Imagining alien worlds: we explore the science and fiction of exoplanets

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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly

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podcast.

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I'm Hamish Johnston.

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In this episode, we're going to chat about

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the science and fiction

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of exoplanets,

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which are planets that orbit stars other than

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the sun.

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I'm joined by Keith Cooper,

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a journalist and author who's a regular contributor

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to Physics World.

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Keith studied physics and astronomy at the University

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of Manchester,

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and he's written extensively

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about astronomy,

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astrophysics,

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and cosmology.

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He's also a big fan of science fiction,

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and his new book about exoplanets

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is called

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Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction

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and Science Fact.

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Hi, Keith.

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Welcome to the podcast.

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Hi, Hamish. Thank you for having me on

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the show.

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To begin with, Keith, we should make it

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very clear that exoplanets

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are real things.

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In fact, in the last thirty years or

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so, I think astronomers have discovered thousands of

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them. So can you give our listeners

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a bit of an introduction

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to exoplanets

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and and the science of of how they're

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studied?

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Sure.

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This year, 2025, is actually the thirtieth anniversary

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of the discovery of the first exoplanets

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around a sun like star. Now they discovered

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freak planets around pulsars a couple of years

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before that, but it was, October 1995 when

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the first discovery was made. The planet was

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called 51 Pegasi b,

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and it's what we call a hot Jupiter,

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which if you can imagine Jupiter in our

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solar system, it's a big gas bag.

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And then you move

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it really close to the sun. That's what

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this planet was like.

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Astronomers had no idea that such planets could

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exist. They were expecting

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other planetary systems to look like our solar

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system with the small rocky worlds closer to

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the sun and the big gas giants further

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out. So this was a big shock. Took

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a little while to understand how this could

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be. We we finally realized that the big

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hot Jupiters actually did form further out from

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the star, but then through interactions with the

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protoplanetary

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disk migrated inwards. And we actually realized that

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a similar migration had happened in our own

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solar system. Jupiter and Saturn had migrated in

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a little bit,

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and influenced how the inner planets formed.

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Fortunately, Jupiter didn't go all the way to

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the sun. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here today

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to have this conversation because Earth would have

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been ejected from the solar system long ago.

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And since then, since 1995,

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we've discovered almost 6,000 exoplanets.

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As I mentioned, some are as big as

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Jupiter, others are smaller than Earth.

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We found that the most common types of

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planets that we found so far are what

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we call super Earths. These are we believe

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they are rocky worlds that up to 10

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times the mass of our planet.

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We have found planets in what we describe

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as the habitable zone, which is a region

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from a star where temperatures are just about

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right for liquid water, assuming that this planet

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has an atmosphere like Earth's.

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But we don't know whether any of these

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worlds are actually habitable. We don't know much

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about them other than their radius and their

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mass.

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A lot of it is guesswork at this

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stage. We have the James Webb Space Telescope

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in orbit at the moment,

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analyzing these worlds and trying to detect atmospheres

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on any of them. It hasn't found any

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really yet on these rocky

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habitable zone planets.

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We've got two more missions launching in in

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the coming years from the European Space Agency.

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That's PLATO,

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which will launch in December 2026 if everything

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goes to plan. And then Ariel, which will

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characterize the atmospheres of the hot Jupiters that

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will launch in 2030.

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Of course, we'll still have Webb and Hubble.

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We got the extremely large telescope being built

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in Chile that's going to be able

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to possibly image, directly image some of these,

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rocky worlds close to their sun. We we

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have directly imaged some planets so far. These

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tend to be big,

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hot, young planets that are far from their

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stand. We we they're still glowing from the

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heat of their birth. None of them are

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are like Earth. And that's the that's the

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thing really. With all these planets, we haven't

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found any that are like Earth yet. And

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and that's really the quest that most astronomers

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are on to find another Earth out there.

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I mean, the fact that we haven't found

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another Earth, is that is that related to

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the sort of biases

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within

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the way that astronomers,

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actually observe these

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these, exoplanets,

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that it's easier. Well, it's easiest to see

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a huge planet very close to its star.

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So those are the first things that we

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discovered. And are we sort

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of narrowing in or focusing in on Earth?

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Is it sort of a technological issue? Maybe

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not that they don't exist, but that we

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can't quite see them yet. Is that safe

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to say?

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It's definitely a selection effect. But depending on

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who you talk to, it may also be

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the Earth like planets are rare.

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You're right in saying that

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detecting

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an Earth like world is really on the

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very edge of what we could achieve.

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James Webb Space Telescope is the only instrument

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that we have at the moment

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that could potentially do that,

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and only in the case of an exoplanet

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that orbits a star fairly close to us.

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Maybe in in twenty or thirty years,

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scientists in The United States have,

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an ambition

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to launch a they haven't got a proper

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name for it yet, but it would it

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would be a big giant space telescope with

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at least an eight meter mirror, which is

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larger than than Webb's 6.5

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meter.

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And it would be armed with a coronagraph,

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which will be able to block out the

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light of a star so that we could

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actually see the planets, the Earth like planets,

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orbiting that star without the stars glare getting

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in the way.

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Then we may be able to start to

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answer whether any of these planets that we're

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finding in the habitable zone are really habitable.

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But there are there are a lot of

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scientists out there who

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think that

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Earth is really a fluke.

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The fact that it is habitable, so many

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things had to go right.

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Not everybody agrees with that. Some people think

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that the scope for life is is broader

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than just what we have to offer here

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on Earth. Look at look at even in

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our own solar system, you know, the detection

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of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere still debated. Yes.

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But people have talked about microbial life in

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Venus' clouds.

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Or you go further out. I mean, you

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have the moon icy moons of Jupiter and

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Saturn that harbor oceans and could have life.

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They're very not like Earth.

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So

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we don't know yet whether Earth like planets

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are common. Earth sized planets are probably very

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common, but Earth like is a big question

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mark. But we have to we we we

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shouldn't be,

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I guess,

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Earth chauvinists, we we we should consider other

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habitats that unlike Earth that could still support

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life.

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And science fiction, you know, can be very

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good at doing that. That's right. Yeah. So

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so that brings me neatly to my next

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question. I mean, we've known about exoplanets for

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thirty years, but

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I think if you look in fiction, there

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is a much longer tradition of

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people speculating

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about other worlds. I mean, I'm I mean,

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I have to say, I I I don't

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know much about the history Well

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well,

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first of

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Well well, first of all, you're absolutely right

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that that science fiction has portrayed exoplanets long

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before we actually knew exoplanets existed.

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And

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I guess by the time we got to

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the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties, we

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were finding hints.

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For example,

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the

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the infrared astronomy satellite, which was a joint

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US, Dutch, UK mission in the eighties, imaged

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protoplanetary

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disks around beta pic Beta

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Pictoris, I think,

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and and Vega.

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So we had the hints, but we hadn't

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found any exoplanets. But going back to the

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turn of the twentieth century,

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there were two theories about how

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planets form.

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So one theory was turned out to be

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correct that they form from a disk of

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matter around a young star coalescing from that

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that disk of gas and dust.

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The other theory was that a passing star

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had come close to the sun and pulled

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out some material, and this material had formed

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the planets.

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And in that model, the planets furthest from

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the sun would have formed first. Now I

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mentioned this because HG Wells' War of the

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Worlds

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was written at a time when this was

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the prevailing theory.

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And it was mentioned in War of the

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Worlds that that that was the reason the

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the Martians were more technologically advanced than us

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on Earth because Mars was older than Earth,

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and the Martian species was older than Earth.

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I think

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that started to change a little. The main

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problem at this at the time was,

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the problem of angular momentum in in the

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protoplanetary

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disk and and the sun, and how how

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we lost that that angular momentum. It's still

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a little bit of a problem,

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but we we do know that planets form

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from the disc now. We've seen it that

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in action.

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One of the early,

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twentieth century science fiction writers was e Doc

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Smith.

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He wrote the Lensman series, and before that,

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he wrote the Skylark of Space. Now Doc

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Smith is famous as a science fiction writer,

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but

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anyone who eats donuts knows him intimately because

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he was the guy who figured out how

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to get sugar to stick to donuts. Oh,

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wow. I thought sugar stuck to everything.

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Yeah.

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And and and in in his books, you

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know, he had space faring civilizations

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visiting other planets around other stars. And in

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the twenties and thirties,

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more authors, more science fiction writers began to

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to have stories along the same lines. Isaac

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00:10:28,899 --> 00:10:29,399
Asimov,

274
00:10:30,339 --> 00:10:32,820
started writing Foundation in the early nineteen forties.

275
00:10:32,820 --> 00:10:34,745
That was about a galactic empire.

276
00:10:38,164 --> 00:10:40,884
And Star Trek, obviously, got visiting strange new

277
00:10:40,884 --> 00:10:41,384
worlds.

278
00:10:41,764 --> 00:10:44,105
And, you know, if you watch Star Trek

279
00:10:44,164 --> 00:10:46,004
in the nineteen sixties, you could probably be

280
00:10:46,004 --> 00:10:48,565
forgiven for thinking that astronomers already knew all

281
00:10:48,565 --> 00:10:51,009
these worlds were out there. But we didn't

282
00:10:51,009 --> 00:10:53,090
know at the time. It was it was

283
00:10:53,090 --> 00:10:55,169
just guesswork. We needed somewhere for our heroes

284
00:10:55,169 --> 00:10:57,090
to visit. So we had to imagine these

285
00:10:57,090 --> 00:10:57,590
planets.

286
00:10:58,610 --> 00:11:01,350
All those Star Trek planets that look suspiciously

287
00:11:01,649 --> 00:11:03,164
like the back back lot

288
00:11:03,644 --> 00:11:05,664
in Los Angeles. Yes. Yes.

289
00:11:06,044 --> 00:11:08,044
Lots lots of cowboy planets and there was

290
00:11:08,044 --> 00:11:10,704
a, 19 planet, gangster planet.

291
00:11:12,125 --> 00:11:12,625
But

292
00:11:13,004 --> 00:11:14,304
I think science fiction

293
00:11:14,764 --> 00:11:17,565
does have a lot of worlds that are

294
00:11:17,565 --> 00:11:18,690
very much like Earth,

295
00:11:19,090 --> 00:11:20,950
especially in movies and TV.

296
00:11:21,330 --> 00:11:23,409
And that can be forgiven because we can't

297
00:11:23,409 --> 00:11:25,730
send actors to Mars. They, you know, they

298
00:11:25,730 --> 00:11:26,470
have to,

299
00:11:27,409 --> 00:11:29,490
act on stages. They're on Earth in one

300
00:11:29,490 --> 00:11:30,230
g gravity,

301
00:11:31,264 --> 00:11:33,184
and it's just cheaper to to make their

302
00:11:33,184 --> 00:11:35,504
planets look like Earth. But even even written

303
00:11:35,504 --> 00:11:37,264
science fiction has fallen into that trap a

304
00:11:37,264 --> 00:11:38,945
little bit of having lots of Earth like

305
00:11:38,945 --> 00:11:41,024
planets. But of course, as I said, you

306
00:11:41,024 --> 00:11:42,625
need somewhere for your heroes to go. And

307
00:11:42,625 --> 00:11:44,980
if it's a barren cratered world, then you

308
00:11:44,980 --> 00:11:46,580
can't have as many adventures there as you

309
00:11:46,580 --> 00:11:48,660
could on on an Earth like planet. But

310
00:11:48,660 --> 00:11:50,419
one of the things that the science fiction

311
00:11:50,419 --> 00:11:53,059
writer Larry Niven liked to do was he

312
00:11:53,059 --> 00:11:53,720
would have

313
00:11:54,419 --> 00:11:57,139
niche planets where most of the planet was

314
00:11:57,139 --> 00:11:59,720
uninhabitable apart from one niche.

315
00:12:00,205 --> 00:12:02,845
So there was one, planet. So he had

316
00:12:02,845 --> 00:12:05,404
a lot of, I guess, there were, arch

317
00:12:05,404 --> 00:12:07,164
ships or or colony ships that would go

318
00:12:07,164 --> 00:12:10,205
out to planets that their robotic probes had

319
00:12:10,205 --> 00:12:11,105
said were habitable.

320
00:12:11,725 --> 00:12:14,205
So one of the, the ships arrives at

321
00:12:14,205 --> 00:12:14,865
this planet

322
00:12:15,819 --> 00:12:17,759
and finds it's all completely uninhabitable

323
00:12:18,139 --> 00:12:19,899
apart from the top of this one mountain

324
00:12:19,899 --> 00:12:21,659
that happens to peak up out of the

325
00:12:21,659 --> 00:12:23,740
clouds into a sort of a habitable area

326
00:12:23,740 --> 00:12:24,480
in the atmosphere.

327
00:12:25,179 --> 00:12:27,500
And they hadn't realized that their their robotic

328
00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:29,259
survey had just mapped that area and said,

329
00:12:29,259 --> 00:12:30,480
yeah. The planet's habitable.

330
00:12:31,235 --> 00:12:32,674
So they had to set up shop on

331
00:12:32,674 --> 00:12:33,735
on on this mountain.

332
00:12:34,434 --> 00:12:36,294
So it's this one niche.

333
00:12:37,154 --> 00:12:38,774
Other other Alastair Reynolds,

334
00:12:39,075 --> 00:12:41,475
is Sort of like a Goldilocks zone Yeah.

335
00:12:41,554 --> 00:12:43,714
Of a But within the planet. Yeah. Alastair

336
00:12:43,714 --> 00:12:45,955
Reynolds is a more more contemporary science fiction

337
00:12:45,955 --> 00:12:46,649
writer, was

338
00:12:48,250 --> 00:12:49,930
inspired by Larry Niven. And on one of

339
00:12:49,930 --> 00:12:52,090
his fictional planets, Yellowstone, the city is actually

340
00:12:52,090 --> 00:12:56,009
in a big gorge where there's, volcanic vents

341
00:12:56,009 --> 00:12:58,570
and and all kinds of gases coming out

342
00:12:58,570 --> 00:13:00,809
that can sustain an atmosphere just in in

343
00:13:00,809 --> 00:13:02,269
in that gorge, in that valley.

344
00:13:02,855 --> 00:13:04,294
And it may be that we find a

345
00:13:04,294 --> 00:13:06,154
lot of planets are mostly uninhabitable

346
00:13:06,855 --> 00:13:08,855
apart from certain areas. So that brings me

347
00:13:08,855 --> 00:13:11,754
on to Dune and the planet Arrakis. Now,

348
00:13:12,855 --> 00:13:13,355
Arrakis,

349
00:13:13,735 --> 00:13:16,375
Dune's my my favorite science fiction book of

350
00:13:16,375 --> 00:13:17,034
all time.

351
00:13:17,459 --> 00:13:20,100
And I'm sure many listeners saw the recent

352
00:13:20,100 --> 00:13:20,600
movies.

353
00:13:21,699 --> 00:13:22,199
And

354
00:13:22,980 --> 00:13:23,799
in June,

355
00:13:24,579 --> 00:13:26,419
the habitable it's a it's a desert planet

356
00:13:26,419 --> 00:13:27,860
as you can guess from the name. It's

357
00:13:27,860 --> 00:13:29,379
a desert planet, very hot, and the only

358
00:13:29,379 --> 00:13:30,519
habitable area

359
00:13:30,894 --> 00:13:33,375
in the story is at the poles. So

360
00:13:33,375 --> 00:13:35,134
they have the the capital city there, and

361
00:13:35,134 --> 00:13:38,975
and the Equator is practically uninhabitable except to

362
00:13:38,975 --> 00:13:40,355
the natives, the Fremen,

363
00:13:40,975 --> 00:13:43,454
and the big sandworms that that that move

364
00:13:43,454 --> 00:13:44,355
through the deserts.

365
00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:47,920
There was actually a study done by a

366
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:50,340
climatologist actually here at the University of Bristol,

367
00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:52,980
Alex Farnsworth and his team.

368
00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:55,440
So they did a scientific model. Could a

369
00:13:55,440 --> 00:13:58,235
planet like Arrakis, this desert world, could it

370
00:13:58,235 --> 00:14:00,075
actually be real? We know, does it does

371
00:14:00,075 --> 00:14:02,174
it make sense from a a climate perspective?

372
00:14:02,794 --> 00:14:05,195
And it did, except they actually found that

373
00:14:05,195 --> 00:14:06,495
the habitable area

374
00:14:06,875 --> 00:14:08,554
would be at the Equator and that the

375
00:14:08,554 --> 00:14:10,235
way the climate and the atmosphere would work,

376
00:14:10,235 --> 00:14:12,735
it would make the the poles intolerably hot.

377
00:14:13,820 --> 00:14:17,200
And scientists actually think astronomers actually think that

378
00:14:17,740 --> 00:14:20,399
desert like worlds that are habitable may

379
00:14:21,259 --> 00:14:22,240
vastly outnumber

380
00:14:23,100 --> 00:14:25,500
our temperate earth like worlds that have just

381
00:14:25,500 --> 00:14:27,680
the right amount amount of land and sea.

382
00:14:28,845 --> 00:14:30,684
So so, you know, the planet in June

383
00:14:30,684 --> 00:14:31,825
could be a

384
00:14:32,605 --> 00:14:34,524
a forerunner to the kind of worlds that

385
00:14:34,524 --> 00:14:36,544
we might find that are barely habitable,

386
00:14:37,085 --> 00:14:39,325
but just about, and they may be really

387
00:14:39,325 --> 00:14:41,245
common in in the universe. Another kind of

388
00:14:41,245 --> 00:14:43,440
common planet would be an ocean planet that's

389
00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:43,940
completely

390
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:45,940
drowned

391
00:14:46,399 --> 00:14:47,139
in ocean.

392
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:48,980
Maybe with just

393
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:51,600
little bits of land peeking out here and

394
00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:52,100
there.

395
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:54,399
So they're like extremes of Earth, and the

396
00:14:54,399 --> 00:14:56,480
extremes may be more common than our finely

397
00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:58,075
balanced temperate planet.

398
00:14:58,455 --> 00:15:01,355
So, Keith, how's how science fiction writers

399
00:15:01,815 --> 00:15:02,315
portray

400
00:15:02,934 --> 00:15:04,394
exoplanets? Has that

401
00:15:05,014 --> 00:15:07,975
changed over the past few decades? I mean,

402
00:15:07,975 --> 00:15:10,710
you mentioned how HG Wells picked up on

403
00:15:10,710 --> 00:15:12,870
this idea that Mars could be older than

404
00:15:12,870 --> 00:15:13,370
Earth,

405
00:15:13,990 --> 00:15:17,509
and incorporated that into his fiction. But have

406
00:15:17,509 --> 00:15:20,070
have more contemporary writers, you know, let's say

407
00:15:20,070 --> 00:15:22,710
over the over the past three decades, have

408
00:15:22,710 --> 00:15:23,930
they picked up on

409
00:15:24,315 --> 00:15:26,394
on on discoveries? You know, for example, are

410
00:15:26,394 --> 00:15:29,674
they writing about life on hot Jupiters, for

411
00:15:29,674 --> 00:15:30,174
example?

412
00:15:30,634 --> 00:15:32,415
Absolutely. Oh, they're not hot Jupiters.

413
00:15:33,754 --> 00:15:35,915
There's a scarcity of hot Jupiters in in

414
00:15:35,915 --> 00:15:37,990
in the fiction, probably because you can't. It's

415
00:15:37,990 --> 00:15:39,430
hard to live there, and you'd have to

416
00:15:39,430 --> 00:15:42,149
be really imaginative to imagine life surviving in

417
00:15:42,149 --> 00:15:43,529
an atmosphere that reaches

418
00:15:44,070 --> 00:15:46,009
possibly up to 2,000 degrees Celsius.

419
00:15:47,670 --> 00:15:50,149
But you're right that the the writers are

420
00:15:50,149 --> 00:15:51,450
more tuned to,

421
00:15:52,149 --> 00:15:55,245
scientific research definitely incorporate that into their work,

422
00:15:55,245 --> 00:15:57,965
and they have done throughout the ages. You

423
00:15:57,965 --> 00:15:59,504
mentioned HG Wells there.

424
00:16:00,125 --> 00:16:01,745
Frank Herbert who wrote Dune,

425
00:16:02,524 --> 00:16:04,125
he got the idea for his book because

426
00:16:04,125 --> 00:16:05,100
he he was a journalist,

427
00:16:05,579 --> 00:16:07,259
and he was commissioned to write an article

428
00:16:07,259 --> 00:16:08,639
about Dunes in California.

429
00:16:09,659 --> 00:16:11,100
And that's where he got the idea from

430
00:16:11,100 --> 00:16:11,759
that form.

431
00:16:12,940 --> 00:16:16,000
There was another writer in, the fifty sixties

432
00:16:16,059 --> 00:16:16,559
called

433
00:16:18,299 --> 00:16:19,120
Hal Clement.

434
00:16:19,845 --> 00:16:21,524
He wrote a book called the, emission of

435
00:16:21,524 --> 00:16:23,205
gravity, which was set on a planet that

436
00:16:23,205 --> 00:16:24,345
has this crushing gravity.

437
00:16:24,804 --> 00:16:25,304
Theoretically,

438
00:16:25,764 --> 00:16:27,684
you know, it makes sense, but realistically, it

439
00:16:27,684 --> 00:16:29,924
probably wouldn't exist. But I actually had sent

440
00:16:29,924 --> 00:16:30,585
to me,

441
00:16:32,085 --> 00:16:32,970
the other week,

442
00:16:34,490 --> 00:16:36,409
by a chap in America, Jim Benford, who's

443
00:16:36,409 --> 00:16:38,750
the the science fiction writer, Gregory Benford's brother.

444
00:16:38,970 --> 00:16:40,809
He sent to me a PDF of an

445
00:16:40,809 --> 00:16:41,309
old,

446
00:16:41,929 --> 00:16:45,049
science fiction fan design from 1960 that had

447
00:16:45,049 --> 00:16:47,085
an essay by Hal Clement. And it was,

448
00:16:47,725 --> 00:16:48,865
about a new fictional

449
00:16:49,245 --> 00:16:51,965
planetary system that he'd invented for a novel

450
00:16:51,965 --> 00:16:53,085
he was going to write. We don't think

451
00:16:53,085 --> 00:16:54,524
he ever actually got around to writing the

452
00:16:54,524 --> 00:16:56,764
novel. But the the the system had this

453
00:16:56,925 --> 00:16:58,605
it was a binary star system, but it

454
00:16:58,605 --> 00:16:59,425
had a planet,

455
00:17:00,919 --> 00:17:03,160
had two planets. And one of the planets

456
00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:04,299
orbits came inside

457
00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:07,099
the other planets for a short time,

458
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:10,220
very much like Neptune and Pluto.

459
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,819
And Clement argued that that well, I you

460
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:15,894
you said that this planet that came inside

461
00:17:15,894 --> 00:17:17,654
the other planet's orbit was actually used to

462
00:17:17,654 --> 00:17:19,174
be a moon of the other planet and

463
00:17:19,174 --> 00:17:21,434
it had escaped. And that was the theory

464
00:17:21,815 --> 00:17:24,134
regarding Pluto and Neptune at the time. A

465
00:17:24,134 --> 00:17:25,815
lot of scientists thought Pluto used to be

466
00:17:25,815 --> 00:17:26,954
a a moon of Neptune

467
00:17:27,779 --> 00:17:30,500
and that it somehow escaped Neptune's gravity and

468
00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:32,019
and started wandering on the sun on its

469
00:17:32,019 --> 00:17:32,519
own.

470
00:17:32,900 --> 00:17:35,220
And that was around 1960. The the idea

471
00:17:35,220 --> 00:17:37,539
was was in vogue. So Clements was looking

472
00:17:37,539 --> 00:17:38,680
at the latest research

473
00:17:38,980 --> 00:17:41,799
and incorporating incorporating it into his ideas.

474
00:17:42,134 --> 00:17:43,515
More re more recently,

475
00:17:44,775 --> 00:17:47,434
I spoke to a researcher at the

476
00:17:48,134 --> 00:17:49,894
she's at the Open University now, but she

477
00:17:49,894 --> 00:17:51,914
was at Saint Andrews, Emma Purinan.

478
00:17:52,695 --> 00:17:55,195
And she recently did her PhD on

479
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:57,460
pretty much the topic of my book,

480
00:17:57,840 --> 00:17:59,860
how exoplanets are portrayed

481
00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:02,160
in science fiction, and what we can learn

482
00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:03,299
from that to,

483
00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:06,900
you know, do better science outreach.

484
00:18:08,559 --> 00:18:09,539
And she

485
00:18:11,075 --> 00:18:12,375
raised the point that

486
00:18:12,914 --> 00:18:15,394
in the last sort of thirty years or

487
00:18:15,394 --> 00:18:15,894
so,

488
00:18:17,715 --> 00:18:19,715
it coincides with the fact that we've discovered

489
00:18:19,715 --> 00:18:22,355
exoplanets, but it's more of an awareness of

490
00:18:22,355 --> 00:18:22,755
the

491
00:18:24,059 --> 00:18:24,799
how damaging

492
00:18:25,740 --> 00:18:27,759
colonies were on Earth, colonialism.

493
00:18:28,779 --> 00:18:30,700
And she says that in a lot of

494
00:18:30,700 --> 00:18:32,159
more modern science fiction,

495
00:18:32,460 --> 00:18:34,559
there tends to be fewer exoplanets

496
00:18:35,819 --> 00:18:37,359
where they have civilizations

497
00:18:37,740 --> 00:18:39,875
that have been settled by Earth, where Earth

498
00:18:39,875 --> 00:18:42,515
has colonized these planets. Because there's a growing

499
00:18:42,515 --> 00:18:43,815
awareness of of how,

500
00:18:45,234 --> 00:18:47,255
detrimental colonialism was.

501
00:18:48,115 --> 00:18:50,615
So that's been incorporated more into modern fiction.

502
00:18:51,315 --> 00:18:51,815
Another,

503
00:18:53,210 --> 00:18:55,549
type of planet that we're finding more often,

504
00:18:56,970 --> 00:18:59,230
rocky planets around what we call m dwarfs.

505
00:18:59,529 --> 00:19:02,269
You may know them more as red dwarfs,

506
00:19:02,329 --> 00:19:04,329
not not the comedy show, but these are

507
00:19:04,329 --> 00:19:04,829
small

508
00:19:05,210 --> 00:19:05,710
cool

509
00:19:06,009 --> 00:19:08,054
red stars. It's like and they have scaled

510
00:19:08,054 --> 00:19:09,275
down planetary systems,

511
00:19:09,974 --> 00:19:12,154
where they're really close to their star.

512
00:19:13,015 --> 00:19:13,515
One,

513
00:19:14,134 --> 00:19:16,855
famous example is Trappist one, which has seven

514
00:19:16,855 --> 00:19:19,595
worlds all packed into the inner 10,000,000

515
00:19:19,654 --> 00:19:21,275
kilometers of of the system.

516
00:19:22,109 --> 00:19:23,890
And because they're so close,

517
00:19:24,750 --> 00:19:28,609
their rotation becomes synchronized with their orbital period,

518
00:19:29,150 --> 00:19:30,910
and they become what we call tidally locked.

519
00:19:30,910 --> 00:19:32,910
So they always show the same hemisphere to

520
00:19:32,910 --> 00:19:35,230
their star. Much like the moon always shows

521
00:19:35,230 --> 00:19:37,035
the same face to Earth. The moon is

522
00:19:37,035 --> 00:19:38,815
also tied a lot to our planet.

523
00:19:39,835 --> 00:19:40,335
So

524
00:19:40,955 --> 00:19:43,515
these are a a a new kind of

525
00:19:43,515 --> 00:19:45,595
world that we've really only started discovering in

526
00:19:45,595 --> 00:19:47,215
the past fifteen, twenty years.

527
00:19:47,994 --> 00:19:50,154
And we're still understanding whether they could be

528
00:19:50,154 --> 00:19:52,109
habitable at all, what the climates might be

529
00:19:52,109 --> 00:19:53,869
like on such a world that, you know,

530
00:19:53,869 --> 00:19:55,630
one side always faces us and the other

531
00:19:55,630 --> 00:19:58,029
side is an eternal night. You know, would

532
00:19:58,029 --> 00:19:59,869
the would the night side be always frozen?

533
00:19:59,869 --> 00:20:02,210
Could an atmosphere distribute enough heat around?

534
00:20:02,589 --> 00:20:04,430
And there was the science fiction writer, Charlie

535
00:20:04,430 --> 00:20:05,170
Jane Anders.

536
00:20:05,605 --> 00:20:06,664
She's a contemporary,

537
00:20:07,044 --> 00:20:08,565
writer. And she wrote a book, The City

538
00:20:08,565 --> 00:20:09,765
in the Middle of the Night, which was

539
00:20:09,765 --> 00:20:11,444
set on one of these worlds. And she

540
00:20:11,444 --> 00:20:12,345
spoke to scientists

541
00:20:12,884 --> 00:20:15,284
about, what life might be like on one

542
00:20:15,284 --> 00:20:17,524
of these planets. And she told me that

543
00:20:17,524 --> 00:20:18,585
as she was writing,

544
00:20:19,610 --> 00:20:22,830
the scientific understanding of these worlds actually changed

545
00:20:22,970 --> 00:20:24,330
while she was in the middle of writing

546
00:20:24,330 --> 00:20:27,130
it. And she was like, oh, well, I

547
00:20:27,130 --> 00:20:28,570
need to go back and start again. She

548
00:20:28,570 --> 00:20:29,630
thought, no, because

549
00:20:30,009 --> 00:20:32,090
I'm too far along in the story. And

550
00:20:32,090 --> 00:20:33,690
she did raise a good point that the,

551
00:20:33,690 --> 00:20:35,884
you know, the point of science fiction is

552
00:20:35,884 --> 00:20:37,884
to tell a story. It's not to be

553
00:20:37,884 --> 00:20:39,164
part of the national curriculum.

554
00:20:40,924 --> 00:20:42,605
But, yeah, you know, she was having to

555
00:20:42,605 --> 00:20:44,684
respond to scientific discoveries as they were being

556
00:20:44,684 --> 00:20:46,045
made. She was responding to that on the

557
00:20:46,045 --> 00:20:46,545
fly.

558
00:20:47,085 --> 00:20:48,785
So that, you know,

559
00:20:49,309 --> 00:20:50,210
the good writers

560
00:20:50,829 --> 00:20:52,829
who really swap up and and and and

561
00:20:52,829 --> 00:20:53,809
do their research,

562
00:20:55,470 --> 00:20:56,450
you know, present

563
00:20:56,829 --> 00:20:59,549
possibilities for planets that that could be true,

564
00:20:59,549 --> 00:21:01,230
that we could find these planets in in

565
00:21:01,230 --> 00:21:03,730
in the future because they're really well realized.

566
00:21:04,724 --> 00:21:06,325
And that's, you know, that's the power of

567
00:21:06,325 --> 00:21:07,944
science fiction. Before we discovered

568
00:21:08,644 --> 00:21:09,144
exoplanets,

569
00:21:09,605 --> 00:21:11,765
you know, science fiction was telling us what

570
00:21:11,765 --> 00:21:12,664
they could be like.

571
00:21:13,684 --> 00:21:15,125
Science fiction got a lot right. And we

572
00:21:15,125 --> 00:21:16,724
also found that truth is a lot stranger

573
00:21:16,724 --> 00:21:18,359
than fiction. So it's it's

574
00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:20,920
been a bit of both. Yeah. And that's

575
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:22,920
that's what I'd I'd like to talk about

576
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:24,519
now. If we if we could move back

577
00:21:24,519 --> 00:21:26,140
to to, you know,

578
00:21:26,679 --> 00:21:27,900
actual exoplanets.

579
00:21:28,759 --> 00:21:32,299
I mean, astronomers have discovered some really extraordinary

580
00:21:33,319 --> 00:21:33,819
systems,

581
00:21:34,345 --> 00:21:35,244
very unexpected.

582
00:21:35,704 --> 00:21:38,264
I suppose you've chatted a bit about those

583
00:21:38,264 --> 00:21:38,764
already.

584
00:21:39,464 --> 00:21:40,845
Do you have any favorites,

585
00:21:41,944 --> 00:21:44,684
amongst the the the many types of exoplanets

586
00:21:44,904 --> 00:21:46,365
that we know exist?

587
00:21:46,970 --> 00:21:49,130
Is there one exoplanet or a type of

588
00:21:49,130 --> 00:21:51,690
exoplanet that stands out for you as as

589
00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:52,830
being really interesting?

590
00:21:53,769 --> 00:21:55,630
I've thought about this question a lot.

591
00:21:56,490 --> 00:21:58,090
It's hard to say because we know so

592
00:21:58,090 --> 00:21:59,309
little about the exoplanets.

593
00:21:59,690 --> 00:22:01,130
As as I said, you know, we can

594
00:22:01,130 --> 00:22:02,029
we can measure

595
00:22:02,625 --> 00:22:04,625
how big they are. They're they're sized when,

596
00:22:04,865 --> 00:22:06,545
we see them transit in front of their

597
00:22:06,545 --> 00:22:07,984
star. That's one way that we can detect

598
00:22:07,984 --> 00:22:09,984
them. So when they move in front of

599
00:22:09,984 --> 00:22:11,664
their star, they block some of the star's

600
00:22:11,664 --> 00:22:13,825
light. And the bigger they add, the more

601
00:22:13,825 --> 00:22:15,984
light they block. So we can determine their

602
00:22:15,984 --> 00:22:16,484
size.

603
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:18,840
We know the mass of some of them

604
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:19,980
based on their gravitational

605
00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:23,080
how how their gravity tugs on their parent

606
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:23,580
star.

607
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:27,080
And that's about it. And we know how

608
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:28,840
far from their star they are so we

609
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:29,340
can

610
00:22:29,764 --> 00:22:32,484
estimate how warm they might be. So it's

611
00:22:32,484 --> 00:22:34,105
really hard to say, you know,

612
00:22:34,804 --> 00:22:36,964
people fell in love with the Pandora from

613
00:22:36,964 --> 00:22:39,605
the Avatar films, and that's a fully realized

614
00:22:39,845 --> 00:22:41,605
it's actually a moon, not not a planet,

615
00:22:41,605 --> 00:22:43,970
but we don't know anything like that about

616
00:22:43,970 --> 00:22:46,049
the exoplanets that we detected so far. So

617
00:22:46,049 --> 00:22:48,769
it's hard to to pick one specific one

618
00:22:48,769 --> 00:22:50,549
that you could say would be a favorite.

619
00:22:51,250 --> 00:22:53,589
I do find the planets around Proxima Centauri

620
00:22:53,649 --> 00:22:56,085
interesting. Proxima Centauri is the it's a red

621
00:22:56,085 --> 00:22:58,085
dwarf, but it's also the closest star to

622
00:22:58,085 --> 00:23:00,265
our sun. It's just 4.2 light years away.

623
00:23:00,404 --> 00:23:01,704
So its sheer proximity

624
00:23:02,085 --> 00:23:03,065
is quite tantalizing.

625
00:23:04,804 --> 00:23:05,625
There's also

626
00:23:06,484 --> 00:23:08,005
I give this as a kind of jokey

627
00:23:08,005 --> 00:23:09,544
answer to to this question.

628
00:23:10,244 --> 00:23:10,744
There

629
00:23:11,769 --> 00:23:13,470
are some planets that

630
00:23:14,329 --> 00:23:16,109
could be what we call carbon rich

631
00:23:16,970 --> 00:23:19,470
where they actually have more carbon than oxygen.

632
00:23:19,769 --> 00:23:21,609
That results in all the oxygen getting locked

633
00:23:21,609 --> 00:23:22,109
away

634
00:23:22,650 --> 00:23:23,849
in carbon dioxide and

635
00:23:24,664 --> 00:23:26,184
so you couldn't breathe any there'd been no

636
00:23:26,184 --> 00:23:27,865
oxygen free oxygen there to breathe, so you

637
00:23:27,865 --> 00:23:30,024
can actually live there. But because this

638
00:23:30,505 --> 00:23:32,524
theoretically, there could be so much carbon

639
00:23:32,984 --> 00:23:34,984
within the core of the planet, that carbon

640
00:23:34,984 --> 00:23:35,724
gets compressed.

641
00:23:36,424 --> 00:23:37,724
You could get a solid

642
00:23:38,089 --> 00:23:40,250
diamond within the a huge chunk of solid

643
00:23:40,250 --> 00:23:42,410
diamond, planet sized solid diamond in in the

644
00:23:42,410 --> 00:23:44,170
core of the planet. You know, the surface

645
00:23:44,170 --> 00:23:45,390
would be made of graphite.

646
00:23:48,250 --> 00:23:49,450
So just from the point of view of

647
00:23:49,450 --> 00:23:51,345
a planet made of diamonds, you'd be rich.

648
00:23:51,585 --> 00:23:53,184
So so I always give that as a

649
00:23:53,184 --> 00:23:54,565
jokey answer. And

650
00:23:55,105 --> 00:23:56,865
in regards to whether any planets like that

651
00:23:56,865 --> 00:23:59,025
really exist, we have found stars that are

652
00:23:59,025 --> 00:24:02,065
more carbon rich than oxygen rich. So given

653
00:24:02,065 --> 00:24:04,144
that a star and its planets formed from

654
00:24:04,144 --> 00:24:05,125
the same material,

655
00:24:05,505 --> 00:24:06,869
we'd expect any planets

656
00:24:07,269 --> 00:24:09,349
to orbit those stars to also be carbon

657
00:24:09,349 --> 00:24:09,849
rich.

658
00:24:10,789 --> 00:24:14,309
There was one system in particular called 55

659
00:24:14,309 --> 00:24:14,809
Cancri

660
00:24:15,750 --> 00:24:17,450
that is carbon rich.

661
00:24:18,069 --> 00:24:18,809
But now

662
00:24:19,465 --> 00:24:21,625
astronomers don't believe it's carbon rich enough to

663
00:24:21,625 --> 00:24:23,945
to create a diamond planet. But the potential

664
00:24:23,945 --> 00:24:24,765
is out there.

665
00:24:25,545 --> 00:24:27,725
You know, people talk about going mining asteroids.

666
00:24:27,785 --> 00:24:29,945
Well, imagine mining a car a a carbon

667
00:24:29,945 --> 00:24:31,485
rich planet with all the diamond.

668
00:24:32,049 --> 00:24:33,490
Yeah. Well, I think what if if you

669
00:24:33,490 --> 00:24:36,049
did find an entire planet made of diamond,

670
00:24:36,049 --> 00:24:38,950
maybe the the value of diamond would plummet.

671
00:24:39,650 --> 00:24:42,609
Yes. Exactly. Yes. You'd you'd saturate the market,

672
00:24:42,609 --> 00:24:43,190
I think.

673
00:24:44,295 --> 00:24:45,815
Yeah. That is I mean, I thought about

674
00:24:45,815 --> 00:24:47,335
it as well. And, you know, I I

675
00:24:47,335 --> 00:24:48,855
sort of have to go back to these

676
00:24:48,855 --> 00:24:50,795
hot Jupiters, you know, these huge

677
00:24:51,255 --> 00:24:53,575
gas giants that are very close to their

678
00:24:53,575 --> 00:24:54,075
stars.

679
00:24:54,615 --> 00:24:56,695
And, you know, I just can't work out

680
00:24:56,695 --> 00:24:59,309
in my mind. Because I suppose we have

681
00:24:59,309 --> 00:25:01,710
this vision of of Jupiter as being this

682
00:25:01,710 --> 00:25:04,849
very cold planet and icy, and,

683
00:25:05,789 --> 00:25:07,809
but and the fact that one can exist

684
00:25:08,430 --> 00:25:09,569
very, very close

685
00:25:09,869 --> 00:25:12,430
to to a star just blows my mind.

686
00:25:12,430 --> 00:25:14,654
It, you know, I suppose it rewrites how

687
00:25:14,654 --> 00:25:15,394
we understand

688
00:25:16,974 --> 00:25:19,875
planets and and and sort of the energy,

689
00:25:20,494 --> 00:25:23,295
exchanges between a star and its planets. You

690
00:25:23,295 --> 00:25:24,194
know, it's really,

691
00:25:24,575 --> 00:25:26,194
really interesting, I think.

692
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:28,039
Well, let me blow your mind a little

693
00:25:28,039 --> 00:25:30,039
bit more with that because they're so close.

694
00:25:30,039 --> 00:25:32,039
As I mentioned earlier, the temperature of their

695
00:25:32,039 --> 00:25:33,820
cloud tops can reach

696
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,099
a thousand degrees Celsius, 2,000 degrees Celsius.

697
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:39,500
When things get hot, they expand.

698
00:25:39,845 --> 00:25:41,464
So these planets are bloated.

699
00:25:41,924 --> 00:25:43,445
You know, they might have half the mass

700
00:25:43,445 --> 00:25:44,105
of Jupiter,

701
00:25:44,565 --> 00:25:47,144
but they're like three times as big. And

702
00:25:47,285 --> 00:25:48,664
because they're so expanded,

703
00:25:49,684 --> 00:25:52,244
gravity is holding on to their atmosphere very

704
00:25:52,244 --> 00:25:54,259
tenuously, and the the wind from the star,

705
00:25:54,259 --> 00:25:55,940
the wind of radiation from the star, like

706
00:25:55,940 --> 00:25:58,500
the solar wind, is blowing the atmosphere away.

707
00:25:58,500 --> 00:26:00,900
And they have tails like comets. And these

708
00:26:00,900 --> 00:26:03,220
tails are made from, you know, all all

709
00:26:03,220 --> 00:26:05,299
the metals and the hydrogen from from the

710
00:26:05,299 --> 00:26:05,799
atmosphere.

711
00:26:07,194 --> 00:26:08,654
And they're literally evaporating

712
00:26:08,954 --> 00:26:10,654
in front of our eyes. It's remarkable.

713
00:26:11,115 --> 00:26:13,034
So if you, you know, let's say, if

714
00:26:13,034 --> 00:26:15,274
you lived on a on a planet in

715
00:26:15,274 --> 00:26:17,454
that system, let's say a rocky planet

716
00:26:17,914 --> 00:26:20,319
a bit further out, what you would see

717
00:26:20,319 --> 00:26:21,139
in the sky

718
00:26:21,599 --> 00:26:24,319
would be amazing, wouldn't it, if you saw

719
00:26:24,319 --> 00:26:25,139
both this

720
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:26,740
huge gas giant

721
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,779
and the star as well. It would be

722
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:31,599
it would be something else, wouldn't it? I

723
00:26:31,599 --> 00:26:33,220
mean, particularly when the star

724
00:26:33,875 --> 00:26:36,934
went below the horizon, but that gas giant

725
00:26:36,994 --> 00:26:39,575
was still there probably glowing in a big

726
00:26:39,634 --> 00:26:41,075
a big tail. And,

727
00:26:41,714 --> 00:26:43,875
yeah, it is it is mind blowing, isn't

728
00:26:43,875 --> 00:26:45,654
it? It is. To think about it.

729
00:26:46,274 --> 00:26:47,254
It it is. And

730
00:26:47,980 --> 00:26:50,159
the only caveat to that is because when

731
00:26:50,380 --> 00:26:52,079
because hot hot Jupiter's migrate

732
00:26:53,179 --> 00:26:55,179
from further out into, you know, really close

733
00:26:55,179 --> 00:26:57,179
to their star. Sometimes they collide with with

734
00:26:57,179 --> 00:26:59,339
with their star. But because they migrate in,

735
00:26:59,339 --> 00:27:00,940
any smaller worlds in the way just get

736
00:27:00,940 --> 00:27:02,539
kicked out. Some get kicked into the star.

737
00:27:02,539 --> 00:27:05,174
Some get ejected from the planetary system altogether.

738
00:27:05,315 --> 00:27:08,034
So it was thought that hot Jupiters would

739
00:27:08,034 --> 00:27:08,534
be

740
00:27:09,634 --> 00:27:10,774
like a single child.

741
00:27:12,914 --> 00:27:14,274
That's starting to change a little bit. We

742
00:27:14,274 --> 00:27:16,194
have started to find a couple of other

743
00:27:16,194 --> 00:27:16,694
planets

744
00:27:17,019 --> 00:27:18,640
that coexist with hot Jupiters.

745
00:27:19,980 --> 00:27:22,140
How that is so, we we don't entirely

746
00:27:22,140 --> 00:27:24,480
know. But, yeah, it it it you know,

747
00:27:25,339 --> 00:27:27,179
depending on how close your planet is to

748
00:27:27,179 --> 00:27:28,380
the star and the hot Jupiter, you can

749
00:27:28,380 --> 00:27:29,920
have many more total eclipses

750
00:27:30,304 --> 00:27:31,444
or partial eclipses.

751
00:27:32,304 --> 00:27:34,065
And, yeah, and there's a huge tail stretching

752
00:27:34,065 --> 00:27:35,044
across the sky.

753
00:27:35,984 --> 00:27:36,804
It would be

754
00:27:37,105 --> 00:27:37,605
remarkable.

755
00:27:38,625 --> 00:27:39,125
Yeah.

756
00:27:39,505 --> 00:27:40,724
Definitely something else.

757
00:27:41,984 --> 00:27:45,009
And and what about fictional exoplanets, Keith? I

758
00:27:45,009 --> 00:27:46,789
mean, you've mentioned a few already.

759
00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:50,070
But is there, is there a favorite imaginary

760
00:27:50,369 --> 00:27:51,350
world of yours?

761
00:27:51,890 --> 00:27:53,350
Endor because of the Ewoks.

762
00:27:54,529 --> 00:27:55,269
No. Joking.

763
00:27:57,464 --> 00:27:59,065
I'll answer this from the scientific point of

764
00:27:59,065 --> 00:28:00,525
view of which ones I think

765
00:28:01,785 --> 00:28:03,785
have the most to say about science and

766
00:28:03,785 --> 00:28:05,625
which I found most interesting to write about

767
00:28:05,625 --> 00:28:07,724
in my book, Amazing World. So I mentioned

768
00:28:07,945 --> 00:28:09,085
Dune and Arrakis.

769
00:28:11,630 --> 00:28:12,930
Another planet was

770
00:28:13,470 --> 00:28:14,769
the world of Gethen,

771
00:28:15,150 --> 00:28:17,009
which was in Ursula K. Le Guin's,

772
00:28:18,349 --> 00:28:20,190
award winning novel, The Left Hand of Darkness

773
00:28:20,190 --> 00:28:21,570
from 1969.

774
00:28:21,950 --> 00:28:23,410
This is an icy planet

775
00:28:24,215 --> 00:28:24,715
with

776
00:28:25,575 --> 00:28:27,335
a habitable strip. So we're going back to

777
00:28:27,335 --> 00:28:29,335
the niches again. This habitable strip around the

778
00:28:29,335 --> 00:28:29,835
equator

779
00:28:30,295 --> 00:28:32,134
where, you know, it gets to five degrees,

780
00:28:32,134 --> 00:28:33,654
10 degrees. It's a bit chilly, but you

781
00:28:33,654 --> 00:28:35,015
can you can live there. And then it's

782
00:28:35,015 --> 00:28:37,095
just these huge ice caps that almost meet

783
00:28:37,095 --> 00:28:37,835
at the Equator.

784
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:39,900
And

785
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:42,380
in the novel,

786
00:28:42,839 --> 00:28:44,619
she suggests that

787
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:46,380
is connected

788
00:28:47,799 --> 00:28:49,019
to stellar activity.

789
00:28:49,559 --> 00:28:52,244
And she even refers to that the planet

790
00:28:52,244 --> 00:28:54,585
will always be like that because of volcanism,

791
00:28:55,125 --> 00:28:56,424
which is absolutely correct.

792
00:28:56,805 --> 00:28:58,265
Volcanoes act as

793
00:28:58,644 --> 00:28:58,884
Earth's,

794
00:29:01,285 --> 00:29:01,785
thermostat.

795
00:29:02,325 --> 00:29:04,644
You have the the the carbon silicate cycle.

796
00:29:04,644 --> 00:29:07,339
So as we know, to our detriment, carbon

797
00:29:07,339 --> 00:29:09,819
dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It warms the

798
00:29:09,819 --> 00:29:10,319
planet.

799
00:29:12,299 --> 00:29:15,119
At the moment, we're undergoing climate change through

800
00:29:15,740 --> 00:29:18,859
artificially dumping tons of of carbon dioxide and

801
00:29:18,859 --> 00:29:21,034
other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But, you

802
00:29:21,034 --> 00:29:23,274
know, it exists there naturally. And without it,

803
00:29:23,274 --> 00:29:24,255
Earth would freeze.

804
00:29:25,194 --> 00:29:27,054
I think, you know, the carbon gets cycled,

805
00:29:27,115 --> 00:29:28,414
it gets rained out,

806
00:29:28,714 --> 00:29:29,934
goes into the ocean,

807
00:29:30,474 --> 00:29:31,214
is incorporated

808
00:29:31,595 --> 00:29:34,075
into into life that that that dies, sinks

809
00:29:34,075 --> 00:29:35,700
to the bottom, the carbon gets,

810
00:29:36,740 --> 00:29:39,480
sequestrated into into, you know, in into

811
00:29:41,139 --> 00:29:41,720
the mantle,

812
00:29:42,579 --> 00:29:45,480
and eventually spat back out through volcanoes. So

813
00:29:45,700 --> 00:29:47,220
you go through periods where you've got a

814
00:29:47,220 --> 00:29:49,139
lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and

815
00:29:49,139 --> 00:29:51,000
not so much. And and that regulates

816
00:29:51,434 --> 00:29:51,934
climate

817
00:29:52,634 --> 00:29:54,794
over tens of thousands of years. That it's

818
00:29:54,794 --> 00:29:56,494
like our our planetary thermostat.

819
00:29:57,434 --> 00:29:58,335
So so

820
00:29:58,714 --> 00:30:00,875
Le Guin was absolutely right that, you know,

821
00:30:00,875 --> 00:30:01,774
that would eventually

822
00:30:02,474 --> 00:30:04,714
warm her planet of Gethin and and the

823
00:30:04,714 --> 00:30:05,934
ice caps would retreat.

824
00:30:06,980 --> 00:30:08,519
But what's interesting about it

825
00:30:08,980 --> 00:30:11,220
is Earth has also gone through what we

826
00:30:11,220 --> 00:30:13,880
call it snowball phases at least twice before.

827
00:30:14,580 --> 00:30:16,920
Almost the entire planet was covered in ice.

828
00:30:17,619 --> 00:30:19,539
Yeah. It didn't wipe out life clearly. We're

829
00:30:19,539 --> 00:30:20,279
still here.

830
00:30:20,855 --> 00:30:21,674
And we've

831
00:30:22,455 --> 00:30:25,015
research has shown that it's possible that even

832
00:30:25,015 --> 00:30:26,215
though the ice could reach all the way

833
00:30:26,215 --> 00:30:27,195
down to the Equator,

834
00:30:27,734 --> 00:30:30,375
atmospheric circulation may mean that there's certain areas

835
00:30:30,375 --> 00:30:32,375
that don't freeze over and remain habitable. So

836
00:30:32,375 --> 00:30:33,434
we, again, the niches.

837
00:30:34,230 --> 00:30:35,369
So I just thought

838
00:30:36,309 --> 00:30:38,009
Le Guin there was really,

839
00:30:40,630 --> 00:30:43,509
really smart in in in understanding what makes

840
00:30:43,509 --> 00:30:44,970
plan planets and climates

841
00:30:45,430 --> 00:30:45,930
tick.

842
00:30:48,444 --> 00:30:50,444
So, yeah, I really enjoyed reading about that

843
00:30:50,444 --> 00:30:52,204
planet and and and writing about it because

844
00:30:52,204 --> 00:30:53,184
it was so clever.

845
00:30:53,805 --> 00:30:55,484
Wow. Yeah. I mean, I think for me,

846
00:30:55,484 --> 00:30:56,785
you know, I think the

847
00:30:57,244 --> 00:30:59,644
going back to Star Trek, you know, I

848
00:30:59,644 --> 00:31:01,105
I grew up in the seventies,

849
00:31:01,450 --> 00:31:03,450
and there wasn't much on TV back then,

850
00:31:03,450 --> 00:31:05,210
but there are lots of repeats of Star

851
00:31:05,210 --> 00:31:05,710
Trek.

852
00:31:06,090 --> 00:31:06,490
And,

853
00:31:07,450 --> 00:31:09,769
I mean, almost every episode, they went down

854
00:31:09,769 --> 00:31:12,350
to a planet which, you know, looked suspiciously

855
00:31:12,730 --> 00:31:13,869
like Southern California.

856
00:31:14,634 --> 00:31:16,554
But the the one episode I think, you

857
00:31:16,554 --> 00:31:18,174
know, I think that really struck me,

858
00:31:18,634 --> 00:31:20,634
it was when they went to a a

859
00:31:20,634 --> 00:31:22,414
a planet that was being mined,

860
00:31:23,275 --> 00:31:25,855
and they they sort of encountered this

861
00:31:26,154 --> 00:31:26,519
this

862
00:31:28,039 --> 00:31:30,299
life form that was burrowing through

863
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:32,920
the rock. And, you know, it was,

864
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,660
what did they describe it as? A silicon

865
00:31:35,799 --> 00:31:37,259
based life form.

866
00:31:37,559 --> 00:31:39,640
And I thought, you know, I thought that

867
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,825
was really, you know, it it sort of

868
00:31:41,825 --> 00:31:43,825
dawned on me then that, yes, you know,

869
00:31:43,825 --> 00:31:45,744
you could of course, life here on Earth

870
00:31:45,744 --> 00:31:46,884
is carbon based,

871
00:31:47,744 --> 00:31:49,904
but maybe somewhere else there would be silicon

872
00:31:49,904 --> 00:31:50,404
based,

873
00:31:51,585 --> 00:31:52,065
life.

874
00:31:52,945 --> 00:31:55,525
I don't know why that really that really

875
00:31:56,019 --> 00:31:58,900
stuck with me. And, you know, I'll never

876
00:31:58,900 --> 00:32:00,200
forget a few years ago.

877
00:32:00,900 --> 00:32:03,619
Matin, my colleague, here on Physics World, he

878
00:32:03,619 --> 00:32:04,119
went

879
00:32:05,059 --> 00:32:05,559
down,

880
00:32:06,740 --> 00:32:08,440
a mine in Yorkshire,

881
00:32:08,974 --> 00:32:11,714
the Bulby Mine, where they're, detecting,

882
00:32:14,414 --> 00:32:14,914
doing

883
00:32:16,335 --> 00:32:18,414
some experiments. I I I don't quite know

884
00:32:18,414 --> 00:32:20,174
the details. But I remember, you know, sort

885
00:32:20,174 --> 00:32:21,934
of laughing to myself that, you know, I

886
00:32:21,934 --> 00:32:22,255
hope,

887
00:32:22,849 --> 00:32:25,509
I hope Bettine doesn't encounter a potash based

888
00:32:25,730 --> 00:32:28,070
life form because it was a potash mine.

889
00:32:28,130 --> 00:32:29,730
You know, it's it just shows that, you

890
00:32:29,730 --> 00:32:32,309
know, forty years later, the the whole concept

891
00:32:33,410 --> 00:32:35,410
of going down a mine and encountering a

892
00:32:35,410 --> 00:32:35,910
strange

893
00:32:36,404 --> 00:32:39,205
life form, stuck with me. So it is

894
00:32:39,285 --> 00:32:41,045
I think it is very powerful, you know,

895
00:32:41,045 --> 00:32:41,785
this idea,

896
00:32:42,325 --> 00:32:45,144
both in fiction and in fact, of imagining

897
00:32:45,525 --> 00:32:46,025
alternative

898
00:32:47,045 --> 00:32:47,545
existences.

899
00:32:47,924 --> 00:32:48,244
And,

900
00:32:49,170 --> 00:32:50,769
I mean, I suppose in a sense it

901
00:32:50,769 --> 00:32:53,570
it it probably can be very useful here

902
00:32:53,570 --> 00:32:55,269
on Earth as well because

903
00:32:56,049 --> 00:32:56,769
if you're,

904
00:32:57,490 --> 00:32:59,269
you know, I suppose the famous incident

905
00:32:59,809 --> 00:33:01,910
or incidents here on Earth is

906
00:33:03,404 --> 00:33:06,845
the discovering that in those vents deep in

907
00:33:06,845 --> 00:33:07,505
the ocean

908
00:33:07,884 --> 00:33:09,984
that there actually can be life.

909
00:33:10,365 --> 00:33:11,984
And, of course, if, you know,

910
00:33:12,365 --> 00:33:14,625
if you're a if you're a biologist

911
00:33:15,179 --> 00:33:17,500
decades ago, you probably wouldn't have believed that

912
00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:19,259
because you would have thought, well, we have

913
00:33:19,259 --> 00:33:21,259
to have sunlight and, you know, we can't

914
00:33:21,259 --> 00:33:22,879
have all these toxic chemicals

915
00:33:23,339 --> 00:33:25,440
spewing out of the Earth. Those would immediately

916
00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:26,319
kill things.

917
00:33:26,779 --> 00:33:28,639
So, you know, I can see how

918
00:33:29,605 --> 00:33:30,105
reading

919
00:33:30,484 --> 00:33:31,704
fiction about exoplanets

920
00:33:32,005 --> 00:33:34,825
and studying them, that that could really help,

921
00:33:36,804 --> 00:33:40,085
scientists beyond physics and astronomy to to understand

922
00:33:40,085 --> 00:33:41,304
the world around us.

923
00:33:42,299 --> 00:33:43,179
So, yeah, it's,

924
00:33:44,299 --> 00:33:47,440
hopefully, some scientists will read, you know, biologists

925
00:33:47,819 --> 00:33:50,720
read your book and maybe be inspired about

926
00:33:50,859 --> 00:33:52,240
their views on life.

927
00:33:52,779 --> 00:33:54,319
I I I certainly hope so.

928
00:33:55,214 --> 00:33:56,974
The the Bulbimine, yeah, that's that's where the,

929
00:33:57,295 --> 00:33:58,974
the dark matter experiment that that I think

930
00:33:58,974 --> 00:34:00,575
they're looking for dark matter particles there. But

931
00:34:00,575 --> 00:34:02,255
just going back to the Star Trek episode,

932
00:34:02,974 --> 00:34:04,414
so that was the episode Devil in the

933
00:34:04,414 --> 00:34:04,914
Dark.

934
00:34:05,375 --> 00:34:07,410
And the yeah. It was a silicon based

935
00:34:07,650 --> 00:34:09,410
life form that was protect it it was

936
00:34:09,410 --> 00:34:10,070
the mother,

937
00:34:10,449 --> 00:34:12,449
the species was called the Horta. The Horta.

938
00:34:12,449 --> 00:34:14,630
Yeah. And and the mother was protecting,

939
00:34:15,010 --> 00:34:17,170
her eggs. So all you know, they when

940
00:34:17,170 --> 00:34:18,769
they realized in the end that the mother

941
00:34:18,769 --> 00:34:20,945
was was was killing the miners and but

942
00:34:20,945 --> 00:34:23,025
when Kirk and Spark realized what was happening,

943
00:34:23,025 --> 00:34:24,244
they made peace and,

944
00:34:24,625 --> 00:34:26,465
and the the heart started doing the mining

945
00:34:26,465 --> 00:34:27,285
for the miners.

946
00:34:27,905 --> 00:34:29,925
But yeah. Yeah. Silicon based life,

947
00:34:30,945 --> 00:34:32,085
it's been talked about.

948
00:34:32,809 --> 00:34:34,750
I from what I understand,

949
00:34:35,690 --> 00:34:36,989
the problem with silicon

950
00:34:37,369 --> 00:34:38,909
based life is is

951
00:34:39,769 --> 00:34:41,949
partly that carbon bonds with with

952
00:34:42,889 --> 00:34:45,130
other atoms to create, you know, organic molecules

953
00:34:45,130 --> 00:34:48,125
a lot better than than silicon does. And

954
00:34:48,125 --> 00:34:48,945
the metabolism

955
00:34:50,364 --> 00:34:52,605
using silicon rather than carbon would be a

956
00:34:52,605 --> 00:34:53,344
lot slower,

957
00:34:53,804 --> 00:34:54,945
I believe.

958
00:34:56,284 --> 00:34:58,619
So whether silicon life could exist,

959
00:34:59,900 --> 00:35:01,360
you know, it's quite speculative.

960
00:35:01,660 --> 00:35:04,000
But it it does go to show that,

961
00:35:04,140 --> 00:35:05,900
you know, we're so obsessed with finding Earth

962
00:35:05,900 --> 00:35:07,900
like worlds that can support life as we

963
00:35:07,900 --> 00:35:08,559
know it.

964
00:35:09,180 --> 00:35:10,860
But how do we know that life as

965
00:35:10,860 --> 00:35:11,474
we know it

966
00:35:12,994 --> 00:35:14,994
isn't the rare kind of life and the

967
00:35:14,994 --> 00:35:16,835
life as we don't know it is the

968
00:35:16,835 --> 00:35:18,295
more common type of life?

969
00:35:18,675 --> 00:35:20,994
And should we be looking at other kinds

970
00:35:20,994 --> 00:35:23,474
of exoplanets that could possibly support different kinds

971
00:35:23,474 --> 00:35:26,035
of life? But it's it's very speculative and,

972
00:35:26,035 --> 00:35:28,070
you know, but that's where science fiction comes

973
00:35:28,070 --> 00:35:30,730
in in in suggesting these ideas. And,

974
00:35:31,349 --> 00:35:33,050
as you say, scientists can

975
00:35:33,590 --> 00:35:34,090
maybe

976
00:35:34,949 --> 00:35:36,710
follow-up on them. And and they have. There's

977
00:35:36,710 --> 00:35:39,289
been there's been papers written about various

978
00:35:39,844 --> 00:35:41,224
planets in science fiction,

979
00:35:43,045 --> 00:35:44,264
a lot about Dune.

980
00:35:45,444 --> 00:35:45,944
So

981
00:35:46,565 --> 00:35:48,585
I I I think there's a a symbiosis

982
00:35:48,804 --> 00:35:50,324
there. And it can definitely be used for

983
00:35:50,324 --> 00:35:51,304
outreach because,

984
00:35:51,929 --> 00:35:53,769
let's face it, most people most members of

985
00:35:53,769 --> 00:35:55,769
the public know about exoplanets from science fiction

986
00:35:55,769 --> 00:35:57,769
from watching Star Wars or Star Trek or

987
00:35:57,769 --> 00:35:58,269
Avatar.

988
00:35:59,289 --> 00:36:00,349
So it is

989
00:36:00,730 --> 00:36:03,929
a really good promotional tool for exoplanet research

990
00:36:03,929 --> 00:36:04,589
that maybe

991
00:36:05,105 --> 00:36:06,644
exoplanet scientists could

992
00:36:07,105 --> 00:36:08,405
make use of more often.

993
00:36:08,864 --> 00:36:10,005
And and you mentioned,

994
00:36:10,464 --> 00:36:13,025
you know, ex existing telescopes, and there's lots

995
00:36:13,025 --> 00:36:16,065
of or hopefully, lots of new telescopes going

996
00:36:16,065 --> 00:36:16,804
to be commissioned

997
00:36:17,369 --> 00:36:19,769
in the future. So, I mean, at some

998
00:36:19,769 --> 00:36:21,710
point, you know, we will

999
00:36:22,089 --> 00:36:25,049
see or hopefully see a smoking gun for

1000
00:36:25,049 --> 00:36:26,969
some sort of life. I mean, who knows

1001
00:36:26,969 --> 00:36:29,449
when when that'll happen. Do you do you

1002
00:36:29,449 --> 00:36:30,255
think that,

1003
00:36:30,654 --> 00:36:32,574
you know, when when when we've got that

1004
00:36:32,574 --> 00:36:35,634
peer reviewed paper about life on another planet,

1005
00:36:36,574 --> 00:36:39,214
is that gonna change our perception of our

1006
00:36:39,214 --> 00:36:39,714
place

1007
00:36:40,174 --> 00:36:40,994
in the universe?

1008
00:36:41,694 --> 00:36:44,414
Or may maybe that perception has changed already

1009
00:36:44,414 --> 00:36:47,339
or beginning to change because of these thousands

1010
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:48,139
of exoplanets

1011
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:49,900
that we've discovered already.

1012
00:36:50,839 --> 00:36:52,940
You know what? I surprised myself with

1013
00:36:53,559 --> 00:36:55,400
what I decided my answer was going to

1014
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,739
be to that. I don't think it will.

1015
00:36:58,839 --> 00:36:59,420
I think

1016
00:37:00,925 --> 00:37:03,085
I mean, chances are that any life we

1017
00:37:03,085 --> 00:37:04,545
find out there is gonna be microbial,

1018
00:37:05,405 --> 00:37:07,405
which isn't gonna excite anybody. It'll excite the

1019
00:37:07,405 --> 00:37:07,905
astrobiologists.

1020
00:37:09,484 --> 00:37:10,944
But, you know, that's not

1021
00:37:11,644 --> 00:37:13,800
not going to excite anybody, I don't think.

1022
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,280
If we found an earth like world, even

1023
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:17,800
if we couldn't tell whether there was actually

1024
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:18,699
life on it,

1025
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:21,800
again, it's so far away. We're not going

1026
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,960
to be able to go there. So, you

1027
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,199
know, after a few days of excitement, it's

1028
00:37:26,199 --> 00:37:27,960
gonna die down. People just gonna get on

1029
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:29,739
with their lives and forget about it.

1030
00:37:30,305 --> 00:37:32,065
There's even an argument that, you know, if

1031
00:37:32,065 --> 00:37:34,644
SETI discovered a radio signal from another

1032
00:37:35,825 --> 00:37:37,684
species light years away,

1033
00:37:39,025 --> 00:37:41,105
that that wouldn't change anything because of the

1034
00:37:41,105 --> 00:37:43,260
distance. Unless unless they give us

1035
00:37:43,820 --> 00:37:44,320
knowledge

1036
00:37:44,780 --> 00:37:47,360
and technology that we couldn't have otherwise.

1037
00:37:48,219 --> 00:37:50,219
I don't know whether it would affect everyday

1038
00:37:50,219 --> 00:37:52,380
life. And at the end of the day,

1039
00:37:52,380 --> 00:37:54,699
people are more concerned about, you know, putting

1040
00:37:54,699 --> 00:37:55,760
dinner on the table,

1041
00:37:56,184 --> 00:37:58,344
you know, paying bills and and just enjoying

1042
00:37:58,344 --> 00:38:00,105
their life. And I I don't I don't

1043
00:38:00,105 --> 00:38:00,605
think

1044
00:38:01,944 --> 00:38:03,545
I I, you know, I'd hope it would,

1045
00:38:03,545 --> 00:38:05,065
and it should do, but I don't think

1046
00:38:05,065 --> 00:38:07,244
it would have that great an an effect.

1047
00:38:08,390 --> 00:38:10,010
I guess what could

1048
00:38:11,269 --> 00:38:12,410
have an effect

1049
00:38:13,030 --> 00:38:14,390
is if we go back to the nineteen

1050
00:38:14,390 --> 00:38:16,869
sixties and the first pictures of Earth from

1051
00:38:16,869 --> 00:38:17,369
space,

1052
00:38:17,670 --> 00:38:19,510
had a huge effect on on, you know,

1053
00:38:19,510 --> 00:38:21,510
the environmental movement at the time. And if

1054
00:38:21,510 --> 00:38:24,105
you can imagine a similar picture of an

1055
00:38:24,105 --> 00:38:24,605
exoplanet

1056
00:38:24,905 --> 00:38:28,445
with oceans and continents and forests and clouds

1057
00:38:28,505 --> 00:38:30,605
and and maybe life as well,

1058
00:38:31,704 --> 00:38:33,485
I think that could have a big effect.

1059
00:38:33,945 --> 00:38:35,864
Yeah. Because I'm I I suppose the thing

1060
00:38:35,864 --> 00:38:36,925
is, in a way,

1061
00:38:37,369 --> 00:38:39,949
this I this it's a very deeply entrenched

1062
00:38:40,010 --> 00:38:41,230
idea in

1063
00:38:41,769 --> 00:38:44,650
in people's minds, isn't it, through I I

1064
00:38:44,650 --> 00:38:47,210
suppose through fiction and art to a certain

1065
00:38:47,210 --> 00:38:48,969
extent. You know, if you if you've watched

1066
00:38:48,969 --> 00:38:50,269
all the Star Wars films,

1067
00:38:50,744 --> 00:38:52,284
if you watch Star Trek,

1068
00:38:52,744 --> 00:38:54,585
if you've read, you know, a bit of

1069
00:38:54,585 --> 00:38:55,804
science fiction, then

1070
00:38:56,184 --> 00:38:57,724
the idea is there already,

1071
00:38:58,184 --> 00:39:00,284
and it, you know, it doesn't seem crazy.

1072
00:39:01,704 --> 00:39:02,444
And so

1073
00:39:03,224 --> 00:39:04,444
learning about it,

1074
00:39:04,984 --> 00:39:06,329
learning that it's true,

1075
00:39:06,809 --> 00:39:08,250
you know, that I I don't think that

1076
00:39:08,250 --> 00:39:10,090
would blow blow Pina's minds.

1077
00:39:10,570 --> 00:39:11,769
I think I think there's an easy way

1078
00:39:11,769 --> 00:39:13,530
to test this. There's a lot of people

1079
00:39:13,530 --> 00:39:15,769
who believe in UFOs. I don't. But there's

1080
00:39:15,769 --> 00:39:16,809
a lot of people who do. And, you

1081
00:39:16,809 --> 00:39:19,465
know, when whenever there's a a discovery about

1082
00:39:19,465 --> 00:39:20,045
a biosignature

1083
00:39:20,425 --> 00:39:22,105
or, you know, possibility of life on the

1084
00:39:22,105 --> 00:39:24,184
planet, you get loads of people saying, we

1085
00:39:24,184 --> 00:39:26,204
already knew about that. They're already here.

1086
00:39:27,144 --> 00:39:29,784
So has life changed for them? You know,

1087
00:39:29,784 --> 00:39:31,565
how has their view of of

1088
00:39:32,425 --> 00:39:33,960
life and the universe changed

1089
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,679
through thinking UFOs are real? I I don't

1090
00:39:36,679 --> 00:39:37,500
think it has.

1091
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,639
I find UFOs very unimaginative to be true

1092
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:42,219
truthful.

1093
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:45,000
And you can tell that it hasn't really

1094
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,460
changed their world view,

1095
00:39:46,839 --> 00:39:48,139
at least not for the better.

1096
00:39:48,775 --> 00:39:50,614
So I I I think that's quite an

1097
00:39:50,614 --> 00:39:52,934
interesting test case. We already have people who

1098
00:39:52,934 --> 00:39:54,775
are convinced there's alien life and that it's

1099
00:39:54,775 --> 00:39:56,375
here. And so how has it affected them?

1100
00:39:56,375 --> 00:39:57,195
And I don't

1101
00:39:58,054 --> 00:39:58,954
I don't think

1102
00:39:59,655 --> 00:40:01,409
it has too much other than just,

1103
00:40:02,609 --> 00:40:04,549
you know, making them believe there's big conspiracies.

1104
00:40:06,449 --> 00:40:08,449
Yeah. Well, I suppose that's the other problem,

1105
00:40:08,449 --> 00:40:09,250
isn't it? That,

1106
00:40:09,730 --> 00:40:11,650
you know, the way things are these days,

1107
00:40:12,049 --> 00:40:13,109
you know, the scientists

1108
00:40:13,409 --> 00:40:14,049
could announce,

1109
00:40:14,844 --> 00:40:16,844
that they found evidence for life and people

1110
00:40:16,844 --> 00:40:18,285
wouldn't believe them. But,

1111
00:40:19,805 --> 00:40:21,405
that's, you know, that's just the way the

1112
00:40:21,405 --> 00:40:23,565
modern world, or the world as it is

1113
00:40:23,565 --> 00:40:25,885
at the moment. Well thanks Keith, thanks so

1114
00:40:25,885 --> 00:40:26,605
much for,

1115
00:40:27,085 --> 00:40:29,265
coming on to the podcast and talking

1116
00:40:29,699 --> 00:40:32,359
about your book. And, I'll put a link

1117
00:40:32,579 --> 00:40:33,480
in the notes,

1118
00:40:34,099 --> 00:40:35,079
for the podcast,

1119
00:40:35,780 --> 00:40:36,599
to the book.

1120
00:40:36,980 --> 00:40:38,820
Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having

1121
00:40:38,820 --> 00:40:39,320
me.

1122
00:40:48,255 --> 00:40:50,175
I'm afraid that's all the time we have

1123
00:40:50,175 --> 00:40:51,074
for this episode.

1124
00:40:51,454 --> 00:40:54,755
Thanks to Keith Cooper for joining me today,

1125
00:40:55,054 --> 00:40:57,235
and a special thanks to our producer,

1126
00:40:57,614 --> 00:40:58,675
Fred Isles.

1127
00:40:59,269 --> 00:41:03,030
Keith's book is published by Reaction Books, and

1128
00:41:03,030 --> 00:41:03,769
it's called

1129
00:41:04,230 --> 00:41:08,650
Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact.

1130
00:41:09,269 --> 00:41:11,530
Look out for a link in the podcast

1131
00:41:11,829 --> 00:41:13,335
notes to the book.

1132
00:41:13,894 --> 00:41:15,755
We'll be back again next week.

1133
00:41:16,054 --> 00:41:16,954
See you then.