Heidi Campo: Welcome back to another exciting episode of Space
Nuns. I'm your host for this season,
Heidi Campo. And joining us is Professor Fred.
Watch it. Fred Watson,
astronomer at large.
Professor Fred Watson: Actually, that's quite a nice, uh. It's quite a
nice epithet. It should be Fred watching,
uh, because I watched the universe. Fred watching
here loud and clear. Looking forward to speaking
again, Heidi.
Heidi Campo: We, uh. We, uh. We're off to a great start. No,
that's. That is fun. We are. We are. We are all
observers in this universe. And you are
listening to space nuts.
Generic: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
10, 9. Uh, ignition
sequence.
Professor Fred Watson: Star space nuts.
Generic: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Space
nuts. Astronauts report it feels good.
Heidi Campo: Um, today we have some very interesting
articles. Uh, we're. We're kind of kicking things off. It's a.
It's kind of a mystery episode. I feel like this is a
very, very detective heavy
episode. We've got mysteries
being solved, we have mysteries unsolved,
and we have clues to mysteries.
So our first article this week is we are
talking about a mystery that,
uh, might be solved. So this is, uh.
We're looking at what this is, is the home
address for some missing matter.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Um, uh, it's a
story that, um, I find really
interesting because the
groundwork for this work was laid down five years
ago here in Australia, um,
with, um, work that's
been carried out on something you and I have spoken about
before. Briefly. Uh. Briefly is the
word, because we're talking here about fast radio
bursts, uh, which are things that have
only been known in the last. It's getting on for
20 years now since the first observations were made. But,
uh. But they're still relatively new
in the armory that
astronomers can bring to bear on the universe.
And what they are is pretty well what
the name says. They're bursts of radio
radiation. These are detected with radio telescopes, not
visible light telescopes. Uh, and they
are. Fast, uh, is probably a misnomer.
Uh, short would be a better word.
Uh, but they, uh. Because they only last for
typically a millionth of. Sorry, uh, a millisecond,
a thousandth of a second, thereabouts, roughly.
Often they've got structure in them as well, which is
interesting when you look at the profile of the intensity
of that millisecond burst spread out. If you
can magnify the, uh, sort of time
domain, you can see that there are features in that, uh,
peaks and troughs, uh, squashed into that
millisecond. So very, very
fascinating objects. Their origin
is still not certain. Um,
I think the best guess of my colleagues who
work on this kind of thing is that they are
flares on magnetars. And
magnetars are highly magnetized
neutron stars. And these things
apparently are able to have flares on their
surface which can be very intense.
These radio bursts are very, very bright
in the radio spectrum. So that's
one thing.
Heidi Campo: Real quick, Fred. I'm sorry.
Professor Fred Watson: No worries.
Heidi Campo: I have noticed, um, based on the questions lately, that we are
getting a lot of new listeners lately. Can you,
um, maybe specify to some of our newer listeners the difference
between a neutron star and
perhaps our star?
Professor Fred Watson: I can, um. Yeah, sorry. That's a really good
question and a really good point to make. Um,
so, um, neutron stars are, uh,
stars that have reached the end of
their life, their hydrogen fuel, which
is what powers stars like our sun that's being
powered by hydrogen fuel. As we speak.
That fuel has run out on
a neutron star. And
the stars are really interesting because there's a
constant battle going on between,
uh, the radiation that is coming from
these nuclear processes, which is pushing outwards, and
gravity, which is pulling inwards and trying to compress, uh,
a star like the sun. So it achieves a balance between,
uh, radiation and gravitation.
And so you can imagine what would happen if,
at the end of a star's life, um, the
radiation stops because the nuclear
processes have actually changed. They don't stop, but they
change. What's going to happen is gravitation wins
and compresses, uh, the star down. And
that, uh, sometimes happens explosively in
the case of what we call a supernova, an exploding star. And
so one possible remnant from
such an event is a neutron star,
uh, in which, uh, the
thing has collapsed. And the only thing
that's stopping that central
core of the
X star, the star that is now no longer a star.
The only thing, um, that stops it
collapsing completely to a black hole, uh,
is the outward resistance of the neutrons
within it. Um, and so those
neutrons have an outward pressure, and that
limits the collapse. Uh, so what you
have is a star that used to be perhaps like our
Sun. 1.3. Probably more actually, in the case of a
neutron star, because they're bigger than the sun anyway.
1.32 million kilometers
across. Suddenly, uh, it's collapsed to something,
um, 10 kilometers, 7 miles
across, uh, but with
incredibly high density. And all sorts
of unusual phenomena take place in those stars. They
are generally magnetized. Um, many of
them squirt, um, beams of radiation
out, um, and because they're rotating, those Beams
have this sort of lighthouse effect that we see them
flashing. Uh, but we believe as well
some are so highly magnetized that they form a different
species, though what are called magnetars. And
apparently they have flares on them. Uh, and
these flares are what we think gives rise to fast radio
bursts. So that's
where the science is. Uh,
astronomers have been now observing these fast
radio bursts for
best part of a decade. Uh,
and, uh, one or two of them repeat,
which are a bit mysterious because it suggests that
something's rotating because you get this repeating
appearance of the burst. Uh, often
though, they just come out of nowhere. Uh, and there
are several radio telescopes in the world that are actively
looking for these objects. One of them is
down, uh, here in Australia,
uh, the ascap, the Australian Square Kilometer Array
Pathfinder. And that actually was one of the ones that
contributed to the work that was carried out that I
mentioned a minute ago, uh, about five years ago.
Um, in looking at how
what these fast radio bursts might tell us about
not just magnetars, but about the
space through which the bursts of radiation
travel. Because we now know that
most of these radio bursts take place in very distant
galaxies. They're galaxies that are, ah, you know,
where distances are measured in billions of light
years. They're a long, long way off. And so the
radio bursts have traveled through a lot of
empty space. Apparently empty.
Um, and so I'm getting near the story
here. This is the introduction to the story. We're
nearly there. Um, what we
find with fast radio bursts is that the
bursts are, ah, um, dispersed.
That's the technical term, which is a little bit
like the way a prism breaks up the light
of the sun or a white light into a
spectrum, spectrum of colors. The same
sort of thing happens as radio waves travel
through space. You've got this spike of radiation,
but as it goes through space, this
dispersion phenomenon takes place. And the result
is, uh, that the different
frequencies are spread out in time. So,
um, if I remember rightly, I'm not a radio astronomer,
the, um, short wave,
the higher frequencies arrive before the lower
frequencies. Is that right? I think that's right.
Yes, it is. Um, and the
high frequencies are high first. But this burst,
um, in different frequencies, it's still a spike of
radiation. But you're now looking at almost like
you've dispersed it into a spectrum.
You're looking at different frequencies.
And so the lower frequencies arrive later.
Now that tells you
something about the space that the
radio waves have been traveling through. Because there
is what we call the intergalactic medium. Uh,
and that is basically a very
rarefied, um, gas, if
you like. Although you're talking about one atom per cubic
meter or thereabouts. It's that sort of
rarefaction. Uh, but there's enough of it. Because
you're coming through these great distances. There's enough of that
gas to have the effect of dispersing this
radiation. So the amount of dispersion
tells you how much gas there is. That the
radio waves have traveled through. And that was the
breakthrough made about five years ago. By a
team of Australian scientists. Led by
a, um, fantastic young gentleman called
J.P. marchant. I think it was Jean Pierre,
um, uh. A wonderful radio
astronomer in Western Australia. A young man,
uh, two weeks after this breakthrough paper
had been, uh, released, he died.
Uh, an absolute tragedy, this huge
breakthrough. Yeah. And uh, I think he had a heart
attack, if I remember rightly.
Heidi Campo: It, uh, was probably the paper.
Professor Fred Watson: Whatever it was, um, it was.
It absolutely rocked the Australian astronomical
community. This new knowledge that had been created.
And he was the lead author on the paper. Sadly, he
died. Um, however, that
work has now been carried on at other
radio astronomy observatories.
Which brings us to the story today. And
this is a paper that has been released, um,
by astronomers at the center for
Astrophysics, uh, the Harvard
Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, cfa. Uh,
and what they've done is they've taken this work a step
further. Because they've looked at many, many more fast
radio bursts. As you'd expect, these things are coming,
um, um, um, are being constantly
observed. Um, and what they've done is
they have looked again at, uh.
The structure or the
constituents of the intergalactic medium.
The space between the galaxies. And exactly
as the Maaschant, uh, uh, uh, work.
Um, proposed five years ago. They're able
to use this as a measure
of just what the. What the contents of
the intergalactic medium are. Ah,
and they find that it is enough to account
for what we call the missing matter. Now, this is
not dark matter that we're talking about. This is normal matter.
Um, protons, electrons. The normal
stuff which we are familiar with. Which in fact,
uh. Is only something like 20% of
the amount of matter in the universe. The rest of it
is the dark matter. That's something else. But
even that normal matter that we know about. When we
look at the calculations as to what should emerge
from the Big Bang. The um, event in which the universe was
formed, we can't find enough of it.
That's why we call it the missing matter. But
it now Turns out that this
combined set of researchers looking at the
intergalactic medium find that there is enough matter
in the intergalactic medium to account for that
missing matter. So this is a problem solved. As
you said at the beginning. Yeah, the two
things absolutely dovetail together. The predicted
amount of matter in the universe is now exactly what
we find when we include this intergalactic
medium. So it's amazing research. It's,
um, very fitting that it should be our lead story on
this edition of Space Nuts, because, um, as I said, it's
got an Australian content. The thrusters now moved to
other observatories, but we have this global picture
now, uh, of what dark matter can tell
us. Sorry, what, uh, fast radio burst can tell
us about. Not dark matter, but the missing matter of the
universe.
Heidi Campo: Oh, that's wonderful. Uh, this reminds me
when I'm trying to do math unsuccessfully, and I'm
trying to find why I can't get the right answer and I forgot to carry the
one. It turns out it was there the whole time.
The answer was right there. I just forgot to grab
that one little piece to pull it in to get the correct
answer. But they solved such a complex,
uh, problem. And isn't that kind of funny
sometimes the answers are right there in plain sight.
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. It's in plain sight.
Heidi Campo: But it's like you said, one atom per.
What did you say it was?
Professor Fred Watson: 1 cubic meter? It's something like that. It's
that kind of level. It's very. A few atoms per cubic
meter, perhaps. Um, but yes, uh,
it's in plain sight. But you need.
The thing that's made this possible, this detection possible is
the fact that these bursts of radiation are so short,
they're milliseconds. And that means that as they're
dispersed, uh, into different frequency bands
as they pass through the, the, the universe, um, you still
can, you can detect this dispersion of the
frequency bands, whereas with a constant radio signal, you
wouldn't, you wouldn't do that. Um, you know that you've
just got us radiation coming all the
time. There's nothing to tell you whether the, whether
the, um, lower frequencies are slower than the
faster frequencies. There's nothing to tell you that.
Yeah. Wonderful detective work. Yeah.
Heidi Campo: Oh, yeah, it's fantastic.
So by these radio, uh, astronomers then.
So they do radio astronomy. What is your specialty?
And then if you're not. So I also, I also, I have to make
a joke, you know, it's not Space nuts if there's not a few dad jokes. And I've
Been. I have not been holding up my end of, um,
filling Andrew's shoes. So you may not be a radio
astronomer, but technically you are an astronomer on the
radio.
Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. Yeah. I like it. I
like it. Yes. Your dad jokes will go far,
Heidi. Um, uh, so
my specialty, um, and
really my work now is in sort of policy and things
of that sort rather than observing. Uh,
but yes, for 40 years I guess
I was, um, in fact more than that, nearly 50 years, I
was an optical astronomer. And that means I use
telescopes that look at visible light, um,
so giant telescopes that have a very
shiny mirror at the base of them. In fact, the one I used
principally was the, um, 3.9 meter
Anglo Australian Telescope, uh, which we
celebrated the 50th birthday on last year.
Heidi Campo: Oh, happy, happy birthday, telescope.
Professor Fred Watson: 0G and I feel fine space
nuts.
Heidi Campo: So with the, uh, ESA's Probe 3
mission, that telescope, would that count as a big
mirror telescope?
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, um, it's a small mirror telescope.
Heidi Campo: Okay.
Professor Fred Watson: Um, but it is an optical telescope. That's right. So
it's looking at visible light and lovely, uh, segment segue
there to the next story, Heidi. Um, so
this again, you know, needs a little bit of
background to, uh, get over its
significance. But this, I think is a
fantastic story, uh, because,
um, it kind of means, um, that
you can make an eclipse of the sun anytime you like.
Uh, as you know, eclipses, ah, are rare.
Um, well, in any given place on the Earth,
they're a rare phenomenon. Uh, that's to say
when the moon exactly blots out the
disk of the sun or blacks it out. Uh, that
means the Moon's shadow on the Earth's, uh, surface passes
over different places. Uh, we call it
the path of totality because that's
where you see a total eclipse. And that's only narrow. It's only
50 to 100 kilometers wide, um, 30
to 60 miles, I guess, something like that.
So, uh, um,
ah, it's a rare phenomenon at any one place. And
that's why, uh, when eclipses come along, people
chase all over the world. Uh, everybody here in Australia,
or certainly the state I'm in, New South Wales,
are, uh, looking forward to July 2028, when
an eclipse, um, will be seen from this
state. And in fact, the Moon's shadow will
pass directly over Sydney. So Sydney's going to be
the center of the world's astronomers for,
um, a short time. In 2028 it is
already, of course, but, uh, in a different sort of way.
Anyway. One of the reasons why
scientists Asked so keen
on watching eclipses is because when the
moon's disk blots out the visible
disk of the sun, what you see is
the sun's outer atmosphere. It's corona.
And, uh, this is a, it's a almost
ethereal glow around the sun
which has got structure in it that comes from the
magnetic field of the sun, uh, that
dictates what the corona looks like. There are many
mysteries, uh, that we don't understand about the
corona. One is why its temperature is so high.
Uh, the sun's surface temperature,
around 5,500 degrees.
This is degrees Celsius, the temperature
of the corona, about 15 million degrees.
Um, you're talking about this huge difference
between the bit that we can
see and the bit that is invisible
except when you have an eclipse.
That's because it's very faint compared with, you know,
with the disk of the sun. Uh, and the mystery is, why
is the corona so hot? So, uh, the corona.
And it's thought to be. We actually think it's all about magnetic
fields again. Anyway, the corona is an
interesting area of study, but you
can't see it unless you're in an eclipse.
Now the problem, you might think, okay, well, why don't we make a
telescope with a little disk that blots out the
light of the sun so that you can see the corona
around it. And there are such telescopes, they're called
coronagraphs. That's the name,
gives away what it's for. They only work
where they really only work in a vacuum
because the atmosphere tends to, um, scatter
the light and blocks out the view of the
corona. So one or two very high mountain
sites have had coronagraphs used on them, and you can
also use them in space. But
they have their limitations.
And this gets us to the story that you mentioned,
Proba 3. This is actually two satellites
which are operated by the European space agen.
Um, and they are about, if I remember rightly,
150 meters apart. Uh,
they are arranged so that one
has a sort of disk, one has
got a disk on it. Um, it's disk shaped, if I can
put it that way. And if you line that up with
the sun as seen from the other
spacecraft, which has a telescope on it, probably
with a shiny mirror in there somewhere, um,
and that lets you blot out the sun's
disk. And it gives you the best view
that we have outside a solar eclipse
of the solar corona. Uh, and the reason
why this is in the news at the moment is because
we're just starting to see the first images from this
Prober 3 mission. It's a European Space Agency
mission, uh, and we can see the uh,
corona, uh, of the sun in great
detail, just as we would if we were
watching an eclipse from the uh, Earth. Uh,
and so this is a step forward. It's a new
technology. Uh, it is going to allow us to
monitor the Sun's corona um,
in real time, uh, and for a long period. I think
they're proposing, uh, is it 1000
hours of observing of the Sun?
Yes, it will create about 1,000 hours of
images over its two year mission and anyone
will be able to download the data. So it's
a uh, really interesting step forward by the European
Space Agency and the scientists who are working uh, on
this piece, um, of equipment to let us see the Sun's
corona over the next two years in great detail.
Heidi Campo: It's fantastic. I'm looking at the images right now and
I've got to say, um, some of
you may get this reference. It looks just
like the um, late 90s, early
2000s Windows media player
visualizers.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
Heidi Campo: Doesn't it? It's got such a,
interesting hue to it. I feel like I could be listening to like
early 2000s techno music with these images.
Professor Fred Watson: We can probably provide that somewhere
some space techno.
Heidi Campo: My other question, since this will be um,
available to the public, would this be a good
opportunity for any citizen scientists
to tap into and are there any programs that you know
of that people may want to be paying attention to if they
are interested in getting involved in citizen science?
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's a great question. And um, you know there
is a wonderful array of citizen
science projects which are ah, related to
astronomy, um,
um, various ones. The zooniverse is the
sort of, um, I guess you've probably heard of the
zooniverse, which is a kind of cluster of
citizen science projects, um,
that um, brings to bear
the resources of our citizen uh, science
scientists, uh, to bear on astronomical
data. And you can bet your life that there will be,
I don't know, uh, particularly that this is the
case, but you can bet your life that there will be people
poring over these coronagraph Images from Probe
3 looking uh, to see what we might discover
about the solar corona. Um, it is
uh, I think it's a, uh, really,
if I can put it this way, it's a project that is ripe for
exploitation with citizen science.
Heidi Campo: Yeah, and I'm such a, you guys have probably heard me talk
about citizen science programs on here before because I'm such a
big advocate for everybody getting involved
Because I, uh, you know, don't save it for the
brilliant people with the PhDs. We love you, Fred. You're
wonderful. But if we can export some of this work
to the whole pool of talent, and
I've always learned this, the more I get involved in the space industry
is don't let. Don't let you know, don't be
the person to tell yourself, no, I can't do that. Let somebody else
tell you. Just start pursuing it. If you're
interested in it, get involved. There's so many
opportunities and there's so much to learn.
We still have more questions than
we have answers. So there is absolutely.
Here's a pun. Here's another pun. I'm. I got two for them today.
There's space for you. There's space for you to
get involved in space. We need
your help. So citizen science program programs,
um, are a fantastic way
to get involved. And I think this is
a little bit more of my bumpier segue. Unless you had something you
wanted to say, Fred.
Professor Fred Watson: No, no, I'm just a big fan of cities and science as well. I
think it's fabulous what is achieved by that.
Um, and I wholeheartedly agree with your
comments there, Heidi, but, yeah, ah, I think you had a
nice segue coming up there, which I probably ruined now.
Heidi Campo: Oh, no, I think it was going to be a pretty bumpy one. So this is.
Okay. Um, I will say I do know that actually,
um, some. I remember because I
got some, um, they called it the NASA
TOPS program. TOPS Standard for something.
Open science repository, something like that. But it's,
um, it's just a casual certification
that you can get online from. It's an official NASA thing that
you can get and just put it on your LinkedIn. But they just talked
about a lot of different citizen science programs.
And I believe I remember reading, if I, If I read
this correctly, a, um. Lot of
breakthroughs have happened with hurricane
technology and, um, early
detection of hurricanes through citizen science. Because
that was one of the first places that we
tapped into citizen science. Don't quote me
on the decades. I'm terrible at my history. But the first,
um, cited use of citizen
science was the former
belief was that wind
always moved one direction because if you're
standing in the wind, it's coming at you one direction. And
this guy was the I. And I. I wish I had his name. I'm
so sorry. But he was like, hey, I think wind moves
in different patterns. And so what he did
is he, um, had a weather event and he had
People posted all over the place
and he's like, tell me which direction the wind was moving.
And they reported back to him and he discovered
that yes, the weather was not always. The wind
was not always moving one direction. So that was uh. I don't know if you
know more about that story.
Professor Fred Watson: I don't know that but that exactly. It's uh,
you know, it, that's. It's wonderful when people have
an idea like that and managed to muster
the resources that um, he clearly did and
get the results. And citizen science is a lot like that.
Okay, we checked all four systems and.
Heidi Campo: Team with a go space navigation. Yeah.
So here's my bumpy segue to the last
article. Um, I guess we can say if we're keeping it
with the detective, uh, metaphor for this episode is this is
a clue. So we had the first
story was we've solved something. The second
one is we have um. Well I
guess the second one was the clue. And this last one is there is a
mystery. This is a open case
yet to be solved, which is a mysterious
link between Earth's magnetism
and oxygen. So this is
an open mystery. We don't know the answers.
Professor Fred Watson: We don't uh, um. And it
is um, really quite a significant
result Heidi, that um,
uh, has come from scientists. Actually
One of them is at my alma mater, the University of St.
Andrews in Scotland, Scotland's oldest university,
founded in 1413. I was there shortly afterwards,
as I always tell people. Um, um.
It's uh, the university uh, of um,
of St. Andrews and also uh, scientists at the
University of leed. So this is work in the uk.
Um, the story is
uh, basically uh,
that we have this trend,
uh, that is detectable um
by techniques that
are uh, quite um,
remote from what we do in the world of astronomy.
Uh, it's um, what was it?
Biogeochemistry I think was one of them.
So what scientists have looked at,
uh, what you might call proxies,
uh, um, things that tell you
about something else. And uh, for
example one of the examples is this, uh,
if you look back through the geological
record you can find evidence
in the geological strata of
periods where there were lots and lots of
wildfires, um, what we call bushfires here in
Australia, forest fires elsewhere.
So you can find evidence of that. And
the scientists are saying that is a proxy
for the number of these wildfires, is a
proxy for the amount of oxygen that was in the
atmosphere at the time. Because
uh, wildfires spread much more readily
if you've got an oxygen rich atmosphere than they do
if you've got less.
Heidi Campo: Oh, interesting.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So it's that kind of work that's been
done. Also, um,
something that's a little bit more directly measurable,
uh, is the history of the Earth's magnetic
field. And that's one of the ways that we know that the
Earth's magnetic poles reverse every,
probably three or four times every million years, something like that.
Uh, so the, the magnetic field of the Earth is something that we
can get from the alignment of grains of
crystals in rocks. Um, and
that tells you, you know, how well these are aligned,
tells you about the intensity of the magnetic field.
Excuse me. So this group of scientists.
Sorry, I've got, uh, an oxygen rich,
uh, throat at the moment. It's wanting to come. So
these groups of scientists have looked at something
that nobody would have expected, uh, to
correlate, but they find that
there is a correlation between,
and this is looking back over half a billion years.
So they're looking back in time over 500 million years.
When you plot the strength of the Earth's, uh,
magnetic field over that period and compare
it with the amount of oxygen in the Earth's
atmosphere over that period, the two
graphs match very, very closely.
Um, there's clearly a link, uh,
between the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere,
the intensity of the magnetic field.
The mystery is,
is that link telling you that
more magnetism means more oxygen and,
or more oxygen means more magnetism?
Or is it telling you that there is something else going on
that affects both the magnetic field and the
oxygen as well, and affects them both
in the same way? So some other process that
we don't really understand yet. So
a really big mystery, but the reason why I'm
mentioning this on, um, space knots is that
it feeds into our understanding
of what might, uh,
constitute places where life evolves elsewhere in the
universe. Because we know, ah, most of the oxygen in
the Earth's atmosphere actually comes from
biological processes. It's what we call a
biomarker. Somebody looking at the Earth from outside and
seeing that much oxygen, uh,
if they have life of the same kind that we have,
they could say, yes, that's a biomarker that is marking,
uh.
Heidi Campo: Similar to K2 18B, right?
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly. That's right. Although
it was, uh, what was it? Dimethyl
sulfide was the biomarker that was
caused for the exoplanet
K2.18b, which is still of great
interest to astrobiologists. We don't really know
first of all whether that, uh, um, finding
of dimethyl sulfide is real. Or whether
it's being confused with some other molecule.
The signature in the spectrum that the James Webb
telescope took, um, and we don't actually know whether that
is genuinely a biomarker
in an environment different from the Earth's. So
lots of questions attached to that too. But
this new finding, the link between magnetism and
oxygen, whatever causes it, uh,
may be something that will feed into
the understanding of the way life processes work,
uh, by astrobiologists and perhaps will tell
us more about the kinds of places that we might look for
extraterrestrial life, uh, when we get the
next generation of giant telescopes with big shiny
mirrors. Uh, and the biggest shiny mirror of all is
going to be the European Extremely Large Telescope.
Should come online in 2028. Its mirror is
39 meters in diameter.
It's huge. Anyway.
Heidi Campo: Yeah, well, I mean, uh,
this is, uh, important to consider. This is one of the first things
they teach you anytime you go to any kind of, of STEM
related program is okay.
Correlation does not mean causation.
Professor Fred Watson: Exactly.
Heidi Campo: And you said this. I mean, it's like we don't know if it's
this, this, or this. And, and it's.
I mean, I'm looking at the trend lines right now. I mean, they
are right there. It's so
easy to jump to the conclusion and say, yeah, these are
so highly correlated. But then we just have to
remind ourselves why. And we don't know. This one's a
mystery.
Professor Fred Watson: It's a mystery. And, um, well, I'm sure
it will be the focus of a lot of really interesting research
over the next year or two. Maybe Heidi,
you and I'll talk about whatever they find in a Space
Nuts down the track sometime. Uh, but
yeah, we should, um, keep an eye on this one because it's a very
exciting result.
Heidi Campo: Well, I think that that is a good segue to
kick it back to you, our listeners. We've talked about a
lot of fun things, questions, answers,
solutions, and more questions and citizen science in
there. Um, I think we should just take this time to encourage
you guys to stay involved because you can
be a part of these breakthroughs. And
then instead of writing in just simple questions here
on SpaceNets, you can also say, hey, as a citizen
scientist myself, I have discovered this. What do you
think about these findings? And I think that would be really
neat to hear those kinds of statements from you guys.
Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely. We could then tell the world. Remember where you heard
it first here on Space Nuts.
Heidi Campo: What a perfect, perfect ending. Um, Fred,
this has been such a fun conversation.
Professor Fred Watson: Thank you so much My pleasure always, Heidi.
And, uh, I look forward to talking to you next time.
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