Asteroid Strike Probabilities, Propulsion Breakthrough, Methane on Mars | Q&A 247 

A tip about avoiding low quality YT content. Go to the channel tab and see how often they post new videos. Junk AI channels typically post >4x per week, some post multiple times per day. High-quality channels, especially small ones, rarely post more than once a week.

Love the Monty Python reference, "just a wafer thin mint".

"What is the shape of the universe"? Fraser Cain: Donut, because I'm hungry. Also I'm destroyer of worlds.

I love how your brain works. You covered it right as I was writing this "One thing people forget about the transit method - is it takes time. Earth's orbit is an entire year" and bam you covered it.

Hi Fraser, Germany here, please be tollerant for my English... my question is... honestly, I can't stand the Kardashev scale any more - not at all because it was from a Russian - but because it seems oversimplified! - Are there no other accepted measurements or scales to benchmark or classify extraterrestrical live and zivilisations. Example - Travel Speed (with or witout live) , - Capability for (Asteroid-, Planet-, Star) - mass movements, - Infomation processing capability for universe observation, tollerance of live against temperature, pressure, radiation, liquids.... you name it? If not, lets collect and develop some more criteria :-).

Love the small GOOD channel promo idea!

How AWESOME that you'll start highlighting small content creators! I'll definitely be checking each of them out as you share. Great video today, I don't know who to vote for!

Here's a bit of an unusual suggestion for a small space content creator. The channel is 宇推くりあ -★Clear Rocket ch.★-, which is read as Usui Clear. She's a Japanese vtuber, which if you're not familiar with the concept, is basically a live streamer with an anime-esque avatar. She has the unusual niche of being super into rockets, to the point that her custom avatar is loaded with references to things like RCS thrusters and hydrogen rocket plumes. When rockets are going to launch, what she does is restream the launch stream, but then do live translations into Japanese from English. She's also been an official liaison with JAXA on several of their space missions and and rocket launches, like the H3 recently, which has led to some rather surreal looking press events if you're not used to that sort of thing, but if you can understand enough Japanese she's genuinely a quite good source of information on Japanese missions.A bit more on the rocketry than the science side, but figured I could drop in a multicultural suggestion.

Thanks for answering my question! 🤙

8:30 I understand this is a simplistic explanation, but that's not how the statistics work at all. If an asteroid hits 1 million years on average, then after 100 million years you'd expect to see around 100 hits. But assuming it's actually random and there's not some mechanism with a 1 million year period (like how long it takes to orbit the galaxy), it'd be quote normal to see impacts very close together followed by huge gaps.

Love your show. Been watching since 2015. ❤️❤️❤️

Many thanks for all of the great content.

Thank you for your dedication!

I liked the response to question no. 1. It would have been easy to dismiss with a brief statement, but you made it a fulsome and complete verbal essay.

If we were alone in the universe, that itself would make us special. It seems to me like presuming such a thing even if we're definitely alone in the galaxy would be kind of arrogant.

Thanks for sharing Fraser another great show I think there are some great channels out there but I think that your channel is the best one so thanks for all you do for space science. 🇦🇺

Great episode!

If you look at some of the photos of earth from the windows of the apollo missions, you can see how lucky a major asteroid hit would be on this little speck of light in space.

Aeturen. Hi Fraser, can't thank you enough for answering my question yesterday about gravitional lensing & you even worked it into a ride share with Conner Campbell's today! WOW... your pretty smart! Now I'm wondering is this micro-lensing the same thing that astromoners used in 1925 to confirm Einstein's relativity as they observed the presession of Mercury's orbit and the missing 43 seconds of arc. Or is that a different phenomena?

Can you please put a link in the description to the channels you recommend

Concerning the last question: the search for EarthLike planets around sunlike stars, the European Space agency is going to launch the Plato telescope in 2026 that will do exactly that. It will observe 100 000 sunlike stars uninterrupted for 2 years to look for earthlike planets up to the habitable zone. I am a bit surprised you do not know this when you are aware of Ariel. But I understand you can not know everything.

Greetings from Sweden! Best interviews, best topics and the smoothest voice on RU-vid 🎉

How did i get here from an ABL video??? Literally selected to watch/listen to ABL an ad played and now im here.

Here's a few of great small astronomy channels (with the exception of one which is more focused on planetary/earth science than astronomy) that I watch---three of them astronomy grad or postgrad students, so they're really deserving of support! AsianAstrophysicist, ICQ Comets (and Cousins), Kyle Kabasares, Nora's Guide to the Galaxy, GEO GIRL

I vote for the Jupiter Question, RISA. Because there i really learned a lot i didn't know before

Hey Fraser! Love the content! It sucks that the malfunction of Kepler’s reaction wheels has left this gap in the exoplanet pipeline for future missions. Would there be significant savings to constructing and launching a new, identical, Kepler to finish the mission? They’ve already designed it and developed the technology.

Hi, Fraser. Thanks for sharing you time and skills with us through your videos. Have you seen discussions, yet, about rectenna power beaming technology? Angry Astronaut and Trent Telenko mentioned the concept and development status on Ellie in Space, in regards to space solar power and point to point power beaming on Earth via LEO satellite. Like those ideas, but your comments about ion drives lead me to wonder about putting a rectenna on a spacecraft to energize it's ion engines. Seems worth trying for orbit maintenance. Maybe it could work as far out as Mars, if the Earth orbiting source power beam is coherent??? What do your sources think?

Couldn't we use the temperature differential between daytime and nighttime to generate electricity on the moon? It could be like a concentrated solar power station, but maybe the even hottest days and coldest nights might make it possible to extract even more power through thermodynamics.

My favourite scenario is that life is abundant in the universe, but not a single alien life crossed the border of single cell organism. Absorbing mitochondria in Earth life past would be extremely rare type of the event on galactic scale, that allowed life on earth to flourish.

Salute from Toronto cheers

Thanks!

What happened to Kepler 22B as a kid I was told this was the most earth like planet?

Alone in the 'galaxy' maybe, the universe is a little beyond us. This would be like saying we found no one else on a tiny island, therefore the world is empty.

#Nimbus 📍 Deep Mine Geothermal potential power. The deepest active mine in the Earth is Mponeng @ 4km. @2 km deep, the moon is estimated to be 200-400’C. Use the mine spoils/material used as building material, minerals/ore, and usable volume for habitats. Drop a boring machine from The Boring Company up there (moon/mars).

Fraser love we all your videos. Except this one worried me, only because that asteroid crash you animated lands right on my house in Bell, Florida 😮😮😮😮😮❤❤❤😊😊❤❤❤

I think Plato telescope from ESA will look for new exoplanets around sun-like stars

Hi Fraser. A question : I've been wondering, if I used up all the mass of the earth to create a straight pillar of mass from where the centre of the earth is (on average) to the centre of the sun, what approximate diameter would that pillar have? And what kind of density / consistency? I love your work. You make a big difference. Thank you.

Hello wonderful person. Antov! Hes awesome

Thanks

Cait - Orion Drive! :)

Is there any plan for the "Vera Rubin" analog for the northern skys?

Hi, Fraser. I enjoyed your comments regarding the various topographies that could shape the universe. The torus shape (doughnut) is intriguing. Being a little facetious here, can't resist, would that then suggest that the universe might be either cream or jelly filled? Jerry

Belos vote. Is a triangular array sufficient to determine the origin direction of a gravity wave? Consider a source lying on the central normal line of the common plane of the three. Isn't four, in a tetrahedral array, the required minimum?

In general relativity, the curvature of space is dependent upon the density of the Universe, and for Ω

Question - do other stars have an Oort cloud? Curious if the formation process is common.

Hey ! Let's fold space-time ! :)

Hi Fraser, RAD here...I just watched a documentary on how & who built the Great Pyramid. They actually found the city & tombs of the workers that accomplished that amazing work. Turns out there was approximately 20,000 dedicated people and it took them about 20 years. The Egyptian state supplied all their homes, food, tools, Healthcare, and embalming services and burial rites when they died. They even tested the ancient DNA and discovered that all the dedicated workers were Egyptian! Where did all the b.s. crap that slaves built the pyramids come from?!!

Just because observations at this point in time don't reveal life in the universe, doesn't mean there isn't life. It can take millions of years for the technosignatures from distant civilisations to reach us.

The Enterprise must have visited numerous planets that were never mentioned in a Star Trek episode or movie. To avoid running out of planets, it might be a good idea to write to the studio and get a list of those planetss in advance. 🤔

I'm probably an odd duck, but the more I learn about space, the more convinced I am in my faith.

Re: Propulsion breakthroughs, often omitted is "Nuclear pulse propulsion" from 1947 and later. See article in Wikipedia.

Could we use our Van Allen Belt or the more powerful one around Jupiter for capturing high power particle physics in a sensor? Is it enough to make Higgs Bosons?

QUESTION: this is just for fun curiosity. But I would like to know where things like JWST, the Voyagers and Omuamua are in the sky. Is there a sky map that shows their position? So when I'm walking the dog at night I can try to convince myself that I see them?

description says "04:14 how certain ca we be" ca instead of ca[n]

Fraser Cain the illustration at 33:46 is the best design for an off world habitat I have ever seen. It is pressure rated and multi-tiered, insulated and allows for running on an inclined surface to add g force to your work out. It's great, who did it?

It is taken as a fact that red shift is caused by expansion of the universe. It causes a doppler effect on light as far away objects accelerate. If however space-time itself has an inherit constant energy product within itself then this would behave like a mass and subtly curve spacetime over great distances and scales. Universal curved space-time centred on say the atom everywhere would produce the very same effect of red shift on distance galaxies. Indeed gravitational field is accelerated space. The beauty in this model.. is that the instead of linear Time, Time is curved and the need for a beginning an end or a before is no longer required. In this model Time is a forth dimension both temporally and spatially. In other words as in Relativity, Time and Scale/lengths are intrinsically connected together. The overall topography of the Universe in this model is a tesseract a 4D version of the Mobius strip whereby as we look at increasing distance and scales the Universe slowly curves and the 3D space is curved back onto itself like a figure of 8. Yes we incorporate Time/Scale as 4D manifold curving 3D space into a figure 8. We are an ant walking along a mobius strip as we journey out in space. Here the beginning end and before have no meaning, and the entire Universe is Lorenz contracted in the the direction of accelerated (curved gravitational field) spacetime back into the subatomic appearing as a universal smooth constant energy field around us.. the Cmb. In this model the Big Bang becomes instead random high energy particles randomly being created out of the vacuum ie cosmic rays that decay into lighter elements such as electrons and protons. Over time between galaxies, hydrogen condenses out of the vacuum producing clouds that eventual grow and spin into new galaxies. One other thing is I find it baffling that the effects of electromagnetism Universally is side-lined leaving gravity as the only dominant force. We all hear it only operates locally because here on Earth atoms tend to become neutralised. Is that really true in space which is full of plasma and much of it ionised. Gravity is not even a true force but an effect bought on by spacetime geometry. Nuclear and electromagnetism are the only true forces, it is these forces when in abundance with their inherent energies that curve spacetime. E=MC squared. Gravity does not pull us down, it is the ground accelerating us up in a curved spacetime geometry. Take a look at a typical Spiral Galaxy, isn't it obvious that the stars are being swept around by an electromagnetic field as a spoon does with a cup of coffee. Further planetary formation could occur top down like a Star ie atmosphere first if electromagnetic forces were allowed to operate in tandem with gravity. I think many cosmic mysteries could be solved in this way if we gave a little more weight to the forbidden force of electromagnetism in cosmology. Hey ho that's what I think anyway. Robbie

We CAN find sunlike stars so a catalog of those would be the first thing to do. 2nd, determine distances to them and calculate the probability of detecting earth size planets at those distances with the new earth based telescopes. 3rd, eliminate having to look at the many that only show radial movement and would not be detected by the transit method. A few small sensitive telescopes placed in space positioned by laser and measuring star positions 4 times in say, however the maximin length of time a planet in the habitable zone would take to make an orbit. 4th, yes, then you do need a dedicated telescope to just stare at all these candidates in a likely place in the sky, or....use an array of small telescopes, each dedicated to a certain star. Use our mass production methods as we do in many other manufacturing scenarios as Space-X does with cube sats to accomplish that. Lets get on it folks! :)

we are the ancients. The search for life only really matters in our own galaxy and we are probably the first life to get this far.

Was really waiting for the USS Voyager to come up over the ice on that Europa shot.

Do you think it is wise to commercialize spaceflight, given the risk of a space debris chain reaction?

Does a light particle (photon) have a mass and what is its comparison to say an electron? I can conceive the idea that electrons with a mass can be grabbed by gravity of a black hole but light i conceive as immaterial and find it hard to comprehend the idea of being not able to escape a black hole's pull.

Is it possible to use Alpha-Centaury for gravitational lensing? If so, is it being done? Are any interesting discoveries from it?

As for the question of life in the universe, I wonder if it might be more accurate to say life in "our galaxy" since detecting life in any of the other billions galaxies would exponentially more difficult. Maybe the ratio is 1 life detection per galaxy. Tho I hope it' not that low. (Andoria) Great Python reference btw. Also, only the event horizon is spherical, which is an effect, not mass, would a spinning black hole really be oblate?

Question for Fraser: It has been said that a black hole as massive as the observable universe would approximate its diameter too. How is this possible if black holes are denser than neutron stars?

NIMBUS - This is especially the issue with colonizing Mars and the industrial scale in-situ operations.

Fraser, in the era of O'Neil Cylinder construction, could we capture that radiation trapped in the Van Allen belts (and Jupiter's equivalent) to power orbital structures? Could we reduce the radiation danger risks enough that some of the presently uninhabitable moons could become safe?

Here's a naive question: if you could put more material onto a neutron star to increase its gravity but just suppose that neutrons didn't crush. Would it be possible to increase its gravity enough to prevent escape of light? Like a non-standard black hole? This new kind of black hole would have a physical diameter and an event horizon, slightly larger? Can I further ask, is the event horizon of a real black hole a smaller radius than the preceding neutron star (assuming you could simply add more material to a just-sub-black-hole neutron star) Thank you. Love your channel!

In regards to other life, I agree. Any probability equation that starts with zero equates to zero because we are not 1, we are the starting point where 1 is actually 0 (eg, 0,1, 2, 3.... etc.). The second number must be greater than 0 even if it is as minuscule as .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 or some other smaller number.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the LUVOIR plans are to implement a 15.1m (LUVOIR-A) or 8m (LUVOIR-B) diameter mirror. 50m would be awesome though!

Mr Cain a suggestion for RU-vid channels for your review; BlueDotDweller and Learn the Sky.

bluedotdweller good channel i found recently

I think we need to eliminate other life in our system before we start trying to guess about system further away. We never expected to find a second, chemosynthesis based, food chain here on Earth, and yet we did on the mid Atlantic ridge. With the knowledge that that alone is possible, it raises the opportunity for there to be similar chemosynthetic life to be found on some of the moons with potential oceans and tectonics.

My question, Dark Energy or the expansion of the universe only seems to occur when there isn't any matter or mass present to warp space in the form of gravity, can the complete lack of gravity just be space bending in the opposite direction?

Heyya Fraser Do you think there will ever be a time when -Earth based- when -terrestrial- umm... when ground based telescopes will ever become unnecessary? Because we've colonised so many extra-solar planets, I mean. So the conceit is - There are people living on so many planets across space. Do you think that there will ever be so many inhabited planets (and traffic between them) that ground-based telescopes will be unnecessary?

Hmm, I thought the ratio of kicked in vs. gobbled up was balanced towards "gobbled" for Jupiter? Thanks for straightening that out for me. ;O)-

Belos Thank you for another great video! :) BR //M

A metal coated light sail can be used as an aerial !

How long do you think it will be before we have rockets and spacecraft that can travel at 1g constant acceleration and deceleration?

Marshall Eubanks wants to send a swarm of 1000 flyweight probes to the nearest star, reaching it in 20 years. However: 1. Sending just 1000 probes is fatally timid. We should think in terms of _millions_ of identical probes. Produced in volume, their price-per drops to near nothing. The cost of a million probes is small vs. the cost of the project overall. The entire probe could have just one chip plus a couple of capacitors and coils. 2. Launching just one probe swarm would be supremely wasteful. Given solar-powered, orbital launch apparatus, we have no reason to turn it off: keep launching probes throughout the life of the mission. Over the next 20 years, launch 1000 probes (or more: 10,000, 50,000) _each week._ Having reached cruising speed, probes turn to fly edge-on, minimizing erosion. 3. A launch laser may be a simple laser cavity, or a bundle of billions of laser cavities, pumped with sunlight reflected from an array of monochromatic mirrors ranged around it, with no conversion loss. Monochromatic mirrors are easily produced by depositing alternating layers of transparent material with different dielectric constant but identical thickness. 4. But consider the alternative of launching with an array of masers, instead. Masers are much more easily constructed and operated. An array of independent masers, distributed around the sun, can be held in phase with the aid of atomic clocks, and would present much less possibility of threat to Earth. 5. With the launch apparatus operating throughout the mission, there is no need to accelerate to cruising speed immediately. This allows a much lesser beam intensity (10GW? 1GW?) , and radically reduces G loading on the probes. But we can keep building more launchers indefinitely, and find good uses for them. 6. There is no value in having probes formed up in a plane at the destination. A dispersed cloud of a million probes flying through continuously for 20 years offers enormously greater value. The first few thousand through the system can identify interesting bodies, and subsequent swarms can tack against starlight and concentrate on those bodies. This eliminates the "predict position of planetary bodies" problem. 7. Launching continuously, later probes will be better than the first ones. Those farthest out are more primitive, but those passing the target get increasingly capable, in steps, as in "Ender's Game". Software can be upgraded throughout the mission, with only a few years' latency. 8. Probes spend almost all their flight time close to zero K. This creates design opportunities denied to other projects. The sail surface may be an atomically thin wafer of superconductor, providing perfect reflection of any long-enough wavelength, stiffened by its own field. (Superconductors exhibit perfect reflection up to the photon energy matching their band gap; known materials may reflect microwaves perfectly.) 9. Trying to transmit data home via laser would be a monumental blunder: the starlight behind the probes interferes with any optical signal. Much worse, at optical frequency, phased-array transmission by a swarm of probes is impossible. But at ordinary radio frequency, a swarm may transmit as a phased array with no difficulty, having triangulated their relative positions, and maybe synchronized to a pilot signal from home. Receivers throughout the asteroid belt may remain synchronized to operate as a phased array using atomic clocks (as was used to image M87). They can easily listen to all swarms, in all directions, at the same time. 10. There is no need for probes at the destination to transmit their data all the way home. They need only send to the next swarm coming up a light-day or light-week behind, which relays data to the next. 11. Upon approaching the destination, the swarm may focus incident light (laser/maser/starlight) on a few, selected probes to slow them down enough to enter orbit. Subsequent swarms flying through can provide phased-array communication, and assist altering their orbits, with the occasional additional new probe joining them. Visiting a bright star would be a better choice, for this purpose. 12. With two swarms sent out in different directions, you get a phased-array radio telescope light-years across that could (e.g.) image the surface of a pulsar, using the pulsar itself to synchronize. I sent a version of the above to the address in the paper, but have not heard even a peep back.

4:33 we are in a shooting gallery! 🥶

Jupiter is so our friend! Maybe like a dad that was mean sometimes

Falcon heavy lift launch is $96M dollars, Keplar cost was $600M dollars when launched - its replacement would be much more today. Lets do a mission to Keplar to attach a booster, pull it back towards Earth, spacewalk or robotically, replace reaction wheels (learn more about their failure modes), batteries, "clean the windshield" refuel and send it slowly back into position. Looks like it would be a big savings AND get the data coming in again. Has someone done the math on this? I'd like to see us start thinking about a space based telescope and repair shop in orbit close to Earth where work could be done without coming into and out of our gravity well. Most space telescopes and satellites should be designed so they are EASY to repair - in space, in an enclosed repair bay. Even just the concept of an orbital dock, such as depicted in the Star Trek films would allow Hubble like maintenance to happen in a more controlled and easier way. I much admire the modularity and ability to repair the Hubble. That has saved it NUMOUOUS times! Meanwhile, we're working on Habitable worlds and others. Never hurts to have more data and a few spare telescopes out there - just in case....

Other channels? Astronomy live. The pictures he gets are amazing, records rockets. Reds Rhetoric. Not everyone's cup of tea but he's trying to be more educational and records rockets. SMA's sky. Not many subscribers but does livestreams looking through a telescope at stuff up there. Scott Manley. He's a Manley man.

16:39 I remember hearing about the 2018 Mars cubesat mission where they used (I think) X-band communication? I'm utterly baffled that all our probes aren't sent into space utilizing this cheaper(?) tech. I could be completely misunderstanding, but X-band transfers signals far faster than radio waves, yeah? Couldn't we use this tech to deliver signals to probes at a faster rate, say to help them reboot in the event of a computer malfunction? Or to make changes to a planetary rover's path in seconds, rather than minutes (with radio waves)? Thanks in advance!

"You can assume!" !!! What's the point? What are you so worried about? "95% likely you are alone!"

28:00 People always say antimatter is the ultimate.. but isn't it theoretically beaten easily by any form of beamed propulsion.. which also has far fewer advanced physics hurdles? That way you could have up to the entire power of the sun at your disposal without any of its mass. For example something like Project Starshot, just running non stop spitting out 1gram sails that vaporise to push against a plasma sail on your space craft.

While not under 10000 I do like parallax nick channel for astronomy. I liked the neighborhood tour of of the stars

If starship was able to refuel on Mars or the moon what would be the max escape velocity speed it would be able to obtain? Would it b able to travel faster through space than any rocket from an earth origin. Better yet even bring super heavies with starship and land them separately on Mars and moon how fast then?

He initially said Tunguska was 10m (rather than 100m as he say’s later).

Why doesn't LISA have a z axis for greater accuracy? Impossible due to orbital mechanics? Not valuable at that scale anyway?

Callisto is outside the radiation belt... It's the only one in our system, that also has a ocean, and the largest outside our moon.

I think the odds of no life are higher than the odds of life. I know that does not make sense to most because of the number of plants. However, if you look at it without bias and add in some obstacles the odds favor no life IMHO.

18:25 Actually, topology is not really like the "shape"; the latter would be called the geometry of the universe. E. g. an ellipsoid and a sphere have different shapes, different geometries, but the same topology. Topology is, roughly speaking, only about the number of "holes" which something has. As the saying goes: to a topologist, a donut and a coffee mug are the same thing (because both have one hole) - but obviously, these are two totally different shapes. A cube isn't really a possible shape for the universe, it isn't isotropic.

Plant (or orbit) robot tracking transmitters on the large earth crossing asteroids (comets also if possible). If interesting put analysis science packages/samplers piggy back on the tracker.

Fraser: it's nice to know what a 100 m asteroid would do to Earth, but tell me this please: what would Omuamua do to Earth, had it hit us? how much in advance we would've noticed? (let's say the speed of "Omuamua 2" is the same as the original, just the course changes to one colliding with Earth); have we all almost died out a few years ago?

While funding is pumped into preventing low-probability scenarios such as asteroid collision, the far more likely threat of a large volcanic eruption is close to ignored -- despite much that could be done to reduce the risks, say researchers. See article in "Science Daily" titled: "Risk of volcano catastrophe 'a roll of the dice', say experts".

Question: What do you think about the wooden satellite created by Japan, will it really help combat space pollution?

i know this is a silly question and time travel is not possible but if it were......how badly would we screw up if we sent a person 1 minute back in time without correcting for the movement of earth in the galaxy .....how far would the earth have travelled in that 1 minute and where would the person re-materialise

Does there exist the equivalent of a coronagraph for blocking our own Sun's light? If it were possible to do so, might it enable astronomers the chance to detect bodies inbound to the solar system from the direction of the Sun?

Noor ! The name means Moon in Arabic! Excellent! My name is Diane and it is from Greek Mythology for Goddess of the Moon, Goddess of the Hunt, and Protector of Women.