" ..It beats so many other ways of wasting your time!..." So true. I don't understand why more people aren't excited by astronomy and science in general, it's never been easier to find fun, interesting topics to dive into. You're the man.

Yes. The Earth has tonnes of atmosphere. The total mass of the Earth's atmosphere is about 5 quadrillion tonnes. Just the *bottom meter* of the atmosphere of the Earth weights in at about 600 billion tonnes! If the Earth is losing about 100 tonnes per day, we have enough to last quite a while (> 100 billion years, neglecting the whole red giant phase of the sun and the like!)

OMG it's been like 3 weeks since a Lagrange point question.

A couple of weeks ago I finished grinding the mirrors for a 6 inch f8 telescope and it was so rewarding. The process may be tedious for some people but I found it quite meditative and relaxing. Right now I'm waiting for the mirrors to be coated while I'm building the tube and mount. I can't wait to take a look at some clusters with my own telescope, the views may not be quite perfect, but I feel like I can capture the photons with my own hands.

"A telescope is coming, whose lens cap, I am unworthy to remove."

I’m convinced there is still ancient, microbial life on Mars, deeper underground.

Risa My question was answered!! I'm so sad to have missed the live stream!

In my almost 20 years of KZfaq, this channel is the best and most satisfying.

Truly appreciate your dedication and love of all of the above.

D. Becky channel is a good one for noobs to learn from . shes good at explaining complex things for regular people to understand

It’s probably one of two things when it comes to life. Either life is really hard to get started making it almost impossible to get started and it might be that earth is a special place and perfect for life might be the only place. Or life is really easy to start and it’s everywhere.

Life on the moon was my favorite story this week

A sun shade at L1 can use itself as a solar sail to provide propulsion. It could be stable without fuel for however long we can get the steering to work.

Thank you again for answering my question. Astronomy is my favorite topic. I can't wait for what lies ahead.

In 1955 I ordered a 6" Pyrex mirror kit preground to a 48" focal length. It had several grades of carborundum grinding powder, polishing rouge, and pitch to make the pitch lap polishing tool out of the thick plate glass grinding tool. I bought all three volumes of the best books on telescope mirror making of the time. My dad and I made a work table from a three foot high barrel. I had instructions for making a tube from plastic pipe and a mount from plumbing parts. Also how to make and use a device, mainly a razor blade on a stick, to check the focal length and figure (shape of the curve ) of the mirror. When I started to grind, I soon hit a string of tiny bubbles in the glass that made pits in the surface. Okay, I'll grind past them. When I started, I was a junior in high school. By the time I got past the bubbles and started the final stages of polishing, I was a junior in college, and had lost my enthusiasm because of all the other stuff I was doing. I still have everything, but am beginning to doubt that I'll finish it.

“Take pictures of exoplanets” = a single pixel. Which is significant because it means that we can perform spectroscopy on the planet.

SiFi movie - Monster Waterbears destroy the moon base.

4:51 regarding life on moon or mars, even if it is primitive life, the interesting part would be if it structured as life on earth, with DNA, and based on carbon etc

Excellent Q&A show this week. I like the long versions. Well done! And thank you

Thank you as always Fraser and team! Risa

Remus. I ground my own primary and secondary mirrors for an f/6 8" Newtonian way back in high school. You can, too! QUESTION: If NASA can't afford to operate Chandra, why not just give it outright to JAXA or the ESA? I'm sure they'd love to have a Great Observatory for free and can find budget to operate it.

I cannot wait For the few next telescop omg :D

Thanks for answering!

Hay Frasier: Thank you so much for all your hard work!

Larry Niven talks about moving planets in a book named, "A WORLD OUT OF TIME". They used a GIGANTIC spaceship and built in laser. And it has a GIGANTIC partial sphere attached to one end. The open end, the other end is closed. Ok? So they orbit this around Uranus or Neptune. Then they drive it INTO the atmosphere of that gas giant. It slams into the upper atmosphere imparting some of the momentum to the planet. Giving you a planetary drive. This is NOT very efficient but it does work in the book. They bring this duo up to Earth and the Earth is gently plucked out of it regular orbit around the sun. Now you ask why did they need to move Earth? I won't give away any more of the book, other than to say that the Sun starts to act up and they needed to move Earth, and QUICKLY! And that's how they decided to move the Earth so quickly. The main reason for using this type of motor was that you would need to move the mass of the ENTIRE Earth. Put motors on the Earth and Any mistakes you make get transferred directly to the earth's crust. To big of a mistake and they would end up doing the same thing that the Sun would have. But if you put a drive on a gas giant and make a mistake? Then any mistake is made in/ on the gas giant. And no it is Not very fast. It takes a while to move Earth to a stable and cooler orbit. Again where Earth ends up and the why I'll let you read the book. It's one of my favorite books to read before sleeping. But that is just My personal choice. Larry Niven is well known for explaining what, and sometimes how things work. So you can have crazy things that you think, hey that just might work...!

I’m willing to bet microscopic life is basically everywhere in the universe. Some forms of it are very resilient. Once we start having maned missions to mars I bet we will find some. As far as complex life, I bet it’s still pretty common. We just haven’t found any YET as far as intelligent life, I’m also willing to bet it is much more common than we think. We just haven’t found it yet. The universe is a huge place to look

Belos!!!!!! Great question with the seemingly infinite number of sources of space and astronomy news. And much of it suspect! Great answer, you are one of my favorites, but I appreciate your suggestions for others. I can’t remember half of your specific suggestions, but I put enough stock in your answer that I am sending myself a reminder of this episode for that help in the future!

Your comment on far-future existential dread reminds me of the story, of an old lady at a public-science lecture on the solar system. She approaches the lecturer after and ask 'How many years, until the sun swallows the Earth?'. To which he replies ' Two Billion'. The lady looks visibly relieved 'Oh! Thank heavens. I thought you said two MILLION!.'

Great, these are fascinating topics for my new research. Thank you very much.

I have 3 questions: 1) career development: I'm currently looking to start my PhD in Astronomy, besides the roles of astronomer and professor, what other jobs are there for someone with a PhD in Astronomy? 2) Astronomical Mission Design: just like starlink satelites launched and flying in flocks, couldn't the same concept be applied to a telescope design? I'm imagining a formation of cubesats with deployable solar shades and mirrors that work in concert to reflect light to a collector. This would make this flock easy to deploy in the very near future rather than waiting for a booster with a large enough faring for a very large, very fragile origami transformer satellite like James Webb? 3) Orbital Dynamics: would it be possible to place an object in an orbit around the moon with a 1 month orbital period, so it basically stays in permanent shadow of the moon, protecting it from solar radiation similar to the earth moon L2 would protect an object from earth based radio transmissions?

Great content...thank you.

Loved House of Suns, my fave standalone is Pushing Ice.

I liked the Lagrange point question.

Are the plumes from Enceladus depleting the moon of a significant volume of water that might have a serious impact on a sub surface ocean?

Yes. We are really sure.

Thanks a lot 👍 👍

I was an optical mechanic many moons ago - grinding your own telescope lens would not be a simple task - well not difficult - but VERY time consuming, and once you'd paid for fluids and polishes - probably not really worth it in the end...

We're gooing tooooo the moooon

Betazed is a great question. So many predictions of the future of the Earth and the solar system ignore the possibilities of technology.

13:50 “on the question of the cause of Enceladus’ heating;” I’d like to clarify the answer to this question. While the host laid out two scenarios which could contribute to the thermal properties needed to sustain liquid water over a minimum of ~10x10^5 years, and given any constraints on how long these processes have been spewing material into space is speculative guess work. However, if one consults the literature on this question, one finds general agreement in that whether it’s tidal heating or radioactive decay-or both-there still remains a rather large discrepancy. This is a genuine mystery🥶-one nthat I believe many people would be very interested in. And there are many such instances, indeed almost every one, where popular science band/or the scientists themselves do not convey the fundamental work needed yet to be done but rather the sense that everything is known or is in the bag at least. It’s took my becoming an autodidact auto didact and reading the papers do you understand all these things myself.

I'd like to see Starship dispense 8 meter mirrors in orbit to create a swarm of space telescopes. Like, every time they have room on some other launch, put mirrors there. In couple of years we'll be reading alien license plates

And, also, every day there is something the science is learning things, since JB, it becomes harder to shift things from one another, with the overload of pictures and also on earth new innovations. And this is for decades to come, I hope. The law of Moore doesn't apply for science as a whole. It's constantly moving, although I think we just have scratched the surface. PS: I'm thanking the team for going in depth over all the content. I subscribed right now, so maybe you will see me again.

Janus Follow-up questions: What atomic particles is the solar wind comprised of - is it just photons, or are there electrons, protons, neutrinos, etc? If so, what is the mass of the solar wind, and is that taken into consideration when calculating "dark gravity" around stellar masses? Thanks

As fun as the idea of a Dyson Sphere is, any civilization sufficiently advanced enough to build one would also be sufficiently advanced enough to capture and utilize the heat / infrared radiation as well.

I think the biggest issue with a mega-sized solar shade is fighting the solar wind you'd be blocking... Although that would be a perfect power source for it.

Speaking of extremophiles, whatever happened to exploration of Lake Vostok? It was touted as being the best test bed for a sub-glacier exploration probe that would help develop probes for Enceladus and other glacier moons.

I mentioned life could be on the moon recently a few feet under the surface... there could be pockets of water vapor, hydrogen, and oxygen trapped in pockets under the rocks.

Cheleb I have wondered about this.

Andoria Life beyond Earth is the big question. That it may be seeded from, or to, us adds depth and dimension to it.

Thanks for the QnA. What do the words in top right corner mean?

Thank you Frasier for all that you do! I've been listening to your podcast episodes for about a year now, I started about halfway through 2020 and I'm today in February of 2024 so I'll get to hear the answer to this question soonish! (if it makes the podcast

Fun fact about Dust-Obscured Galaxies, the acronym for which is DOG... Not content with this, astronomers have cristened a class of objects, *hot DOG* - which are, rather obviously, highly luminous (in the infrared) dust-obscured galaxies. Not joking; this is a real thing - and I'm totally sure nobody ever sniggered while coming up with the name for that particular category. 😏

Aeturen 15:00 I think you should have mentioned your interview “Turning the Sun Into a Giant Telescope with Dr. Slava Turyshev” A really cool concept.

Dark energy isn’t going to rip the universe apart. It only rips galaxy clusters apart. Recent studies suggesting dark energy may be changing are currently talking about it decreasing, not increasing.

For more space & science there is a great daily channel by Anton Petrov, access is restricted though, you have to be a wonderful person. 🤓

We already know there is life on the moon. The Items on the Surveyor Apollo return showed the microbes in the camera survived their time on the moon. -- update -- although I notice now they are not as sure as the clean room where they tested the camera might not have been as clean as they thought.

If there was a 1:1 copy of earth somewhere out there, what’s the maximum distance we could detect intelligent life/ radio transmission with 100% certainly, given our current technology?

Remus : Had to like that question, I am literally polishing a piece of glass right now lol. Granted, its for a Microscope but still. BTW, Naaa Do it, its great, very zen!

Build a large telescope similar to a telescoping umbrella.

Thank you for everything you do to educate us, Fraser and the whole team. Is it possible to send a spaceship towards the interstellar space but perpendicular to the Solar system's plane? Edit1. Fraser, you've never mentioned David Butler and his priceless KZfaq channel.

We have discovered living organisms inside rocks that have been sealed inside, without external nutrients, light, or air for literally millions of years, living on energy from nearby radiation raising molecules to a higher energy state every once in a while, that divide only once in thousands of years. Those could live on the moon for millions of years.

Aeturen!!!❤

Do binary star systems have lagrange points? If so does that affect where planets orbit them?

Vendikar Could spiral arms almost be like galactic Lagrange points between the collective mass at the center of a galaxy and the mass of the dark matter halo?

Betazed 32:00. Another problem with a shade at L1 Lagrange is the thing willhave to resist enormous solar wind forces. Basically a sun shade is a solar sail right?

Have they can up with a solution for moon time?

Tardigrades would probably not last long in space, maybe only a few years.

Yes, enjoyed house of suns.

What about a telescope that can resolve geographic features on an exoplanet? Which is the closest Lagrange point that gets enough solar energy to support greenhouses for us?

16:10. Isn’t it easier to pick ip planets closer to their star? That would make more sense

Do we have to be on the love to ask questions?

How do astronauts on the ISS and the Moon perceive colors? Do they experience an overall lack of warmth compared to people within the atmosphere?

I'll watch this tomorrow... but c'mon, lagrange around lagrange 😂

Could we 'hack' the Milankovitch cycles to create the ideal climate on Earth and other planets?

If the Roman Space Telescope can image exojupiters, would it be able to pick up light from orbiting exomoons and see e.g. signatures of ozon there?

Hawking radiation doesn't come OUT OF black holes. It is the result of pair production just outside the event horizon. Pair production happens everywhere but is normally undetectable. But near the event horizon some particles are drawn past the event horizon leaving their antiparticles without a partner. This makes the virtual particles more real. Eventually many of these particles find other antiparticles which annihilate them to produce gamma rays. The gravitational redshift increases the wavelength.

So, the Earths Lagrange Point's Lagrange Points would proportionally be able to hold a grain of sand but it seems to me that distance is such that it would likely still be in the Earth's Lagrange Point. Yes?

There's also Dr Becky Smethurst who has a good way to explain things to the layman. I find it difficult to understand how rogue planets can support life as they don't get a steady flow of energy from a star.

Osmosis... Yeah definitely the way it works for me. I love these videos and kudos for the shout-out to coolwolrds, another great channel worth a visit. I whole-heartedly agree they, like Fraser, are legit (fed up filtering out AI generated nonsense for example.) Both deliver science to the masses who would, otherwise, be none the wiser. Thank you.

What is above his shoulder? I see the book shelf, is that it?

Re - water plumes Does this water have escape velocity? Or does it all come back to the moon in question, coating the surface with a fine spray of snow? If it DOES have escape velocity, where is all that water going? Shouldn't there be a solid ice-moon somewhere nearby?

Why not an array composed of collapsible reflective dishes. A few hundred dispersed over a radius of 1 AU could achieve the resolution needed to image terrestrial exoplanets.

Andoria

Wouldn’t it be insane if subsurface life were lurking on a majority of rocky planets and moons just waiting for the proper conditions to sprout to the surface?

Water is the best solvent we know of. What else is in that water jetting into space?

(Risa) Hey Fraser is there any Science based Lasers being built in Space to power Solar Sailed Spacecraft?

On Mars, why don’t the valleys Marianas fill up from the dust blowing in the atmosphere? seems like there would be a constant cascade of dust falling in from over the edge

As a side discussion of Betazed, I'm wondering what would happen to Earth and her ecosystem if we was to, say, warp her to the Mars obit, but 180 degrees across from the sun with its current output. I realize we would cool off quite a bit, but how drastically?

I vote Risa

Why don't they make the telescope apart of the rocket itself? I mean not the fuselage or engines portion but make it like an umbrella where a stealth is set to pop off and then it pops open after it make it to destination.

Risa

Most of the water on the Moon, comes from the Earth. The Sun streams out water vapour from the Earth to the Moon, where it eventually is absorbed and stored.

There has to be signs of life on the moon. Where the space suits used for tye Apollo missions 100% bacteria free?

Aeturen

Does the Earth-Moon system have Lagrange points? Does the Moon-Lunar Orbiter have Lagrange points? Is it Lagrange points all the way down?

James Webb is “free” to use, but what is the cost? JWST cost ~$10B, let’s say $2B to operate it for 20 years. That’s $600M/year, $1.6M/day, $68k/hour, or… $1,400 per minute!

Fraser please say “Sorry about tomorrow’s process”. Why did you switch from Star Wars planet names to Star Trek planet names? Thank you.

As someone who has ground their own 8" mirror, I have to say you overstated the labors of DIY, On the other hand, that was before the Chinese brought prices down, and I did it at an open workshop under the guidance of volunteer professionals who knew what they were doing.

The SALTUS telescope does not require a huge rocket. It uses an inflatable 14m mirror.

Vendikar