Lunar Magnetism & Cosmic Signals: Insights into Moon Mysteries and Radio Discoveries

0:00Professor Fred Watson Hi there.

0:00Andrew Dunkley Thanks for joining us. This is another

0:03 episode of Space Nuts. We talk astronomy and space science and window dressing. And you name it, we will talk about it. And, uh, my name. Did I say my name? My name is Andrew Dunkley, your host. Good to, uh, have your company. Uh, on today's episode, we're going to look at lunar magnetism. Did the moon ever have, uh, a magnetic field? Uh, or, um, is there something else that had happened to it in the past? They think they've got it figured out. Maybe, uh, we're going to talk about a not alien radio signal.

0:37 Windows, uh, in spacecraft, uh, have come of age. And we'll tell you all about that. I, uh, think the early astronauts insisted. I want a window. I want a window. And they got one. Well, now it's, uh, very high tech and a very interesting photograph. A chance photo that turned out to be rather special. We'll tell you all about it on this episode of SpaceNarts.

0:59Professor Fred Watson 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

1:02 10, 9. Ignition sequence.

1:06Professor Fred Watson Star space nuts. 5, 4, 3. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,

1:10 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

1:12Andrew Dunkley Space nuts.

1:13Professor Fred Watson Astronauts report it feels good.

1:16Andrew Dunkley And with us again to sort out all of

1:19 that is Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.

1:24Professor Fred Watson Hello, Andrew. Good to see you again. How's

1:26 your week of golf gone?

1:28Andrew Dunkley Um, painful. My back is, uh,

1:30 protesting. In fact, I played my fourth round, uh, to wrap up 72 holes of golf, uh, over five days. We had a rest day on Wednesday. I think, um, it should have another name like why are you bothering day. And, um, I tweaked my back, strangely enough. I was just, um, bending over to, um, adjust the ball.

1:54 And, uh, I wasn't quite balanced. So when I moved my leg to correct my balance, my lower back went, nope, can't do that and I'm going to hurt you. And yeah, I spent the rest of the round fighting that. But I had a pretty good week. I came second in the 36 hole event, which was terrific. And I had three nearest the pins. That's the, that's the closest shot to, to the hole on a par three where the ball stays on the green. So, yeah, um, so yeah, I had a good week. I hit the ball quite well. I was very, very pleased.

2:26 Not, um, as pleased as if I could have won it, but, you know, that's golf. That's golf. How's, um, your week been? It's been a long time since I saw you.

2:36Professor Fred Watson Well, yes, so I'm still, um, still

2:39 nursing the new knee. And the milestone this week was getting out on the. On the bike again, uh, for the first time. Which is great because, uh, it's a good way of extending your range of motion on the knee, uh, which is all about straightening it. Uh, the straightening is what's called the extension, which has to be zero degrees. And, um, as it is on the knee that I had done in 2020, it, uh, took a while to get there, but I did.

3:11 Uh, at the moment, the new knee is standing at 2 degrees. Uh, but getting on the bike actually lets you stretch it. Uh, and so I'm hoping that will pull it down so that when my physiotherapist, um, from Doncaster in Yorkshire, uh, measures it next week, uh, she might find there's a bit a big a difference down from the 2 degrees that it was this week.

3:34Andrew Dunkley What you. What you don't want to hear when

3:36 you're riding a bike after knee surgery is the clatter of titanium on tar. You don't want to hear that.

3:44Professor Fred Watson That will be bad. And, um, yes,

3:46 yes, the physiotherapist tells a horror story that's not too far from that. Oh, really? Yeah. She said, I can tell you this now. I can tell you this now because your. Your wound has healed up completely. I won't relate it, no, but I'm imagining. Yeah, it was a horror. Yeah, yeah. Pretty horrible. Anyway, never mind. Nasty.

4:08Andrew Dunkley All right, uh, we should, uh, get down

4:11 to our stories. And this first story takes us, uh, to the moon. Um, the moon's been in the news a lot lately for all sorts of different reasons. The lack of was, I think, the last thing we talked about. But, um, this story is actually focusing on the, um, magnetic field. Now, Earth's got a magnetic field. It's generated by all the goop inside that's doing whatever the goop does. Um, and that, uh, magnetic field protects us from being burnt alive or whatever. Um, now the question is, did the moon ever have a magnetic field? If it did, how was it generated? And so on and so forth. Uh, what's the situation?

4:56Professor Fred Watson Uh, so, yes, the bottom line

4:59 is the Moon doesn't really have much of a magnetic field now. Uh, it's got traces of magnetism. And interestingly, those traces of magnetism tend to correspond with, uh, what was the buzzword back in the 1960s? The Mascons. Uh, the mass concentrations underneath the surface of the moon, which were discovered when, uh, orbiting spacecraft were first sent to the moon in advance of the Apollo missions. Uh, so, uh, that's a sort of pointer, the fact that where you've got These mass concentrations under the surface. And you detect those by the way, by the fact that they pull down on an orbiting spacecraft and so its trajectory changes slightly. Uh, so that's, um, what basically what lets you plot them. And in

5:53 fact you can see maps of the mascons these days because we've had many, uh, orbiting spacecraft that have charted them. Uh, so. But the magnetism tends to concentrate there. And as I said, that's the first clue. So this is some research that's been done by scientists at, um, actually Einstein's old university, ETH Zurich, uh, and they have, um, basically looked at, uh, some of the evidence from, perhaps more carefully, the evidence from the gravitational samples, the fact that, uh, these can now be mapped with great accuracy.

6:30 Um, so, uh, what they have done, uh, this is published now, I think it might be still being refereed, but I think it's published. Uh, they've looked at a, uh, region. Um, it's, uh, actually on the far side of the Moon. It's called Duar D E W A R, uh, which is the name of a very famous, um, Scotch whiskey, as probably people would know, but it's also the name of something on the moon. Probably came from the same origin. I don't know. Anyway, it turns out that, uh, this Dewar region has one of the strongest, what they call a magnetic field anomaly.

7:08 Which means basically there's a magnetic field there, uh, because, um, the Moon generally doesn't have a strong magnetic field. So, um, one of the authors remarks that the Dewar region is genuine stroke of luck, one of the strongest magnetic field anomalies on the far side of the Moon. And a distinct gravity anomaly coincides spatially there. They're in the same place. Um, so it means that, uh, the region of the Moon's surface, um, has rocks that are both, uh, more strongly magnetised and more dense, a denser concentration of mass than elsewhere. And, uh, the trick now is to sort of analyse both of these aspects, the fact that you've got a mass concentration and, um, uh, a magnetic field anomaly. Uh, another comment from one

8:05 of the authors. The gravity data give us insight into the density and thus into the material beneath the surface, uh, where the magnetic field and gravity signals coincide. It's possible to combine the two and attribute the anomaly to a specific geological structure. Uh, this is precisely the opportunity that Dewar offered. Uh, and so that's what they've done. They've basically built a model that um, actually mimics both, uh, the gravity concentration, the uh, increased density and the magnetic field. And so what the outcome is is that somewhere below the surface of the Moon in this region, there's a body of rock quite big, 60 kilometres wide, uh, going down something like nine kilometres, uh, much denser than its surrounding, uh,

9:02 crustal region and also strongly magnetised. And so what they have concluded is that this is basically solidified magma, something that goes, uh, back to when the Moon was a much more molten object than it is now, um, with a, you know, viscous mantle. Uh, and what they're saying is that because they think this structure is 4.2 billion years old, it's nearly as old as the Moon is.

9:33 Um, what you can do is, um. Well, I'll read again from the comments from the author. Um, because we know how much iron is present in such a rock body, we can estimate the minimum strength the magnetic M field must have had as the magma cooled slowly. That's a very important finding. Uh, we found that the magnetic field on the Moon at that time was very likely stronger than 10 micro Tesla. On Earth today, the magnetic field strength is around 50 micro Tesla. So what they're saying is that this supports the notion that, uh, the Moon had a primordial magnetic field, it had magnetism, uh, when it was a young object, rather than an alternative explanation for the magnetism, which is, um, that, uh, it could have

10:24 been caused locally, you know, this magnetism being caused here and there on the Moon's surface, maybe by impact. Uh, the effect of the impact would be to increase the magnetism. And so, uh, the outcome is that that's not likely to be the source of the magnetism. It's likely to have been a primordial magnetic field.

10:47Andrew Dunkley Um, so they're suggesting that it's a

10:50 leftover effect. So the Moon did have an internally generated magne magnetic field as it's cooled down and solidified. This is just a residual leftover magnetic anomaly.

11:03Professor Fred Watson Exactly that.

11:04 Uh, so they say this means, yes, the Moon was magnetic at one point. There's a little sort of subsidiary study though, that I think is quite interesting. Um, we haven't talked about them, I don't think, Andrew. But there are features on the surface of the Moon which are called lunar swirls. Uh, they're sort of regions of brighter material, uh, which form in swirls, uh, rather than, you know, the craters and mountains that we're used to seeing.

11:36 But what they have noticed in their work is that wherever there's a swirl, there's one of these magnetic anomalies. And it turns out that the region they've been Looking at this Dewar region, uh, has a lunar swirl. Uh, and so, um, you know, the struggle is now to explain this. Why would you have these curious features, uh, on the Moon's surface, um, which are linked with magnetism? And they're basically suggesting that you only get the swirls when you are in an area where the magnetic field, the field lines, the light of force, are actually horizontally at the surface.

12:24 Because that's the case with this Dewar lunar, uh, swirl. And so what they're thinking is that maybe the horizontal field actually modifies the solar wind, perhaps it deflects it, perhaps it protects the surface from weathering by the solar wind and you get this brighter, uh, region. Uh, it's a really. Yeah.

12:46 Isn't it an interesting piece of work? It's got so many, uh, facets to it. I think this is one of the most interesting pieces of, uh, lunar research that we've seen for a while

12:57Professor Fred Watson and.

12:57Andrew Dunkley Yeah. Adds another, um, element to our

13:00 growing knowledge of what the Moon is all about. And uh, yeah, um, I think we're kind of lucky to have it. Uh, I mean, it's good for life on Earth. I don't know if we'd exist without it, would we?

13:16Professor Fred Watson That's right. Uh, probably not. The,

13:19 um, Earth's magnetic field almost certainly is what's allowed us to evolve from microbes into the.

13:26Andrew Dunkley When you sit down and look at all the data

13:29 and start to really analyse it, um, there is so much that exists that we need to exist, if that makes any sense. Um, if one or two of those things never happened, we wouldn't have happened either. It just blows your mind that all of this stuff that enabled life to evolve to this level on Earth had to be just right and um. Yeah, it's gotta be a rarity.

13:55Professor Fred Watson That's right. And I think that's the thinking

13:57 among astrobiologists. Everything, you know, uh, basically everything has come right, uh, on Earth for an intelligent species to evolve. And it's not necessarily the case elsewhere.

14:10Andrew Dunkley Yeah, interesting.

14:11 If you'd like to read about, uh, the Moon's historical magnetic field, you can do so@phys. That's P-H Y-S.org or you can read the Study in Science Advances. This is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson Watson.

14:33Professor Fred Watson Space Nuts.

14:34Andrew Dunkley Our, uh, next story, Fred Watson, uh, is

14:37 a not alien signal, but it's fascinating because it is a signal, a radio signal coming from, uh. Yeah, they usually think it's these things come from stars, but this one, they've actually been Able to say, hang on a minute, we think, in fact we are sure this one's coming from a planet. And of course that gets the tongue swagging. Oh, it's a planet, it must be aliens. But it's not. It's something else, something we all know about.

15:02Professor Fred Watson It is really correct. That's

15:05 absolutely right. Uh, and yes, the reason why this is a big story is that these are ah, radio signals that come from an exoplanet, uh rather than a gas cloud in space or a star or a radio galaxy, all the other things that emit radio waves. This is actually from a planet. Uh, and um, the way it's been uh, proved that it comes from a planet is really one of the most interesting parts of the story, uh as well as how we know it's there.

15:37Andrew Dunkley It was all the selfies that came in with

15:39 it.

15:41Professor Fred Watson Yeah, the selfies did it. So this is

15:44 um, it's a gas giant. Uh, it is called Beta Pictoris B. It's an exoplanet that has been known for many years. Uh, the fact that it's called Beta Pictoris B means it's the first discovered planet around a star called Beta Pictoris, which I think is about 50, 54 if I remember rightly. Light years away.

16:04 64. There you go. Uh, so it's a uh, relatively nearby star. Um, so um, the other thing that I find interesting about this is uh, it uses the, the data that have led to this discovery have come from Meerkat, the um, radio telescope which is similar to the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, uh in Western Australia. Meerkat is its sort of equivalent in uh, the Haikaru region of South Africa and a very, very effective telescope doing some fantastic stuff. And it's been used uh, actually by scientists at the Centre for Astrophysics, um, uh, in the Smithsonian, Havardon Smithsonian, uh, um, they've used this uh, RIP meerkat to make very, very accurate measurements of the position of this radio noise.

16:57 And the way they've done it is a way that uh, to some extent we've used before and I'm not sure whether you and I have ever spoken about it. Uh, when you're measuring the position of objects in space, and I mean in two dimensions now I'm talking about the direction uh, that any, that the radiation comes from. Uh what you have to do is to calibrate it. You need to know where the sort of zero point is.

17:24 So um, you need background objects that don't change their position, uh, to do the Relative measurements. And those background objects are uh, ah, things that are far, far more distant than uh, 64 light years. Uh, their distances are measured in billions of light years. And they are quasars. Quasars are very bright in radio waves and perhaps especially, and this is, you know, what allows you to do this, they are effectively point sources.

17:55 They're a single point of radio waves. Very, very compact, uh, objects and they're at great distances. So that lets you build a framework, um, um, ah, almost like a map. Uh, you can map these quasars and then look at your foreground object and relate its position very accurately by the fact that the, the quasars don't change their position in space because they're so far away. Um, and that's how they've done it. Uh, that's how they've uh, um, worked out that these radio signals come not from the star itself, Beta Pictoris, but from Beta Pictoris B, this uh, gas giant that's in orbit around it.

18:37 And the thing you alluded to. Right, sorry, go ahead.

18:40Andrew Dunkley No, well, I was just gonna let you

18:43 reveal it.

18:44Professor Fred Watson And the source is, it's um,

18:47 northern and southern lights on the planet. It's uh, the aurorae, uh, which we know, um, are not radio noisy, uh, auroral displays. They are on our own planet you can detect aurorae by radio signals. Um, I prefer to go and stand underneath them in the far northern Arctic in winter. Uh, and then you see these things in all their glory. But they do emit radio signals as well. And that's basically how um, these signals came to be.

19:17 So it's a big triumph. It's the first time that we've proved that aurorae exist, uh, on other planets in other solar systems. We know they exist on all the gas giants have, in our solar system. They all have Aurory, the Earth does, Mars occasionally does. But this is just saying that wherever you've got a star with a planet going around it, um, you've probably got them as well. All you need is a planet, sorry, a star that's giving out, uh, charged particles, high energy particles, subatomic particles, and a planet with an atmosphere which is. These are the ingredients you've got there because the high energy particles essentially excite the atmosphere into beaming out light and beaming out radio

20:02 signals.

20:03Andrew Dunkley Simple as that.

20:04Professor Fred Watson Yeah, simple as that. Yeah.

20:05Andrew Dunkley Yeah, but because.

20:06Professor Fred Watson Very nice work.

20:08Andrew Dunkley Yes. It's the first time, as you said, the

20:10 first time they've detected this sort of signal from an exoplanet. So, um, yeah, it's a good pickup. I love the name Beta Pictoris B. It's a good name for a planet. Um, if you would like to read about that, that's on the phys.org website as well. But they have published their work uh, on the Arxiv Preprint server. This is Space Nuts and you're with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson Watson.

20:38 The crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon.

20:41Professor Fred Watson Humanity's next great voyage begins.

20:44Andrew Dunkley Space Nuts. Now Fred Watson, uh,

20:48 from um, the extraordinary Magnetism uh on the moon and a. Ah. Rory signals from an exoplanet to Windows. Windows in spaceships. You know it doesn't sound all that exciting but uh, in the early days of the space race when the United States and uh, and uh, the Soviet Union trying to beat each senseless to get to the moon, um, the early astronauts, those very brave souls, uh, insisted, insisted that they had to have a window as far as I remember.

21:21 And they got it. Ah, of course they've come of age now. Um, they've done some amazing things with uh, windows in spacecraft. And it's in the news again.

21:31Professor Fred Watson Yes, that's right. Uh, uh, and it's

21:34 partly in the news for the reasons that you've mentioned that astronauts uh themselves have always uh, been very keen on having windows. As you would if you're gonna sit, you know, 100 kilometres above the Earth's surface, uh hurtling around at seven kilometres, seven or eight kilometres per second. You're definitely going to want to watch the view as it goes past.

21:55Andrew Dunkley I would, I would say so. What was it like up

21:57 there? I don't know. I was looking down at the plywood,

22:02Professor Fred Watson couldn't see anything. So even certainly the

22:05 first um, manned or crewed spacecraft in the um, um, NASA's human space flight programme, which was Mercury, uh, Mercury had a tiny little window. It's just a few inches in diameter, a little almost a porthole. And it wasn't much bigger in the Gemini spacecraft either. They had um, forward pointing windows which um, were sort of scalloped out of the shape of the nose cone. And Apollo had uh, forward pointing windows as well, which they needed of course by then as they did with Gemini. Uh, and the reason why they're forward pointing is that that's where the docking ports are.

22:43 You need to be able to you know, see where your spacecraft is going if it's going to dock with another spacecraft. And the docking port is always in the narrow part in the nose. Uh, so yeah, that's that. Windows became essential at that point.

22:58Andrew Dunkley And Yuri Gagarin had a

23:01 window as well.

23:01Professor Fred Watson I thought he did. I was going

23:04 to muse on that, but I thought that was right, that he had a window too. Um, it's kind of, uh. The window to be all windows, of course, is the cupola. The, uh, cupola, I should call it, give it its proper name. Uh, it's on the International Space Station. It has, uh. I think it's seven. It might be nine, uh, panels of glass, uh, which.

23:33 It's like a bay window, uh, which

23:35Andrew Dunkley I'm looking at a photo of it now. Yes.

23:38Professor Fred Watson Yeah. How many windows has it got? Is it

23:40 seven?

23:40Andrew Dunkley Um, one, two, three.

23:45 Probably about eight. Eight or nine. Because there's one directly above as well. That'd be nine.

23:50Professor Fred Watson I think this is the front window. Nine's what

23:52 I guessed as well. Um, and I think the astronauts on the International Space Station spend quite a lot of time in that enclosure. Uh, not just because it lets you see the various components of the space station, uh, and watch progress when there are, um, ext. Vehicular or when there is extra vehicular activity taking place. Uh, they're important for that point of view, but they're also important to watch the Earth going by.

24:21 And we've seen so many great photos and videos that have been taken through the cupola window. Um, so that's the. Essentially, uh, the high point of window design on the spacecraft. Uh, but, uh, we've also got six windows. Is it.

24:43Andrew Dunkley It's described as a trapezoidal

24:46 arrangement, but six.

24:48Professor Fred Watson Yeah. All right, Maybe there's some blank

24:50 ports on the other side from working. Never mind. Um, I was just going to mention that both Virgin Galactic with their space plane, uh, and Blue Origin with their space plane, uh, which are now. Well, certainly Blue Origin is no longer being used because they're concentrating their efforts on Artemis. But, um, they have got big windows as well. And in fact, Blue Origin were really quite big, uh, almost like bay windows around the whole spacecraft. Uh, uh, a conical spacecraft again, carried up to suborbital heights, uh, about 100 kilometres on a rocket. So the.

25:29 I mean, the story here is, yes, windows are important, uh, but, uh, are they safe? And, ah. Um. There's an analysis that window glass is a. As one of the analysts working on this, uh, says glass is a brittle material. It breaks. That's what it likes to do. But it's also beautifully transparent. Uh, and so, um.

25:59 Uh, basically, I think what they're saying with all this is it is a balancing act, uh, between the glass, uh, being safe and you Wanting to have as much real estate in terms of visible or transparency as possible. Um, so, uh, uh, the bottom line I think is that windows are a worry. You would need to have, um, some way of evacuating or isolating the region where there's a window, uh, in order to protect astronauts. I mean in the early days, the Apollo, sorry, the Gemini and the um, Mercury capsules, uh, if there'd been a fracture, they'd have been into their spacesuits pretty damn quick.

26:51 Uh, whereas now, uh, you all evacuate that chamber and shut the door. Uh, that would be what would happen. I don't think it ever has happened. I uh, don't think there's ever been a broken window. I might be wrong with that. But, um, that might be one we can check with A.I. uh, but the bottom line here is, uh, our acrylics a better choice than glass because it's a more stable material.

27:20 Something like Perspex.

27:22Andrew Dunkley Yeah. Um, not

27:24 as good to look through though.

27:26Professor Fred Watson Uh, probably not. That's right. And there

27:29 might be other issues with acrylics, uh, in that regard.

27:34Professor Fred Watson Yeah.

27:34Andrew Dunkley Okay, well, watch this space. Boom.

27:36Professor Fred Watson Boom.

27:37Andrew Dunkley Um, but it's through the window. Yeah. It's

27:40 an interesting problem. Uh, this wouldn't be the same kind of glass you'd use at a house. In a house or an office block though, would it? It'd be pretty highly specialised.

27:50Professor Fred Watson Yeah. It might be more like what you. Might

27:53 be more like what you've got in your car. Um, you know, toughened somehow in. In a way that would, would um. If they were going to fracture, they'd do it safely rather than. The last thing you'd want is shards of glass, uh, floating around in ah, zero gravity. Um, you know, imagine a sharp bit of glass going in front of your face if you're um, in orbit with uh, with microgravity.

28:20Andrew Dunkley Yeah, indeed. Well,

28:22 uh, you can read that story@space.com and uh, maybe you're a glazier and you've got their window problems sorted out. Maybe you know that NASA doesn't um, drop them a line, send them a bill M. And good luck getting your money. No, I'm kidding. Uh, but uh, yeah, space. Space.com is the uh, place to uh, learn about windows in spacecraft.

28:45 Uh, one little thing before we go, Fred Watson. And this, this is a fascinating story in that uh. It was an opportunistic, um, photo that was taken and um, you know, right place, right time, exact right moment to create, uh, this little picture. I'll try and get Huw to put it um, on our website as the COVID photo for this Week's episode, episode 669, just in case you're wondering. And, um, see if you can take a look at it or you can look it up at the NASA website. But, uh, yeah, tell us about this photo, Fred Watson.

29:20Professor Fred Watson So, um, it's one of, uh,

29:23 NASA's astronomy pictures of the day, the APOD. Uh, and it's for the 22nd of September, 2026. So just a few days ago as we're recording, um, and it's um, a photo by, uh, an astronomer from the Czech Republic, uh, who was aiming to get a nice silhouette of the International Space Station against the sun. And that's something that's been done before. Um, there's a French astronomer who's kind of made an art of it. Uh, but this is, uh, somebody who's got a big enough telescope to give you a great view of the sun, uh, aiming to get. Get, uh, the International Space Station silhouetted on the sun's disc. It's tiny compared with the disc of the sun, of course. Uh, and he indeed succeeded in doing that. But he also got a

30:12 bonus because one of the exposures, and I'm sure he took several. The International Space Station does not dwell. Uh, it goes very quickly across the disc of the sun.

30:22Andrew Dunkley Oh, yeah, it would.

30:22Professor Fred Watson I think it's less than a second. Um, but he

30:25 managed to catch a plane as well going across the disc.

30:28Andrew Dunkley So what we're looking at at in the foreground

30:30 is the silhouette of a plane and behind it the sun. And in between, or kind of hanging off the back of the plane is the International Space Station. And just to make it even more interesting, there's a few sunspots as well. It's a really great photo. Very, very.

30:45Professor Fred Watson Yes, indeed.

30:46Andrew Dunkley Isn't it just a piece of luck,

30:49 uh, a chance opportunity that, um. Yeah, turned out rather well.

30:54Professor Fred Watson Indeed it did. Yes. Very nice. And

30:56 congratulations to, to Peter who did that. Uh, I think some of our listeners will probably be able to identify the aircraft. It looks to me like a military aircraft.

31:09Andrew Dunkley Uh, yeah, it does, doesn't it?

31:11Professor Fred Watson Yeah. I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as

31:14 to what it was though, but yeah, well done, Peter. It's actually Peter, not Peter P E T R. Um, he's, uh, from the Czech Republic.

31:22Andrew Dunkley Lovely. Uh, yes, go to the NASA website

31:25 and just do a search for APOD 22nd of September, 2026. If you want to have a look at it. You should be able to find it there, but I'll try and put it on our website as well as the COVID shot for this episode. And that brings us to the end. Fred Watson, thank you so much.

31:41Professor Fred Watson Oh, it's a, uh, pleasure, Andrew. Haven't we

31:43 got to the end already? Well, we have time. Goes fast when you're enjoying yourself.

31:47Andrew Dunkley It does indeed, yes. Um, we'll catch you next

31:50 time, Fred Watson. Thank you.

31:51Professor Fred Watson Sounds good.

31:52Andrew Dunkley Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at

31:54 large. Visit our website in between episodes, of course, spacenutspodcast, uh, dot com. And, uh, you can send us messages through the Ask me Anything link. At the top it's marked ama. You can visit the shop, you can sign up for the astronomy newsletter. Don't forget to leave reviews wherever you listen to us.

32:11 Apparently they help with something. Don't know what. I guess it depends what kind of review you leave us. Yes, uh, and thanks to Huw in the studio. Couldn't be with us today. Um, he was actually quite lucky. Uh, he, um, took an opportunist photo. When I say lucky. Uh, yeah, the photo was, um, was a. Was a bonus.

32:31 But, um, was woman's husband was not thrilled and he's on the run anyway, he might be back next week if he's not in hospital. And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your company. We'll catch you on the next episode of Space Nuts.

32:44Professor Fred Watson Bye. Bye.

32:45Andrew Dunkley You've been listening to the Space Nuts

32:48 podcast, Mission complete Eastern of the available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast player. You can also stream on demand@bytes.com.

32:59Professor Fred Watson this has been another quality podcast

33:01 production from bytes.com.