WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.280 Hello once again. My name is Andrew Dunkley, and welcome to another edition 2 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:09.160 of Space Nuts. Coming up on this episode black holes, Well, we 3 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:11.960 know they exist, we don't know a heck of a lot about them. 4 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:15.800 We've only imaged two of them, in fact, but they have found a 5 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:20.960 new one. It's it's actually a new class of black hole, and it's 6 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:26.359 enormous and it's just over there. We'll also be talking about the last universal 7 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:31.559 common ancestor. It's older than we thought and it is basically what made life 8 00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:36.119 as we know it come into existence. And space junk in the news again 9 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:40.840 for all the wrong reasons. That's coming up on this edition of Space Nuts. 10 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:52.719 Fifteen second guidance in Channel ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts or three two 11 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:58.039 one Space Nuts as when I report it, Bill's good, And I have 12 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:02.640 to be very careful about where I'm pointing when I'm talking about the discovery of 13 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.000 a black hole, because I was pointing straight at my wife anyway, joining 14 00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:10.760 us as well to discuss all that. Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large, 15 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:17.480 Hello Fred, Hello Andrew. Yeah, you could point to it actually, 16 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:21.879 because this black hole is one that is in our southern sky. Yeah, 17 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:25.799 I think it's probably circumpolar, which means it always goes around the sky. 18 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:29.280 Might be quite a circumpolar, but it's getting on that way. Okay, 19 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:32.959 Well, we'll talk about that and all those other things. First of 20 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:36.079 all, though, how are you and how you been well? Thanks? 21 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:41.599 Recovered from our outback tour a couple of weeks ago, that's still fresh in 22 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:45.280 our memory. Those were some of the things we saw the extraordinary, which 23 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:49.400 reminds me. Fred, we have a note from Tracy. You talked about 24 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:53.159 Tracy the other day who won the auction. Yes, she did for your 25 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:56.680 book. She sent us a note. Hi, Fred and Andrew Tracy Hill 26 00:01:56.719 --> 00:02:00.359 here, thanks for the shout out. Have clipped the segment to put on 27 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.200 my Facebook page for family and friends to listen. It was a great night 28 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:07.719 and have just started the book. I will submit my questions soon. No, 29 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.439 there you are. That's paradoxical because that book is actually the one she 30 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:15.479 got. Was was you're on this upside down, which is all questions, 31 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:22.039 the whole books questions. So she's got plenty to go from. Fortunately, 32 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:24.000 I could just read out the answers. Yes, yes, but you know 33 00:02:24.039 --> 00:02:30.319 what, what we've discovered with discoveries in spaces. They always throw out more 34 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:35.319 questions and questions tend to throw up follow up questions. It's just the way 35 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:39.840 of humanity, isn't it. I've always got question questions. Every answer to 36 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:45.520 a question tends to spail a new question in the world of astronomy and space 37 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:49.520 science. Yes, I expect we'll get a shout out from Tracy after we 38 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.319 gave her a shout out after she got the shout out, So this could 39 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:58.159 keep going around and around. Let's let's get onto it. Our first topic 40 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:06.159 is that of a black hole. This is a recently categorized variety of black 41 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:10.240 hole because it is what they call intermediate, and that was one we talked 42 00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:15.280 about probably a couple of years ago when they I think the way it went 43 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:19.639 we were talking about the different sizes of black holes one episode and we said, 44 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.360 look they are they're either small or massive, but we can't find anything 45 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:25.599 in between. And honestly, within a month, I think they found one 46 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:30.319 ye. And now they found another one. Yeah. Yeah, And this 47 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:38.560 one's really significant because I think this is a very you know, PRETT is 48 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:45.719 a solid discovery of intermediate what's called an intermediate black intermediate mass black hole. 49 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:52.639 So well, let's just go through the details, because black holes do come 50 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:57.919 in basically two flavors. The stellar mass black calls, which, as the 51 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.319 name suggests, are about the must have a star. In fact that the 52 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:04.400 mass of a massive star usually ten twenty times the mass of our Sun, 53 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:08.599 so our Sun won't turn into a black hole. But when one of these 54 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:13.000 massive stars ends its life, runs out of fuel, the core collapses and 55 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:15.759 nothing will stop the collapse, and you get a black hole at the end 56 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:19.240 of it. And we recognize those. There are severally no galaxy. We 57 00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:23.920 recognize them by the effect on their surroundings. They're usually swallowing up stuff an 58 00:04:23.959 --> 00:04:28.600 issue and emitting X rays. The other end of the scale is the super 59 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:32.800 massive black holes, which are millions or billions of times the mass of the 60 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:35.240 Sun. And we think there's one of these at the middle of every galaxy. 61 00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:39.399 We've talked about them a lot. There is certainly one at the middle 62 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:44.199 of our galaxy. It's about four million times the mass of the Sun in 63 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:47.639 the constellation of Sagittarius at a distance of about twenty five thousand light years, 64 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:51.759 so quite a long way off. Not doing much at the moment, although 65 00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:57.639 it does occasionally swallow a gas cloud and get bright in the infrared and radio 66 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:04.079 spectra is invisible at visible at optical wavelengths, that's to say, the wavelength 67 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:13.240 of visible light. So physicists think astro physicists think that the super massive black 68 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:18.319 holes get that way by lots of black holes coming together. In other words, 69 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:24.519 over time they crete other black holes, so they basically, you know, 70 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.839 gobble up other black holes, and you get this thing that's growing up 71 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:31.800 to millions of times the massive for some or more. That's been thrown a 72 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:35.199 little bit into question recently by the fact that we see some of these super 73 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:39.759 massive black holes very early in the history of the universe. That's the results 74 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.600 that have come from the James Web Space Telescope. But we still have this 75 00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:47.519 gap in the middle. Why don't we see anything that's on its way to 76 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:51.120 becoming a super massive black hole? For example, why don't we see something 77 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:57.439 that's bigger than thousands of times a stellar mass black hole? And these are 78 00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:00.519 the things we would call intermediate black holes, black with a mass in the 79 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:10.680 region of thousands to tens of thousands of the mass of the Sun. So 80 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:15.800 where would you look to try and find these What you might look for is 81 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:24.560 things that we think are the remnants of a galaxy that's been stopped from evolving. 82 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:30.319 So if you imagine a young galaxy with its stars, maybe a bit 83 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:34.199 of spiral arms and things of that sort coming on, and a nucleus of 84 00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:41.560 all stars, and then you suck it into another galaxy, what you might 85 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:47.959 get left with is the sort of nucleus of stars from the galaxy that's been 86 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:54.279 swallowed up. Plus it's black hole that would be in the middle of that. 87 00:06:54.959 --> 00:07:01.160 And because what you've done is you've taken this galaxy out of the evolution 88 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:05.519 stakes, in other words, you've stopped it growing, maybe the black hole 89 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:10.560 would stop growing as well, and so this might be a way of finding 90 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:16.160 these intermediate black mass black holes. And the scenario that have just elaborated is 91 00:07:16.199 --> 00:07:21.519 exactly what we think is the mechanism by which globular clusters are formed. These 92 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:29.319 are clusters of stars that have been known for well many hundreds of years. 93 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:32.160 In fact, it was William Herschel who gave them the name globular clusters because 94 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:39.560 they look globular and they're swarms of stars up to a million stars in the 95 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:45.480 biggest ones and very very tightly packed together Andrew, so you know that the 96 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:48.519 stars are all not exactly bumping into one another, but very very close. 97 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:57.600 And the thinking is that these are the nuclei the centers of galaxies that were 98 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:03.560 stripped off, that the outer regions stripped off because they were being swallowed up 99 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:09.319 by another galaxy, in this case our own Milky Way galaxy. And we've 100 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:13.040 got something like it's probably up to about two hundred globular clusters that swarm around 101 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:18.360 the Milky Way galaxy. And the thinking is that they are the remnants of 102 00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:24.160 baby galaxies that were dragged out of the space around the Milky Way and have 103 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:28.519 just become part of the Milky Way, and their outer stars were swallowed up 104 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:31.960 by the Milky Way. But what's left is this tightly packed nucleus of old 105 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:37.240 stars. We know that globular cluster stars are very old, and so what 106 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:41.879 has happened is that the biggest of these things in our sky is a globular 107 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:50.519 cluster called only a centaury, and that is in the constellation of Centaurus in 108 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:54.519 the southern sky, one that we see very clearly from here in the southern 109 00:08:54.559 --> 00:09:00.559 hemisphere. It's actually one of the reasons why telescopes in the southern hemisphere important 110 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:07.320 the two biggest globular clusters are in the southern sky. Anyway, scientists have 111 00:09:07.399 --> 00:09:16.159 studied the Black Court, sorry the globular cluster Omega centaury by putting together a 112 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:22.559 very large number of images, more than five hundred images of this cluster taken 113 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:28.320 by the Hubble Space telescope. And the thing about the space telescope is it's 114 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:33.360 very very accurate in the way it can position stars. You know, you 115 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:39.240 can look at it and your images will show stars as they are at that 116 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:45.080 moment. But if the stars are moving, if they're circulating around something, 117 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.879 then having five hundred of them that have been taken over over a long period 118 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:54.080 will give you almost like a time lapse movie of what's going on in Omiga 119 00:09:54.159 --> 00:10:03.080 centaury. And what they've done is they've done that and basically revealed a place 120 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:11.799 where stars are moving in such a way that we believe there is an intermediate 121 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:16.759 mass black hole in the middle. So it's you know, it's one of 122 00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:24.240 these things where you're actually searching for something and you're using the right tools and 123 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:31.720 basically they have found it. That is the that's the current outcome of this 124 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:37.879 research. There's some nice pictures of the center of the dobular cluster Obiga Centauri, 125 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.759 taken with a Hubble space telescope on the web. They're easily easy to 126 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:46.879 find. And the nice thing about the story is that whilst the science team 127 00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:52.240 were led by scientists from the Max Blank Institute for Astronomy in Germany, there 128 00:10:52.360 --> 00:11:00.279 are University of Queensland researchers as well involved with the team, So early and 129 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:03.720 astronomers are mixed up with this, which is brilliant and it looks as though 130 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:11.240 this is the first really definitive evidence of an intermediate mass black hole. Now, 131 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:15.200 I hope the next question you're going to ask me, Andrew is how 132 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:18.519 do they know that it's twenty times twenty thousand times the mass of the Sun. 133 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:20.799 That was going to be my second question, but yeah, let's go 134 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:28.080 with it. What was your first one going to be? I forget No, 135 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:33.159 it was. Now I'll I'll get to it because now what you've brought 136 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:37.600 up is probably a more important aspect of it at the moment. But I'll 137 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:41.960 get to the question I had in mind in a teak, So, how 138 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:46.759 did they know it's twenty thousand times the mess I thought you'd never ask me 139 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:52.639 that. Thank you very much. By So, when you've if you can 140 00:11:52.720 --> 00:12:00.799 detect stars moving around, which is what's happened here, and what you can 141 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.399 do is you can say, well, these stars are moving in a gravitational 142 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:09.240 field, and you need several stars to do this. One's not really enough. 143 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:13.600 But if you've got several stars, you can basically track the way they're 144 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:20.600 moving and from that you can deduce what the sort of center of attraction is, 145 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:24.480 what is the thing that they're moving around, because there'll be in orbit 146 00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:30.320 around something. Everything is an orbit around something, and so that's how you 147 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:35.399 can measure the mass because you once you model their movement, you basically it's 148 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:43.200 very simple mathematics. Actually it's Kepler's laws go back to the early seventeenth century 149 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:48.480 when Kepler formulated these laws that tell you how things move in a gravitational field. 150 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.960 You didn't know it was moving in a gravitational field, but that's what's 151 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.679 happening, and so from that you can deduce how massive the object is at 152 00:12:54.679 --> 00:13:01.840 the center and the alswer in this case is twenty thousand. It's exactly how 153 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:05.720 we've measured the mass of the Sagittarius a star the black hole at the center 154 00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:11.679 of our own galaxy, because there are stars that you can see actually orbiting 155 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:20.000 that which have been measured by two different telescopes, the very Large Telescope others 156 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:26.360 by the Germany Telescopes in Hawaii. So we've got two independent research groups that 157 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:28.000 have done that work, and we've got that this is the work on the 158 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:33.799 center of our own galaxy, and the mass has been measured by this motion 159 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:37.519 of the stars. So it's a really nice piece of research and very exciting 160 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:41.720 for the world of astronomy. So what was your second question. Well, 161 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:48.600 you mentioned Sagittarius, a star which we've managed to image, and we know 162 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:52.799 that once at the center of our galaxy. This one they've found. It's 163 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:58.559 probably the nearest of its kind to Earth, which is a sobering thought. 164 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:01.120 It's not really that far away. What about a thousand light years or something, 165 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:09.480 and it's eighteen thousand I feel better, Yeah, yeah, but you 166 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:13.799 know it's a recent discovery. It's also a rare black hole in terms of 167 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:20.840 size. How many more are floating around in our galaxy because we we we 168 00:14:20.919 --> 00:14:28.840 assume most galaxies have a black hole at at the center. But you've probably 169 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:33.720 answered the question partially in terms of the reference to globular clusters. But if 170 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:37.879 we know how many globular globular clusters there are, we have a better idea 171 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:41.159 of how many potential black holes they might be. That a fair point or 172 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:45.759 is that just to do with the intermediate size. Yes, that's the intermediate 173 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:50.360 size, that's right. But you're absolutely right. If a globular cluster is 174 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:54.759 the smoking gum to have a you know, intermediate lust black hole at the 175 00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:58.399 center, they may all have one of these black holes at the center. 176 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:01.840 We haven't made that discovery yet. I think I can't remember the number of 177 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:05.960 popular clusters at the last count. I think it's between one hundred and sixty 178 00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.559 and two hundred if I remember rightly associated with our own galaxy. When you 179 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.879 look at the Andromeda galaxy, there are many, many more. They've got 180 00:15:13.080 --> 00:15:18.159 many more lobbies list up there. But no, you're right. What that 181 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:24.039 does is it it points to the fact that we might have in intermediate in 182 00:15:24.159 --> 00:15:26.840 terms of intermediate mass black holes, we might have a lot of them in 183 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:30.639 our galaxy. We've got a lot of stalar mass black holes as well, 184 00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:33.600 and I think the nearest of those is about a thousand light years away, 185 00:15:33.639 --> 00:15:37.320 but that's only got twenty times the mass of the Sun or something like that. 186 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:43.960 So the question I thought you were going to ask, which is free 187 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:48.440 Why I'm saying I'd like to mention this mix. Well, you mentioned that 188 00:15:48.519 --> 00:15:54.519 we've imaged the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Sagittarius, 189 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:58.120 a star black hole. I thought you might ask, can we image the 190 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:07.559 intermediate black hole now that they've found a potential location? Ken? Probably not, 191 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:12.679 even though it's nearer, So eighteen thousand light years away compared with twenty 192 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:17.600 five thousand black years. Even though it's nearer, it's much much smaller. 193 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.919 Remember the area, say star black hole is four million times the mass of 194 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.279 the Sun. This is twenty thousand times the mass of the Sun. So 195 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.440 its event horizon will be a much smaller, you know, a much smaller 196 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:32.519 diameter. That means it's going to be much much harder to image, and 197 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:37.120 I suspect we'll with the present level of equipment, certainly we'll never see an 198 00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:41.399 image of it. Okay, So what you're saying is, in universal terms, 199 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:45.840 size matters. Yeah, it may. Well, that's right, and 200 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:49.720 it may even be. Sorry, just to take a step Further, the 201 00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:55.120 reason why this black hole is intermediate mass is because it hasn't grown, and 202 00:16:55.200 --> 00:17:00.919 it hasn't grown because there's no hydrogen around it to suck in and turn into 203 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:10.079 energy and basically build the size of the black hole. So it's because what 204 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:15.440 you see with the event horizon telescope when we look at these supermassive black holes 205 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:19.720 and try and image their event horizon, you're seeing the effects of the accretion 206 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:26.400 disc the stuff that's whizzing around it and making it glow. And if that's 207 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:32.039 not happening in the Obiga Centauri black hole, we're not going to see it. 208 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:33.160 We're never going to see it. It will just be a black hole 209 00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:38.400 with nothing to delineate it from its surroundings apart from the fact that it's pulling 210 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.559 stars around. And so that's the as I said, the smoking gun. 211 00:17:44.119 --> 00:17:48.920 Yes, yes, it's a fabulous discovery though because as we've mentioned a few 212 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:52.039 times over the years, we didn't know if these existed, and when we 213 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:57.400 did, well, there aren't that many of them, so finding one in 214 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:04.599 our vicinity is pretty impressive work. Indeed, this is space nuts. Andrew 215 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:10.599 Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson. Let's take a little break from the show 216 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:14.839 to tell you about our sponsor in Cogni And if you've ever had your information 217 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:21.039 harvested from the world Wide Web, this is the tool for you. Of 218 00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:26.559 course, your information is easily available online. We're talking personal information. We're 219 00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:32.960 talking addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, even bank details. If your 220 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:37.920 protection isn't good enough, this stuff gets harvested and it is sold by data 221 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:42.759 brokers. They sell it to other people who then scam you or other people 222 00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:48.440 in your name, which is happening a lot. I've found my information on 223 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:55.039 the dark web on several occasions in recent years and managed to clean it up. 224 00:18:55.079 --> 00:18:57.440 But the more I cleaned it up, the more I have to clean 225 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:02.319 it up, because it just keeps going around and around and around. Chances 226 00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:08.440 are you regularly get those shonky emails and texts about winning something that's a common 227 00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:15.640 one, or your mail being lost, the package couldn't be delivered, could 228 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:18.599 be anything, could be anything. And of course there's a link on these 229 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:25.359 very handy emails and texts to help you out, but it's actually the opposite. 230 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:29.960 They are basically hoping you'll fall for it and give them information that will 231 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.960 then enable them to scam you to the tune of hundreds or even thousands, 232 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:37.799 or worst case scenario, tens of thousands of dollars. And there's been a 233 00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:41.680 lot of cases of that in recent times. In fact, in twenty twenty 234 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:47.839 two alone, the number of scams rows by forty one and a half percent 235 00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:52.880 globally. So what is the solution. Well, the solution is you can 236 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:57.279 go online and clear out your personal data by yourself. If you've got a 237 00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.160 couple of years up your sleeve, that's how long it will take you. 238 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:04.720 And that's not a joke. It will take a couple of years. And 239 00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:08.359 when you've done it, of course other information of yours is already back online. 240 00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:14.359 They just keep collecting it regardless. Or you can use a ready made 241 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:19.000 solution, and that is in Cogni, and as a space Nuts listener, 242 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:23.440 you get a special deal within Cogni at the moment. It is simple, 243 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.720 It works in the background, it provides ongoing protection, so you can sit 244 00:20:27.799 --> 00:20:33.200 back, relax and know that in Cogni is protecting you from these harvesters and 245 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:37.880 scammers. And all you have to do is create an account, give in 246 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:41.880 Cogniti permission to work on your behalf and that's it, job done. And 247 00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:45.480 if you want to check out the pricing, there's a sixty percent off deal 248 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:52.599 for space nuts listeners at the moment that is fantastic. Just go to incogni 249 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:57.480 dot com slash space nuts for more information. That's in cogni dot com slash 250 00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:03.160 space nuts. Look at the pricing for individual plans, or you can get 251 00:21:03.400 --> 00:21:08.160 a family and friends plan. Just depends on the circumstances. But at the 252 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:14.680 moment, sixty percent off the annual individual plan and sixty percent off the family 253 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:19.240 and friends plan. Check it all out at incogni dot com slash space nuts 254 00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:26.400 and see what works for you. But peace of mind is probably something that 255 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:32.119 we all need in this world of data thieves, so check it out today 256 00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:40.039 in cogni dot com slash space nuts. Now back to the show Murder Space 257 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:45.119 Nuts. Now, Fred, we are going to talk about what's spawned life 258 00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:49.400 as we know it on Earth, and that was the last universal common ancestor. 259 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.119 And the reason this story has come up is because we appear to have 260 00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:00.240 started to develop life as we know it much sooner than they thought. I 261 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:06.960 suppose we should start by explaining what Luca is all about. Yes, so 262 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:12.839 so LUCA is an acronym for the last universal common ancestor. I don't know. 263 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:17.680 You notice a bit of background noise there, Andrew, and that I've 264 00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:23.240 gone dark. There is a delightful lady who is pulling the paint off off 265 00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:27.359 the paint, not the paint, but the paint limitations off our screen. 266 00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:40.119 I'm going to show you. Hello, there we go. Yes, Will 267 00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:42.079 she even know that she just went around the world. I don't think so. 268 00:22:42.279 --> 00:22:48.480 I don't think she will. She's pulling the tape off that that keeps 269 00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:55.559 the thing that kicks the pain from spreading where you shouldn't be. I hope 270 00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:57.400 she doesn't. Didn't mind that. She's a delightful young woman, So that's 271 00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:11.200 fine. So the what we're talking about the last okay, So it's it's 272 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:15.839 an idea, I mean, and it's well established. And of course this 273 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:23.039 is of great interest to astrobiologists because the origin of life on Earth is the 274 00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:29.079 only model we've got for the origin of life anywhere, and so you know, 275 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:34.200 if life is going to form on other worlds, we want to understand 276 00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:41.039 how that might that process might happen, and our evolutionary biologists who look at 277 00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:48.200 this kind of thing they are basically putting putting the steps together to try and 278 00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:56.759 understand what is at the root of life. So Luca is, as I 279 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:02.400 said, it is last universal common ancestor. It is. It's kind of 280 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:07.440 hypothetical in a way, Andrew, because it may not be. It's probably 281 00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:12.519 not just one single microbe, but it's probably a lot of them which are 282 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:17.880 all the same, and they may even have formed those microbial maps that we 283 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:22.200 that Marny and I and our tour group were looking at in the Eddie Kara 284 00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:30.440 fossil beds not much more than a week ago. My microbes are the basic 285 00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:37.359 anti you know, the basic fundamental entities of life, single celled organisms. 286 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:45.440 So we have really good reason to believe that if you look back far enough, 287 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:52.160 you will come to this, Luca, this single celled organism. Basically 288 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:56.759 it is a it's a it's a you know, it's a category of organisms, 289 00:24:56.759 --> 00:25:03.519 if I can put it that way. Now that then evolved into what 290 00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:07.079 we call the tree of life. I looked into this a while ago because 291 00:25:07.079 --> 00:25:10.000 I've given talked about it, and I have to say, and I'll preface 292 00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:17.599 this with the disclaimer to the people who I know listen to this podcast. 293 00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:22.200 Who know a lot more about life processes and medicine than I do. I'll 294 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.960 preface it by the disclaimer that I know nothing about biology or living organisms, 295 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:30.160 but when I read is of great interest. As I said, they did 296 00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:33.119 the talk about Luca and the origins of life, and I don't know whether 297 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:36.680 the audience realized I had no idea what I was talking about, but I 298 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:38.720 think at the end and I seemed to be fine. You know, I 299 00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:44.599 did them for forty years on radio. We're still doing it, Andrew, 300 00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:48.680 We're still doing it. I haven't found out yet. Okay. So the 301 00:25:48.759 --> 00:26:00.640 tree of life three main branches bacteria are Kea and Ukaria, and the ukariah 302 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:06.000 basically are the you eukaryotic I think life forms. I think that's the adjective 303 00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:11.200 eukaryotic, and that includes us pretty well, everything that we we know. 304 00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:17.799 It's plants, animals, and fung guy. So the all of these are 305 00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:22.079 descendants from Luca bacteria, the Rka that's two different classes of sort of fairly 306 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:27.880 rudimentary life forms, and the eukarya, which are us and everything around us 307 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:33.359 that you know, are looking out at the lawn and trees are going up 308 00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:37.680 the rock face at behind our house. That's all part of the eukarya eukaryotic 309 00:26:37.960 --> 00:26:45.160 life, as is Hugh because he's a fun Hugh is because he's a fan 310 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:52.599 guy. I thought you were going to be nice to you today. I 311 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:57.119 couldn't help. But now he's watching today, and you know, one day 312 00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:00.720 you and I are going to be in mid sentence, the whole thing's going 313 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:07.079 to go black. That will be the end of it when he pulls the 314 00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:15.200 plug. Gosh, we're struggling with his story is anyway, And I'm going 315 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:22.000 to read a little quote from a very nice article by Everin Yaskin, who's 316 00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:27.160 a journalist with Cosmos. It's an Australian science journal, very very well respected 317 00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:36.119 Australian science journal. He's got some very nice sentences in here, which is 318 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:42.759 I'm going to quote him. All Luca's descendants share the same amino acids which 319 00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:49.119 build proteins in cellular organisms, the same energy, the same basic cellular machinery 320 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:56.680 and DNA used to store information. So understanding us earliest ecosystem and what the 321 00:27:56.799 --> 00:28:00.960 environment was like when Luca lived has been a major plank of scientific endeavor. 322 00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:07.640 But first, and this is cutting to the chase, and I hope everymore 323 00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:11.759 me quoting this, but it's great, it's written it very well. But 324 00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:17.160 first researchers had to determine how long ago Luca lived. And just an aside 325 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:19.119 from me, you need to know that because you want to know what the 326 00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:23.000 geology is telling you that the Earth was like. Then you know, you 327 00:28:23.559 --> 00:28:26.519 can think about Luca, but you need to know what sort of environment, 328 00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:33.680 what sort of environment was there, So we did not sorry, let me 329 00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:37.400 see, Yeah, so first researchers had to determine how long ago Luca lived. 330 00:28:37.880 --> 00:28:42.519 Using genetic information and known time separation between species from the fossil record, 331 00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:52.000 scientists have now determined that Luca lived four point two billion years ago. And 332 00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:53.880 this is the CrOx of the matter. This is what the surprise is. 333 00:28:53.960 --> 00:29:02.279 And I'm quoting again from Everyim's article. We did not expect Luca to be 334 00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:06.519 so old within just hundreds of millions of years of the Earth's formation, which 335 00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:11.960 by the way, was four point five seven billion years ago, says I 336 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:17.599 said that last bit, But says Sandra Alvarez Carretero from the University of Bristol, 337 00:29:18.039 --> 00:29:22.000 UK, co author of the study publisher Nature, Ecology and Evolution. 338 00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:26.799 However, our results fit in with modern views on the habitability of early Earth. 339 00:29:26.839 --> 00:29:32.480 That's the thing. If you do what they've done, and it's actually 340 00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:37.559 similar. It's similar to a process that took place I think in the sixth 341 00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:44.960 century when and I can't remember his name, that's terrible. He was a 342 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.839 monk. Effectively sixth century AD. He worked out the age of the world 343 00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:53.720 from biblical accounts just by saying, well, this took that long, this 344 00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:57.160 took that long, this took that long, this took that lot. And 345 00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:02.880 that's how he knew that the world was created four thousand years ago, So 346 00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:07.799 four thousand BC. I've forgotten his name, doesn't matter. He was the 347 00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:15.519 only Denyseus, that's right, thank you, thank you, well done, 348 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:21.720 well done. That man on the Google Denysseus. So he did exactly this 349 00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:25.799 process. He sort of thought about what we knew from the biblical account in 350 00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:30.480 terms of when you know, how long people lived, how often they did 351 00:30:30.519 --> 00:30:33.400 stuff, when they did it, and by that he was able to work 352 00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:37.200 out that the earth was formed. I think he got accurate to a couple 353 00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:42.240 of years four thousand and four BC, if lightly, which certain branches of 354 00:30:42.279 --> 00:30:47.880 the church still hold that that's when the creation took place. We've got a 355 00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:52.720 different story thirty point eight billion years which comes from slightly different you know, 356 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:59.000 slightly different reasoning. But just going back to the Lucas story, that's what 357 00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:03.200 they've done. Looked at the genetic information that tells you the time separation between 358 00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:07.720 the way species have evolved from the fossil record, and so now you get 359 00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:15.319 this origin of Luca four point two billion years ago, and that's really quite 360 00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:25.039 remarkable, it is. But there's more I've read about. Yeah, hang 361 00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:26.880 on a minute, let me see if I can get to it. No, 362 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:32.039 I can't wait a minute. Yes, that's right. Yeah, here 363 00:31:32.079 --> 00:31:37.359 we go. Okay, so this again is a quote actually from a Bristol 364 00:31:37.559 --> 00:31:45.119 University of Bristol professor of phylogenomics whose name is David Pisante. Pisanti David says, 365 00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:51.160 our study shows that Luca was a complex organism, not too different from 366 00:31:51.640 --> 00:31:56.720 modern prokaryotes, which are part of the modern you know, bacterial species. 367 00:31:57.240 --> 00:32:04.400 But what is really interesting is that it's clear it possessed an early immune system, 368 00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:08.559 showing that even by four point two billion years ago, our ancestor was 369 00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:14.880 engaging in an arms race with viruses. What about that. Yeah, that's 370 00:32:14.920 --> 00:32:22.000 amazing. So it throws a whole new light on the origin of life as 371 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:27.880 we know it. And speaking of which, and it takes it takes it 372 00:32:29.400 --> 00:32:32.960 right, Yeah, that's okay, but it takes it back further. And 373 00:32:34.039 --> 00:32:38.799 it looks like this started very early in the life of the planet, which 374 00:32:38.839 --> 00:32:44.839 is even more staggering. And I suppose that adds a little bit more confidence 375 00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:47.960 to the argument that there could have been life on Mars. And I wonder 376 00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:53.400 if that's the sort of thing they're looking for with their investigations at the moment 377 00:32:53.799 --> 00:33:00.759 that these lucre type of events. That's right, Luke on Mars. What 378 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:04.359 an interesting thing. I mean, it's always been said that, you know, 379 00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:08.359 as soon as we do find any evidence fossilized or otherwise of microbial life 380 00:33:08.359 --> 00:33:12.480 on Mars, assuming that we do. I don't know whether we will, 381 00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:15.519 but if you assume that they do, the first thing that you're going to 382 00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:20.000 want to do is look at its genetic sequencing, get down to a molecular 383 00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:24.799 level, and you might find that it's got the same ancestry as we have, 384 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:30.119 that it's got the same luca and that will be remarkable because that means 385 00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:34.319 that life on the two planets would have found the same origin, and it 386 00:33:34.359 --> 00:33:37.759 flourished on Earth because we had the right kind of climate, whereas Mars, 387 00:33:37.880 --> 00:33:45.000 being smaller, just went cold and dry and life probably didn't survive. Yet 388 00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:50.839 we had a better battle of soup, basically primordial soup. And of course, 389 00:33:51.160 --> 00:33:55.480 just to sort of wind this story up, and you did refer to 390 00:33:55.519 --> 00:34:05.000 it early on, this also creates a potential for Luca style of life being 391 00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:08.239 created in other worlds if the recipe is right. So it opens that door, 392 00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:13.480 particularly when you consider how long ago it happened, much sooner than we 393 00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:19.000 thought, and that kind of paves the way for the potential for life to 394 00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:22.519 get a little bit of a foothold in other worlds. If the conditions are 395 00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:27.559 perfectly right, or even not perfectly right, they could start to flourish and 396 00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:34.000 then the atmosphere changes and everything goes well. But yeah, fascinating stuff, 397 00:34:34.760 --> 00:34:39.039 yes, and you can read all about it on the cosmosmagazine dot com website. 398 00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:46.480 With space Nuts now fred to a story that is a little bit concerning, 399 00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:52.599 probably a lot concerning, and one that we only spoke about very recently, 400 00:34:52.679 --> 00:34:58.280 with a piece of space junk from the International Space station going through a 401 00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:05.880 house in Florida in March. Now we've got reports of space junk coming down 402 00:35:05.960 --> 00:35:09.719 all over the planet, not you know, in quick succession, but this 403 00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:15.039 is starting to become very common, and they're worried that the time will come 404 00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:21.000 where somebody becomes a fatality. This is very concerning, that's correct. Yeah, 405 00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:30.400 And the principle, the sort of common theme of the particular bits of 406 00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:37.119 space junk that we've spoken about hers is not so much the Starling spacecraft, 407 00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:40.480 of which there are now you know, what is it, seven thousand or 408 00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:50.960 something in orbit being launched August twenty twenty every two or three days. The 409 00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:59.079 main culprit seems to be the trunking of the Crew Dragon space capsule. So 410 00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:02.920 Crew Dragon is a is a something that looks a lot like you know, 411 00:36:02.920 --> 00:36:08.119 it's conical. It looks a lot like the old Apollo spacecraft. But Crew 412 00:36:08.199 --> 00:36:15.840 Dragon has a what's called a cargo trunk, that is the cylindrical part that 413 00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:22.960 connects the conical capsule to the to the launch vehicle. Because the bits of 414 00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:27.760 debris that have been found and we found them here in Australia exactly as you 415 00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:32.559 mentioned, that stuff that came through the roof in Florida. There's something been 416 00:36:32.599 --> 00:36:38.880 found in North Carolina, some stuff that's been found in Canada, and they 417 00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:44.559 all seem to have this common theme that they are bits of the trunking the 418 00:36:44.639 --> 00:36:50.079 trunk that joins the two bits of the spacecraft together. Clearly don't burn up 419 00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:54.320 in the atmosphere, and even though when you look at images of it it 420 00:36:54.400 --> 00:37:00.000 is a huge piece of apparatus, I mean, I'm not surprised it doesn't 421 00:37:00.039 --> 00:37:02.960 burn up. The things as big as a truck. Well, that's right. 422 00:37:04.039 --> 00:37:06.480 I think some of the some of the lots that have come down that 423 00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:15.480 have been very sizeable pieces of pieces of kit, and they well, they 424 00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:19.079 are interesting bits of stuff that are coming down. Things that have been to 425 00:37:19.159 --> 00:37:23.679 space are always interesting. But as you say, there's danger associated with that. 426 00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:28.920 And what some of the comment texts are saying about this is it's only 427 00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:32.920 a matter of time before somebody seriously hurt or killed by falling space junk. 428 00:37:34.679 --> 00:37:37.880 Yes, and even though there are laws in place, the nineteen seventy two 429 00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:44.679 Liability Convention states that nations are responsible for whatever they put up there and disposing 430 00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:52.320 of it. But the problem that has been created now with practically rocket launches 431 00:37:52.360 --> 00:37:58.599 every day or every other day. Is that when it comes to civilians, 432 00:37:58.679 --> 00:38:04.760 it's a different story. And this is the concern is that it won't be 433 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:10.360 long before lawsuits start getting registered due to damage or even death of people on 434 00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:15.800 Earth being struck by debris. And we saw that recently in Florida, as 435 00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:20.719 we spoke about a few weeks ago. So it is an it is an 436 00:38:20.719 --> 00:38:23.480 ongoing concern and one that seems to be escalating. This is starting to pop 437 00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:27.480 up all over the over the planet, as you mentioned, the most recent 438 00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:34.480 being Saskatchewan. And I was amused by the remedy for that was found by 439 00:38:34.519 --> 00:38:43.639 farmers and apparently the SpaceX company sent two employees in a rented truck to pick 440 00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:47.800 the pieces up and paid the farmers for the fragments, which sounds a bit 441 00:38:47.880 --> 00:38:52.239 comical, But what if it killed someone, a different story, then they 442 00:38:52.320 --> 00:39:00.440 were very different. So yeah, it's it's I hope it never happens. 443 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:05.920 But with so much stuff going up and coming down and not coming down, 444 00:39:05.960 --> 00:39:13.039 well it stands to reason that mathematically, statistically, something terrible is going to 445 00:39:13.039 --> 00:39:21.719 happen. Dovetailing into that story, Fred is a failure with the Falcon nine 446 00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:28.239 Heavy with a launch recently, and this was to deploy twenty Starlink satellites, 447 00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:32.079 which they did deploy, but apparently because of the failure, they couldn't get 448 00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:37.199 them to a decent enough altitude, so they'll all be lost. This is 449 00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:39.159 a bit of a shock because this is a very, very reliable piece of 450 00:39:39.159 --> 00:39:45.159 hardware. Yeah, it's just a standard Falcon Life rather than the Falconline Heavy, 451 00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:51.119 the fucking nine. Yeah, yeah, it's slightly different. What is 452 00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:55.719 it the number of launches successful launches, three hundred and sixty four successful launches 453 00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:05.519 of the Falcon nine system carrying astronauts as well as you know, various payloads 454 00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:12.840 for their commercial clients, and thousands and thousands of Starlink satellites. One the 455 00:40:12.920 --> 00:40:17.760 last the last time there was a problem was an explosion on the launch pad 456 00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:23.920 in September twenty sixteen. That is getting on for eight years ago. So 457 00:40:24.360 --> 00:40:34.320 it's it's pretty you know, it's pretty pretty reliable as a piece of space 458 00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:37.880 hardware, and that's what you want when you're sending astronauts up and down using 459 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:42.519 it. So what's happened this time is it was the second stage of the 460 00:40:42.599 --> 00:40:50.960 launch vehicle that failed because it had developed a liquid oxygen leak, and so 461 00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:55.119 it couldn't carry out a second burn. In other words, you've got what 462 00:40:55.159 --> 00:41:00.239 you've got. You've got the first stage, which actually returned quite safe to 463 00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:06.360 the drone chip. Probably yes, of course, I still love you. 464 00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:10.159 That's the name of one of them. The others just read the instructions that 465 00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:14.960 it returned and over which one it went to. There's another one too, 466 00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:20.079 but it landed safely on the drone ship. Second stage had a burn to 467 00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:23.559 separate it from the first stage, but then there was another one to inject 468 00:41:23.599 --> 00:41:30.119 the Starlink twenty Staralink satellites that it was carrying into their proper orbits, and 469 00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:35.719 that failed because of this oxygen leak, and so what happened was the Starlink 470 00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:42.960 satellites basically, I think fifteen of them just came back to Earth. They 471 00:41:43.039 --> 00:41:47.239 just burned up. They thought they could save five of them by using their 472 00:41:47.239 --> 00:41:54.159 own thrusters to increase their orbit, because you know, the orbit that that 473 00:41:54.239 --> 00:42:00.199 the second stage put these satellites in was unsustainable. Its low point was one 474 00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:05.360 hundred and thirty five kilometers, which is well in the atmosphere and would you 475 00:42:05.400 --> 00:42:07.920 know, would cause it to burn up very quickly. They were trying to 476 00:42:07.960 --> 00:42:13.519 use the thrusters on five of them to lift their orbits and save them, 477 00:42:13.920 --> 00:42:17.000 but I don't think that happened. Now. The story I hear is they 478 00:42:17.079 --> 00:42:22.679 just couldn't do it and they've all been lost, and that's because of that 479 00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:28.880 oxygen leak and therefore the booster failure. But only I think they only got 480 00:42:28.880 --> 00:42:34.280 to an altitude that was half that required to be a success, so they 481 00:42:34.280 --> 00:42:37.719 were on a hiding to nothing by the sond of it, that's correct. 482 00:42:39.559 --> 00:42:45.760 Sorry, I'm just answering a phone call on my watch talking about the future 483 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:52.000 the Sorry Andrew to be distracted there. But the main issue is that there 484 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:59.360 are two forthcoming launchers as we speak today recording this on the sixteenth of July 485 00:43:00.159 --> 00:43:06.599 to launches. One is a cargo launch July nineteenth, but the other is 486 00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:13.880 a crude launch on the thirty first of July from a project called Polaris Dawn, 487 00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:19.280 which is a private mission, and Polarist Dawn itself is pretty interesting actually, 488 00:43:19.320 --> 00:43:27.000 it's a private human spaceflight mission. It's a billionaire who's funding it. 489 00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:31.320 Space X will operate it with a crew Dragon capsule and it's the first of 490 00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:37.079 three plant missions. But it's a bit like do you remember we talked a 491 00:43:37.119 --> 00:43:45.440 few weeks ago about the medical details that had come from a private mission called 492 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:51.719 i think it was Inspiration four, which had medical people on board, and 493 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:58.599 so they were able to give real time measurements of people's blood pressure and you 494 00:43:58.639 --> 00:44:01.280 know, skin temperature, all of that sort of stuff. That provided a 495 00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:06.559 wealth of data that we talked about. That's said basically spaceflight. Yes, 496 00:44:06.639 --> 00:44:08.440 it knocks you about a bit, but within three months of getting back to 497 00:44:08.440 --> 00:44:10.920 Earth, you pretty well back to where you started with. And there was 498 00:44:10.920 --> 00:44:16.400 the issue of the telomere's growing. In fact, one of our regular listeners, 499 00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:23.880 Heidi di Bloc, who's a space medic, she commented on texts received 500 00:44:23.880 --> 00:44:29.239 from her about that, how interesting that was the research that came from that 501 00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:32.559 inspiration for mission. This is different, it's a different one, it's a 502 00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:37.239 different billionaire, it's a different name, Polaris DAM. But they will do 503 00:44:37.400 --> 00:44:40.840 experiments, they'll do you know, experiments in the flight. So it's a 504 00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:49.039 private company once again taking flight using a crew. Dragon Now that mission must 505 00:44:49.159 --> 00:44:52.920 currently be in doubt with the failure of the Falcon nine launch that we've just 506 00:44:52.920 --> 00:45:00.159 been talking about yes, and of course the ongoing issue with the Starline a 507 00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:07.199 Boeing star Liner and are still on the International Space Station waiting to come back. 508 00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:13.079 So yeah, and all. What this does is it kind of underlines 509 00:45:13.159 --> 00:45:17.280 how precarious and dangerous space flight is. I know we're taking it for granted 510 00:45:17.320 --> 00:45:22.599 more and more these days, but it only needs to be just a slight 511 00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:30.480 change in circumstances that could lead to something horrible happening. The fact that it 512 00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:35.519 was there were no people on the space the Falcon nine that ran into trouble 513 00:45:35.639 --> 00:45:38.599 is great news. But as you said, there are missions coming up which 514 00:45:38.639 --> 00:45:42.760 will be taking people into space, and yes, they're going to have to 515 00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:45.360 have a look at what went wrong and see if they can figure it out 516 00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:49.719 so they can avoid it in the future. We'll wait and see on that 517 00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:53.360 one. And of course, if you want to chase up those space Junken 518 00:45:53.960 --> 00:46:00.239 SpaceX stories there at space Daily dot com. That brings us to the end, 519 00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:04.760 Fred, Thank you very much. It's a pleasure, Andrew. We've 520 00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:07.480 covered a lot of ground today and how would I look forward to the next 521 00:46:07.480 --> 00:46:13.159 time indeed, which could be very very very very very very soon. No, 522 00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:17.840 no thanks, Red, will see you Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large, 523 00:46:19.159 --> 00:46:22.159 and thanks to Hu in the studio who turned up today. I haven't 524 00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:24.079 seen him do anything yet, but I'm sure he'll do something later. And 525 00:46:24.119 --> 00:46:28.199 from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. See you on the next 526 00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:37.639 episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple 527 00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:43.320 Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player. You can also 528 00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:47.440 stream on demand at bides dot com. This has been another quality podcast production 529 00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:57.760 from nights dot com.