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Speaker 1: Hi there, Welcome to a Q and A episode of

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Space Nuts. I'm Andrew Dunkley and it's good to have

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your company. As always, We've got a lot of questions today,

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but we're three. We might squeeze in an extra one

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time permitting. We'll just leave that one hanging in the

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ether for the moment. But what would be the effect

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on dark matter if something big exploded, like I don't

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know a star. That's a question that has come into us.

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Ryan wants to talk about the Sun's ecliptic. What does

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that mean? I have no idea, but we will will

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answer the question anyway by making something up. And we've

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got a question from James about planetary rings. That's all

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coming up on this Q and a episode of Space

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Nuts fifteen in.

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Speaker 2: Channel ten nine ignition.

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Speaker 1: Space Nuts or three two Space Nurtes.

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Speaker 3: What it feels good? Yes?

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Speaker 1: I feel good?

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Speaker 3: He feels good. We all feel good?

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Speaker 1: How do you feel freend.

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Speaker 3: I feel terrible? Feel good to It's a feel good show?

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Is space so you can't do anything else?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 1: The Q and A edition tends to go that way.

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Speaker 3: We get all sorts.

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Speaker 1: We even get genuine questions sometimes, which is always nice.

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Shall we just go straight for it.

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Speaker 3: I think we should. I think that's a really good idea.

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Speaker 1: And a big hesitation. I was a bit worried there

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for a minute. We'll we'll go to our first question.

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This comes from Damien on the Gold Coast. We're not

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talking about West Africa. We're talking about Southeast Queensland, because

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there's a Gold coast in both places. In regard to

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dark matter, if there's five times the amount of it

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to ordinary matter when Beetlejuice explodes, will the explosion blow

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will blow away the dark matter as well? Would this

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now make the neutron star one fifth of the mass

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until the dark matter returned. That's from Damien on the

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Gold Coast. Interesting question. We don't know much about dark matter,

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but could or would it be affected by something as

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dramatic as Beetlejuice or some other star exploding super novastyle.

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No Ah, that's interesting because I thought the answer would

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be yes.

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Speaker 3: I thought you might think that yeah, and it's no.

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That's because dark matter does not interact with normal matter

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at all, except by gravitation, So an explosion blowing things

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away needs a physical push. It's usually a shock wave

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that passes through a medium, and yes, if dark matter

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responded that shock wave would compress the dark matter, you'd

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have all kinds of phenomena. But dark matter doesn't interact

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with normal matter, and so it ignores the explosion completely.

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We know this because of observations that have been made,

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and I think there's at least two examples of this, Andrew,

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where you've got clusters of galaxies which are colliding. Now,

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you can use clusters of galaxies to basically reveal where

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dark matter is in them, because you can look at

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the way the space around them is distorted by gravity

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and the dark matter contributes to that. And the way

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you investigate that distortion of space is by looking at

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distant galaxies beyond. You can look at their shapes and

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you know the extent to which they're twisted or their

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images are twisted, and figure out how much the space

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in front of them is being distorted. And that distortion

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comes from the matter of the galaxy clusters. So to

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come back to the point, as I said, there's at

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least a couple of examples of this where you've got

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two galaxy clusters that have collided and basically ground to

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a halt. Their hydrogen gas that the company's galaxy clusters

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has sort of compressed itself and is excited enough to

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emit radiation in the X rays. But you can sense

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where the dark matter clouds that originally accompanied these galaxy

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clusters have gone, and it turns out that they just

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carry on going without batting an eyelid. So what you've

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got is basically a cluster which is formed of two

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clusters coming into collision. On either side of it, you've

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got the dark matter cloud answer that were associated with

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the original galaxy clusters, which have just carried on going

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as though nothing had happened. And so that's an extraordinary

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example that illustrates very cogently that we don't see any

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interaction between normal matter and dark matter.

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Speaker 1: Ah Okay, I'm surprised. I thought I thought the two

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potential answers were yes or we don't know.

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Speaker 3: There's no.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty well known, and it's because you know,

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that's if there was a reaction. If something did happen,

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that will be great because we're able to detect the

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dark matter and have a much better idea of what

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it is than we have now. So, Damien, your question

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is a good one, but has perhaps a surprising answer.

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Speaker 1: HM, okay, very interesting. All right, thanks Damien. Let's move

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on to a next question, which comes from Ryan.

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Speaker 2: Hey guys, it's Ryan here from town in Delaware, voted

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Delaware's third most okay as town.

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Speaker 3: I had a quick question for you.

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Speaker 2: I was thinking about how the Sun revolves or orbits

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around our galaxy and granted takes, you know, millions, hundreds

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of millions of years to make it make a trip around,

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but I was wondering about our ecliptic in regards to

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how the Sun is moving around the galaxy. Are we

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orbiting the Sun like a you know, hoop around a

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dancer as they go around. Are we orbiting more like

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a halo around the Sun as we move around? What

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is our orientation of the ecliptic as it pertains to

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the Sun's orbit around our galaxy? Thanks a lot, guys,

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keep up the great work.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Rian, and I hope you're enjoying being number

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three most Okay town. I can tell you with absolutely

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certainly THEO wouldn't write in the top three of anything

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in this country. We cop a lot of stick from

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the media, probably because of the name of our town.

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It's very unfair and they're all wrong. But it's good

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to be number three. Now I might get here or

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explained for it, just to we sort of get our

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heads around it. Does How does the Sun's orbit work

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on a galactic level?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question and it's got a great

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answer as well, which is sixty two degrees thirty six minutes.

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Oh okay, yeah, So that's the angle that the Sun's

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path around the around the galaxy, around the center of

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the galaxy. That's the angle it makes with the equator,

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the equator of the Earth. So let me just step

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back a bit because that, you know, the end of

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Ryan's question was what's the orientation, and that's the answer,

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sixty two degrees thirty six minutes. But we don't call

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it the ecliptic for the galaxy. So remembering that the

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ecliptic as seen from the Earth, is the path of

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the Sun through the sky. It's tilted with respect to

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the equator, and that means that the Earth, you know,

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the Earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the

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plane of its orbit. It's not standing upright in its

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orbit at twenty three and a half degrees. So that's

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the ecliptic, as we call it, and it's the apparent

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path of the Sun through the sky. Of course, it's

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the Earth actually moving around the Sun, but that's what

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we see now. In a similar fashion, we can think

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about the path of the galactic center through the sky

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as the Solar system moves around the center of our galaxy.

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The difficulty with this is that it takes two hundred

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million years to go around once, and so you don't

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see it every year like you do with the eclipsic,

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see the Sun going around every year. But we do

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know that the Sun's path is fairly near what we

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call the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, basically the disc,

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the plane in which the disc of the galaxy lies.

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The Sun's path is fairly close to that. It may

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wabble a little bit up and down as it goes

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around the galactic center. There may be disturbances caused by

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giant molecular clouds and things like that as it passes,

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but we know from the observations of the stars around

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us that those are not particularly high level disturbances. The

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thing is really going around mostly along the galactic plane,

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and so what that means is that you can define

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the angle that that makes with the equator of the Earth.

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And it's what I said, sixty two degrees thirty six minutes.

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So the Milky Way is tilted over at quite a

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high angle compared with the Ecliptic, which is tilted over

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at quite a small angle twenty three and a half degrees.

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And in a way, you know, if you imagine the

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way the Earth is the or sorry some and its

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family of planets as they progress around their path around

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the center of the galaxy, they're not lying in the

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same plane as that path. They're sort of tilted upwards

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to it at you know, quite quite a steep angle.

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And so that's how the Sun and its planets move

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around the center of the galaxy. It's not, as Ryan conjectured,

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is not sort of moving around the halo of the

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galaxy or anything like that. It is sitting firmly in

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the plane. It's just an ordinary star in the main

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part of the Milky.

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Speaker 1: Way, and it's doing what billions of other stars are doing,

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and our planets are doing what billions upon billions of

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planets are doing throughout galaxy. And it's just going around

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and around. It's a slow motion dance that's happening fast

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more or less frost motion dance that's happening slowly, which

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could be both. It's all relative. Okay, thank you, Ryan.

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This is Space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson.

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Space Nuts. Now we've got a question from James Shalom Gents.

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He says, I've got a question regarding planets with rings.

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Could there be a planet with multiple sets of rings

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that are different to each other. I'm envisioning something like

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rings wrapping around an equator from gravity as per usual,

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but some other materials possibly being caught in the north

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to south magnetic field at a larger smaller diameter than

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the equatorial rings. Thanks for entertaining my nonsense, James Greenfield,

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It's not nonsense. It's a question and it deserves and answer. James.

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We're going to tackle that one right now. Most rings,

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like the ones around Saturn, which are the most prominent

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in our Solar system, are made up of dust and

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rocks and ice and bits and bobs. So what else

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could they be made off? For him?

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Speaker 3: Well, yes, so it would be debris of some sort

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or other gas dust. I think James's question.

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Speaker 1: I know the rings around Earth which are made of metal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, they are, and they go around the

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equator as well, like the rings of Saturn, like the

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rings of Uranus and Jupiter and Neptune. So I think

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James's question is, you know, could could there be rings

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that go at a different angle from the equator of

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other planet? And the answer is probably no, because this

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debris tends to be squashed down into a disc. In

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the case of Saturn, it is mostly ice, icy debris.

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A bit of rock in it as well, but mostly ice,

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and it's squashed down just by gravitational forces in connection

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with the rotation of the planet, So it tends to

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be forced into the equator of the planet. So a

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ring that's tilted at some jaunty angle a little bit

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like what we've just been talking about with the disc

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of the galaxy, that is I think highly unlikely to happen.

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Even if you envisiit ship being entrapped with magnetic fields

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and things of that sort. I think we'd be struggling

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to make a ring that would not be at the

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equator of a planetry body.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so no one both counts. It's probably not going

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to ever be made of anything else. And it's probably

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not going to move beyond the.

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Speaker 3: Equatorial Yeah, that's right, rotation an equatorial plane.

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Speaker 1: Plane, that's the word I want to that's when you

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think of it. So yeah, sorry, James, good good idea,

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but not likely. Now have we got time for one more?

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I reckon we could squeeze one more in.

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Speaker 3: Fred, Yes, yes, we can be quick on this one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's be quick on this one. Hello,

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and best wishes to you both. A couple of questions

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about solar activity? One? What are the differences between solar

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flares and coronal mass ejections?

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Speaker 3: Two?

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Speaker 1: What predisposes red dwarf stars to the outbursts of solar

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activity that would seem to challenge development of life on

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planets in their solar systems. Thank you for the answers,

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and thanks for very much for a terrific podcast. You

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guys are stars. Bob Mark from Bloomington, Indie.

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Speaker 3: And a.

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Speaker 1: Question one, what's the difference between solar flares and coronal

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mass ejections?

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Speaker 3: Thread, So it's mostly a much of degree, I think

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the you know, the physical processes are different. A solar

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flare is something that is generated by magnetic activity, tends

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to come from sun spot regions when you know there's

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a high level of magnetic activity there. And we think

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of the magnetic field lines stretching between sun spots which

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come in pairs, and one has a northern polarity and

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one has a southern magnetic polarity. So when they are

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particularly energetic, then you get solar flares. I think I'm

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right in saying that coronal mass ejections start off the

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same way. But if you get these magnetic field lines

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breaking so that there is a kind of magnetic twang,

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what you get is matter mass actually being expelled outwards

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at a great velocity. It's almost like an elastic and

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breaking on the gigantic scale, and that gives you a

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significant ejection of material. That's a significant rejection of the

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sub atomic particles which are there all the time in

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this in the excuse me, in the solar wind. But

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with a mass ejection, you're getting a very much enhanced

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level of this subatomic particle is being ejected from the Sun.

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Speaker 1: And that's the thing that worries people around the world

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in terms of the interference with electronics, and of course

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the beautiful auror ray that we see in the north

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and south of the of the planet. There's pros and

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cons to coronal mass ejections, but with reliance on electronics,

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that's becoming an area of concern. Well, it's not becoming.

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It is an area of concern if we get hit

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directly by something super nasty like that for it.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct. So the second part of Mark's question

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is a good one, and it's right that red dwarfs

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are much more active on this sort of scale. We

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know that they are more you know, the outbursts of

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sub atomic particles are much more prevalent, and I think,

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thinking back to my studies of stellar evolution and things

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of that sort, these stars have star spots on them

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which are huge. They are very large compared with the

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star itself, and I think that might be the one

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of the reasons why you've got much more activity, because

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they have enormous star spots on them. And in fact,

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I was just talking only today to a couple of

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my colleagues who are the experts on exactly that in

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this country at the University of Southern Queensland, Brad Carter

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and Stephen Marsden. They did research on this and I've

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worked with him in the past on it. They can

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actually map where these star spots are on stars. They

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do it with a technique called ZAM and Doppler imaging,

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which is a fairly esoteric technique but allows you to

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make maps of the surface of stars, and their Red

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dwarfs have got very big star spots, which I'm sure

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is why you get big, big solar flares. Now, Mark's

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next question, if he was able to talk to us,

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will be why do they have such big star spots.

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The answer to that is, well, I'll go and ask

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my colleagues because I don't know the answer to that,

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but it's totally something in the evil.

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Speaker 1: That bloke you were talking about, Samon Doppler, he might know.

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Speaker 3: That's two blocks actually hair Doppler, And yeah, it would

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be hair as well as Emma was Dutch, So there

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you go.

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Speaker 1: It was probably the big spot that are causing red

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doors to be so nasty, so their planets where it's

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very difficult to establish life. By the sound of it,

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We've talked about that before. That's probably what prompted the

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question from Mars. I'm sure a good question too. Thank you,

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Yes it is, Thank you Mark. Thank you to everyone

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who contributed. Don't forget to send your questions into us

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via our website, Space nuts podcast dot com, Space nuts

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dot io. Click on the AMA link at the top.

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It's right next to about and support, which you can

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Maybe well, no, tell us something about where you live.

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And don't forget to follow us on social media and

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thank you, Fred, we are done again.

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Speaker 3: It sounds great and great to talk to you as always,

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Andrew look forward to the next time.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, catch you soon, Fred, what's an astronomer at large?

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And thanks to Hugh in the studio who wasn't in

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the studio today. Thanks anyway, and from me Andrew Dunkley.

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Thanks for your company. We'll catch you next time on

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another edition of Space Nuts.

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Speaker 4: By bye you best to the Space Nuts podcast, available

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at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

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Speaker 1: You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.

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This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.