# How Scientific Discoveries at Mars Are Bringing Us Closer to Detecting Alien Life

An episode of [Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1080090608), 23 Jul 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/op3.dev/e/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73121111/how_scientific_discoveries_at_mars_are_bringing_us_closer_to_detecting_alien_life.mp3

Discoveries on Mars, the Hubble Tension, and Dark Photons - Space Nuts Episode Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson as they explore the latest developments in space science—from evidence of complex organic molecules found by the Perseverance rover on Mars that may hint at past life, to the ongoing mystery of the Hubble tension that challenges our understanding of the universe's expansion. Plus, a deep dive into the elusive concept of dark photons and their potential role in explaining dark matter. Key Topics: The significance of complex carbon molecules detected in Martian rocks by Perseverance and their implications for extraterrestrial life The challenges and prospects of returning samples from Mars and the influence of upcoming Chinese missions Understanding the Hubble tension: different measurements of the universe's expansion rate and what they could mean for new physics The role of gravitational wave observations in refining the Hubble constant and resolving cosmological discrepancies An introduction to dark photons: what they are and their potential connection to dark matter and dark energy The nature of cosmic redshift, light travel time, and how we look back in cosmic history The possibility of the universe expanding into higher dimensions or higher-dimensional multiverses The shape and boundaries of the universe: flat, spherical, or saddle-shaped? Resources & Links: Science Advances Paper on Martian Organic Molecules NASA Perseverance Rover Cosmological Parameters and Hubble Tension Large Hadron Collider Official Site Dark Photons and Dark Matter — University of California BiteStop Streaming Service Connect with Fred Watson: Professor Fred Watson - LinkedIn Professor Fred Watson - Twitter Note: Stay tuned for future episodes where we continue exploring mysteries of the cosmos, and don't forget to visit our website to send questions or feedback! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Andrew Dunkley: Hi there. Thanks for joining us. This is
[0:02] Space Nuts, where we talk astronomy and space
[0:05] science and sometimes puppy dogs. Who knows?
[0:08] Uh, my name is Andrew Dunkley, uh, your host.
[0:10] It's great to have your company. Coming up on
[0:13] this episode, we are going to look into
[0:16] a discovery made through the Perseverance
[0:19] Rover on Mars. Uh, have they
[0:22] found what could have been life in Mars's
[0:24] history? Or is it another rock that's just
[0:26] got a stain on it? Uh, also, uh, we've
[0:29] got some news on the Hubble Tension and the
[0:32] Large Hadron Collider is no
[0:35] more. Well, it's going to be more,
[0:37] but it needs to be no more to be more.
[0:40] We'll tell you all about it on this episode
[0:42] of space nuts.
[0:44] Professor Fred Watson: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
[0:46] 10, 9. Ignition
[0:49] sequence start.
[0:50] Professor Fred Watson: Space nuts.
[0:51] Professor Fred Watson: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
[0:54] 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[0:56] Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts.
[0:57] Professor Fred Watson: Astronauts report it feels good.
[1:00] Andrew Dunkley: Joining us again to discuss all of those
[1:03] things and more is Professor Fred Watson
[1:04] Watson, astronomer at large. Hi, Fred Watson.
[1:07] Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Good to see you.
[1:09] Andrew Dunkley: Good to see you too.
[1:10] Professor Fred Watson: Good to be back on Space Nuts. It
[1:13] is, it is.
[1:14] Andrew Dunkley: It's very good.
[1:15] Uh, we've got a lot to talk about, so we
[1:17] might as well dive right in because, um,
[1:20] it wasn't so long ago that we had a bit of a
[1:22] chat about a, A rock that they
[1:25] found that they said came from Mars and it
[1:27] showed, uh, there was life. And then it
[1:29] turned out to be nothing like that.
[1:33] Uh, and now we have a storey popping up.
[1:36] Uh, that suggests the Perseverance Rover may
[1:38] have detected complex carbon,
[1:41] uh, molecules in Martian rocks that
[1:44] may have been signatures for
[1:47] life. Um, yeah, you can't, uh,
[1:50] you can't say, look, I found formal life on
[1:52] Mars. It's all over. Red Rover. Boom, boom.
[1:54] That's a good joke, that. Think about it.
[1:57] Professor Fred Watson: And, um, I didn't need to think too
[2:00] hard.
[2:01] Andrew Dunkley: And, uh, look, you've just got to take
[2:04] this with a grain of, uh, Martian salt and
[2:07] hope that that's what they've actually found.
[2:09] That's what it's all about.
[2:12] Professor Fred Watson: You have to go back to that pink planet we
[2:15] were talking about a few episodes ago to get
[2:17] the grain of salt to.
[2:18] Andrew Dunkley: Pink Salt planet,
[2:21] Professor Fred Watson: indeed.
[2:22] So, um, yes, the storey is. It is, um,
[2:25] as you've hinted, um, a kind of
[2:27] extension of a storey that we covered a few
[2:30] weeks ago, which was this particular
[2:33] rock, um, which
[2:36] is, uh, from an outcrop called
[2:38] the Bright Angel Outcrop, uh, on, um,
[2:42] Mars. Uh, so this is the Perseverance Rover,
[2:45] which you'll Remember is working hard in
[2:47] Jezero Crater, where there is a
[2:50] river Delta from probably 3.5 billion
[2:53] years ago. So, um, the Bright
[2:55] angel outcrop and the particular rock
[2:59] that they found, um, I can't see whether
[3:02] it had a particular name, but it was a
[3:04] mudstone rock which had,
[3:08] uh, basically, as you said, stains on them.
[3:12] Uh, stains on the surface. Um, stains on
[3:15] Mars will be interesting because you'd wonder
[3:16] where they came from. But it's got
[3:19] surface spots and what have been called
[3:21] nodules. Uh, and the
[3:24] reason why it caused excitement was
[3:27] that some of those features superficially
[3:30] resemble the features that are
[3:33] produced on Earth by fossilised
[3:36] microbes. And that's what we covered
[3:37] actually, back in 2024. It seems like only
[3:40] yesterday, but we did talk about that.
[3:43] Or maybe. No, it was probably last year
[3:45] actually. Um, I think that's when the results
[3:47] came out. So last year, 2025.
[3:50] Uh, uh, and a quote, um,
[3:54] uh, there's a nice Guardian piece on this
[3:56] Storey, but there's a quote from Sean Duffy,
[3:59] who used to acting head of NASA,
[4:01] uh, who said of that discovery, this
[4:04] very well could be the clearest sign of life
[4:07] that we've ever found on Mars. Which is
[4:10] an interesting comment. And of course
[4:12] all astrobiologists and all scientists
[4:15] probably, and all, um, podcast presenters,
[4:17] uh, couch this sort of discovery in very,
[4:20] very, um, broad terms
[4:23] because, uh, with. There's
[4:26] certainly no. This is certainly not a
[4:29] definitive discovery of life
[4:32] on Mars, but it
[4:35] has basically gone
[4:38] further in the sense that the samples
[4:41] that, uh, Perseverance took
[4:44] from this mudstone, uh,
[4:47] showed that there was something called
[4:49] macromolecular carbon on its surface.
[4:53] And that's something. A
[4:56] carbon, you know, it's carbon compounds,
[4:59] probably. Excuse me. Sorry about that,
[5:01] Andrew, just bellowing into my microphone
[5:03] here. I do apologise. Um,
[5:06] um. Uh, it's probably several
[5:09] organic types of organic
[5:12] molecule and of course organic means
[5:13] containing carbon associated with life
[5:16] normally. Um, but, uh, the
[5:18] analysis of this shows,
[5:21] and the analysis by Perseverance
[5:24] shows that it is, uh,
[5:27] a possibility that
[5:31] this life, these organic, these
[5:34] macromolecules, carbon macromolecules,
[5:37] could have been the result of life
[5:39] processes, but they could also
[5:43] come from basically,
[5:46] uh, I mean essentially, um, geological
[5:49] processes, tectonic processes. And
[5:51] so that's where the
[5:54] thing stands at the moment. Uh,
[5:58] we know from,
[6:01] uh, work that's already been done by
[6:04] the Perseverance rover and Perseverance,
[6:07] uh, so Curiosity went to Mars to
[6:10] determine whether Mars was ever habitable.
[6:12] And we know that from Curiosity it found that
[6:15] out within the first two weeks of being
[6:17] there. Um, but we know now from
[6:20] perseverance that Jezero Crater was also
[6:23] a habitable, habitable environment
[6:26] at um, least for some sort of primitive level
[6:29] of life. Um, but of course uh, the
[6:32] issue is that we won't be able to do the
[6:34] proper tests on these samples until
[6:37] we get these samples back to Earth, uh,
[6:40] laboratories where there's far more refined
[6:43] equipment than you can carry on a little
[6:45] rover on Mars. And the problem is we
[6:47] don't currently have any way of doing that,
[6:49] of getting these samples back because the um,
[6:53] the mission uh, to do that, a uh,
[6:55] joint NASA European Space Agency mission
[6:59] fell foul of politics in the United States
[7:01] and was cancelled earlier in the year.
[7:03] Professor Fred Watson: Uh,
[7:05] Professor Fred Watson: we knew it was in trouble anyway because the
[7:07] cost had sort of blown out. So it's not a
[7:10] surprise that that happened. But at the
[7:11] moment there's nothing on the books to get
[7:14] them back. Few plans going on I think,
[7:17] but not to get them back.
[7:20] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, and that's uh, frustrating but I
[7:23] suppose in the scheme of things it's, I mean
[7:25] we all want to know whether or not Mars
[7:28] had life but it's probably not one of the
[7:31] most urgent things to deal with. Um,
[7:34] we'll get around to it and chances
[7:36] are that those um,
[7:40] cylinders I think they are, that the deposits
[7:42] are in will be collected as a part of
[7:45] another major mission. That would be my
[7:48] thinking sometime in the future.
[7:50] Professor Fred Watson: You're probably right. Uh, although it's
[7:53] a very specific type of mission that's going
[7:56] to go and collect these samples
[7:59] and then send them back to Earth. That's the
[8:01] tricky bit. It is, it's
[8:04] probably a two step process where you've got
[8:06] an orbiter um, sent to
[8:09] Mars, goes into orbit around Mars, that drops
[8:11] a probe onto the surface. The probe picks up
[8:14] the uh, cache samples,
[8:17] not ah, cash but
[8:20] cache, uh, and um, brings them
[8:23] back up to the orbiter and then the orbiter
[8:25] sends off a probe to the Earth and that re
[8:28] enters. It's a very complex process which is
[8:30] why the cost blew out. But um, I
[8:33] do have my own view on what might prompt
[8:36] uh, some urgency with this and that is that
[8:39] the Chinese are planning to do a sample
[8:42] return mission to Mars uh, in
[8:44] the2030s. So um,
[8:47] if anything's going to stimulate some action
[8:50] on this, my guess is that that's what it
[8:53] would be. And you know, all praise to
[8:56] the China National Space Agency.
[8:57] Professor Fred Watson: Absolutely.
[8:58] Professor Fred Watson: Uh, for aiming high. It's a great thing to
[9:01] do.
[9:01] Andrew Dunkley: It is.
[9:02] And um, the other interesting thing
[9:05] I suppose and you mentioned Curiosity. Uh,
[9:08] it's starting to build up evidence
[9:10] that, um, the potential for life
[9:13] on Mars was widespread across the
[9:16] planet.
[9:17] Professor Fred Watson: Yes, correct. That's right. So I meant
[9:20] to mention that. That's absolutely right.
[9:21] That you know, when you've got, um,
[9:24] uh, mudstones separated by 3,000
[9:27] kilometres or thereabouts, uh, and
[9:30] giving you the same sort of answer. Yeah,
[9:33] that I think is, um,
[9:35] it's a very, very strong evidence
[9:38] for there having been the possibility of life
[9:41] on Mars and that it might be findable, if I
[9:44] can put it that way, if the conditions are
[9:46] suitable for life everywhere, then there
[9:49] might be remnants, um, of living
[9:52] organisms everywhere on Mars which we have,
[9:54] uh, a good chance of finding. Because
[9:57] when NASA and other space agencies
[10:00] aim to send, uh, spacecraft to Mars,
[10:03] it's not quite just a tail on
[10:06] the donkey thing where you just poke it in
[10:08] willy nilly. You've got really good reasons
[10:11] for going to any specific place. And
[10:13] certainly Jezero Crater, um, it
[10:15] was a masterstroke. Sending it to a lake
[10:18] that, uh, had, um, a
[10:20] river delta in it.
[10:22] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, they, they picked a good target. Uh,
[10:24] that was intentional. And yes, uh, it seems
[10:27] to be paying off. Fingers. Fingers crossed.
[10:29] But, um, yeah, too early to tell. But looking
[10:32] somewhat promising is, I think, the best way
[10:35] to describe it at the moment.
[10:36] Professor Fred Watson: That's right. It's not, it's not a kind of
[10:39] negative result. It's not saying, oh, no,
[10:40] there's no life on Mars. It's saying, hm,
[10:43] there might be. It might have been.
[10:44] Andrew Dunkley: Might, might have been. And still might be.
[10:47] Professor Fred Watson: It still might be. That's right, yeah.
[10:50] Andrew Dunkley: You can read all about that@theguardian.com
[10:52] or you can read the paper that's been
[10:55] published in Science Advances. This is Space
[10:58] Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor
[11:00] Fred Watson Watson.
[11:03] Space Nuts.
[11:04] Now, uh, one of our, um, semi
[11:06] regular topics is the Hubble
[11:09] Tension and it's back in the news again,
[11:12] uh, because of a, um,
[11:15] another detection involving the collision
[11:18] of neutron stars. Is that right?
[11:20] Professor Fred Watson: That's correct, yes. Um, yes.
[11:23] So, uh, the Hubble Tension is one
[11:26] of these irritating things that just won't
[11:29] go away.
[11:31] Andrew Dunkley: Well, it's being described as one of the
[11:33] biggest challenges in modern cosmology. So,
[11:35] yes, it won't go away.
[11:36] Professor Fred Watson: It won't go away. But it's a bit weird. I
[11:39] did a radio segment about it, um, with a
[11:43] Australian commercial radio station yesterday
[11:45] morning because of the headline storey. Uh,
[11:48] and I thought, how do you make this exciting?
[11:53] It was, first thing you know, it was a
[11:55] morning breakfast show and the guys who Were
[11:57] interviewing me, were clearly not impressed
[11:59] with it. Uh, normally I get lots of questions
[12:02] Andrew Dunkley: from them, but, um, it may well have just
[12:05] been something that goes
[12:08] into the too hard basket because it's not an
[12:11] easy thing to get your head around.
[12:12] Professor Fred Watson: It's not. That's right. It's not. Um,
[12:15] there's a lot of gobbledygook attached to it.
[12:17] Anyway, let's have a go. We have a very
[12:19] erudite audience on Space Nuts. Uh,
[12:22] and Space Nuts, uh, listeners
[12:25] will probably already be aware of all this
[12:27] anyway. Um, but, uh. Yes.
[12:30] So what's the Hubble tension? Uh, we have
[12:33] two measurements of the Hubble constant,
[12:36] which is the number that defines how fast
[12:38] the universe is expanding. Now,
[12:42] it's the expansion time or the
[12:45] expansion rate that we are seeing. Uh, as
[12:48] you and I have said many times before, it's
[12:50] measured in units of kilometres per second
[12:52] per megaparsec. Uh, and A
[12:54] megaparsec is 3.26 million light
[12:57] years. It's the units astronomers use because
[12:59] you can't measure light years, but you can
[13:01] measure parsecs. So, um,
[13:04] that number is, uh,
[13:06] the magic number. And we have,
[13:11] uh, two different ways of determining it,
[13:13] both of which now have achieved a really
[13:16] high level of precision. Um,
[13:19] there was a talk that I was at a couple of
[13:22] months ago in Germany where, uh, one of the
[13:24] experts was talking about this, uh, and
[13:28] the sort of uncertainty limits that are put
[13:30] on each of these two different methods of
[13:33] determining the Hubble constant. They were
[13:35] very small, uh, on the order of one
[13:38] kilometre per second. Very, very, uh,
[13:40] accurate measurements. Uh, but they
[13:43] disagree. So, uh, you can do it two ways.
[13:46] The first way is to
[13:49] look at the cosmic microwave background
[13:52] radiation, the good, uh, old background glow
[13:55] of the Big Bang that is everywhere in the
[13:57] sky. Uh, it has,
[14:00] um, undulations on it in temperature, uh,
[14:02] which we recognise as being
[14:05] differences in the temperature of the Big
[14:07] Bang fireball,
[14:10] uh, which are caused by acoustic
[14:12] oscillations. It's the bang of the Big Bang.
[14:15] But you can use those undulations to get a
[14:17] measurement of the Hubble constant. And the
[14:20] value that that technology gets or that
[14:23] method gets is 67 to 68 kilometres per
[14:26] second per megaparsec. The
[14:29] other way of, uh, measuring this
[14:32] is to look in the nearby universe. You look
[14:34] at galaxies whose distances are measured in,
[14:37] um, millions or hundreds of millions of light
[14:40] years. Uh, and that's very local compared
[14:43] with the 13.8 billion light years
[14:45] of the cosmic microwave background. Um,
[14:48] so you look locally and you look for the
[14:51] traditional methods of Finding, um,
[14:54] uh, the distances to galaxies, uh, which,
[14:57] uh, one of them is by what we call
[14:59] Cepheid variable stars. That was the way that
[15:02] galaxies were first established to be a long
[15:04] way off in 1923. Um, you
[15:07] can also do it with supernova explosions, all
[15:09] of that sort of stuff, uh, gives you another
[15:12] alternative value, uh, on the Hubble
[15:15] constant, and that gives you a higher answer.
[15:18] So the local universe gives
[15:21] you, uh, uh, an answer of about
[15:24] 73 kilometres per second per
[15:26] megaparsec, sort of. So that's
[15:29] roughly 5. Higher. 5
[15:32] kilometres per second per megaparsec higher
[15:35] than the one you get from the Hubble
[15:36] constant. Now that's, you know, I suppose
[15:39] that's, uh, something like a 6 or
[15:41] 7% difference between them. And
[15:44] I can tell you, 30 years ago, um, when I
[15:47] was an astronomer, kind of a
[15:50] bit more directly connected with all this 5%.
[15:54] We'd die for 5%. That was, um,
[15:58] 6 or 7% or whatever the difference is 5
[16:00] kilometres per second per megaparsec, uh,
[16:02] because most of them differed by 50
[16:04] kilometres per second per megaparsec back
[16:06] then. Um, so, uh, and it was the Hubble
[16:09] telescope that actually nailed it down to be
[16:11] in the region of 70. But, yes, we have this
[16:14] discrepancy. Uh, um. What's the
[16:17] answer? So, um.
[16:20] Actually, I might just quote there's a very
[16:21] nice conversation piece by one of the
[16:23] astronomers involved, um, with this, who
[16:26] is a radio astronomer at csiro, the
[16:29] Australia's National Science Agency.
[16:32] Uh, Kelly Gurgi. Uh, and, uh,
[16:35] let me see if I can find this comment. Yes,
[16:38] that's that. So that Kelly says this is the
[16:41] Hubble tension. What does it mean? Could it
[16:43] be something. Could it be something has gone
[16:45] awry in one or both methods?
[16:48] Despite intense scrutiny, nobody has found
[16:51] any mistakes. Alternatively, our
[16:54] understanding of how the universe evolves may
[16:56] be missing something fundamental and we need
[16:58] new physics to resolve it.
[17:00] Professor Fred Watson: Uh,
[17:02] Professor Fred Watson: to settle this cosmic M debate, new and
[17:05] independent methods of measuring the Hubble
[17:07] constant are, uh, highly sought after.
[17:09] Which gets us to the storey. Yes, yes.
[17:13] Andrew Dunkley: We had to fill in all the blanks.
[17:14] Professor Fred Watson: That's right. Um,
[17:17] and as the article goes on, gravitational
[17:20] waves offer an entirely independent way to
[17:22] measure the expansion of the universe. And we
[17:25] know about gravitational waves. That's very
[17:26] much the stock in trade of what we talk about
[17:29] on Space Nuts. Uh, and
[17:32] so, uh, what they've done is gone back to one
[17:34] that was particularly interesting. Uh,
[17:37] and as you know, gravitational waves get
[17:40] their number from the date when they're
[17:42] discovered. This was
[17:43] GW170817.
[17:47] So, discovered on the 17th of August, uh,
[17:49] 2017. Um,
[17:52] that's only two years after the first one was
[17:55] found. Actually, I think it's only a year
[17:56] after. I think, uh, it's two years, certainly
[17:59] two years after the first one was observed.
[18:02] Um, so, uh,
[18:05] and this was a neutron star collision, two
[18:08] neutron stars. And that has the
[18:11] property unlike a black hole neutron star
[18:13] collision or a black hole black hole
[18:15] collision. A neutron star neutron star
[18:18] collision, uh, actually produces
[18:20] radiation, electromagnetic radiation. It
[18:23] produces a flash or a glow.
[18:26] Um, and that is something you can
[18:28] detect. So for a start, that means you know
[18:31] where these gravitational waves have come
[18:33] from. With a high level of certainty. You can
[18:35] take test all kinds of things like the fact
[18:38] that gravitational waves, uh, travel at the
[18:40] speed of light. All of that sort of pops out
[18:43] of GW, uh,
[18:45] 17 08, uh, 1 7. Uh,
[18:48] so it was a remarkable event.
[18:51] Uh, what has now happened though is
[18:54] that people have used the analysis of that
[18:56] signal to sort of tease out,
[18:59] um, the information about the
[19:02] Hubble constant. And they get an answer
[19:06] that is not as accurate as either of the
[19:08] other ones because they haven't got that
[19:10] precision yet for this method. But it's
[19:13] intriguingly like the,
[19:15] uh, measurement from the
[19:18] distant universe. Uh, that is the
[19:21] higher, uh, um, the lower
[19:24] value. Uh, that's the. Remember, the
[19:27] distant universe measurements have about 67
[19:30] to 68 kilometres per second per megaparsec.
[19:32] The other one was more like 73. Um, this
[19:35] new value is somewhere between
[19:37] 61 and 70 kilometres per
[19:40] second per megaparsec, which kind of
[19:43] is outside the range of the near
[19:46] universe value. Uh,
[19:49] uh, um, so it agrees much more
[19:52] with the distant universe value.
[19:55] Even though
[19:57] GW170817
[20:01] came from a galaxy that is
[20:04] not that far away in cosmic terms,
[20:07] it's about 140 million light years from
[20:09] Earth and that's sort of on our doorstep in
[20:12] galactic terms. So here you've got an
[20:15] independent method,
[20:18] uh, that gives an answer more like the
[20:20] distant method did. Uh, but it's
[20:23] using, uh, nearby objects rather than
[20:26] distant objects. So I think what it's done
[20:29] is very neatly thrown the cat among the
[20:31] pigeons again.
[20:32] Andrew Dunkley: Sure has.
[20:34] Professor Fred Watson: Um, well, let me just read
[20:36] the article. Uh, the last paragraph is our
[20:39] result is still four times less precise than
[20:42] the leading nearby universe measurements. We
[20:44] will need to detect more neutron star
[20:45] collisions to definitively settle the Hubble
[20:47] tension using gravitational waves. Such
[20:50] events are rare, so it may be a while. But
[20:52] for now, our study provides an important new
[20:55] clue in one of Astronomy's biggest problems.
[20:58] And that's where they leave it.
[21:00] Andrew Dunkley: Where does that place the
[21:03] storey? We did a couple of years ago about,
[21:05] ah, a study into the Hubble tension,
[21:08] um, trying to understand the differentiation
[21:11] between the two existing methods where they
[21:13] said, look, the difference is not that big a
[21:15] deal. They're both right. So
[21:18] where does that stand now? Do you remember
[21:19] talking about that?
[21:20] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I do remember. Yeah, we've covered it,
[21:22] certainly covered it before. Um,
[21:25] so if that's the case, if they're both right,
[21:27] and I think that was the outcome of that,
[21:29] then that's pushing you towards new physics
[21:31] because, um,
[21:36] to get two different results
[21:39] for the same thing by two different
[21:42] methods, both of which use general
[21:44] relativity as their basis, that is the firm
[21:47] basis of our understanding of the universe.
[21:50] Uh, what that suggests is there's something
[21:52] wrong with general relativity. Now we've
[21:55] believed that for a long time, but so far,
[21:57] all the tests, it comes out on top. It comes
[22:00] out with these incredible, uh,
[22:03] incredibly precise accuracy in
[22:05] describing the way the universe works.
[22:09] Andrew Dunkley: All right, um, watch this space, I suppose.
[22:12] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
[22:12] Andrew Dunkley: Where we're at on that. More to come. It's
[22:15] um, one of those issues that just won't go
[22:18] away because, uh, well, being human beings we
[22:21] want to figure everything out so they won't
[22:23] give up on this. Uh, you can read about
[22:26] it at the Conversation website or you can
[22:28] read the paper which was published in the
[22:30] Astrophysical Journal. This is Space
[22:33] Nuts. Andrew Dunkley with Professor
[22:35] Fred Watson Watson.
[22:38] Professor Fred Watson: I believe that this nation should commit
[22:40] itself to achieving the goal
[22:43] before this decade is out of landing a
[22:46] man on the moon and returning him safely to
[22:48] the Earth.
[22:49] Andrew Dunkley: Face nuts.
[22:51] Now we got a question about the Large
[22:53] Hadron Collider. Recently they were asking
[22:56] about the, the speed of two particles hitting
[22:59] each other at the speed of light. Would that
[23:00] be twice the speed of light? And the answer
[23:02] was no. But the Large
[23:05] Hadron Collider is in the news for a
[23:08] different, uh, a different reason. They're
[23:11] shutting it down. It's bye bye
[23:13] Large Hadron Collider. But not forever. In
[23:16] fact, um, they're going to do some
[23:19] renovations. They're going to put a cubby
[23:20] house on top of it and a kid's playground.
[23:23] Professor Fred Watson: Grummy flower.
[23:24] Andrew Dunkley: Little coffee shop next next door.
[23:29] Professor Fred Watson: It's already got the coffee shop.
[23:30] Andrew Dunkley: Already got the coffee shop.
[23:32] Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
[23:32] Andrew Dunkley: They're going to do a bigger coffee shop.
[23:34] That's, that's really what this storey is
[23:36] about.
[23:37] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. And the great thing from my point of
[23:39] view is that uh, in, uh, let
[23:42] me see, in Just over three weeks. I'll be
[23:45] there. Wow. Uh, so, yeah, so I
[23:48] love, I
[23:48] Andrew Dunkley: love the line in this storey on
[23:50] theuniversetoday.com. uh, see you later.
[23:52] Accelerator. Yes, I
[23:55] think that's very clever.
[23:57] Professor Fred Watson: It's a nice way to.
[23:58] Andrew Dunkley: I wish I'd thought of it.
[23:59] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, I do too. Um, yeah, actually,
[24:02] you've always got to be careful, especially
[24:04] when you write about this machine, because
[24:06] Marnie, in one of our earlier tours, when we
[24:08] visited the Large Hadron Collider,
[24:11] had a spelling mistake in the word
[24:13] hadron, uh, which you probably don't need to
[24:16] think too hard about to work out what it was.
[24:19] But somebody had to point it out.
[24:22] Is that what really meant
[24:26] Andrew Dunkley: Transpose two letters?
[24:28] Professor Fred Watson: Yes. You transposed two letters.
[24:30] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
[24:32] Professor Fred Watson: Uh, it would have got some laughs. I think it
[24:34] did. Yes, I think it did. I'm sure it's
[24:37] happened before, but, um, Marnie never made
[24:39] that mistake again. But, yes, we're going
[24:41] again. And the fact that it switched off
[24:44] actually makes us hope that we might, uh,
[24:47] once again get a trip down into,
[24:49] uh, the tunnel where the accelerator is,
[24:52] that 27 kilometre long circle of
[24:55] pipe work, uh, where the subatomic particles
[24:58] are accelerated, but also perhaps into one of
[25:00] the experimental, uh, caverns.
[25:04] Um, the last one we were at was the compact,
[25:06] uh, Muon Solenoid. This is
[25:09] this machine that's as big as a small factory
[25:12] in a giant chamber underground. And it's
[25:15] called the Compact Muon Solenoid. I love
[25:17] that. Uh, it's definitely not compact
[25:20] by our, uh, standards, but it was a fantastic
[25:22] thing to see. We're hoping we might see that
[25:25] again, but we'll see. Um, so, yeah, we're
[25:27] nothing to do with the large. Hunt and
[25:29] Collider were just, um, cheerleaders, uh,
[25:32] to bring people to cheer it on. Because one
[25:34] day we hope this machine might tell us what
[25:37] dark matter is. And that's actually what this
[25:39] upgrade's about. Uh, so what's happening? Uh,
[25:42] it's switched off at the moment. I, uh, think
[25:44] it is now switched off. Uh, see you later.
[25:47] Accelerator. It's, um, uh,
[25:50] due to reopen in 2030,
[25:53] which will be a new version. It's called the
[25:56] High Luminosity LHC Large
[25:59] Hadron Collider. And it's got 10 times
[26:02] the luminosity of the original machine.
[26:06] Um, and I think by luminosity,
[26:09] what particle physicists mean is the
[26:12] number of particles that you can, uh, sort
[26:15] of charge around, uh,
[26:18] the circuit, the 27
[26:20] kilometre, uh, ring that the
[26:23] particles charge around,
[26:26] uh, being accelerated and focused by
[26:28] superconducting magnets. And I think that's
[26:30] what's actually being, you know, I think
[26:33] that's what's being, uh, upgraded.
[26:36] Um, so I don't think the speed will be
[26:38] faster. Uh, and if I remember rightly, these
[26:41] protons are accelerated to
[26:43] 99.99998% of
[26:46] the speed of light. I think that's the
[26:47] accurate thing. Uh, so it'll be
[26:50] probably the same speed but many, many more
[26:52] particles. And that gives you a much better,
[26:56] uh, chance of seeing some of the things that
[26:58] we've missed. We've missed by, uh,
[27:01] the current version of the lhc, which of
[27:04] course M is a, ah, triumph
[27:06] already. And in fact, uh, on the day we're
[27:09] recording, um, today, 2nd of July,
[27:12] yesterday was the 12th, sorry,
[27:14] the 14th anniversary of the discovery of the
[27:17] Higgs boson, which was done at the Large
[27:20] Hadron Collider. Wow. So a bit of an
[27:22] anniversary there.
[27:23] Andrew Dunkley: That's gone fast, hasn't it?
[27:24] Professor Fred Watson: Hasn't it gone fast? Yeah, and gosh, I think
[27:27] we've been talking about it that long as
[27:28] well, literally and figuratively. Yeah,
[27:32] that's right, that's right. So,
[27:35] and of course what we're, and this
[27:38] ties into our previous storey, what we're all
[27:40] hoping, uh, for is
[27:43] that the, uh, new
[27:46] analysis which will result from
[27:49] the high luminosity lhc,
[27:52] uh, will give us insights into everything,
[27:54] but perhaps in particular the Higgs boson,
[27:57] and maybe will point the way,
[28:00] uh, as the Conversation piece says, uh, will
[28:03] point the way to physics beyond the Standard
[28:05] model, perhaps including evidence for
[28:07] supersymmetry or the existence of exotic
[28:10] dark matter particles. And of course, along
[28:13] the way we hope they'll solve the Hubble
[28:15] Tension as well.
[28:16] Andrew Dunkley: Well, yes, let's hope so. Yeah,
[28:19] yeah, it's um. So how long does this work
[28:22] take, you reckon? I think it takes quite some
[28:24] time, yeah.
[28:25] Professor Fred Watson: Most of the time between now and 2030 when it
[28:27] comes back on. So, yeah, I mean
[28:30] it sounds as though, uh, it
[28:33] is, are going to involve
[28:36] replacing all the superconducting magnets all
[28:38] the way around the 27 kilometre ring
[28:42] and that. Yeah, that's quite a thing.
[28:44] Andrew Dunkley: The good news is, if you want a
[28:46] superconducting magnet, there'll be some for
[28:48] sale on the side of the road
[28:52] in a few years time, probably.
[28:56] Professor Fred Watson: Um, I beg your pardon, I quoted, uh, it as
[28:59] being from the Conversation, the article I
[29:00] was reading from, but it's actually Universe
[29:02] Today.
[29:02] Andrew Dunkley: Universe Today by Alan Boyle.
[29:05] Professor Fred Watson: Very good.
[29:06] Andrew Dunkley: All right, we'll watch with interest and
[29:08] hopefully an upgraded Cafe as well, which
[29:11] will, um, you know, bring the tourists in big
[29:13] time, for sure.
[29:15] I think that brings us to the end of the
[29:17] show, Fred Watson. Thank you so much.
[29:19] Professor Fred Watson: Ah, they go so quickly, don't they?
[29:22] Andrew Dunkley: They don't. They do. They do, yes.
[29:25] Professor Fred Watson: Uh, but I'll see you next time, I hope.
[29:27] Andrew Dunkley: I hope so, too.
[29:28] Professor Fred Watson: Huh?
[29:28] Andrew Dunkley: Couldn't do this without you, Fred Watson.
[29:31] Professor Fred Watson: I don't think I could do it without you.
[29:34] Andrew Dunkley: At least you'd be able to talk about
[29:35] something. I'd sit here and go, um.
[29:37] Professor Fred Watson: No, you wouldn't.
[29:38] Professor Fred Watson: No, no, you wouldn't. No, you can talk.
[29:40] Andrew Dunkley: I can talk gibberish. I can do that a lot.
[29:43] Professor Fred Watson: The hind leg off a donkey.
[29:44] Andrew Dunkley: That's the time I could do that.
[29:46] Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
[29:47] Andrew Dunkley: I could talk the leg off an iron pot. That's
[29:49] another one.
[29:50] Professor Fred Watson: I like that.
[29:51] Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. All right. Thanks, Fred Watson. We'll
[29:53] see you soon.
[29:54] Professor Fred Watson: Sounds great. Thanks, Andrew.
[29:56] Andrew Dunkley: Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at
[29:57] large. Don't forget to visit our website
[29:59] between episodes. You can do that and, uh,
[30:02] maybe if you've got time, wherever you listen
[30:04] to us, leave review. Reviews are very helpful
[30:07] because they tell people what you think
[30:09] of us and that might inspire them to listen.
[30:12] It might not, depending on what you say. But,
[30:15] uh, yeah, reviews are very, very good. If you
[30:18] can, uh, spend a couple of minutes doing that
[30:19] from wherever you listen to us.
[30:22] Um, YouTube,
[30:25] um, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker. There's a.
[30:28] There's a whole bunch that we're on. And
[30:30] thanks to Huw in the studio, who couldn't be
[30:33] with us today because he's dealing with
[30:35] a dark matter. And from me, Andrew Dunkley.
[30:38] Professor Fred Watson: Thanks for your company.
[30:40] Andrew Dunkley: We'll see you in the next episode of Space
[30:41] Nuts.
[30:42] Professor Fred Watson: Bye. Bye.
[30:44] Andrew Dunkley: You've been listening to the Space Nuts
[30:46] podcast, available at
[30:49] Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[30:51] iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
[30:54] player. You can also stream on
[30:55] demand@bytes.um.com.
[30:57] Professor Fred Watson: this has been another quality podcast
[30:59] production from bytes.um com.

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