Synopsis
All things Space astronomy, news, travel, discoveries, the mysteries and morewith world renown and respected Astronomer Dr. Fred Watson and Broadcaster/Journalist Andrew Dunkley. Website: www.bitesz.com
Episodes
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Unlocking Moon Mysteries: Water-Rich Lunar Glass Beads | Space Nuts #346
06/04/2023 Duration: 45minIn this episode, you will be able to: Unravel the intriguing results of the Chang'e 5 mission and its implications on lunar water resources. Investigate the peculiar characteristics of 'Oumuamua and its potential hydrogen propulsion mechanism. Mitigate Earth's asteroid threats by understanding the process of detecting perilous objects. Analyze the consequences of a mysterious Mars-sized planet's influence on Earth's rotation. Envision the prospects of space exploration with the availability of the moon's bountiful water resources. For more Space Nuts, visit our website or follow us on socials. We're everywhere... Website: https://www.spacenuts.io YouTube: youtube.com/@spacenuts Twitter: @spacenutspodcst Facebook: @SpaceNutspodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacenuts.io/ Discord: @SpaceNutsPodcast TikTok: @BiteszHQ#astronomy #space #science #spacenuts #podcastBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
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Revealing the Mysteries of Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Neutron Stars | Space Nuts #345
30/03/2023 Duration: 55minAn all-listener questions episode. Hear what's on the minds of our listeners. Explore the mysterious universe and uncover the secrets of dark matter and dark energy with Andrew and Fred. "Matter tells space how to bend. Space tells matter how to move." - John Wheeler Professor Fred Watson is an astronomer and science communicator, best known for his work in the field of astrophysics. He is a regular contributor to numerous science-related media outlets around the globe. Professor Fred Watson was taken aback by Rusty's question about how the rotation curves vary with wavelength. After exploring Einstein's famous theory of gravity, Fred discussed the dangers of the neutron star and the web of dark matter that formed structures in the universe. He explained that dark energy, while being uniform throughout the universe, was the cause of the universe's accelerating expansion. He then discussed the possibility of dark matter black holes, concluding that they should behave the same as normal matter black holes. Fina
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The Search for Life on Venus: Uncovering Volcanic Activity | Space Nuts #344
23/03/2023 Duration: 44minIn this episode of the podcast, Fred Watson embarks on a journey to the National Press Club to attend a big event featuring NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, only to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught in a thunderstorm. "If you're going to bet on where the most likely place for an eruption to occur on Venus, this would be it. It's the tallest volcano on the planet." Fred Watson was in a hotel room in Canberra when a thunderstorm struck, sending him scrambling to unplug his electronics. While there, he heard about the National Press Club lunch with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, and his deputy, Pam Melroy. He managed to get a ticket and attended the event, where he learned about the volcanically active planet Venus. Robert Herrick, a planetary scientist at the University of Alaska, had detected a particular volcanic vent that had changed in shape and size over an eight month period. Professor Herrick suggested that this could be a recent volcanic event; and Trevor Allen's research
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A Cosmic Cannibal: Uncovering the Mystery of the Loneliest Galaxy in the Universe | Space Nuts #343
16/03/2023 Duration: 47minWhen an ambitious astrophysicist discovers a lone galaxy 9.2 billion light years away, she unravels the mystery of a fossil cluster, uncovering an unexpected twist in the evolution of carbon in the universe. In this episode, learn about astronomy topics - Quasars, Big Bang, and Carbon formation in the universe - from a conversation between Andrew and Fred about Dr. Rebecca Davis' research. They discuss how carbon started forming in the universe, which is important as we are a carbon based life form. The research found that in the early universe there was more cold carbon than warm carbon and it may be due to the first generation of stars. This research also paves the way for future investigations with the Square Kilometer Array to detect neutral hydrogen during a key phase of the universe's history. Furthermore, there is an example of extreme galactic cannibalism, with a distant galaxy called 3 C 297, which appears to be alone in space due to gobbling up all it's neighbours. "During the period when the first
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Moon Time - What? | Space Nuts #342
09/03/2023 Duration: 47minHi there, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. I'm your host, Andrew Dunkley. Hope you can stick around. We've got a lot to talk about today. What time is it on the moon? It's moon time.It could be daytime, could be night-time. It depends where you are, but we're talking about real time.We'll elaborate in this episode and offer up some solutions. There might be a new way to find Planet Nine. We're going to look at some sunrays on Mars and the dark Big Bang Theory. We'll also be answering some audience questions and much, much more on this episode of Space Nuts. "Throughout human history, exploration has actually been a key driver of improved timekeeping and geodetic reference models." The idea is how do you define time on the Moon. Do you have lots of different time zones, like we have on Earth? Or do you have a single lunar time zone? A joint international effort is now being launched towards achieving this. In this episode, you will learn the following: 1. How is time being defined on the Moon? 2. Wha
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Auroras, Spaghetti & Speed of Light: Space Nuts #341
02/03/2023 Duration: 47minExperience the awe-inspiring power of the universe with a journey to see the aurora australis and witness spaghettification first-hand! Learn about Aurora displays from this Space Nuts podcast episode featuring Fred Watson and Andrew Dunkley. Apparently, people have been seeing these aurora displays in unusual places due to various plasma bubbles being spat out from the sun. This is not surprising as we are approaching the solar maximum, which is the regular up and down trend in the number of sunspots that appear on the sun. These sunspots are highly intense regions of magnetism that release energy in the form of plasma bubbles which cause the green, red and sometimes purple lights of the aurora. It is unusual for people to be seeing the aurora in places such as the UK, and the best time to look is near the equinox. Plus we’re witnessing a spaghettification first hand, but what exactly is that, and lastly, the Space Station was damaged by a micrometeoroid and a rescue mission is underway. In this episode, you
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340: Uncovering the Dark Side: Is Dark Energy Coming from Black Holes?
23/02/2023 Duration: 47minWhen listener Daniel poses a theory linking black holes to dark matter and dark energy, Andrew and Fred embark on an adventure to uncover the truth and explore the potential for a Nobel Prize, but must prove the revolutionary theory before time runs out. You will learn how to unlock the secrets of the mysterious dark energy that powers the universe.Show Notes Learn about Dark energy with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. They discussed the potential for the discovery of a source for dark energy, which Daniel from Adelaide theorized could be black holes that suck up normal matter and energy and convert them to dark matter and dark energy. C0-incidentally, a paper published this week links black holes to dark energy, but not dark matter. It states that black holes generate an energy that is somehow coupled to the universe's expansion, providing the energy required for the universe's acceleration. Duncan Farrer of the University of Hawaii said that this is the first proposed astrophyiscal source for dark
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339: The Pareidolia Phenomenon on Mars: Searching for 'Paddington Bear'
16/02/2023 Duration: 47minAfter a decade of searching, a determined Mars rover discovers an eerily familiar formation of an ancient crater, inciting an interplanetary investigation of the phenomenon of pareidolia. You will learn the mysteries of the Red Planet and the latest updates on Mars exploration.Show Notes:After a decade of searching, a determined Mars rover discovers an eerily familiar formation of an ancient crater, inciting an interplanetary investigation of the phenomenon of pareidolia. You will learn the mysteries of the Red Planet and the latest updates on Mars exploration. Learn about Mars exploration through a lively conversation between Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson on Space Nuts. They discussed the phenomenon of pareidolia, where people find familiar shapes in random objects, and how it has been seen on Mars in the form of faces, hats, and other shapes. They also talked about the rover Perseverance and its mission to collect samples which have been left on the surface in 10 sealed tubes. They have now b
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338: Indestructible Asteroids // The Hunt for Alien Life with AI // Questions & Answers
09/02/2023 Duration: 49minThank you for joining us on Space Nuts where we talk astronomy and space science every week. I hope you well. Coming up in this edition indestructible asteroids - yep they've got some samples they've hit him with a hammer and nothing happened and we're talking asteroids that are made of rubble. But it turns out to be more like reinforced concrete. We're also going to look at machine learning or artificial intelligence for the discovery, maybe, of extraterrestrial life. And we're going to answer some questions about gravity and astronauts. What happens when they're going maybe from here to Mars? What's the gravity like compared to orbiting the planet or lack of there? So how is a light year measured? Very carefully. And what pushes rockets in space? We will tell you all of that if we can. Maybe we won't. Coming up on this edition of Space Nuts. Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts Episode 338 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or visit o
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337: 2023-BU - A Near Miss for Planet Earth
02/02/2023 Duration: 48minWe're back. Space Nuts. 2023. I'm Andrew Dunkley, your host, and joining me, as always, will be Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large. Hi, Fred. Happy new year. Probably too late to say that, but anyway, it's the first time we've chatted a break. Now, what's coming up on the 337th edition of Space nuts? Well, a near miss asteroid we've got to talk about. Asteroid 2023 BU, which flew past the earth very closely recently. It was almost a record breaker in that regard. We'll cover that. And we'll also talk about some new results from the James Webb telescope about the molecules and chemicals that are being found deep in icy clouds in space. Wow. All right. It's just always something new coming from the James Webb space telescope. And some audience questions. Harold wants to know about self-cleaning rovers. Good idea. Sandy in Melbourne wants to talk about how spacecraft targets small objects in space and more. Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts Episode 337 with Professor Fred Watson & Andr
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05: The Best of 2022 - Artemis-1
26/01/2023 Duration: 46minIn early November 2022, Artemis-1 finally launched on it's inaugura mission after several false starts. A huge success, the mission gave us a glimpse of things to come....the future had arraived. Great excitment ensued. Fred gave us his epert overview of the launch and what it meant for the future of space exploration.For more Space Nuts visit https://spacenuts.ioFollow Space Nuts on Facebook, Twitter (@SpaceNutspodcst), Instagram, and YouTube#space #science #astronomy #podcast #spacenutsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
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04: The Best of 2022 | A Celebration
19/01/2023 Duration: 59minIn April 2022, Space Nuts reached a milestone...the recording of the 300th episode. A celebration ensued. Enjoy!Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts Best of 2022 E04 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or visit our website at www.spacenuts.io Have you checked out our new daily news podcast, Astronomy Daily – The Podcast, just visit our website at https://spacenuts.io or our HQ at https://bitesz.com And now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, Pocketcasts and most other podcast apps. Also on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@astronomydailythepodcast#space #science #astronomy #news #podcast #spacenutsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.
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03: Space Nuts Best of 2022 | First Image from the JWST
12/01/2023 Duration: 40minAstronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts – The Best of 2022 E03 - with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Andrew: Hello. Andrew Dunkley here from Space Nuts. Hope you can join us on Best of 2022 episode where I'll be joined by none other than the good Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large. Fred. What's on this edition. Fred: One of the biggest stories of 2022, which is the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. We're going to cover that in a little bit of detail. We're going to talk about a new telescope that's just starting to be built at Siding Spring Observatory here in New South Wales, that’ll be looking for the aftermath of gravitational wave events. And we’ll squeeze in a story about the idea that aliens might use quantum communication. Andrew: And we just finished answering all the questions about gravitational waves and we had to do a gravitational wave story. So, we'll start rolling again, of course. And speaking of audience questions, we'll be hearing from Ben in Dov
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02: Questions & Answers - The Best of Space Nuts 2022
05/01/2023 Duration: 53minIn this episode as part of our Best of 2022 series while Andrew and Fred take a break, we take you back to February 2022 for one of our favorite Q&A sessions...you ask, we answer. Enjoy!Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts Episode 290 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley · Our listeners take over the show with questions from around the globe. Fred has answers for all of them. NEW: The Space Nuts Premium edition is now available on Spotify for our Supercast subscribers (sorry, Patreon isn’t there yet…fingers crossed). To access the premium feed, just log in to your Spotify account and do a search. Use your current subscriber details to unlock the premium content. If you’d like to become a subscriber, just visit https://spacenuts.supercast.tech and sign up. You even get a 30-day free trial to see if it’s right for you. Nothing to lose. Premium Editions also now available via subscription through Apple Podcasts…again with a 30-day free trial. For more Space Nuts, visit our websites. L
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01: The Best Of 2022 - The DART Mission from the Inside
30/12/2022 Duration: 52minIn the this, the first in our Best of 2022 series while Andrew and Fred take a break, we introduce our special guest Marie-Claire Mercier who was our eyes and ears on the ground at the historic DART Mission climax. Enjoy!We hope you can join us on this episode, because it's very exciting. We are going to do a follow up on the DART mission with one of our dedicated listeners, Marie-Claire Mercier. Hi, Marie Claire. Thanks for joining us, by the way. Marie-Claire: Thank you. Thank you for sending the invite. Andrew: And we've got other things to talk about, too. Fred, what's going on? Fred: Exciting news from Mars. Andrew, your favorite planet, Some interesting evidence that comes from the Chinese rover on Mars with its ground penetrating radar, it's revealed some interesting features deep beneath the surface of Mars. Good thing to talk about. Andrew: Okay. Yes, indeed. Look forward to that. We'll also be answering some audience questions about the effects of an asteroid impact, which dovetails beautifully with
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336: A Space Mystery Solved // Is Dark Matter Dark Photons? // Questions Answered
22/12/2022 Duration: 47minI hope you can join us on what will be the last official episode of Space Nuts for this calendar year. And my name is Andrew Dunkley, of course, the host, and joining me will be Professor Fred Watson, astronomer at large. Fred, what are we going to do to finish off this 2022? Well, we've got some great stories, actually. It looks as though there's a mystery being solved that has hung around for decades regarding the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, which we see from down here in the Southern Hemisphere, the large and small Magellanic Cloud, among many others of them. That looks as though it's been solved by scientists, including somebody I know quite well actually from the University of Durham. Also, we're going to talk about something I know nothing about, the possibility that dark matter might turn out to be dark photons. All in Space Nuts 336. Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff. Space Nuts Episode 336 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or
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335 - Your Questions - Our Answers
15/12/2022 Duration: 49minThanks for joining us.This is Space Nuts where we talk astronomy and space science. My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host, and this is an all-question episode. Your questions and our answers.Well, almost. We'll be hearing about spin launch. Somebody's not so much sent a question in, but they've been there and wanted to tell us about it.But questions about the radial velocity of stars, negative gravity, dark matter, and the Casimir effect, and much, much more.Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff.Space Nuts Episode 335 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or visit our website at www.spacenuts.io Have you checked out our new daily news podcast, Astronomy Daily – The Podcast, just visit our website at https://spacenuts.io or our HQ at https://bitesz.com And now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, Pocketcasts and most other podcast apps. Also on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@astronomydailythepodcastBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://ww
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Active Mars // Square Kilometre Array // JWST Update // Questions & Answers
08/12/2022 Duration: 48minThanks for joining us on Space Nuts, the podcast about astronomy and space sciencealso heard on community radio across Australia.My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host. And coming up on this edition, we're going to be looking at the Square Kilometre Array.And the reason is because you can actually look at it because they've started building the thing. Also, some interesting findings by the James Webb Space Telescope.Mars appears to be active, much more active than we would have considered.Some new evidence has come to light and a bit of an update on Artemis 1 and questions about the end of the life of the sun and Terra forming an ice moon. That's all to come on this edition of Space Nuts.Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff.Space Nuts Episode 334 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or visit our website at www.spacenuts.io Have you checked out our new daily news podcast, Astronomy Daily – The Podcast, just visit our website at https://spacenuts.io or ou
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Venus - New Information
01/12/2022 Duration: 46minWe've got a bunch of really interesting and quite provocative stories this week. A story about how volcanism might have shaped the atmosphere of the planet Venus.And another story about something we’ve never talked about and that is filaments in the centers of galaxies. I used to think of a filament as being something that lit up a light bulb although they don't have that anymore, but these are filaments of hot gas which have been detected and are really quite mysterious.And we'll answer questions about anti-matter and anti-protons, space junk, relativity, and one question we don't really understand, but it came from Rusty in Western Australia. So that's understandable in itself. That's all coming up on this edition of Space Nuts, episode 333.Astronomy, Science, Space, and Stuff.Space Nuts Episode 333 with Professor Fred Watson & Andrew Dunkley Download from your favorite podcast distributor or visit our website at www.spacenuts.io Have you checked out our new daily news podcast, Astronomy Daily – The Pod
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The Crazy Shapes of Our Universe: The James Webb Space Telescope's Recent Discoveries
24/11/2022 Duration: 47minThe James Webb Space Telescope has analyzed the atmosphere of an exoplanet and found astonishing new evidence of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. In this episode, you will learn:1. The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered new atmospheric compositions on the exoplanet Wasp-39b, including sulfur dioxide, potassium, and carbon monoxide.2. The shape of our galaxy may be more complicated than previously thought, with a halo of stars and other objects surrounding the disk of stars.3. The Gaia spacecraft has measured the positions and motions of stars with unprecedented accuracy, providing new insights into the structure of our galaxy."The latest results, though, they were pretty impressive, what we've heard so far. But the ones that we're seeing now are really quite staggering because the Webb using its infrared equipment in a way that lets you investigate the atmosphere of this planet as it passes in front of its parentI'm joined by Professor Fred Watson on Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy,