Martian Timekeeping: Synchronizing Clocks, Eccentric Orbits & Space Gum Discoveries

Hello, how are you? But it just goes beside himself when. Yeah. Professor Fred Watson: Anyway, he's already had a session this morning, standing at the bottom of our stairs yelling at something, and I have no idea what it was. Probably a blade of grass that got. Professor Fred Watson: Blown in the weed. Yeah, yeah. That's the level at which he gets excited. Absolutely. Oh, blade of grass. Yeah. I love it. Okay, we have got some really interesting

topics today. We've always got interesting topics, but this is a really great combination. we're talking time, weird orbits, and chewing gum. let's start on mar. and to quote the famous song, does anybody really know what time it is? Mars is a bit of a problem when it comes to time. And so is the moon to a certain degree, because time doesn't run the same way in those places as it does on Earth. And going forward, that could become an issue because we're going to ultimately spend time on Mars,

wandering around growing potatoes. But, we need to be able to get the time right. Professor Fred Watson: We do. and, I mean, there are some sort of basic facts before you get into the nitty gritty, which include the fact that a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. So, about 24 hours and 40 minutes. And of course, a year on Mars is longer, too. It's, 600 and something days of our days. 687, is the length of time a Martian year. So they're the easy

bits, they're the givens. But if you're trying to synchronize your clocks, between Earth and Mars, and this is kind of already happening, with the rovers, the fact that the rovers are actually controlled from Earth. But, because of the time delay for signals to get to Mars, there's a degree of autonomy in all the rovers that are roving on Mars. That's not the issue at the moment. The issue is how you make your clocks on Earth agree, with clocks on Mars. And there's two subtleties,

that come into this. And I should, credit the organization that's done the work on this, which is the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology, or nist. they've actually done detailed calculations, about exactly how time

varies on Mars. And so you've got two things, Andrew, when you're trying to synchronize with clocks on Earth, apart from the time, you know, the time delay with signals going to Mars, the two things that come into being both are, to do with Einstein's theories of relativity. and we've talked about these ad infinitum. We've gone on about them a lot for a long time. and you from that will know that, when you put a clock into a

gravitational field, it runs slower. and that's the time dilation effect of general relativity. So we know that, clocks on the surface of the Earth run slightly slower than clocks either in space or even in the air. We've now got clocks that are so accurate you can tell the difference between time ticking away on a jet plane at 10 km high and time ticking away on the surface of the Earth. But Mars, of course, also has

a gravitational field. It's got a gravitational pull, but it's only a sixth or thereabouts of what we have here on our planet. So that means because the gravity is lower, a clock runs faster on the surface of Mars. if you're on Mars, your clock is ticking away at the same rate, but to an outside observer it runs, slower. And to an observer on the Earth whose clocks are running even slower,

it seems to be running faster. And the calculation has been that from the nist, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a clock on Mars would run 477 microseconds faster per day compared with a clock on the earth. So 477 millionths of a second doesn't actually sound much except that when you've got communications, like the 5G network you're working to, you know, the internal clocks work to better

than a millionth of a second. and so 477 of those millionths of a second is yes, throwing messy M messy indeed. But it actually gets messier because as you know, we've talked about this too. the special theory of relativity says that if you have a clock on a moving object and you observe it from not a moving object, then you will also get time dilation. That clock will look as though it's going slower even though it's ticking away at the same rate to the person

who's on the moving object. To an outside observer who's stationary, it looks as though it's going slower. And so we've got an effect because of the motion of Mars relative to the motion of Earth. Now Mars is in an orbit around the sun just like we are, but it's actually quite an eccentric orbit. In other words, it's rather elongated, more so than Earth's orbit is. And so that means it's always got a motion towards or away from

the Earth. And that adds another uncertainty, which can go either way because if it's coming towards us then you get a different effect. it's 226 microseconds, the daily offset, in the course of a Martian year the difference between us and there, and I just said something that I want to correct there because the thing is always the same sign, it doesn't matter of whether it's going

towards us or away from us. you've still got the offset in terms of the relativistic time dilation, which is not what I said, so I'm correcting that now. but yeah, so you've got this additional 226 microseconds, so 477 microseconds, with up to 226 microseconds added to that. It means you've got actually quite a messy difference in time. It's almost a thousandth of a second.

Yeah, this relates to a time where we've got long term human presence on Mars and we need to, and the technology doesn't exist yet, but we need to be able to communicate with Earth in real time. Technically they're going to probably develop ways of setting up communication systems so that the radio signal issue doesn't impinge on that communication. Because at the moment it's like, what, 24 minutes to send in.

Professor Fred Watson: I think at maximum, it can be. Yeah. And you're not going to be able to get away from that. But you can build that in because, you know, Mars is distance very precisely. Yeah. So you can build in a time delay. So this is more about working out a time system that is in sync with Earth. Does that mean we have to invent a new kind of clock to use on Mars? So that it's. Professor Fred Watson: I think, what it means, it's really about the internal consistency of time signals

on Mars. So, you're absolutely right. The synchronization with Earth comes into play here. But you also want to make sure that your communication's actually on Mars, which would be vital. are. All right. And that's, in a way, okay. Because the relativistic effects don't come in there because you're all in the same gravity and you're all basically moving, on a planet at the same speed. It's like, we don't have to take these effects into consideration when we're talking between ourselves on the

surface of the Earth. It's only when you're talking up to satellites above the Earth, which we do through GPS and through communications, then you need to take those minute differences into account. And in a sense, that's what this is all about. So, you know, you've got the basic property that you can't get away from the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second. That's, the speed at which radio signals go to and from Mars. that you can deal with because we

know the distance. But then on top of that, you've got this added tweak in terms of synchronizing our clocks with the clocks on Mars, which makes for a very interesting, you know, a very interesting scenario. yeah. Well, here's a dumb question. Why can't we just do what we do on Earth across the entire solar system and use Zulu time? Would that not work? Just Zulu time on Earth basically means it's the same time everywhere on the planet.

Professor Fred Watson: That's an expression I haven't heard before, actually. Oh, it's. It's a real thing. Is it Zulu time? Yeah, it's used by the military, specifically. Professor Fred Watson: But, yeah, that might be why, I heard of it. I'll look it up. because right now it's set on, Greenwich Mean Time. But, you know, Zulu time applies across the entire planet. Professor Fred Watson: So that's what we would call Universal time. Same thing in the world of astronomy.

Yeah, yeah. Why can't we do that? Professor Fred Watson: well, we do. I mean, you know, we do in space, but that's fine. That gives you a time base, but you've got to tweak it for all these relativistic differences. So you've got the time slip problem regardless of how you run the clock. Professor Fred Watson: It doesn't matter how you run the clock. Yeah. So if you're on one of the moons of Uranus, then you'd probably still work on Universal time or Zulu time.

But when you synchronize that with Earth, you've got to take all these things into consideration. And that's the bottom line. Okay, I get it. Gosh, it's so complicated and yet, you know, Mars is as close to Earth as you probably going to find in another planet. The daytime difference is only 40 minutes. But when we actually set up long term stays on Mars, that in itself is going to be a problem for humans because we are tuned to our own environment. Having an extra 40 minutes a day is going to

throw everything into a, into a spear. And I think we talked about this some time ago and the only way around it would be, you have to have a daytime snooze. Professor Fred Watson: Well, we kind of know about this already because and again we've talked about this before that the people who actually operate, perseverance and curiosity and all the other rovers that are on Mars, the ones that, the only other one that's operational is the Chinese one.

the people who operate those actually change onto a 24 hours and 40 minute schedule. So they're isolated in a sense from their community and I think they quite quickly adapt. I think it's a bit rough for the first few days. It's a bit like jet lag. but I think they quite quickly adapt to that longer day, a Martian day. So if you start work at 9:00 on a Monday, you start at 9:40 on Tuesdays. Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. Salami. By, by end of the week you've.

Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. So, actually it's the other way around, isn't it? You'd. Yeah. Would it be. Yeah, you'd have to start earlier by the, by Monday. Well, it's the same as trying to figure out daylight saving, isn't it just, am I going to be early or late? Oh, imagine trying to do that every day.

Gosh, no, it's fascinating. And so yeah, and the bottom line is that this, this team has has more or less figured it all out and worked out what we have to do to make the time right when we get to Mars. Professor Fred Watson: You're right. And you, you were right actually. You would start. So to everybody else, your day, you'd be starting 40 minutes late Tuesday. but you're still starting at midnight or you know, whatever time you, you started. Nine o' clock in fact. Nine o' clock

Martian time. Yeah, yeah. It's just a bit crazy isn't it? But yeah, it's a fascinating story. If you'd like to read about it, it's on the website scitech Daily or you can read the paper that's been published in the Astronomical Journal. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts. All right, we're going to focus on a target of interest. Now I only just figured out what that means. TOI3884B.

This is a planet orbiting a star. And at this point in time they've only found this one planet. But the weird thing is its orbit is just so out of kilter with what we would consider normal. And they don't know why. Professor Fred Watson: They don't. So you're absolutely right. We're talking about an object by the name of TOI 3884B. I was just talking to a radio presenter, in actually in Coffs Harbour in northern what's it called? The Mid North Coast? Yeah, New South Wales.

about this very topic, and he wants to rename it the Hula Hoop. That's a good idea. Yeah, because as he said, with Hula Hoops the problem is always keeping the Hula Hoop at the same angle to your waistline. he said it tends to wander off and that's exactly what's happened with this planet. So Luke Ryan, this is one for you. it's the Hula Hoop, the Hula Hoop planet. so what's the story? Well this is a, ah, planet going around a red dwarf star. it's one of the 7,000 odd now exoplanets

that we know about. it's at a distance of something like 130 light years from Earth. This red dwarf is pretty you know, unspectacular in that it's just a typical red dwarf star. But it's got spots on it. Now a lot of stars we know have spots on it. And actually here in Australia we've got a group who I work with quite often up in the University of Southern Queensland whose speciality is star spots and understanding how we can learn about them. And they do,

they. So, you know, I've seen some of the papers that they've written and sometimes these star spots, you know, they're almost, ah, a quarter of the size of the disk of the star itself. Unlike the sunspots that we see, which are yes, bigger than Earth, many of them, but the Earth's 100 times smaller than the sun. So, our sunspots are quite tiny compared with some of the star spots

that we know exist on other stars. And this particular, red dwarf has at least one big spot, which they're cooler than, the rest of the atmosphere. They're cool spots and that's why they look darker. and it's because of that, even though you can't see the spot directly, what you can see is the way the light from that star changes as the star rotates, bringing the spot towards us. And then on the other side of the star, when the spot's

towards us, it's a little bit dimmer. And so what they've done is, these scientists, and I should acknowledge, where they are. I'll come to that in a minute. they have, figured out, first of all from that spot rotation, they figured out that this planet, sorry, this star itself rotates every 11 days, which is of course, shorter than the Sun. It's kind of half the Sun's rotation. But that 11 days is the key, to understanding how the star itself rotates. Now enter the planet

into this. The planet itself goes around in something like four days. so it sort of whizzes around the parent star. but what the scientists have done is used some very, very careful measurements and a phenomenon which is called the Rossiter McLachlan effect, which is to do with the way, the appearance of a star's spectrum changes as a planet rotates around the star or revolves around the star.

And using that effect, they have, basically discovered that this planet orbits the star at an angle of 62 degrees to the star's equator. and contrast that with the solar system, where the planets all orbit more or less in the same plane. Mercury is the outlier in that it's tilted, but, that plane is more or less the same as the, as the equator of the sun. Yeah. If you compare it to Earth, that planet's 40 degrees off. We're 23.44 and they're 60. Whatever you said. that's a heck of a tilt.

Professor Fred Watson: No, it's a different tilt you're talking about there. Oh, that's the tilt of the Earth's. Oh, that's the axis rotation axis. Yeah. Right, right. Professor Fred Watson: But the tilt of the Earth's, orbit to the sun, to the sun's equator, is effectively zero. Right, Gotcha. Professor Fred Watson: as. As most of the planets are, with exception. So it's not the tilt. It's the actual orbit itself is. Professor Fred Watson: Yep, that's right. It's the orbit itself.

Not. Not the rotation of the planet. That's right. Good. Good to clarify that. Yeah. Professor Fred Watson: Thanks, Andrew. so, yeah, and that's peculiar because, you know, we. We conventionally understand that the way planets form is, in a. In a, what we call a protoplanetary disk which surrounds the infant star. And because both the star and the planets have come from a collapsing cloud of dust and gas, which is

itself rotating. And it's that sort of fossilized rotation, that we see in the rotation of the planets or the revolution of the planets around the sun and the rotation of the sun. And they're all in the same plane. This one's not. So how has that happened? And the suggestion is. Oh, I know, I know. Theo did it. Professor Fred Watson: Well, yeah, that's. It could be a Thea effect. Something that's. Something that's actually collided with this object.

But this apparently, as you pointed out right at the beginning, there isn't another. There isn't another. There's no other objects known to be, in orbit around this star. It seems to be a single planet. That's not to say that there wasn't something that collided with it and moved its orbit. But even, you know, something like Theia hitting the Earth, which is how we think the Moon was formed, that didn't push the Earth out of its orbit until the orbit. It's a very

peculiar effect. I mean, it may be that this star has had an interaction gravitationally at some time in the past and shifted the, orbit of the planet by the gravitational interference of something else going past. But that's, you know, that's just conjecture. and the bottom line is, for a single planet going around a star, this is the most peculiar one we've ever found. It's because of this tilt in its orbit.

And that's what we keep seeing every time we find something new in another solar system, we Find. Not every time, but we are, ah, starting to find something new and different and unexplainable. And, nothing's normal really when it comes to all these new discoveries. Professor Fred Watson: That's correct. That's right. it's a universe out there that's full of diversity. That's probably the best way to put it. Yeah. and quite a strange place. Do we know what kind of planet it is?

Professor Fred Watson: yeah, it's a super Earth, I think it's got a mass of 39 Earths. So it's, something less than Jupiter. but, but I think it's, not as big, not as big in diameter as Jupiter is. I think that's right. But you know, it probably means it's a hot Jupiter, basically, or a hot sub Jupiter perhaps. That's the best way to put it. Right. Okay. Well, it's another interesting find. I'm sure they'll keep looking at it to try and figure out how it ended up where it is and why. but

yeah, it sounds. Now, logic, logic, if you tear it all down, you go with the most obvious answer. It's probably been hit by something. Probably Steve Smith's cricket bat would be my theory. Professor Fred Watson: I think you've probably just baffled, two thirds of our listeners. Probably look up Steve Smith, cricketer, and you'll know what I'm talking about. been having a great season, Absolutely

wonderful season. But I won't gloat because I know we're heard in England and I, I don't want to, you know, it's not over yet. so if you would like to read up on that story, you can do so@the dailygalaxy.com website. Or you can read the paper in the Astronomical Journal. I think it is. Let me just double check that. Yes, the Astronomical Journal. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Roger, you're live right here. Also Space Nuts.

Our last story is about one of my favorite things, and that is chewing gum. I grew up on that stuff. I didn't eat food. I just chewed gum ad infinitum. I, I used to stick it on the bedpost when I went to sleep and start again as soon as I woke up. I just was addicted to this stuff. Especially the stuff we had called Big Charlie. I don't know if anyone remembers Big Charlie, but it came in a stick about one foot long and good. Yeah, it was amazing.

Anyway, I can't find that anymore. the point I'm trying to make is that this is all about a discovery that's been made on the samples of the Bennu asteroid that were returned to Earth in the deserts of Utah a couple of years ago. And they've been sort of looking at it ever since and they have found something unusual. It's not chewing gum, but it is like chewing gum because, it's a. Professor Fred Watson: Kind of a polymer.

Yeah. I'm still grappling with you and your chewing gum on the BET post m. If I remember rightly, it was Lonnie Donegan who in the 1950s had a big hit with does your chewing gum lose its flavor in the bedpost overnight? The answer is yes. Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, so straight from there to Asteroid Bennu. I think it was Lonnie Donegan anyway. Yeah, I can't remember, but I know. Professor Fred Watson: The race skiffle artist of the 1950s. there's a photo of Big Charlie. I don't know

if you can see that now. You can't. Professor Fred Watson: I can't. No. It's just disappearing because you. All I can see now is the moon. Yeah. Anyway. Professor Fred Watson: A Big Charlie. We did Charlie. Ah, lucky one. Yeah, it was a monster packet. Like, you know, you couldn't put it in your pocket. You'd poke a m out. Professor Fred Watson: Well, I have to say, it's something not at all like that that we're talking about with asteroid Bennu because all these

observations have made. Been made with an electron microscope, which you probably didn't need for a Big Charlie. but what's it all about? It's what's been found in the dust, which was returned by the Osiris Rex spacecraft, I think in 2023, if I remember rightly. Samples from asteroid Bennu. It's a NASA project. what has been found in there is what the scientists call nitrogen rich polymeric sheets, which you and I would call gum. It's a

polymer basically. and polymers, ah, are materials where you've got these long chains of molecules that give them that sort of flexible and sticky, sticky flavor. or not flavor, but, demeanor, let me put it that way. so it's. Yeah, it's got it's got these long chain molecules on it. And so the scientists are calling it space gum. it's not gum as we would know it. But what they've done is, they've found, sort of almost like shards of this stuff within the dust samples from

Bennu. And in order to analyze it, they've actually had to coat it with a layer of I think it's platinum. Yeah. That they've. They've reinforced it with so that they can take samples from it, with a tungsten micro needle. and you see pictures of all this stuff going on on the Web. The Universe Today's got a nice story about it. and, then with the microneedle, then you can take the samples and, you know, analyze them. With all the various pieces of kit that we use to make these analyses.

And it turns out, yep, there's, There's gum there. I think the puzzle is how it got there. because. Well, let me just, since we're mentioning Universe Today and the lovely article, by Andy Thomas Twick, I think is his name, might not be how you pronounce it. But, what, he says is. One question remains. One question remains. How exactly did the space Gump survive on Bennu for so long? We know that Bennu was part of a larger asteroid that had hydrothermal vents.

Meaning the asteroid itself was subjected to water. Complex organic molecules like the space gum. Usually either dissolve or break up when subjected to hot water. So how had this particular sample, avoided that fate? And what they're saying then is that perhaps the sample might have formed, basically during a phase when Bennu was cold. Before it actually got hot enough for nuclear processes to heat it up. and they're saying that these samples

actually date from that time. and that basically, what they say is, By the time radioactive elements inside the asteroid. And this again is quoted from Universe, today, by the time the radioactive elements inside the asteroid had heated up enough to create the water, the plastic in inverted commas, sheets of polymer were already formed and were, in fact, water resistant, thereby getting trapped by the

rocks on the asteroid surface. Where they were eventually picked up by an intrepid space probe, namely Osiris, Rex. So, yeah, and here's the really interesting bit. we've got other asteroid samples, as you know, Andrew, from, the two Japanese spacecraft that have brought back asteroid samples. and neither of those have polymers in them. so, Bennu is different. It's a different, body. It's still a rubble pile asteroid, as far as we know, but different in its chemical makeup.

So I suppose that throws up questions about, asteroid formation and why this is different. Or is it. Is it normal and the other two were different? You don't know, do you? Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, that's right. That's the thing. Yes. Yeah. Very interesting indeed. If, you'd like to read about it. Universetoday.com has that great article that, Fred was talking about. And, yeah, we'll probably learn more and more as they keep going through those samples from Bennu.

Fred, we're, we're all done. Thank you so much. That was quick. Professor Fred Watson: It was, wasn't it? M. And they were. They were quite complex stories as well. Yeah. Probably why we didn't spend much time on them. Brains. Professor Fred Watson: Neither of us understands them either. Yeah. All right, thanks, Fred. We'll, catch you shortly, for our final program of the year officially. So we'll see you then. Thanks, Fred. Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. Well done, Andrew.

And, thanks to Huw in the studio who couldn't be with us today because of a weird, object that, he's gone to see the Doctor about. and don't forget to visit us online. And, you can do that@spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts.com and, check it all out there. You can, go to our supporters page if you would like to learn more about how to support us in whatever way you feel fit. You don't have to. It's not mandatory. Or you can send questions in via the AMA link. Sign up for the Astronomy Daily

Newsfeed. But Christmas is coming up. Don't forget to visit the Space Nuts shop. it's all atspace nuts podcast.com and for me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. We will see you again on the next episode. Real soon,