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

An episode of [Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1080090608), 17 Oct 2026, 33 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/op3.dev/e/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75833952/lunar_magnetism_cosmic_signals_insights_into_moon_mysteries_and_radio_discoveries.mp3

Space Nuts: Lunar Magnetism, Exoplanet Signals, and the Evolution of Spacecraft Windows In this captivating episode of Space Nuts, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson dive into a range of fascinating astronomical topics. The episode kicks off with an exploration of lunar magnetism, as they discuss new findings suggesting that the Moon may have once possessed a primordial magnetic field, stemming from solidified magma beneath its surface. The duo then shifts gears to a groundbreaking discovery of radio signals originating from the exoplanet Beta Pictoris B, revealing the presence of auroras on this distant gas giant. Finally, they examine the evolution of spacecraft windows, highlighting the importance of visibility for astronauts and the advancements in window technology over the decades. Join Andrew and Fred Watson as they unravel these cosmic mysteries with their signature blend of humour and insight. Key topics - The Moon's magnetic history and the implications of recent research on its geological structure. - Detection of auroras on exoplanets through radio signals and what it means for our understanding of planetary atmospheres. - The evolution of spacecraft windows: from early designs to modern innovations and safety considerations. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction and overview of today's topics 01:20 - Discussion on lunar magnetism and the Moon's geological history 15:30 - Discovery of radio signals from exoplanet Beta Pictoris B and the significance of auroras 25:00 - Evolution of spacecraft windows and their importance for astronauts 35:15 - A unique photo capturing the International Space Station and a plane against the sun 45:00 - Closing thoughts and listener engagement Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Professor Fred Watson: Hi there.
[0:00] Andrew Dunkley: Thanks for joining us. This is another
[0:03] episode of Space Nuts. We talk
[0:05] astronomy and space science and window
[0:08] dressing. And you name it, we will talk
[0:11] about it. And, uh, my name. Did I
[0:13] say my name? My name is Andrew Dunkley, your
[0:15] host. Good to, uh, have your company. Uh, on
[0:17] today's episode, we're going to look at lunar
[0:19] magnetism. Did the moon ever have, uh,
[0:23] a magnetic field? Uh, or, um,
[0:26] is there something else that had happened to
[0:28] it in the past? They think they've got it
[0:30] figured out. Maybe, uh, we're going to talk
[0:33] about a not alien radio signal.
[0:37] Windows, uh, in spacecraft, uh, have
[0:40] come of age. And we'll tell you all about
[0:42] that. I, uh, think the early astronauts
[0:44] insisted. I want a window. I want a
[0:46] window. And they got one.
[0:48] Well, now it's, uh, very high tech and
[0:51] a very interesting photograph. A chance photo
[0:54] that turned out to be rather special. We'll
[0:56] tell you all about it on this episode of
[0:59] SpaceNarts.
[0:59] Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
[1:02] 10, 9. Ignition
[1:05] sequence.
[1:06] Professor Fred Watson: Star space nuts.
[1:07] Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3. 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
[1:10] 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[1:12] Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
[1:13] Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
[1:16] Andrew Dunkley: And with us again to sort out all of
[1:19] that is Professor Fred Watson Watson,
[1:21] astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
[1:24] Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Good to see you again. How's
[1:26] your week of golf gone?
[1:28] Andrew Dunkley: Um, painful. My back is, uh,
[1:30] protesting. In fact, I played my
[1:33] fourth round, uh, to wrap
[1:36] up 72 holes of golf, uh, over five days.
[1:39] We had a rest day on Wednesday. I think, um,
[1:41] it should have another name like why are you
[1:43] bothering day. And,
[1:46] um, I tweaked my back,
[1:49] strangely enough. I was just, um, bending
[1:51] over to, um, adjust the ball.
[1:54] And, uh, I wasn't quite balanced. So when I
[1:57] moved my leg to correct my balance, my lower
[2:00] back went, nope, can't do that and I'm going
[2:02] to hurt you. And yeah, I spent the rest of
[2:05] the round fighting that. But I had a pretty
[2:07] good week. I came second in the 36 hole
[2:09] event, which was terrific. And I had three
[2:11] nearest the pins. That's the, that's the
[2:13] closest shot to, to the hole on a par three
[2:17] where the ball stays on the green. So, yeah,
[2:20] um, so yeah, I had a good week. I hit the
[2:23] ball quite well. I was very, very pleased.
[2:26] Not, um, as pleased as if I could have won
[2:27] it, but, you know, that's golf. That's golf.
[2:32] How's, um, your week been? It's been a long
[2:35] time since I saw you.
[2:36] Professor Fred Watson: Well, yes, so I'm still, um, still
[2:39] nursing the new knee. And the milestone this
[2:42] week was getting out on the. On the bike
[2:43] again, uh, for the first time. Which
[2:46] is great because, uh, it's a good way of
[2:49] extending your range of motion on the knee,
[2:52] uh, which is all about
[2:54] straightening it. Uh, the
[2:58] straightening is what's called the extension,
[3:00] which has to be zero degrees. And,
[3:03] um, as it is on the knee that I had done in
[3:07] 2020, it, uh, took a while to get there,
[3:10] but I did.
[3:11] Uh, at the moment, the new knee is standing
[3:13] at 2 degrees. Uh, but getting
[3:16] on the bike actually lets you stretch it. Uh,
[3:19] and so I'm hoping that will pull it down so
[3:21] that when my physiotherapist,
[3:23] um, from Doncaster in Yorkshire,
[3:26] uh, measures it next week, uh, she
[3:29] might find there's a bit a big a difference
[3:31] down from the 2 degrees that it was this
[3:33] week.
[3:34] Andrew Dunkley: What you. What you don't want to hear when
[3:36] you're riding a bike after knee surgery is
[3:38] the clatter of titanium on tar.
[3:42] You don't want to hear that.
[3:44] Professor Fred Watson: That will be bad. And, um, yes,
[3:46] yes, the physiotherapist tells a horror story
[3:49] that's not too far from that. Oh,
[3:52] really? Yeah. She said, I can
[3:54] tell you this now. I can tell you this now
[3:56] because your. Your wound has healed up
[3:58] completely. I won't relate it,
[4:01] no, but I'm imagining. Yeah, it was a horror.
[4:04] Yeah, yeah. Pretty horrible. Anyway, never
[4:06] mind. Nasty.
[4:08] Andrew Dunkley: All right, uh, we should, uh, get down
[4:11] to our stories.
[4:12] And this first story takes us, uh, to
[4:15] the moon. Um, the moon's been in the
[4:18] news a lot lately for all sorts of different
[4:20] reasons. The lack of was, I think, the last
[4:22] thing we talked about. But, um,
[4:25] this story is actually focusing on
[4:28] the, um, magnetic field. Now, Earth's got a
[4:31] magnetic field. It's generated by all the
[4:33] goop inside that's doing whatever the goop
[4:36] does. Um, and that, uh,
[4:38] magnetic field protects us from
[4:41] being burnt alive or whatever. Um,
[4:45] now the question is, did the moon ever have a
[4:47] magnetic field? If it did, how was it
[4:49] generated? And so on and so
[4:52] forth. Uh, what's the situation?
[4:56] Professor Fred Watson: Uh, so, yes, the bottom line
[4:59] is the Moon doesn't really have much of a
[5:02] magnetic field now. Uh, it's
[5:05] got traces of magnetism.
[5:08] And interestingly, those
[5:10] traces of magnetism tend to correspond
[5:13] with, uh, what was the buzzword back in
[5:16] the 1960s? The Mascons. Uh, the
[5:20] mass concentrations underneath the surface of
[5:23] the moon, which were discovered when, uh,
[5:25] orbiting spacecraft were first sent to the
[5:27] moon in advance of the Apollo
[5:29] missions. Uh, so,
[5:32] uh, that's a sort of pointer, the fact that
[5:35] where you've got These mass concentrations
[5:37] under the surface. And you detect those by
[5:39] the way, by the fact that they pull down on
[5:42] an orbiting spacecraft and so its
[5:45] trajectory changes slightly. Uh,
[5:47] so that's, um, what
[5:50] basically what lets you plot them. And in
[5:53] fact you can see maps of the mascons these
[5:55] days because we've had many, uh, orbiting
[5:58] spacecraft that have charted them. Uh, so.
[6:00] But the magnetism tends to concentrate there.
[6:03] And as I said, that's the first clue. So this
[6:06] is some research that's been done by
[6:08] scientists at, um, actually Einstein's old
[6:11] university, ETH Zurich, uh,
[6:13] and they have, um,
[6:16] basically looked at, uh, some
[6:19] of the evidence from, perhaps more carefully,
[6:22] the evidence from the gravitational samples,
[6:24] the fact that, uh, these can now be mapped
[6:27] with great accuracy.
[6:30] Um, so, uh, what they
[6:32] have done, uh, this is published
[6:35] now, I think it might be still being
[6:37] refereed, but I think it's published.
[6:39] Uh, they've looked at a, uh, region.
[6:42] Um, it's, uh, actually on the far side of the
[6:45] Moon. It's called Duar D E W A
[6:48] R, uh, which is the name of a very
[6:51] famous, um, Scotch whiskey, as probably
[6:53] people would know, but it's also the name of
[6:56] something on the moon. Probably came from
[6:58] the same origin. I don't know. Anyway, it
[7:00] turns out that, uh, this Dewar
[7:03] region has one of the strongest,
[7:07] what they call a magnetic field anomaly.
[7:08] Which means basically there's a magnetic
[7:10] field there, uh, because, um,
[7:13] the Moon generally doesn't have a strong
[7:16] magnetic field. So, um, one of the
[7:19] authors remarks that the Dewar region is
[7:21] genuine stroke of luck, one of the strongest
[7:24] magnetic field anomalies on the far side of
[7:26] the Moon. And a distinct gravity anomaly
[7:28] coincides spatially there. They're in the
[7:31] same place. Um, so it means
[7:34] that, uh, the region
[7:37] of the Moon's surface, um, has
[7:39] rocks that are both, uh,
[7:42] more strongly magnetised and
[7:46] more dense, a denser concentration
[7:49] of mass than elsewhere. And,
[7:52] uh, the trick now is to
[7:55] sort of analyse both of these aspects, the
[7:57] fact that you've got a mass concentration
[8:00] and, um, uh, a magnetic
[8:03] field anomaly. Uh, another comment from one
[8:05] of the authors. The gravity data give us
[8:08] insight into the density and
[8:10] thus into the material beneath the surface,
[8:14] uh, where the magnetic field and gravity
[8:16] signals coincide. It's possible to combine
[8:18] the two and attribute the anomaly to a
[8:20] specific geological structure.
[8:23] Uh, this is precisely the opportunity that
[8:25] Dewar offered. Uh, and so that's what they've
[8:28] done. They've basically built a model that
[8:32] um, actually mimics
[8:35] both, uh,
[8:38] the gravity concentration, the uh, increased
[8:41] density and the magnetic field. And
[8:44] so what the outcome is is that
[8:47] somewhere below the surface of the Moon in
[8:49] this region, there's a body of rock
[8:52] quite big, 60 kilometres wide, uh,
[8:55] going down something like nine kilometres,
[8:59] uh, much denser than its surrounding, uh,
[9:02] crustal region and
[9:04] also strongly magnetised. And
[9:07] so what they have concluded is that this
[9:10] is basically solidified
[9:13] magma, something that goes, uh,
[9:16] back to when the Moon was
[9:19] a much more molten object than it is
[9:22] now, um, with a, you know, viscous mantle.
[9:25] Uh, and what they're saying is that because
[9:28] they think this structure is 4.2 billion
[9:30] years old, it's nearly as old as the Moon is.
[9:33] Um, what you can
[9:36] do is, um. Well,
[9:39] I'll read again from the comments from the
[9:40] author. Um, because we know how much iron is
[9:43] present in such a rock body, we can estimate
[9:45] the minimum strength the magnetic M field
[9:48] must have had as the magma cooled
[9:51] slowly. That's a very important finding.
[9:54] Uh, we found that the magnetic field on the
[9:56] Moon at that time was very likely
[9:59] stronger than 10 micro Tesla. On Earth
[10:02] today, the magnetic field strength is around
[10:04] 50 micro Tesla. So what they're saying is
[10:07] that this supports the notion that,
[10:10] uh, the Moon had a primordial
[10:13] magnetic field, it had magnetism, uh, when it
[10:16] was a young object, rather than an
[10:18] alternative explanation for the magnetism,
[10:21] which is, um, that, uh, it could have
[10:24] been caused locally, you know, this
[10:26] magnetism being caused here and there on the
[10:29] Moon's surface, maybe by impact. Uh, the
[10:32] effect of the impact would be to increase the
[10:34] magnetism. And so, uh,
[10:37] the outcome is that that's not likely to be
[10:40] the source of the magnetism. It's likely
[10:43] to have been a primordial magnetic field.
[10:47] Andrew Dunkley: Um, so they're suggesting that it's a
[10:50] leftover effect. So the Moon did have an
[10:53] internally generated magne magnetic field as
[10:55] it's cooled down and solidified. This is just
[10:58] a residual leftover magnetic
[11:01] anomaly.
[11:03] Professor Fred Watson: Exactly that.
[11:04] Uh, so they say this means, yes, the
[11:07] Moon was magnetic at one point.
[11:10] There's a little sort of subsidiary study
[11:13] though, that I think is quite interesting.
[11:15] Um, we haven't talked about them, I don't
[11:17] think, Andrew. But there are features on the
[11:19] surface of the Moon which are called lunar
[11:21] swirls. Uh, they're
[11:24] sort of regions of brighter material, uh,
[11:27] which form in swirls,
[11:30] uh, rather than, you know, the craters and
[11:33] mountains that we're used to seeing.
[11:36] But what they have noticed in their work
[11:39] is that wherever there's a swirl,
[11:41] there's one of these magnetic anomalies. And
[11:44] it turns out that the region they've been
[11:47] Looking at this Dewar region, uh,
[11:49] has a lunar swirl. Uh, and so,
[11:53] um, you know, the struggle is
[11:55] now to explain this. Why would you have these
[11:58] curious features, uh, on the
[12:01] Moon's surface, um, which are
[12:03] linked with magnetism? And
[12:06] they're basically suggesting
[12:09] that you only get the
[12:12] swirls when you are in
[12:15] an area where the magnetic field,
[12:18] the field lines, the light of force,
[12:21] are actually horizontally at the surface.
[12:24] Because that's the case with this Dewar
[12:27] lunar, uh, swirl. And so what
[12:30] they're thinking is that maybe the horizontal
[12:32] field actually modifies the solar
[12:35] wind, perhaps it deflects it, perhaps it
[12:38] protects the surface from weathering by the
[12:40] solar wind and you get this brighter, uh,
[12:43] region. Uh, it's a really. Yeah.
[12:46] Isn't it an interesting piece of work? It's
[12:48] got so many, uh, facets to it. I think this
[12:50] is one of the most interesting pieces of, uh,
[12:53] lunar research that we've seen for a while
[12:57] Professor Fred Watson: and.
[12:57] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Adds another, um, element to our
[13:00] growing knowledge of what the Moon is all
[13:02] about.
[13:02] And uh, yeah, um,
[13:07] I think we're kind of lucky to have it. Uh,
[13:10] I mean, it's good for life on Earth. I don't
[13:13] know if we'd exist without it, would we?
[13:16] Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Uh, probably not. The,
[13:19] um, Earth's magnetic field almost certainly
[13:21] is what's allowed us to evolve from microbes
[13:24] into the.
[13:26] Andrew Dunkley: When you sit down and look at all the data
[13:29] and start to really analyse it, um, there
[13:32] is so much that exists that
[13:35] we need to exist, if that makes any
[13:37] sense. Um, if one or two of those things
[13:41] never happened, we wouldn't have happened
[13:42] either. It just blows your mind that all of
[13:44] this stuff that enabled life to
[13:47] evolve to this level on Earth had
[13:50] to be just right and um. Yeah, it's gotta be
[13:53] a rarity.
[13:55] Professor Fred Watson: That's right. And I think that's the thinking
[13:57] among astrobiologists. Everything,
[14:00] you know, uh, basically everything has come
[14:02] right, uh, on Earth for
[14:05] an intelligent species to evolve. And it's
[14:08] not necessarily the case elsewhere.
[14:10] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, interesting.
[14:11] If you'd like to read about, uh, the Moon's
[14:14] historical magnetic field, you can
[14:17] do so@phys. That's
[14:19] P-H Y-S.org or you can
[14:22] read the Study in Science Advances.
[14:25] This is Space Nuts. Andrew Dunkley here with
[14:27] Professor Fred Watson Watson.
[14:33] Professor Fred Watson: Space Nuts.
[14:34] Andrew Dunkley: Our, uh, next story, Fred Watson, uh, is
[14:37] a not alien signal, but it's
[14:40] fascinating because it is a signal, a
[14:42] radio signal coming from, uh.
[14:45] Yeah, they usually think it's these things
[14:47] come from stars, but this one, they've
[14:49] actually been Able to say, hang on a minute,
[14:52] we think, in fact we are sure this one's
[14:55] coming from a planet. And of course that gets
[14:56] the tongue swagging. Oh, it's a planet, it
[14:58] must be aliens. But it's not. It's something
[15:01] else, something we all know about.
[15:02] Professor Fred Watson: It is really correct. That's
[15:05] absolutely right. Uh, and yes, the reason
[15:08] why this is a big story is that these are ah,
[15:11] radio signals that come from an exoplanet,
[15:14] uh rather than a gas cloud in space
[15:17] or a star or a radio galaxy, all the other
[15:20] things that emit radio waves. This is
[15:22] actually from a planet. Uh, and um,
[15:26] the way it's been uh, proved
[15:29] that it comes from a planet is really one of
[15:31] the most interesting parts of the story, uh
[15:33] as well as how we know it's there.
[15:37] Andrew Dunkley: It was all the selfies that came in with
[15:39] it.
[15:41] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, the selfies did it. So this is
[15:44] um, it's a gas giant.
[15:46] Uh, it is called Beta Pictoris B.
[15:49] It's an exoplanet that has been known for
[15:51] many years. Uh, the fact that it's called
[15:54] Beta Pictoris B means it's the first
[15:56] discovered planet around a star called Beta
[15:59] Pictoris, which I think is about 50,
[16:02] 54 if I remember rightly. Light years away.
[16:04] 64. There you go. Uh, so
[16:07] it's a uh, relatively nearby star. Um,
[16:11] so um, the other thing that I find
[16:13] interesting about this is uh, it uses
[16:16] the, the data that have led to this
[16:19] discovery have come from Meerkat, the um,
[16:22] radio telescope which is similar to the
[16:25] Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder,
[16:27] uh in Western Australia. Meerkat is its sort
[16:30] of equivalent in uh, the Haikaru
[16:33] region of South Africa and a very, very
[16:36] effective telescope doing some fantastic
[16:38] stuff. And it's been used uh, actually by
[16:41] scientists at the Centre for Astrophysics,
[16:43] um, uh, in the Smithsonian, Havardon
[16:46] Smithsonian, uh, um, they've used
[16:49] this uh, RIP meerkat to make
[16:52] very, very accurate measurements of the
[16:54] position of this radio noise.
[16:57] And the way they've done it is a way
[17:00] that uh, to some extent we've used
[17:02] before and I'm not sure whether you and I
[17:04] have ever spoken about it. Uh, when
[17:07] you're measuring the position of objects
[17:10] in space, and I mean in two dimensions now
[17:12] I'm talking about the direction uh, that any,
[17:16] that the radiation comes from. Uh what you
[17:18] have to do is to calibrate it. You
[17:21] need to know where the sort of zero point is.
[17:24] So um, you need
[17:27] background objects that don't change their
[17:29] position, uh, to do the Relative
[17:32] measurements. And those background objects
[17:36] are uh, ah, things that are far, far more
[17:39] distant than uh, 64 light
[17:42] years. Uh, their distances are measured in
[17:44] billions of light years. And they are
[17:45] quasars. Quasars are very
[17:48] bright in radio waves and perhaps especially,
[17:51] and this is, you know, what allows you to do
[17:54] this, they are effectively point sources.
[17:55] They're a single point of radio waves. Very,
[17:58] very compact, uh, objects and they're at
[18:01] great distances. So that lets you build a
[18:04] framework, um, um,
[18:07] ah, almost like a map. Uh,
[18:10] you can map these quasars and then look at
[18:13] your foreground object and relate its
[18:15] position very accurately by the fact that
[18:17] the, the quasars don't change their position
[18:19] in space because they're so far away. Um, and
[18:22] that's how they've done it. Uh, that's how
[18:24] they've uh, um, worked out
[18:27] that these radio signals come not from the
[18:29] star itself, Beta Pictoris, but from Beta
[18:32] Pictoris B, this uh, gas giant that's in
[18:35] orbit around it.
[18:37] And the thing you alluded to. Right, sorry,
[18:39] go ahead.
[18:40] Andrew Dunkley: No, well, I was just gonna let you
[18:43] reveal it.
[18:44] Professor Fred Watson: And the source is, it's um,
[18:47] northern and southern lights on the planet.
[18:49] It's uh, the aurorae, uh, which we know,
[18:52] um, are not radio noisy, uh,
[18:55] auroral displays. They are on our own
[18:57] planet you can detect aurorae by radio
[19:00] signals. Um, I prefer to go and stand
[19:02] underneath them in the far northern Arctic in
[19:05] winter. Uh, and then you see
[19:08] these things in all their glory. But they
[19:11] do emit radio signals as well. And that's
[19:14] basically how um, these signals came to
[19:17] be.
[19:17] So it's a big triumph. It's the first time
[19:20] that we've proved that aurorae exist,
[19:24] uh, on other planets in other solar
[19:26] systems. We know they exist on all the gas
[19:29] giants have, in our solar system. They all
[19:31] have Aurory, the Earth does, Mars
[19:33] occasionally does. But this is just saying
[19:36] that wherever you've got a star with a planet
[19:38] going around it, um, you've probably got them
[19:40] as well. All you need is a planet,
[19:44] sorry, a star that's giving out, uh, charged
[19:47] particles, high energy particles, subatomic
[19:50] particles, and a planet with an atmosphere
[19:52] which is. These are the ingredients you've
[19:54] got there because the high energy particles
[19:56] essentially excite the atmosphere into
[19:59] beaming out light and beaming out radio
[20:02] signals.
[20:03] Andrew Dunkley: Simple as that.
[20:04] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, simple as that. Yeah.
[20:05] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, but because.
[20:06] Professor Fred Watson: Very nice work.
[20:08] Andrew Dunkley: Yes. It's the first time, as you said, the
[20:10] first time they've detected this sort of
[20:13] signal from an exoplanet. So, um,
[20:15] yeah, it's a good pickup.
[20:16] I love the name Beta Pictoris B.
[20:19] It's a good name for a planet. Um, if you
[20:22] would like to read about that, that's on the
[20:24] phys.org website as well. But they have
[20:26] published their work uh, on the Arxiv
[20:29] Preprint server. This is Space
[20:32] Nuts and you're with Andrew Dunkley and
[20:34] Professor Fred Watson Watson.
[20:38] The crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon.
[20:41] Professor Fred Watson: Humanity's next great voyage begins.
[20:44] Andrew Dunkley: Space Nuts. Now Fred Watson, uh,
[20:48] from um, the extraordinary Magnetism uh
[20:50] on the moon and a. Ah. Rory signals from an
[20:53] exoplanet to Windows.
[20:56] Windows in spaceships. You know it
[20:59] doesn't sound all that exciting but uh, in
[21:02] the early days of the space race when the
[21:04] United States and uh, and uh,
[21:07] the Soviet Union trying to beat each
[21:10] senseless to get to the moon, um, the early
[21:13] astronauts, those very brave souls, uh,
[21:15] insisted, insisted that they had to have a
[21:18] window as far as I remember.
[21:21] And they got it. Ah, of course they've come
[21:24] of age now. Um, they've done some amazing
[21:26] things with uh, windows in spacecraft.
[21:28] And it's in the news again.
[21:31] Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. Uh, uh, and it's
[21:34] partly in the news for the reasons that
[21:36] you've mentioned that astronauts uh
[21:38] themselves have always uh,
[21:41] been very keen on having windows. As you
[21:43] would if you're gonna sit, you know, 100
[21:45] kilometres above the Earth's surface, uh
[21:48] hurtling around at seven kilometres, seven or
[21:50] eight kilometres per second. You're
[21:52] definitely going to want to watch the view as
[21:54] it goes past.
[21:55] Andrew Dunkley: I would, I would say so. What was it like up
[21:57] there? I don't know. I was looking down at
[21:59] the plywood,
[22:02] Professor Fred Watson: couldn't see anything. So even certainly the
[22:05] first um, manned or crewed spacecraft
[22:08] in the um, um, NASA's human
[22:10] space flight programme, which was Mercury,
[22:13] uh, Mercury had a tiny little window. It's
[22:16] just a few inches in diameter, a little
[22:18] almost a porthole. And it
[22:21] wasn't much bigger in the Gemini spacecraft
[22:23] either. They had um, forward pointing
[22:26] windows which um, were sort of
[22:28] scalloped out of the shape of the nose
[22:31] cone. And Apollo had uh, forward pointing
[22:34] windows as well, which they needed of course
[22:35] by then as they did with Gemini. Uh,
[22:38] and the reason why they're forward pointing
[22:40] is that that's where the docking ports are.
[22:43] You need to be able to you know, see where
[22:45] your spacecraft is going if it's going to
[22:48] dock with another spacecraft. And the docking
[22:50] port is always in the narrow part in the
[22:52] nose. Uh, so yeah, that's
[22:55] that. Windows became essential at that point.
[22:58] Andrew Dunkley: And Yuri Gagarin had a
[23:01] window as well.
[23:01] Professor Fred Watson: I thought he did. I was going
[23:04] to muse on that, but I thought that was
[23:06] right, that he had a window too. Um,
[23:10] it's kind of, uh.
[23:12] The window to be all windows, of
[23:15] course, is the cupola. The, uh,
[23:18] cupola, I should call it, give it its proper
[23:20] name. Uh, it's on the International Space
[23:23] Station. It has, uh. I think it's
[23:26] seven. It might be nine,
[23:29] uh, panels of glass, uh, which.
[23:33] It's like a bay window, uh, which
[23:35] Andrew Dunkley: I'm looking at a photo of it now. Yes.
[23:38] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. How many windows has it got? Is it
[23:40] seven?
[23:40] Andrew Dunkley: Um, one, two, three.
[23:45] Probably about eight. Eight or nine.
[23:47] Because there's one directly above as well.
[23:50] That'd be nine.
[23:50] Professor Fred Watson: I think this is the front window. Nine's what
[23:52] I guessed as well. Um, and I think the
[23:55] astronauts on the International Space Station
[23:57] spend quite a lot of time in that enclosure.
[24:00] Uh, not just because it lets you
[24:03] see the various components of the space
[24:05] station, uh, and watch progress
[24:09] when there are, um, ext. Vehicular
[24:12] or when there is extra vehicular activity
[24:14] taking place. Uh, they're
[24:17] important for that point of view, but they're
[24:19] also important to watch the Earth going by.
[24:21] And we've seen so many great
[24:24] photos and videos that have been taken
[24:26] through the cupola window. Um,
[24:28] so that's the. Essentially,
[24:31] uh, the high point
[24:34] of window design on the spacecraft.
[24:37] Uh, but, uh, we've also
[24:40] got six windows. Is it.
[24:43] Andrew Dunkley: It's described as a trapezoidal
[24:46] arrangement, but six.
[24:48] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. All right, Maybe there's some blank
[24:50] ports on the other side from working.
[24:53] Never mind. Um, I was just going to mention
[24:56] that both Virgin Galactic with their space
[24:58] plane, uh, and Blue Origin with their
[25:01] space plane, uh, which are now. Well,
[25:04] certainly Blue Origin is no longer being used
[25:06] because they're concentrating their efforts
[25:08] on Artemis. But, um, they
[25:11] have got big windows as well. And in fact,
[25:13] Blue Origin were really quite big, uh,
[25:16] almost like bay windows around the whole
[25:19] spacecraft. Uh, uh, a conical spacecraft
[25:21] again, carried up to suborbital
[25:23] heights, uh, about 100 kilometres on
[25:26] a rocket. So the.
[25:29] I mean, the story here is, yes,
[25:32] windows are important, uh,
[25:35] but, uh, are they safe? And, ah.
[25:38] Um. There's an
[25:41] analysis that window glass is a.
[25:44] As one of the analysts working on
[25:46] this, uh, says
[25:49] glass is a brittle material.
[25:51] It breaks. That's what it likes to do. But
[25:53] it's also beautifully transparent. Uh,
[25:56] and so, um.
[25:59] Uh, basically, I think what they're saying
[26:01] with all this is it is a balancing
[26:04] act, uh, between the glass,
[26:07] uh, being safe
[26:10] and you Wanting to have
[26:13] as much real estate in terms of
[26:16] visible or transparency as possible.
[26:19] Um, so, uh, uh, the
[26:22] bottom line I think is that windows
[26:25] are a worry.
[26:28] You would need to have,
[26:30] um, some way of
[26:32] evacuating or
[26:35] isolating the region where there's a window,
[26:38] uh, in order to protect astronauts. I mean in
[26:40] the early days, the Apollo, sorry, the Gemini
[26:43] and the um, Mercury capsules, uh, if
[26:46] there'd been a fracture, they'd have been
[26:48] into their spacesuits pretty damn quick.
[26:51] Uh, whereas now, uh, you all
[26:53] evacuate that chamber and shut the door.
[26:56] Uh, that would be what would happen. I don't
[26:58] think it ever has happened. I uh, don't think
[27:01] there's ever been a broken window. I might be
[27:03] wrong with that. But, um, that might be one
[27:06] we can check with A.I. uh, but
[27:09] the bottom line here is, uh,
[27:12] our acrylics a better choice
[27:15] than glass because it's a more
[27:18] stable material.
[27:20] Something like Perspex.
[27:22] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Um, not
[27:24] as good to look through though.
[27:26] Professor Fred Watson: Uh, probably not. That's right. And there
[27:29] might be other issues with acrylics,
[27:32] uh, in that regard.
[27:34] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
[27:34] Andrew Dunkley: Okay, well, watch this space. Boom.
[27:36] Professor Fred Watson: Boom.
[27:37] Andrew Dunkley: Um, but it's through the window. Yeah. It's
[27:40] an interesting problem. Uh, this wouldn't be
[27:43] the same kind of glass you'd use at a house.
[27:45] In a house or an office block though, would
[27:47] it? It'd be pretty highly specialised.
[27:50] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. It might be more like what you. Might
[27:53] be more like what you've got in your car. Um,
[27:55] you know, toughened somehow in.
[27:58] In a way that would, would um. If they were
[28:01] going to fracture, they'd do it safely rather
[28:03] than. The last thing you'd want is shards of
[28:05] glass, uh, floating around in
[28:09] ah, zero gravity. Um, you know, imagine a
[28:12] sharp bit of glass going in front of your
[28:14] face if you're um, in
[28:17] orbit with uh, with microgravity.
[28:20] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, indeed. Well,
[28:22] uh, you can read that story@space.com
[28:25] and uh, maybe you're a glazier and you've got
[28:28] their window problems sorted out. Maybe you
[28:31] know that NASA doesn't um, drop them a line,
[28:33] send them a bill M. And good
[28:36] luck getting your money.
[28:37] No, I'm kidding. Uh, but uh, yeah, space.
[28:39] Space.com is the uh, place
[28:42] to uh, learn about windows in spacecraft.
[28:45] Uh, one little thing before we go,
[28:47] Fred Watson. And this, this is a fascinating
[28:49] story in that uh. It was an opportunistic,
[28:53] um, photo that was taken
[28:55] and um, you know,
[28:58] right place, right time, exact right
[29:01] moment to create, uh, this little
[29:04] picture. I'll try and get Huw to put it um,
[29:06] on our website as the COVID photo for this
[29:09] Week's episode, episode 669, just
[29:12] in case you're wondering. And, um, see if you
[29:14] can take a look at it or you can look it up
[29:16] at the NASA website. But, uh, yeah, tell us
[29:18] about this photo, Fred Watson.
[29:20] Professor Fred Watson: So, um, it's one of, uh,
[29:23] NASA's astronomy pictures of the day, the
[29:25] APOD. Uh, and it's for the 22nd
[29:28] of September, 2026. So just a few
[29:31] days ago as we're recording, um, and
[29:34] it's um, a photo by, uh,
[29:37] an astronomer from the Czech Republic,
[29:40] uh, who was aiming to get a nice
[29:43] silhouette of the International Space
[29:46] Station against the sun. And
[29:49] that's something that's been done before. Um,
[29:52] there's a French astronomer who's kind of
[29:53] made an art of it. Uh, but this is, uh,
[29:56] somebody who's got a big enough telescope to
[29:59] give you a great view of the sun, uh, aiming
[30:01] to get. Get, uh, the International Space
[30:03] Station silhouetted on the sun's disc. It's
[30:05] tiny compared with the disc of the sun, of
[30:07] course. Uh, and he indeed
[30:10] succeeded in doing that. But he also got a
[30:12] bonus because one of the exposures, and I'm
[30:15] sure he took several. The International Space
[30:17] Station does not dwell. Uh, it goes very
[30:19] quickly across the disc of the sun.
[30:22] Andrew Dunkley: Oh, yeah, it would.
[30:22] Professor Fred Watson: I think it's less than a second. Um, but he
[30:25] managed to catch a plane as well going across
[30:27] the disc.
[30:28] Andrew Dunkley: So what we're looking at at in the foreground
[30:30] is the silhouette of a plane and
[30:34] behind it the sun. And in between, or kind of
[30:36] hanging off the back of the plane is the
[30:38] International Space Station. And just to make
[30:40] it even more interesting, there's a few
[30:42] sunspots as well. It's a really great photo.
[30:44] Very, very.
[30:45] Professor Fred Watson: Yes, indeed.
[30:46] Andrew Dunkley: Isn't it just a piece of luck,
[30:49] uh, a chance opportunity that, um. Yeah,
[30:52] turned out rather well.
[30:54] Professor Fred Watson: Indeed it did. Yes. Very nice. And
[30:56] congratulations to, to Peter who
[30:59] did that. Uh,
[31:02] I think some of our listeners will probably
[31:04] be able to identify the aircraft. It
[31:07] looks to me like a military aircraft.
[31:09] Andrew Dunkley: Uh, yeah, it does, doesn't it?
[31:11] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as
[31:14] to what it was though, but yeah, well done,
[31:16] Peter. It's actually Peter, not Peter P E T
[31:18] R. Um, he's, uh, from the Czech
[31:21] Republic.
[31:22] Andrew Dunkley: Lovely. Uh, yes, go to the NASA website
[31:25] and just do a search for APOD
[31:27] 22nd of September, 2026. If you want to have
[31:30] a look at it. You should be able to find it
[31:32] there, but I'll try and put it on our website
[31:34] as well as the COVID shot for this
[31:37] episode. And that brings us to the end.
[31:39] Fred Watson, thank you so much.
[31:41] Professor Fred Watson: Oh, it's a, uh, pleasure, Andrew. Haven't we
[31:43] got to the end already?
[31:44] Well, we have time. Goes fast when you're
[31:46] enjoying yourself.
[31:47] Andrew Dunkley: It does indeed, yes. Um, we'll catch you next
[31:50] time, Fred Watson. Thank you.
[31:51] Professor Fred Watson: Sounds good.
[31:52] Andrew Dunkley: Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at
[31:54] large. Visit our website in between episodes,
[31:56] of course, spacenutspodcast, uh, dot com.
[31:59] And, uh, you can send us messages through the
[32:01] Ask me Anything link. At the top it's marked
[32:04] ama. You can visit the shop, you can sign up
[32:06] for the astronomy newsletter. Don't forget to
[32:08] leave reviews wherever you listen to us.
[32:11] Apparently they help with something.
[32:14] Don't know what. I guess it depends what kind
[32:16] of review you leave us. Yes, uh, and
[32:19] thanks to Huw in the studio. Couldn't be with
[32:21] us today. Um, he was actually quite lucky.
[32:23] Uh, he, um, took an
[32:26] opportunist photo. When I say lucky. Uh,
[32:29] yeah, the photo was, um, was a. Was a bonus.
[32:31] But, um, was woman's husband was not
[32:34] thrilled and he's on the run anyway, he might
[32:36] be back next week if he's not in hospital.
[32:39] And from me, Andrew Dunkley. Thanks for your
[32:41] company. We'll catch you on the next episode
[32:42] of Space Nuts.
[32:44] Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.
[32:45] Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
[32:48] podcast, Mission complete Eastern of the
[32:50] available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[32:53] iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
[32:56] player. You can also stream on
[32:57] demand@bytes.com.
[32:59] Professor Fred Watson: this has been another quality podcast
[33:01] production from bytes.com.

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