Black Holes, Time Twists & the Future of Life on Mars: A Q&A Episode

Earth. And the basis of the story is that Earth's become uninhabitable due to global warming. So everyone

basically went let's get out of Dodge. And that's the scene of all the rockets taking off as humanity leaves the planet. And the whole storyline basically is about people coming back to visit but we can't live here anymore because we messed it up so bad. And that, yeah, so that's the launch sequence from all the humans leaving the planet after we decimated it with global warming and climate

change. and it's a 360 degree sphere in Las Vegas, which you can walk around and it has pictures on the outside, but on the inside it's a visual screen that goes all around you. not only is it showing you pictures but you can also experience weather while you're there. So you fly over snow fields and you can feel the cold and the wind. you fly over an orchard in California, you can smell the citrus.

it's really brilliant, really amazing facility that they've, they've built there and all centred around science. So yeah, loved it, Absolutely loved it. Notwithstanding the fact the Eagles are performing there pretty much as I speak. So they do all kind of thing as well. Yeah. But yeah, I like that, I like that as a backdrop. Sort of fits in with what we do. Space Nuts launching rockets, that kind of thing.

Professor Fred Watson: So the reason why Earth, is uninhabitable. Is because of all these rockets leaving behind their trailer were nasty stuff. They dusted chemicals. It probably didn't help that many take. Professor Fred Watson: I don't think it would, no. Let's get down to some questions. And our first one comes from Mark, Painter. this one came via, Facebook. Dear Andrew and Professor Fred Watson. I have a few questions that

puzzle me today. I'll start with, of course, black holes in the movie Interstellar. As they get closer to the black hole, time slows down relative to the outside observer. By extension, as we get close to the event horizon, time would stretch more and more and I assume follows an exponential curve to the point where time effectively stops. So then to enter the black hole, wouldn't time have to go in

reverse? Could it be that all black holes are actually chunks that come from the Big Bang that did not, form, That did not form normal matter? Thanks in advance. We kind of talked about that in our last episode. The primordial black holes. And they're maybe being responsible for dark matter, which Fred Watson debunked pretty heavily. Yeah, there's a big up. Really? No, but, So he's asking about time being reversed. If you entered a black hole, I know something that would be

reversed. Your life. But that's besides the point. Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, Just. Just to, elaborate on what you were just saying though, Andrew. primordial black holes may exist. We just don't know. and my comment was that I didn't think they would amount to forming the. The dark matter that, you know, looking for. But we do, we do know that, some black holes are actually formed from supernova explosions. The debris left over by

supernova. The collapse of the core of a star that has sufficient mass, up to 22. Something like 22 solar masses. So, the answer to the last bit of Mark's question there. Could it be that all the black holes are actually chunks that came from the Big Bang that did not form normal matter? And, some of them probably did, the primordial ones. But, some also didn't. We know that black holes are formed by. By stars getting to the ends of their

lives. And regarding time reversal, Mark is absolutely right that as you, To an outside observer, the closer you get to the event horizon, the, More your time to the outside observer slows down, if I can put it that way. And when you cross the event horizon, basically time stops. So your person would be frozen, on the event horizon. Although they've actually fallen into it. They don't see the event horizon because that's ah, basically an

optical illusion. It's the point at which light cannot escape. We thought this, some episodes back about how if you were to cross the threshold, like, oh, space and time would flip. Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right, they do. that's. As you get close to it, it's exactly right. The dimensions flip. And we had quite a nice explanation as to why that would be. Which great YouTube video on it, I think. Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that was it. There was a YouTube video. Very nicely put.

very nicely put. Why the. Effectively space and time flip. and that in a way sort of illuminates Mark's question as well. The, the time doesn't reverse for you. time basically disappears along with you and you get swallowed into the, into the black hole from your perspective. and you know, it's no good thinking about whether to an outside observer time might reverse because the outside observer can't see you because you're, by

that time you're inside the event horizon. So nobody's going to see you, Nobody will feel your pain. No, no. But you'll be covered in spaghetti sauce. Professor Fred Watson: Spaghetti. Yes, that's right. In the movie Interstellar, of course he's referring to a situation where an astronaut did cross the plane into a black hole to help solve, a, a, a puzzle that they could only solve if they could get inside a black hole. Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right.

a dimension. this emerged from sort of mathematical studies in the wake of Einstein's special theory of relativity. and so you can write down an equation, if I remember it rightly so you, excuse me, imagine yourself moving, in three dimensions, a distance which we'll call S. You've got three coordinates and actually in three dimensions you can write down an equation which we call the metric.

And this is for normal non relativistic space which would be the S squared equals X squared plus Y squared plus Z squared. That would be a formal equation of how you would move in a three dimensional coordinate system. we, you know, we express these things mathematically. It's called a metric. That is the bottom line of this. but with relativity coming along people realise that yes, time behaves just like a dimension, and it is variable, it can be

squashed and it can be extended. Just as we've been talking about time dilation, your time can look differently from the time of somebody else, who's in a different frame of reference from you, whether gravitationally or moving. so time is bendy, but you find that when you move to that relativistic situation you can write the equation down where you've got four dimensions,

and one of them is time. And if I remember rightly, it's S squared equals X squared plus Y squared plus Z squared minus C squared T squared, where T is time. So it behaves just like a dimension. And that is why we call it a dimension, because it is, but it is clearly different in some ways from the three

dimensions of space because. Exactly, as Craig says, we can move willy nilly about the three dimensions of space within reason of course, but we can move around them, but we can't move willy nilly around the dimension of time, except under certain circumstances where you're travelling at very high velocities and things of that sort. So it is a very unusual, it's an unusual dimension, but it is a dimension. I quite

like the idea of it being half A dimension. but I think my mathematical friends would say no, it's definitely not half a dimension. Yes, I found several articles on what we'd spoken about, which was, a paper published late February, early March. In the quantum realm, time arrow might fly in two directions. Mark might want to, Craig, I mean, might want to look that up, and read a bit more about it. But yeah, it's a special circumstance I suppose would be the best way to

describe it. but yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's an interesting article. Professor Fred Watson: It's an interesting question from Craig too. Yes, very interesting. Thank you Craig. Great to hear from you. this is Space Nuts, Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson Watson. Let's take a break from the show to tell you about our sponsor, NordVPN. Now if you've ever felt like your online privacy is slipping through the

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and all these places that we go. But what are the odds that these places say Venus for example are on their infancy stage of life and Venus will eventually cool down one day and when the Earth is long gone, possibly because we've self annihilated ourselves, maybe one day millions of years in the future, Venus will be an

oasis. I'm just curious on your guys thoughts of this and I mean what are, what are the chances that maybe some planet or somebody in our solar system as of right now may not be able to harbour life but someday in the future will

be. Thanks guys.

that could have harboured life. And Mars lost its atmosphere which sort of put them to bed. Venus went rogue. Greenhouse effect. And that put their potential for life to bed but doesn't write off the possibility that they might have had it. Professor Fred Watson: That's true. and I think that's absolutely right. Both those planets might have had it. as you say Venus had the runaway greenhouse effect which put its surface temperature up to what is it, 450 or thereabouts.

That's yeah, Celsius. Professor Fred Watson: so I think with Venus it's done its dash because as time goes on the likelihood is that Venus will get even more inhospitable to life. as the sun basically swells towards the end of its lifetime and I'm talking now about 3 billion years or so in the future it'll start swelling, Venus will get even hotter than it is now. Earth might very well become uninhabitable by then. Mars however might turn into a warm world. it's doubtful it would

regain its atmosphere. it might regain a lot of water which probably would evaporate into space without pressure of an atmosphere. But yeah it's impossible. Future ah, habitable world even if it's not. Now we don't know whether any microbes on Mars, but that's why we're being so careful to avoid contaminating them if there are, Perhaps an even more interesting world is Titan.

As the Goldilocks zone creeps outwards as the sun expands in its later years, Titan is going to become a much more desirable place. in terms of habitability. It's the only place in the world. Sorry, the only place in the universe that we know of where there are ah, lakes and rivers in equilibrium with its atmosphere. They are liquid natural gas rather than water. But I think it's a, you know, it's a big planet. It's bigger than the planet Mercury. Sorry, It's a big

satellite. It's bigger than the planet Mercury. maybe that's a place where we could find living organisms some way down the track in the future. Not, not to mention Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede, Callista, Triton. Professor Fred Watson: All possible. Yapetus. Yapetus, yes, yes. the ice moons in orbiting the gas giants are all looking, being looked at favourably for potential life with their under ice oceans. So you can't say never. I mean we haven't yet. We haven't found it yet.

But they have found the, the seeds of life in the, in the geysers coming out of Of one or two of these moons. Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Was it Cassini that did that? Professor Fred Watson: Yes, with Enceladus. Yeah, yeah. Professor Fred Watson: Such as some of us. No, it's The evidence is starting to build up. I do believe that we will find something in our own solar system in the not too distant future. That's my theory anyway. Professor Fred Watson: I hope you're right because I'd like.

To know, and in answer to the initial question, why are we so obsessed with life? because we are living creatures and we want to know if there are any others beyond our planet. I mean it's, it's a natural thing to consider. And wouldn't it be great if we found it? It would be the, the probably the biggest discovery in the history. History of humanity. Professor Fred Watson: Yes, exactly. Even if it's a flea or krill, I'm still hanging. Yes, there's krill, there's whales.

Professor Fred Watson: Yes. Thanks Mikey. Good to hear from you. And our next question comes from Fritz, who's put this one.

years. And even at 40% it could trigger significant ice redistribution or melting. And this could change what's a cold dry period to a surface of flowing water at times and a wetter period at times. And this happens regularly and Mars will have a wet and warm period again. So I'm surprised planetary scientists don't discuss this when they talk about the loss of water. But water is there in the permafrost and such and where did it all go and everything. But it's not discussed how it

will return. Thanks a lot and love the show. Can't wait to hear more.

Professor Fred Watson: actually the Milankovitch is yes the name of the person who put the idea on the map that various periodicities and they're to do with the eccentricity or non circularity of an orbit, the incline of the you know, the axis in the orbit, and other parameters like that, these things vary in cycles. Mars has had exactly as Fritz says, a really big range in its axial tilt, 10 to 60 degrees is what he quoted. And I think that's about right.

we think the reason why that hasn't happened on Earth is because the moon actually stabilises the Earth's rotation. So it's the tilt of its axis has remained much much closer to its present 23 and a half degrees. but the answer to Fritz's question is that actually planetary scientists do look at this and you don't have to look that far to find papers that refer to these M. Milankovitch cycles. in terms of Mars climate. I found a nice one by some Swiss authors published in

2019. this is called time scales of the climate record in the south polar ice cap of Mars. And it's basically linking the ice layer deposits basically in the south polar ice cap of Mars, the largest water ice reservoirs on Mars as they say in the abstract of their paper, and linking them to climate oscillations, the Milankovitch cycles of Mars's orbit. and so that's quite an interesting paper. As I said I don't Know whether I mentioned published in 2019 in Geophysical

Research Letters. and there are other papers too that talk about the climatic effect of these orbital cycles. So it's not something that's being ignored by planetary scientists. I think the view that they've come to though is that they're giving you relatively modest changes

in climate. the fact that the solar parameters will themselves change over time, as we were discussing in Mikey's question, that means that even without those you might find that Mars is warming up enough that perhaps we will see a warm wet planet one day, but we won't be around to see it here on planet Earth because we'll be gone by then. Yeah, however, as you said with Mikey's question, that water will probably. Professor Fred Watson: Get, it depends what, yeah, what the,

what the circumstances are. But yeah, check out Mars and Milankovitch cycles and there's quite a few papers that refer to it. Very good, thank you Fritz. Great question though. Love those curveballs. That's ah, a rip up. Let's take a little break from the show to tell you about our sponsor Insta360 and their brand spanking new 300160 degree camera, the X5. Now at the end of this I'll tell you how you can get a special bonus as a Space Nuts listener, being a free 114 centimetre

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have a premise for a book for Andrew. your discussion on Martian water provoked the thought what if humans are on Mars, drink unfiltered water and ingest a Martian microbe that merges with human cells like mitochondria did, resulting in whatever you wish to knew the story with. I hope you like the idea. Cheers from Patty. I do like the idea. Funny, funny you should bring that up Patty because

this is my last show for a few months. Judy and I and going around the world basically and we're going to take our time. and Judy said, you know, I don't want you to get bored. Why, why don't you write a book while you're away. And I was trying to come up with concepts. I was thinking about maybe, you know, a story revolving around Earth building its own Dyson Sphere or some kind of megastructure. But, now you've given me something else to think about. So

might. Might go down that road. Although it's kind of been done before. There was a movie many, many years ago about a, meteorite that hit Earth and it had some kind of viral thing in it that. That was basically killing people. And the whole story centred around a bunch of scientists that were basically in lockdown in some facility in the middle of the desert trying to figure out how to stop it. I can't remember what it was called, but it's a great film.

Fabulous film. scared the bajeebis out of me. It was. It wasn't the Blob or anything like that. This was just a micro. But it had, It. It just was highly volatile and, and very destructive and. Yeah, but look, definitely food for thought, Patti. I'll. I'll give it some consideration and wonder how I can actually merge that with a Dyson spear angle. Professor Fred Watson: Sure you'll manage it, Andrew. I look forward to hearing about it. when you come back in August, we'll

probably get a full rundown of what the plot is. Yes. a few people have contacted me saying, oh, when are you in New York? I might. And things like that. Professor Fred Watson: So cool. We might be able to track a few people down and have a chat. But look, what I'm going to try and do during the trip is do some monologues back into the show so I can give you updates of, of what we're doing. So if anyone's interested. If you're not, I'll just stay out of it.

Professor Fred Watson: I think that would be great. I think you should, do that. It will, be something that Heidi and I can fit into the, into the scheme of things, I hope. And, and enjoy it very much. So we look forward to that every week. But, there's some really interesting places. So, there might be something to talk about. we'll see. It looks like every time we go somewhere there's a volcano, it erupts. Professor Fred Watson: So. Might be able to. That, we'll see how it goes.

but yeah, we've been planning this trip for a long, long time and yeah, we, we head off next week. So. Very exciting, very exciting. and that brings us to the end. Thanks to everybody who contributed. Keep the questions coming because Heidi will need them to try and stump Fred Watson. which is very, very hard to do. but yes, just go to our website and send them via the AMA tab. So there's two URLs Space Nuts IO or Space Nuts podcast.com and keep those, keep those messages coming in.

and Heidi and Fred Watson will tackle them over the next few months. Gosh, it's hard to believe it'll be that long. But, yeah, I've never been away from home for that long in my life. But you know, it'll be exciting. And thank you as always, Fred Watson. Thank you very much as always. Professor Fred Watson: A pleasure, Andrew. And yeah, have a great trip. We hope everything goes well for you. I look forward to seeing your emails from time to time. Find out what's

happening. I'd be interested to know whether you'll be homeless when you get back. It's a distinct possibility. We put an ass on the market and just deal with all that when we get home. Professor Fred Watson: There you go. Nice, good, good, good stuff. And so have a great time, both you and Judy. And we'll speak again in August. Indeed. Thank you, Fred Watson. Thanks as always been, it's been terrific. And thanks, to Huw in the studio who

couldn't be with us today. Tried to ride a, Milankovich cycle and the chain fell off. And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. See you in a few months. Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.