus.
it's really brilliant, really amazing facility
that they've, they've built there and all centred around
science. So yeah, loved it, Absolutely loved
it. Notwithstanding the fact the Eagles are performing
there pretty much as I speak. So they do all kind of thing
as well. Yeah. But yeah, I like that, I like that as
a backdrop. Sort of fits in with what we do. Space Nuts
launching rockets, that kind of thing.
Professor Fred Watson: So the reason why Earth, is uninhabitable. Is because of all
these rockets leaving behind their trailer
were nasty stuff.
Andrew Dunkley: They dusted chemicals.
It probably didn't help that many take.
Professor Fred Watson: I don't think it would, no.
Andrew Dunkley: Let's get down to some questions. And our first one
comes from Mark, Painter. this one came via, Facebook.
Dear Andrew and Professor Fred Watson. I have a few questions that
puzzle me today. I'll start with, of course,
black holes in the movie Interstellar.
As they get closer to the black hole, time slows down
relative to the outside observer. By
extension, as we get close to the event horizon, time
would stretch more and more and I assume follows
an exponential curve to the point where time
effectively stops. So then to enter
the black hole, wouldn't time have to go in
reverse? Could it be that all black holes
are actually chunks that come from the Big
Bang that did not,
form, That did not form normal matter?
Andrew Dunkley: Thanks in advance.
Andrew Dunkley: We kind of talked about that in our last episode. The
primordial black holes. And
they're maybe being responsible
for dark matter, which Fred Watson
debunked pretty heavily. Yeah, there's
a big up. Really? No, but, So he's
asking about time being reversed. If you entered a
black hole, I know something that would be
reversed. Your life. But that's besides the point.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, Just. Just to, elaborate on what you
were just saying though, Andrew.
primordial black holes may exist. We just don't know.
and my comment was that I didn't think they would
amount to forming the. The dark matter that,
you know, looking for. But we
do, we do know that, some black holes are
actually formed from
supernova explosions. The debris left over by
supernova. The collapse of the core of a star that
has sufficient mass, up to 22.
Something like 22 solar masses. So, the answer
to the last bit of Mark's question there. Could
it be that all the black holes are actually chunks that came from the Big
Bang that did not form normal matter? And,
some of them probably did, the primordial ones.
But, some also didn't. We know that
black holes are formed by. By stars getting to the ends of their
lives. And regarding time
reversal, Mark is absolutely right that
as you, To an outside observer, the
closer you get to the event horizon,
the, More
your time to the outside observer slows down,
if I can put it that way. And when you cross the event
horizon, basically time stops. So your person
would be frozen, on the event horizon. Although
they've actually fallen into it. They don't see
the event horizon because that's ah, basically an
optical illusion. It's the point at which light
cannot escape.
Andrew Dunkley: We thought this, some
episodes back about how if you were to
cross the threshold, like, oh, space and
time would flip.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right, they do. that's. As you get close
to it, it's exactly right. The dimensions
flip. And we had quite a nice explanation as
to why that would be.
Andrew Dunkley: Which great YouTube video on it, I think.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that was it. There was a YouTube video. Very nicely put.
very nicely put. Why the.
Effectively space and time flip. and that
in a way sort of illuminates
Mark's question as well.
The, the time doesn't reverse for you.
time basically disappears along with
you and you get swallowed into the,
into the black hole from your perspective. and
you know, it's no good thinking about whether to an outside
observer time might reverse because
the outside observer can't see you because you're, by
that time you're inside the event horizon. So
nobody's going to see you, Nobody will feel your pain.
Andrew Dunkley: No, no.
Andrew Dunkley: But you'll be covered in spaghetti sauce.
Professor Fred Watson: Spaghetti. Yes, that's right.
Andrew Dunkley: In the movie Interstellar, of course he's referring to
a situation where an astronaut did
cross the plane into a black hole
to help solve, a, a, a
puzzle that they could only solve if they could get
inside a black hole.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right.
Paddy: Yep.
Professor Fred Watson: I, I did see the movie, but I don't remember the exact plot.
I just remember thinking, no, that couldn't possibly
happen. No. What are they talking about?
Andrew Dunkley: All a gravity problem and they couldn't do
it. Black hole. So that's,
I had to go in, brilliant film, but that was probably
where it jumped the shark, so to speak.
in terms of reality. But who cares?
It's science fiction. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
Thank you Mark, great to hear from you and thanks
for reaching out on Facebook. Our next question
comes from Craig.
Craig: Hi professors, it's Craig calling from
Sunny Marimbula in New South Wales.
I have a question about dimensions.
1, dimension, 2, 3.
They all need time and we
describe time as a dimension. But
is it really? It's kind of
like half a dimension. We can move in
one vector but not in the other.
Unless you can move faster than the speed of light
and I don't think we can. So
it's not really a full dimension.
It's as I said, more like a Half a dimension.
What are your thoughts?
Andrew Dunkley: M. Okay, Craig, thank you.
Andrew Dunkley: yes, half a dimension.
Andrew Dunkley: We do describe time as a dimension
and while you're talking I'm going to do some research because
I remember us talking not so long ago
about a paper that was released
suggesting time travels in two
directions at once. Was
that.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's that was
for the. It's
the way some quantum processes experience it. I
think that was what it was about. Yeah. so time is
a dimension. this emerged
from sort of mathematical studies in the
wake of Einstein's special theory of relativity.
and so you can write down an
equation, if I
remember it rightly
so you, excuse me, imagine yourself
moving, in
three dimensions, a
distance which we'll call S. You've got
three coordinates and actually in three
dimensions you can write down an equation which we call the metric.
And this is for normal non relativistic space
which would be the S squared equals X squared plus Y squared
plus Z squared. That would be a formal
equation of how you would move in a three
dimensional coordinate system. we,
you know, we express these things
mathematically. It's called a metric. That is the
bottom line of this. but with
relativity coming along people realise that
yes, time behaves just like a dimension,
and it is variable, it can be
squashed and it can be extended. Just as we've been talking
about time dilation, your time
can look differently from the time of
somebody else, who's in a different frame of
reference from you, whether gravitationally or moving.
so time is bendy, but
you find that when you move to that
relativistic situation you can write the
equation down where you've got four dimensions,
and one of them is time. And if I remember rightly, it's S squared equals
X squared plus Y squared plus Z squared minus C
squared T squared, where T is time.
So it behaves just like a dimension.
And that is why we call it a
dimension, because it is, but it is clearly
different in some ways from the three
dimensions of space because. Exactly, as
Craig says, we can move willy nilly about the three
dimensions of space within reason of course, but we can
move around them, but we can't move willy
nilly around the dimension of time, except under
certain circumstances where you're travelling at very high velocities
and things of that sort. So it is a very
unusual, it's an unusual dimension,
but it is a dimension. I quite
like the idea of it being half A dimension. but I
think my mathematical friends would
say no, it's definitely not half a dimension.
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, I found several articles on what
we'd spoken about, which was, a paper
published late February, early March. In the
quantum realm, time arrow might fly in
two directions. Mark might want
to, Craig, I mean, might want to look that
up, and read a bit more about it. But
yeah, it's a special circumstance I
suppose would be the best way to
describe it. but yeah, it's,
it's, yeah, it's an interesting article.
Professor Fred Watson: It's an interesting question from Craig too.
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, very interesting. Thank you Craig. Great to hear from you.
this is Space Nuts, Andrew Dunkley here with
Professor Fred Watson Watson.
Andrew Dunkley: Let's take a break from the show to tell you about our sponsor,
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Now back to the show.
Andrew Dunkley: SpaceNuts. Okay, Fred Watson, we've got another
audio question from a regular
senderinera. Here's Mikey.
Mikey: Hey friend. And Andrew. It is Mikey from Illinois. Once again,
I'm sitting here at 5:30 in the morning as one does,
pondering about life in the universe. And I
Was just wondering why we're so fixated on life
had already happening on other
planets. we look for signs of life
from the past on Mars, you know eventually on Venus
and all these places that we go. But what are the
odds that these places say
Venus for example are
on their infancy stage of life and
Venus will eventually cool down
one day and when the Earth is
long gone, possibly because we've self
annihilated ourselves, maybe one day
millions of years in the future, Venus will be an
oasis. I'm just curious on
your guys thoughts of this and I mean what are, what are the
chances that maybe some planet or
somebody in our solar system as of right now may not be able
to harbour life but someday in the future will
be. Thanks guys.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you Mikey.
Andrew Dunkley: that's a really interesting question. in terms of the
Venus theory,
you might argue that Venus has already been there because
I remember a story way back when we
talked about the potential for three
planets in our own solar system that all
could have potentially harboured life. We know of one, we
live on it. But Mars and Venus were also cited
as planets at some stage
had what would have been
a ah, chemistry, an environment
that could have harboured life. And
Mars lost its atmosphere which sort of put them to
bed. Venus went rogue.
Greenhouse effect. And that put their
potential for life to bed but doesn't write off
the possibility that they might have had it.
Professor Fred Watson: That's true. and I think that's absolutely right. Both those
planets might have had it.
as you say Venus had the
runaway greenhouse effect which put its
surface temperature up to what is it, 450 or
thereabouts.
Andrew Dunkley: That's yeah, Celsius.
Professor Fred Watson: so I think with Venus it's
done its dash because as time
goes on the likelihood is that Venus will
get even more inhospitable to life.
as the sun basically
swells towards the end of its
lifetime and I'm talking now about 3 billion
years or so in the future it'll start swelling,
Venus will get even hotter than it is now.
Earth might very well become uninhabitable by
then. Mars however might turn into a
warm world. it's doubtful it would
regain its atmosphere. it might regain
a lot of water which probably would evaporate
into space without pressure of an atmosphere. But
yeah it's impossible. Future ah, habitable
world even if it's not. Now we don't know whether any
microbes on Mars, but that's why we're being so
careful to avoid contaminating them if there are,
Perhaps an even more interesting world is Titan.
As the Goldilocks zone creeps outwards as the
sun expands in its later years,
Titan is going to become a much more desirable
place. in terms of habitability.
It's the only place in the world. Sorry, the only place
in the universe that we know of where there are ah,
lakes and rivers in equilibrium with its
atmosphere. They are liquid natural gas rather
than water. But I think it's a, you know, it's a
big planet. It's bigger than the planet Mercury. Sorry, It's a big
satellite. It's bigger than the planet Mercury.
maybe that's a place where we could find
living organisms some way down the track in the future.
Andrew Dunkley: Not, not to mention Europa,
Enceladus, Ganymede, Callista,
Triton.
Professor Fred Watson: All possible. Yapetus.
Andrew Dunkley: Yapetus, yes, yes.
the ice moons in
orbiting the gas giants are all looking,
being looked at favourably for potential life
with their under ice oceans.
So you can't say never. I mean we haven't
yet. We haven't found it yet.
But they have found the,
the seeds of life in the, in the geysers
coming out of Of one or two of these moons.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: Was it Cassini that did that?
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, with Enceladus.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, yeah.
Professor Fred Watson: Such as some of us.
Andrew Dunkley: No, it's The evidence is starting to build up.
I do believe that we will find something
in our own solar system in the not too distant future.
That's my theory anyway.
Professor Fred Watson: I hope you're right because I'd like.
Andrew Dunkley: To know, and in
answer to the initial question, why are we
so obsessed with life? because
we are living creatures and we want to know if there
are any others beyond our planet. I mean it's,
it's a natural thing to consider. And
wouldn't it be great if we found it? It would be the, the
probably the biggest discovery in the
history. History of humanity.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, exactly.
Andrew Dunkley: Even if it's a flea
or krill, I'm still hanging.
Yes, there's krill, there's whales.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
Andrew Dunkley: Thanks Mikey.
Good to hear from you. And our next question comes
from Fritz, who's put
this one.
Paddy: Hi, space nuts. This is Fritz from
Northeast, rural Georgia.
My question is for
planetary scientists and Mars
and water on the surface. Why
aren't they discussing further the
Milankovitch cycles and the influence
on Mars having wetter, warmer
phases? This is part of the
obliquity the axle tilt which can
range between 10 to
66.0degrees
over a range of 120,000
years up to a longer modulation
of as much as 1.25 million
years. And even at 40%
it could trigger significant ice
redistribution or melting.
And this could change
what's a cold dry period to a surface
of flowing water at times and
a wetter period at times.
And this happens regularly and Mars will
have a wet and warm period
again. So I'm surprised
planetary scientists don't discuss this when they talk about the
loss of water. But water is there in
the permafrost and such and where did it all
go and everything. But it's not discussed how it
will return. Thanks a lot and love the
show. Can't wait to hear more.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you.
Andrew Dunkley: Fritz, you kind of touched on that when you were talking about
Mikey's question and how
Venus is probably a write off but Mars will actually
get back to a state of having liquid water.
what's the Malinkov cycle?
Professor Fred Watson: actually the Milankovitch
is yes the name of the person
who put the idea on the map that
various periodicities and they're to do
with the eccentricity or non
circularity of an orbit, the incline
of the you know, the axis in the orbit, and
other parameters like that, these things vary
in cycles. Mars has had exactly
as Fritz says, a really big
range in its axial tilt, 10 to 60
degrees is what he quoted. And I think that's about right.
we think the reason why that hasn't happened on Earth is because the
moon actually stabilises the Earth's rotation. So
it's the tilt of its axis has remained much
much closer to its present 23 and a half
degrees. but the answer
to Fritz's question is that actually planetary
scientists do look at this and you don't have to
look that far to find papers that
refer to these M.
Milankovitch cycles. in terms
of Mars climate. I found a nice one
by some Swiss authors published in
2019. this is
called time scales of the climate record in the south
polar ice cap of Mars. And it's basically
linking the ice layer
deposits
basically in the south polar ice cap of Mars, the largest
water ice reservoirs on Mars as they say in
the abstract of their paper, and linking them to
climate oscillations, the Milankovitch cycles of
Mars's orbit. and so that's quite
an interesting paper. As I said I don't Know whether I mentioned
published in 2019 in Geophysical
Research Letters. and there are other papers too that talk
about the climatic effect of these
orbital cycles. So it's not something that's
being ignored by planetary scientists. I think the view that
they've come to though is that
they're giving you relatively modest changes
in climate. the fact that
the solar parameters will themselves change over
time, as we were discussing in Mikey's question,
that means that even without those you might find that
Mars is warming up enough that perhaps we will see
a warm wet planet one day, but we won't be around to see it here
on planet Earth because we'll be gone by then.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, however, as you said
with Mikey's question, that water will probably.
Professor Fred Watson: Get, it depends what, yeah, what the,
what the circumstances are. But yeah, check out
Mars and Milankovitch cycles and there's quite a
few papers that refer to it.
Andrew Dunkley: Very good, thank you Fritz. Great question though.
Love those curveballs. That's ah, a rip
up.
Andrew Dunkley: Let's take a little break from the show to tell you about our
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Now back to the show.
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, we checked all four systems and being with a go
Space Nuts, one final
thought and this one comes from
Paddy. He said hi Andrew and Fred Watson. I
have a premise for a book for Andrew. your
discussion on Martian water provoked the thought what
if humans are on Mars, drink
unfiltered water and ingest a Martian
microbe that merges with human cells
like mitochondria did, resulting in
whatever you wish to knew the story
with. I hope you like the idea.
Cheers from Patty. I do like the idea.
Funny, funny you should bring that up Patty because
this is my last show for a few months. Judy and
I and going around the world
basically and we're going to take our time.
and Judy said, you know, I don't want you
to get bored. Why, why don't you write a book while you're away.
And I was trying to come up with concepts. I was
thinking about maybe, you know, a story
revolving around Earth building its own
Dyson Sphere or some kind of megastructure.
But, now you've given me something else to think about. So
might. Might go down that road. Although it's
kind of been done before. There was a movie many, many
years ago about a, meteorite
that hit Earth and it had some
kind of viral thing in it that.
That was basically killing people. And the whole story
centred around a bunch of scientists that were
basically in lockdown in some facility
in the middle of the desert trying to figure out how to stop it.
I can't remember what it was called, but it's a great film.
Fabulous film. scared the bajeebis out of me.
It was. It wasn't the Blob or anything like that. This was
just a micro. But it had, It. It
just was highly volatile and, and very
destructive and. Yeah, but
look, definitely food for thought,
Patti. I'll. I'll give it some consideration
and wonder how I can actually merge that with
a Dyson spear angle.
Professor Fred Watson: Sure you'll manage it, Andrew. I look forward to hearing about
it. when you come back in August, we'll
probably get a full rundown of what the plot is. Yes.
Andrew Dunkley: a few people have contacted me saying, oh, when are you in
New York? I might. And things like that.
Professor Fred Watson: So cool.
Andrew Dunkley: We might be able to track a few people down and have a chat. But
look, what I'm going to try and do during
the trip is do some monologues back into the show so
I can give you updates of, of what we're doing. So
if anyone's interested. If you're not, I'll just stay out of it.
Professor Fred Watson: I think that would be great. I think you should, do that. It will,
be something that Heidi and I can fit into the,
into the scheme of things, I hope. And, and enjoy it very
much. So we look forward to that every
week.
Andrew Dunkley: But, there's some really interesting
places. So, there might be something to talk about.
we'll see. It looks like every time we go somewhere there's a
volcano, it erupts.
Professor Fred Watson: So.
Andrew Dunkley: Might be able to. That, we'll see how it goes.
but yeah, we've been planning this trip for a long, long time and
yeah, we, we head off next week.
Andrew Dunkley: So.
Andrew Dunkley: Very exciting, very exciting.
and that brings us to the end. Thanks to everybody who contributed.
Keep the questions coming because Heidi will need them to
try and stump Fred Watson. which is very, very
hard to do. but yes,
just go to our website and send them via the
AMA tab. So there's two
URLs Space Nuts IO or
Space Nuts podcast.com
and keep those, keep those messages coming in.
and Heidi and Fred Watson will tackle them over the next
few months. Gosh, it's hard to believe it'll be that long.
But, yeah, I've never been away from home for that long in
my life. But you know,
it'll be exciting. And thank you as always, Fred Watson.
Thank you very much as always.
Professor Fred Watson: A pleasure, Andrew. And yeah, have a great trip. We
hope everything goes well for you. I look forward
to seeing your emails from time to time. Find out what's
happening. I'd be interested to know whether you'll be homeless when
you get back.
Andrew Dunkley: It's a distinct possibility. We put an ass on the market
and just deal with all that when we get home.
Professor Fred Watson: There you go. Nice, good, good, good stuff.
And so have a great time, both you and Judy. And we'll
speak again in August.
Andrew Dunkley: Indeed. Thank you, Fred Watson. Thanks as always been,
it's been terrific.
And thanks, to Huw in the studio who
couldn't be with us today. Tried to ride a,
Milankovich cycle and the chain fell off.
And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. See you in
a few months.
Professor Fred Watson: Bye.
Andrew Dunkley: Bye.
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