Artificial Gravity Experiments, JWST VS The Big Bang, Eyes Under Other Stars | Q&A 221

Did Webb prove the Big Bang Theory wrong? Why did nobody test artificial gravity in space yet? What's the purpose of other planets other than Earth? How would eyes evolve under a different star? All this and more in this week's Q&A!
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00:00 Start
01:04 [Tatooine] Did James Webb prove Big Bang wrong?
11:07 [Coruscant] What is the purpose of other planets?
17:32 [Hoth] How big does a star need to be to become a black hole?
21:01 [Naboo] Favourite science fiction book?
25:20 [Kamino] How large can cloud cities on Venus be?
28:23 [Bespin] Do telescopes see the past?
30:01 [Mustafar] Can you see Moon's rotation from Earth?
32:42 [Alderaan] Why so few cubesat telescopes?
37:05 [Dagobah] How would eyes evolve under a different star?
38:58 [Yavin] Why don't we experiment with artificial gravity?
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[@tambourine_man]

Fraser is such a good sport. Takes a crazy question and, not only goes trough the trouble of answering it, but does so in an informative and entertaining way.

[@frasercain]

Thanks, it's not about the people who ask the question, it's about the people who are on the sidelines and heard the controversy.

[@swiftycortex]

Great comment @Tambourine Man followed by a wonderfully empathetic response @Fraser Cain

[@tambourine_man]

​@@frasercain But the second one too, on the purpose of other planets. That was a pearl.

[@Djfmdotcom]

@@frasercain Regardless, you do an awesome job of breaking down complex topics into concise bits.

[@j.rivera1875]

Is it possible that there exist very small black holes, let's say the size of a watermelon?

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Fraser is so very gentle to the idjits, so kind to the cranks, and it's amazing how he does it! He deserves an award! ❤️❤️

[@michaelblacktree]

I was thinking the same. I'm more blunt. 😛

[@frasercain]

It's not about them, it's about the people who are watching from the sidelines and have heard that JWST disproved the Big Bang.

[@jpaulc441]

The worst thing about those people isn't about their beliefs, rather that they always seem to be really unpleasant people in general. I have never met a moon-hoax proponent that was a good person to be around.

[@shaunjefferies4043]

@Fraser Cain I have come across youtube channels (usually with the artificial voices) that spread this sort of nonsense. They come across as a science channel and alot of what they say is actually true but then they sensationalise or just plain make up the rest. For people who are unsure it sounds totally legit.

[@shaunjefferies4043]

@Fraser Cain I always report the channel's when I come across them. Also without the dislikes showing its harder to tell for those that might not know.

[@Nk36745]

Love this deep dive into how the scientific process works and your great explanation of the people trying to shortcut it. It's something we have all seen to some extent. Your approach to it of understanding why it happens in a level headed way is the best I've seen.

[@DaxLLM]

Hang in there bud! You're providing great content for interested science driven people. Thank you! 👍

[@frasercain]

Thanks, I've been at it for a while now and still having fun.

[@christophermullins7163]

​@@frasercain🙏

[@thomasstuart2936]

Laymen: "You scientists were proven wrong, you must be so embarrassed and mad." Scientists: "NONE OF THE DATA FITS OUR THEORIES! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!"

[@frasercain]

Hah, exactly!

[@JROD082384]

Theories pretty well all have data backing them up. Hypotheses are where data typically gets falsified or null resulted. Important to stop the spread of layman ignorance regarding the true meaning of a scientific theory.

[@AbbStar1989]

This is such a great comment! Probably because it's true.

[@TheSulross]

that's the trope we're all taught in grade school but the reality is that science advances when the old gauard finally die and no longer hold positions of power by which to controll the "consensus" narratives

[@dealeru.3532]

The implication is that to the "Layman" or average person the most embarrassing or maddening experience is when they are proven to be wrong.

[@muzduz]

Dude, 99.99% of science presenters have to stay within the realms of the rules. Your enthusiasm for science is awesome. keep up the good work.. :)

[@theothercasper]

[Mustafar] The Moon is always hangin out up there so we tend to take it for granted. Great to see Fraser geeking out about lunar orbital mechanics!

[@ballroomscott]

Tatooine. It's interesting how fast misunderstanding spared that the big bang has been proven incorrect. My favorite part of that is my aunt used that as an example of human fallibility, that even our grandest theories about the universe could be unraveled by one discovery. And that was just a couple days after the news first broke.

[@boredgrass]

Dagobah! Incidentally: "The island of the colourblind" from Oliver Sacks describes the experiences of an isolated island community of whom the majority is effected by colourblindness. Oliver Sacks is a Neurologist. With empathy and careful observation he was able to open a window into a monochrome reality in which people deem normal colour sightedness as a handicap because "it distracts from the rich diversity of structures in their tropical environment".

[@fochdischitt3561]

TL;DR Amending a theory is not disproving a theory.

[@XJapa1n09]

Thanks, I figured, but you scratched the itch! 😝 I love the show too!

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Even shorter answer: no, it didn't. 😉

[@Djfmdotcom]

Hilarious. People want certainty in an uncertain universe… science doesn’t give them that and it makes them upset lol 😂

[@Madash023]

I am mildly disappointed this video wasn't about JWST shooting the big bang theory with a giant laser XD But great video as always

[@frasercain]

Witness the power of a fully operational infrared space telescope.

[@ThatBoomerDude56]

I think you missed the intent behind the *"purpose of the other planets"* question. He sounded like a religious person looking for an actual *purpose* behind their "creation."

[@fochdischitt3561]

He knows. He's not being confrontational about it.

[@daemeonation3018]

The guy's first mistake is assuming that there is a purpose for ANYTHING. 😂

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

Look, it may well have been the first, but Tatooine was a marvelous clinic for those seeking a 'shortcut' to academic praise, along with being a thinly veiled pillory. Delightful!

[@Smo1k]

16:50 Totally agree that if we don't find life, it's our duty to put life there. Not necessarily humans, just life of whatever sort will thrive there.

[@Civilized-Joke]

Life and as an extension humans may have been born on Earth.... *But the miracle of life including ourselves was never meant to die here.*

[@jamescarlisle3770]

The question didn't deserve Fraser's patient answer.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

The reporting on the JWST “finding” shows one reason we shouldn’t trust “Science Reports” from reporters who have no science background.

[@frasercain]

Learning the fundamentals of the scientific method isn't that complex, and would be helpful for everyone, including science communicators.

[@MusikCassette]

Re Yavin I want artificial gravity station too. But for a slightly different reason: Our understanding about biological processes was increased by having 0 gravity as a comparison. but that are still just 2 data points. So it stands to reason, that our understanding can be depend more by observing long term effects of different gravity, than just one g and zero g. We can make experiments on earth for values above one g. But for values between 1 and zero g (and that is where I think the interesting science is) we need a rotating space station.

[@frasercain]

I think this is a perfectly good reason to study gravity at different strengths.

[@davidmurray2829]

This visit every week is like meditation for me.👍👍👍

[@_ZeroCool_]

Hey Fraiser Love your videos (although i only listen to the audio format most of the time). My question: Has there been any new research about quantum gravity and how we can "connect" the other froces with gravity? I remeber hearing a lot of talk about it around 10 years ago. damn time flies. Thank you again.

[@Theraot]

30:45 "The moon has corners" -- Fraser Cain.

[@jeffreyknutson]

I love your shows, and I wish I was in the position to send money for the production of everything. All of it is so much fun to watch and learn with. I love it! Great work!!!

[@christophermullins7163]

Me too! Your comment may help me take the plunge and join the patreon. Out of all of the content I enjoy, Fraser deserves the most. His expertise and talent with analyzing data and interviewing etc is down right second to none especially for space in general. Wonderful content for the entire family. ❤

[@cltr8011]

Tatooine! The average set of questions and answers is getting so good, I'll soon have to sort my favorite question out of them😂😅

[@jeremytipton6076]

Actually venus has vast quantities of co2, and sunlight. You could split the carbon and oxygen apart, breath the oxygen and Use the carbon to make more floating units. In fact that could be completely automated into self replicating islands.

[@frasercain]

Carbon nanotube balloons?

[@JenniferA886]

Great video… love all of your work 👍👍👍

[@cafaque]

Thanx for taking my question! I am aware that the answer is self evident for many, but I think we should at least come up with small scale experiments, it never hurts to have more data. ;)

[@roberta8936]

I LOVE YOUR SHOW AND ENTHUSIASM!

[@inexister7371]

16:49 WOW, what a powerful message!

[@alanbarnes3658]

QUESTION: Would it be possible to use machine learning A.I. to predict what an object in space observed in one part of the spectrum, would look like in another part of the spectrum? For example, if you fed the A.I. visible and infrared data of the same targets, could it eventually learn to predict what a visible observation would look like in the infrared? Thus, making it possible to more efficiently choose a target of interest for James Webb's infrared instruments? Thank you. I'm a huge fan of all of your podcasts and space science communications work.

[@rodvik]

Great questions great answers. really good job. very fun one this week probably because no odious billionaire was involved :) Thanks Frasier!

[@frasercain]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@ksara2883]

I've seen a lot of "James Webb disproves big bang" videos popping up on youtube. I think this had something to do with the flood of comments. I instantly don't trust them as a lot of the good youtubers who understand this stuff or are good science communicators aren't saying the same thing. They would be the first to report the "weirdness" or the what we don't know yet. Not a channel I've never heard of. And the red flags as to why I don't trust these videos is the language used like "scientists are worried" or "they are concerned with this discovery." It's negative and gives me an impression where they don't actually know any scientists. Scientists love finding the weird and figuring this stuff out. Being wrong is not seen as bad or something to worry about. It's seen as an opportunity to make a new, hopefully groundbreaking, discovery. Scientists would be all over this if James Webb produced data that contradicted our established theories. The videos gives me the they see science as religion vibes and scientists would be shaking in their boots to have their religion disproved vibe. These videos are often repetitive, don't give much information and just claim over and over the telescope found galaxies that are too big, disproves big bang and scientists are concerned or worried about this. To people who aren't familiar with the scientific method, don't understand the science and/or have a religious way of thinking I can see them believing these videos as real. Especially as watching one just fills the feed with more of this crap 😫

[@RubbittTheBruise]

Here's a potential answer to the Fermi Paradox: Intelligent life, technologically capable life seems to have developed really late on earth. Say on most, or nearly all other such life developed BEFORE the Carboniferous era. They didn't allow the millions or billions of years for fossil fuels to be laid down. They would all remain at the pre industrial period. No space faring for them.

[@absalomdraconis]

Not necessarily. Such "early technologists" could go another route, such as plant-oil lamps -> artificial oils -> orbital collector arrays to generate artificial oils faster, or other such things. Fossil fuels have increased the speed of our development, but they're not precisely required (some of the composites used in the Saturn V were actually replacements for balsa wood due to insufficient supplies).

[@joefresh3725]

QUESTION: I have a question I'm not sure who to ask, it's kind of multi-disciplinary... It's in reference to the proposed Solar Gravity Lens mission you mentioned recently. If roles were reversed, and a technological civilization 100 light years away from us used this method to look at earth (with a 1000x1000 pixel resolution) they would clearly see the signs of our technological civilization. Lights at night for sure, mining operations, and even roads maybe? But at what point in history would this first be true? Could a 1000x1000 pixel image see the industrial revolution? Rome? Ancient Egypt? So, I'm wondering when our technology first became visually apparent. Anyone know an astronomer that minored in history, or vice versa?

[@massimookissed1023]

If their magnification was good enough to have Earth be full-screen, then each of their pixels would be an 8x8 miles patch of Earth. I think they'd need to be looking at a major city with electric lighting to distinguish evidence of our civilization from nature.

[@Chip_in]

Joe l like your question and unfortunately l can't answer because l'm just a simple golfer and the very large numbers have to be avoided on our scorecards. There's a list you could say that's the size of the universe you have to master with a lot of moving parts and forces trying their best to make it hard you have to conquer to be successful in the game. So for a million things to work in the golfers favour so we can improve, get better, win etc..we have to become more single minded for task at hand so the outside noise and big picture goals/results is far too much for us to think about all at the same time and l think maybe our golfing brain will explode mine probably would anyway...so we break it down one shot, one hole, shot etc. Small is good Big is bad. Golf's version of singularity l guess. You asked If roles were reversed, and a technological civilization 100 light years away from us used this method to look at earth (with a 1000x1000 pixel resolution) they would clearly see the signs of our technological civilization?...So this not good for my keeping everything small thought processes and an uncomfortable place for me right now big is bad for me so l have to scale down before l overload. The one thing that kept popping up thinking about your question is the part "If the roles were reversed" and all examples/questions after this bit are all fair. Again apologies for not having an answer because it is so vast and a million different ways they can all play out and wonderful rabbit holes one can get lost in... ...l'm way out of my comfort zone it's too big and too many l need to get back to safety before l explode. "If the roles were reversed" ...safe...just the one thing phew made it small is good. Do we have to find ancient ruins like Egypt and Rome on an old planet or somewhere first so we know what to look for and where to look? So l'm guessing if were reversed it will be similar we can't see them, they can't see us?...Too big too much for me to compute but l liked your question...that (small) part anyways ⛳

[@joefresh3725]

@@massimookissed1023 that's kind of what I'm asking. Rome certainly was a major city. But how bright was it at its peak? If you were standing on the moon, could you see a little dot of light? Or would you need to wait for the invention of the light bulb?

[@joankx2cw425]

tnx!

[@edenb329]

14:07 love the cuts that were used xD

[@D-generon]

Your skill of being polite to morons deserves nothing, but a praise.

[@RonnyCoalman]

:O my question got picked!

[@frasercain]

Nice work!

[@p1mpb1scu1ts]

Thanks!

[@cykkm]

Haha, the video sequence at 14:07 made me ROTFL when it came to tardigrades! Wonderful!!!

[@Drakcap]

Glad you liked it too! I was cackling when I was putting it together.

[@cykkm]

​@@Drakcap 👍 Fantastically humorous idea! Dude, you're a genius! I played the sequence to wife, then emailed to daughter. I think I'm going to call hippos tardigrades from now on to the end of my days!!! Oh, wait... and the other way around, too, to avoid ambiguity and leave no room for misunderstanding!

[@papachis9535]

I once talked to a physicist about dark matter moving at the speed of light, hence being undetectable. He said “ideas are fine, now put in the work to prove it”. I didn’t.

[@frasercain]

So it'll have to remain a hypothesis forever.

[@davidpnewton]

Nice idea. Shame about the infinite mass that it would exhibit. Dark matter has been demonstrated to interact via gravity. That means it has mass. Things with mass cannot travel at the speed of light. Theories predict infinite mass in that circumstance. As with so many of these "ideas" it falls at a very low hurdle.

[@papachis9535]

@@davidpnewton Yep, I was very young and very drunk.

[@papachis9535]

@@frasercain Yep, and not a very good one either!

[@TwZlr.]

well that was an awesome video

[@richarddutton1981]

when you get the wrong answer on a equation you dont assume math is a lie, you realize you made a mistake somewhere and go back

[@alexdevey3188]

Kamino. Breathable air, wow, didn't know, nice one 🖖🙏

[@frasercain]

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Venus still sucks, but that's mildly helpful.

[@kayakMike1000]

I am grateful for cedar trees too. 14:03

[@storyspren]

I don't know if the Coruscant question's phrasing is a result of exasperation, bad faith, or just language barriers, or some mix of the three, but the use of the word "purpose" here was actually really good, because every time I've seen arguments between deists and atheists, it's been "why" and "reason" and stuff like that. Questions that can be answered either by assigning a purpose, or by explaining a cause, and those seem like they should be very different questions. And I don't know if it's the word "purpose" that got me thinking, or if I'm just in a mood to ponder some orbs, or whatever else, but despite the potential bad faith origin, I think it's a good question because it's thought-provoking. Personally I don't believe in any for any event of nature, but for those here that do, especially for those who really need to find some purpose for those other rocks around our little campfire in the void, here are some ideas you might want to entertain: if there is life elsewhere in the solar system, even microscopic, then it might be to just harbor that. If there isn't, it might be to make Earth more habitable (think of Jupiter vacuuming up impactors with that massive gravity), or to make our life more interesting (we've been looking up and writing stuff down for a long while: the word "planet" is quite literally ancient). Or maybe they're there to inspire us to explore. I don't believe in purposes, but these are some effects they have (or in the first case, have), and everyone who believes in purposes has their own way of figuring out whether some effect is the purpose for its cause or just a side thing. So I'm not gonna propose an answer, I'll just say feel free to ponder.

[@absalomdraconis]

The problem with such people is that they often want some awe-inspiring purpose. Almost everything would have a _really ignomonious_ purpose, there would be little to no inspiration to be had from it.

[@DoggosAndJiuJitsu]

Full disclosure, and I know you're being nice to the commentators, but NONE of them tried to talk to the researchers. Let me tell you about trolls and armchair "geniuses"....

[@frasercain]

I'm not sure about these commentators, but the researchers I talk to get a LOT of theories emailed to them.

[@DoggosAndJiuJitsu]

@@frasercain That's completely fair, but unless I'm missing you probably get a lot of 40,000ft experts. I happen to be one 🤪

[@SPR8364-0]

Chad (I think that is the person adding the graphics), has a great sense of humor. The panda bears and other animals starting at 14:08 gave me quite a laugh.

[@robertt9342]

I think that the JWST results is great as it shows that not everything is understood as we thought. There’s so much more learn and understand, even if this just turns out to be a misunderstanding.

[@jasonsinn9237]

Hey Fraser, what are some of the biggest missions or contributions the Canadian Space Agency has coming up in the future? Thanks and love the show.

[@massimookissed1023]

A giant Canadarm to lift things into space and yeet them into orbit.

[@marcomattano3705]

Nice! I'm reading "Inhibitor's Phase" right nowm, DeRuyther (Clavain's brother?) and Pinky (Scorpio?) just escaped the Swine Queen's lair and I'm excited to find out what they're going to do with the stones ....

[@frasercain]

Great book! I just finished it.

[@arnelilleseter4755]

@@frasercain Have you read the "Mars Trilogy" by Kim Stanley Robinson? A great series about the colonisation of Mars. It spans almost two centuries from the first permanent settlement to an independent Mars with millions of people.

[@cacapouzin5661]

Yavin has a great point! We should be experimenting more on a smaller scale. At least start gathering data and making it public. THank you for you for Fraser. Great show.

[@chrishunt2718]

Really missed the chance to have the cloud city question be attached to Bespin.

[@frasercain]

Hah, I clearly should have timed it better

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@frasercain : Shame, shame ;)

[@evandotpro]

Loved the part where you named the animals haha 😂 10/10

[@johnbennett1465]

Yeah, it was interesting that the editor found images that could be mistaken for what was named, IF you are half blind and looking at it through a funhouse mirror. I especially liked tardigrades going to hippos.

[@Drakcap]

I'm happy you also enjoyed it :D The idea came out of nowhere and I ran with it.

[@rileychadwell5635]

I've heard that the core of the moon is offset favoring toward the earth quite a bit. I also heard that the formation of the moon caused or helped start plate tectonics here on Earth.

[@absalomdraconis]

I don't think that last one is _known,_ but it's almost inevitable.

[@fitzroyford9251]

Alastair R is the bomb, waiting for the next one from him

[@mrnobody2873]

Isn't Dark Energy a perceptual error? When we talk about the expansion rate accelerating, If you think about a balloon being inflated you can inflate it with a constant pressure but some areas of the surface appear to expand faster than others. The rate of expansion isn't actually faster. Rather, you just have more points of division expanding at a consistent rate. The further any two points you measure are from one another, the more(or faster) the expansion appears to occur. This is simply because you have exponentially more amounts of space being created the further away you measure.

[@frasercain]

You would assume that the mutual gravity of galaxy clusters is a force that's countering the expansion rate of the Universe. Over time, galaxies would slow down from our perspective, and maybe even stop at some point in the distant future. It would be like throwing a ball up into the air and seeing that it's slowing down until it reaches the high point of its arc. But what astronomers observed is that the galaxies aren't slowing down. In fact they're accelerating away. That analogy would be that the ball you throw up accelerates away and flies off into space.

[@mrnobody2873]

@@frasercain Actually, that would not be my assumption. Gravity is curvature, not a force. Some are moving toward one another and some are moving away. I would assume that the apparent change in the average is within the threshold of the lack of precision of our measurements. Even so, the "force" of gravitational curvature drops off with distance, quite dramatically (inverse square). My assumption would be that expansion is slowed in the presence of local matter, not that it accelerates in its absence. Again a difference of perspective. However, that is still wrong. The expansion still occurs locally. We are just tethered together by gravity and notice it no more than a slow current of water moving across the hull on a calm sea. Tha ball analogy is rather that you throw a ball at "c" with sufficient force to escape the gravity well and it continues on its inertial path at the same rate. But as the ball moves farther away from other matter, the space in between expands at a constant rate, all space. The further away it gets from us, the more space expands in between because each light year of space gets cut into ever more space. Using made up round numbers, If 1 LY of space expands at a rate of 0.1 light years per year. When the ball has moved 1 light year away, it's distance is measured at 1.1LY. When it has moved 10 LY away its distance is measured at 11LY the ball hasn't increased speed by 10%. and neither has the expansion rate. The volume that you are measuring has increased at a constant rate. You are just measuring more of it. The more you measure, The greater the expansion effect will be. If you and I were in fixed positions and a Sq Meter of space were created between us at a constant rate, that would not be what we see in the cosmos. What we see is a meter of space is created, but after the first meter, the next is a meter being created on either side of the first, now 3 total. On the next measurement each of those three has also expanded with a total distance of 7 meters. then 15 and so on. You and I would seem to be accelerating away from each other at an ever increasing rate, because the expansion is not just occuring at the mid-point between us. It occurs at all points with the same rate. It is only apparently slowed locally in the close proximity of gravity. So, when you make a large measurement you are measuring the expansion at all points between two objects, the larger the measurement the faster the acceleration appears to be. This is because you are measuring the expansion of the expansion of the expansion( and on and on) of space.

[@mrnobody2873]

@@frasercain Let me try this another way. Take a single cell organism that divides once per hour. After 1 hour you have 2 cells. After another hour you have 4. Exponential growth, right?. The mistake I am seeing is science sees the rate of expansion as constant if only one cell is created per hour and if more cells are created then the rate of growth has increased. Obviously that is wrong. You will have exponential growth with the same base rate of 1 division per hour. That is why I say the rate isn't increasing. we are just looking at it, or maybe communicating it wrong. The distance is accelerating, but the rate is not.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@mrnobody2873 : You've misunderstood something- that the expansion _even exists_ over all of the universe that we can see is dark energy, the _rate_ doesn't even matter. If it was just localized then no problem, but it instead appears to be universally present. Whether the rate of inflation (average or otherwise) within a volume of space is increasing or not isn't actually relevant.

[@richarddeese1991]

Thanks. The way science advances is to push current ideas (theories) to the breaking point. In astronomy, this is most often done through observation (by necessity). When we observe something that doesn't seem to fit our theories, we have to amend them (or get new ones) to deal with it. If we're lucky, we'll be continuously confronted by new information that pushes us toward better & better understanding of the world around us. That's how it works, kids. So just because we see something that doesn't seem to fit in, that doesn't mean it's woo-woo time. It does NOT mean that everybody gets to dust off their favorite conspiracy theory and declare it must be the truth. As someone who has only a high-school diploma, it saddens me to see the sorry state of education these days. Every time something even slightly challenges current understanding, people start crawling out of the woodwork like bugs, and begin loudly touting every half-assed looney bin flat Earth, hollow Earth, artificial Moon, lizard people, sacred [sacral?] crystal healing magic voodoo conniption blah blah. BALLS. tavi.

[@TonyM1961]

Exactly. Any scientist worth the title will happily admit that there's a lot that they don't know... yet. Any new theory that comes along HAS to work within the current known laws of physics. That is, anything new will, of necessity, simply take what we know and expand upon it. Just like Einstein didn't disprove Newton, he simply explained HOW and WHY Newton's laws work... and then expound upon this knowledge from there. The biggest "Moby Dick" of physics is a unified field theory that will explain both macro and particle physics in a manner that doesn't entail the current paradoxes that we encounter

[@musicdev]

All I’m saying is that I rubbed a crystal on my scratch and two weeks later it healed. There might be something to that

[@richarddeese1991]

@@musicdev Two weeks? Sure. You coulda rubbed a hamster on it. tavi.

[@musicdev]

@@richarddeese1991 I also did that once too. It worked! Still took about 2 weeks. Crystals and hamsters are currently incredibly underutilized in our medical facilities

[@richarddeese1991]

@@musicdev Perhaps one day we'll be able to combine Hamsters and crystals. ... Wait - I've got it! Hamster kidney stones! The universe is saved. I am a god. tavi.

[@anthonymorris9061]

Instead of building a giant rotating habitat, it might be easier to build a large circular "track" that a space habitat would drive on. Like a train but on a loop. The track would need to be large but the habitat wouldn't need to be large. Additional habitats could be added on as needed so it would look like a train.

[@shaunjefferies4043]

A track would be so much more difficult and just unnecessary. If the train drove on the track it would spin the track the opposite direction as the train. Then you would have to have to track powered.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@shaunjefferies4043 : And the track would need to support the full weight of the habitat. A much better topology is a "dogbone" design, with a habitat at one end and a counterweight (probably stuff like heat exchangers, solar panels, etc.) at the other. As I recall there's some instability, but that can be dealt with using automated thrusters. Expansion can be handled about as easily as the track example, spinning up a new station, syncing it's rotation to the old station, docking them together, and cautiously transferring the components and supports to integrate with the old parts. I'd hazard a guess that the very first spin-gravity stations will (at least initially, later on the components might get moved down from the hub like ordinary cargo) expand with this sort of system.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

It would be even easier to create two habitats and connect them with a cable and then let them spin.

[@torkhan2519]

Hey Fraser: A question - What explains Venus’s retrograde rotation if it formed in a solar nebula where planets overwhelmingly spin/rotate in an anticlockwise direction? Is Venus heading towards eventually being tidally locked to the sun?

[@frasercain]

It's believed that it was caused by a huge collision in the past.

[@davidswift9120]

Damn...Your live show airs at 1am for us in the UK. Way past my bed time. Maybe I'll make an exception and stay up for it soon. (Okay, I'm an old fart, I admit it!) :-D

[@SomeRandom6uy]

just be patient. be patient. all need process.

[@DexLuther]

To add to the Coruscant question mainly the panspermia theory: Is it not completely impossible that if panspermia did occur extra-solar rocks could be responsible for seeding life on Earth? I get that the idea mainly involves Mars and/or Venus because they are closer and probably more likely since we have evidence of material being traded between planets, but I don't think we should discount the possibility that life could have been seeded from outside the solar system or it helped in some way. Space is immensely huge and often really weird, and I don't think this would be the weirdest of things that could have happened.

[@Ken-rq9xr]

Dragons Egg was the best science based fiction I've ever read.

[@scottwooledge6387]

Q: So I just heard that there are two black holes tightly orbiting each other In Andromeda galaxy. Since we’re on a course to collide with Andromeda, it made me think of this: Are gravitational waves dangerous? When the black holes collide will the resulting gravitational waves destroy everything nearby? Since we detect them from such wide distances they seem innocuous but I realized, what if you’re less than a light year from the collision?

[@cgriffen]

Revelation Space is a great series. I'm guessing Reynolds didn't leave too many holes in his imagined tech. I'm sure you've read Banks, too, which also leans on real phenomena but takes it to the extreme.

[@unaphiliated5090]

Ann Elk had a great theory about brontosaurs, but she wasn't taken seriously even though she was spot on.

[@MCsCreations]

Alderaan! You know, Fraser, years ago I went to a company that was building cube sats with universities and so on... It's a long history, but at the time they were using notebook parts for it. Now, recently I've heard they're using smartphone parts! It's truly fascinating to follow it! Anyway, thanks for the answers! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@frasercain]

Yeah, the tech is there for anyone to build cubesats for cheap, transmitting the data home is the bottleneck.

[@MCsCreations]

@frasercain Yeah, about that I don't understand enough. 😬 All I understand a little bit is about the transition of live video feed and radio control link, because I fly FPV... 😂

[@frasercain]

Yeah, so the limit of your FPV drone isn't how fast and far it can fly, but how far you can control it. If you're willing to put up your own private network of radio towers in all directions out to the limit of your flight range you could really get out there. But that's... expensive. Side note, I really want to get an FPV drone. What are you using?

[@massimookissed1023]

Smartphones are already small, densely packed, optimised for power efficiency, have good processors and memory, good cameras, and comms hardware. They're a good starting point for cube sats.

[@MCsCreations]

@frasercain Fraser, for some reason my answer to your question isn't showing up anymore here. 😕 But I did answer it!

[@J-3-3-R-379]

which telescope are you most excited about in the next 7yrs? Yavin

[@why2166]

Honestly, Just tell what ever ideas you have to bing ai chat, and bing will tell you exactly why youre wrong. The best part is that if it can't find anything disproving it completely it will walk you through the steps needed to try and prove your theory. [Obviously bing can be wrong, but I found that phrasing it in a way that it only checks against academic datasets, its generally okay for the random ideas and such]

[@Flowmystic]

Mustafar Soo fancy.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Tatoonie: Re all those people sending "theories" to you: Have them review each other's papers.

[@frasercain]

Smart.

[@ralphchang5422]

I vote for the Naboo question. Similarly to Fraser, I try to suspend disbelief/skepticism when reading science fiction, but the stories with technology that's plausible, where there's no or less violations of known facts, are more palatable. I may buy the Revelations book he mentioned he's just finished.

[@AndersWelander]

I agree it is our duty to spread life.

[@frasercain]

Can you imagine if life in the Universe ended when the Sun died and we didn't sort ourselves out in time?

[@AndersWelander]

@@frasercain I think it was a former NASA director that pointed out that if we will be remembered for anything one billion years from now then it will be whether we made life spread through the universe.

[@bbbenj]

A bit late but thank you.

[@brucehansensc]

Tatooine Its obvious we all need to become more rational if we are to survive. Its that simple. Thanks for the help in that direction Fraser!

[@MrFanBoyDee]

with regards to earth being the best place in the universe for humans, surely there's another planet out there with all of the vital properties of earth (magnetic field, water, etc) but with 20% more oxygen in the atmosphere, or 20% less gravity, etc. It's not inconceivable that there's another, better planet out there given how many there are.

[@kalrandom7387]

How much could a large meteor impact affect the wobble of the planet? I'm wondering about Burkle crater size impact.

[@JohnDlugosz]

It depends. In the case of Earth, you have to consider the orbital angular momentum of the Moon as well, since that stabilizes the Earth's spin axis. For a planet alone, consider it a problem of Torque.

[@ywtcc]

[Yavin] Question: Could wave particle duality (and other quantum effects) simply be a consequence of wave like quantum spacetime? In other words, could current theories be confusing the wave like properties of particles with the properties of some kind of wave like quantum spacetime?

[@JohnDlugosz]

Wave/particle duality is perfectly explained by the fact that spacetime has a _smallest scale_ . It doesn't need special properties beyond that -- they are just coordinates in the functions.

[@ywtcc]

@@JohnDlugosz I think it's a little more profound than that. It might be more accurate to say that beyond a certain small scale, spacetime appears to become probabilistic. Which means that traveling from A to B does not require going through points in between, along with the uncertainties of where A and B (and the traveler) are exactly. Also, I'm not so sure particles actually exist in spacetime, though particle collisions do appear to be in spacetime. There's a critical difference when inferring how particles travel (or rather, if they travel through spacetime). I have a rudimentary definition for quantum probabilistic spacetime: everywhere there's a non zero probability of particle collision is spacetime, and if the probability of particle collision is zero, then it's not spacetime. The idea is that this definition is not empirically disprovable (you could never detect a point in spacetime with zero probability of particle collision, so why bother considering it?). My starting point is that the entire universe exists within the Heisenberg Uncertainty of some initial event, and the spacetime of the Universe is simply the sum of all Heisenberg Uncertainties of all particle collisions and potential particle collisions. It's a lot of big numbers, but that's what you'd expect, and I'm not sure if it's computationally tractable.

[@noahway13]

There were many critiques from fighter pilots about the then upcoming Top Gun 2. The producer said, "I'm not making this film for military pilots, I'm making it for the general public", so there will never be a movie/book where all the science is perfect. Plus, predicting the future is impossible.

[@StarrDust0]

I like that look that people get in their eyes 15:50 when they talk about the far future and colonizing the galaxy...I get that way too. It's the look of "man it'd be so awesome to be around when humanity spreads amongst the stars" but also sadness because our lives are very finite and we won't be around to see it unfortunately.

[@Vedurin]

Coruscant: How *can* we actually tell if there is life on other planets in the Milky Way ? The planets in our own solar systems might be quite easy. But as we go away further, there is much less data we get. I am thinking about situations in which all we know about a planet is that it ever so slightly dims the light we can see from its sun. How can we actually know anything from a planet of which we can't even see a shape ?

[@TheSlotenmaker]

A lot of objects in the universe are spinning, is the universe itself spinning and if the answer is yes.. was the singularity before the big bang spinning faster due to the smaller size

[@taylorjohnson4943]

Food chat thanks enjoyed your video

[@alanbarnes3658]

QUESTION: In regards to Special Relativity, is it acceleration, velocity, or both, that cause time dilation to slow down a moving clock? In the, "Twin Paradox", each twin could say that the other one is moving and that they are stationary. So, is the twin that experiences acceleration, the one whos clock slows down, simply because he accelerated, and not because he was moving at relativistic speeds? Thank you. I'm a huge fan of all of your podcasts and space science communications work.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Both. For example, the GPS satellites experience time dilation because of their velocity, and they experience time passing faster because they are under less gravity than the surface of the Earth. Subatomic particles are seen to last much longer than their normal half-life because they are moving fast.

[@alanbarnes3658]

@@JohnDlugosz Thank you for your reply. So, to clarify, in the Twin Paradox, since both twins have a right to say that the other one is moving and that they are the one who's stationary, does the twin that stays younger stay young only because he accelerated, which invokes general relativity (due to his acceleration) on top of special relativity (due to his velocity)?

[@dumbouche8389]

Coruscant (loved your matter of fact way of talking about how we would wipe life if we found it - it would be a great ominous bit in a sci-fi movie) I am wondering if you had a simple rule of thumb to estimate time dilation? I believe a Earth - Alpha-Centauri flight at a constant 1/10 c (no acceleration/deceleration) would take about 40 years, but I wonder how different Alpha Centauri would be to what we would expect. Thanks ! :)

[@JohnDlugosz]

Rule of thumb is you need about 2/3 c before you notice any time dilation. You can find graphs. You can find the specific formula. For a simple problem, just ask Wolfram Alpha.

[@jimcabezola3051]

Yavin! A weighty question!

[@cykkm]

Moon librations: It seems that if you set your tent at the right Lunar longitude, you can watch Earth falling below the horizon and rising back up. Watching an Earthrise! That would be cool!!!

[@rileychadwell5635]

So, "Big Bang" is essentially correct. Big Bang rate models maybe not so much.

[@onebylandtwoifbysearunifby5475]

It's funny how _SCIENTISTS_ are the one's who told them this new information which proves "scientists are wrong." 😒

[@bbartky]

Tattoine. Great response to all the misinformation about JWST out there.

[@smeeself]

Mustafar. I want this projected on my bedroom ceiling.

[@charleslivingston2256]

Tatooine. I agree, it is those influenced by the crazies we need to reach - for the most part, the crazies are a lost cause. Your call rational approach seems better at reaching the ones that matter.

[@Smo1k]

Would like to be around at the live stream more often, but 5PM Pacific Monday is 2AM European Tuesday 🥱

[@Raz.C]

Hi Fraser This might not be the appropriate place to do this, but I'd like to recommend a book to you. I WOULD have recommended the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, but you've probably already read them and- strictly speaking- they're more fantasy than sci-fi. So instead, I'd like to recommend Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. It's part of his 'Thousand Worlds' series and perhaps the best of them, too. I first read it as a teenager, back in the early 90s and it was THIS book that sparked my lifelong interest in the sciences. Unlike the Game of Thrones books, this is nowhere near as dense. It's interesting enough and compelling enough, that even if you have limited reading time, you're still likely to finish it within a week. Anyway, it's a single book, which doesn't require the reading of an entire series. Although if you wanted to, you could read other books in the Thousand Worlds universe. However, each book is a single entity and only barely relates to the others. There's no real sense of continuation from one novel to the next, so there's no real reason to read other novels in the series. And so, Tuf Voyaging is as close as George Martin gets to publishing a standalone novel.

[@d.o.6769]

@Fraser Cain: Lovin' it! Where are we at in the search of life as we DON'T know it? Not just as "unusual animals" but different chemistry and processes? I've read about a few different theories, but is there any real analysis going on? Though, I do love Tardigrades ;)

[@soqmeister]

(Question) why does starship need a launch base? Why not just launch off the mechazilla arms?

[@jordanheath5258]

I like your style

[@frasercain]

Thanks!

[@liningtheclouds]

Could the reason the very early galaxies found by jwst where larger than expected be due to the fact that the universe was smaller and therefore particles gravitational attraction had less distance to travel hence forming faster and being larger than expected in that time frame ?

[@rileychadwell5635]

Sabine sees FTL is actually possible ... WITHIN the confines of space. Now, I'm either concerned or confused. Help, Fraser Cain! Help!!

[@frasercain]

Sabine is a scientist, not me. You'll have to listen to a scientist debunk her, not me. :-)

[@MusikCassette]

@@frasercain true, but when confused it is not necessary the science expertise but the skill of explaining you might need the most.

[@rileychadwell5635]

@@frasercain oh. I was hoping for a review or redress of her insights since she is usually regarded as a reasonable source, but is sometimes difficult to follow for me. (Like what does she actually mean!?).. Ok if not possible.

[@tonywells6990]

Basically she says that the usual arguments why faster than light travel is impossible are flawed, like special relativity limits the speed of light but that is a limited explanation of spacetime, and that time travel or FTL paradox arguments might be flawed and we don't know if quantum gravity (if that is a thing) prohibits FTL. None of that means that FTL is possible in reality, but Sabine likes to point out flaws in our understanding with a bit of humour.

[@benjaminbeard3736]

I think you meant enceladus for the geysers... but point taken. Edit: BTW, this is a great channel. A treasure of the solar system.

[@frasercain]

They've detected geysers on Europa too.

[@jefflaporte2598]

Here's another question about looking back in time with our telescopes. Is there any reasonable way to determine how many stars we see with or without telescopes, are actually there still? So if we look back 100 years are we relatively certain all of the stars we see at that distance are still there? How about a million or a billion years? The reason I ask is because when I look at the hubble deep field image and see thousands of galaxies, I also wonder how many of them actually still exist.

[@absalomdraconis]

In essence, you estimate the the distance, age, and lifespan of the star, bearing in mind that all of these produce _ranges_ instead of exacts. Then you do some simple arithmetic with the distance (in light years, converted to years) and age, and compare to the lifespan. Banning any additional influences (like a black hole eating the star): i) If the lifespan is unambiguously larger than age+distance, then the star exists; ii) If the lifespan range overlaps with age+distance, then we need extra attention to know if the star still exists; and iii) If the lifespan is unambiguously smaller than age+distance, then in some sense (white dwarf, neutron star, etc.), the star has "died", and maybe even been completely destroyed by a pair-instability supernova (the type that normally completely destroys the star instead of leaving a remnant). The hard part is getting those measurements.

[@jefflaporte2598]

@@absalomdraconis Thank you. Do you know if anyone has ever calculated how many of the stars in the universe are really no longer there even though we still see the light from them billions of years later?