Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - I Went From Stonehenge to the SKA: 5,000 Years of Cosmic Curiosity In 45 minutes

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Starting point is 00:01:13 Who built it? Why did they build it? Nobody knows. It looks like it could be Easter Island, it could be something else. So we go over here. So this whole area is built in the Paleolithic, the Neolithic area. 5,000 years ago. Imagine being here 5,000 years ago. How did they build it? How do they put it up? How is it possible?

Starting point is 00:02:14 Maybe it was NASA. It could have been NASA that did it. So Stonehenge, what is it? Where does it come from? Did the Egyptians build it? 5,000 years ago? I mean, how could this possibly have been done? Let's walk around it. Let's get it to our ball and different angles of it. Beautiful time of day. Stonehenge, that silent city of stone on the Salisbury Plain in England. We see these magnificent structures and were instantly struck by a question that has echoed through the millennia. How did this possibly come to be? But before we But before we get to the how, let's just appreciate the what.

Starting point is 00:02:55 We're talking about stones that weigh as much as a fully grown humpback whale. The giant stones known as Sarsin stones were quarried from about 20 miles away. They're the heavyweights. But the real head scratcher, the blue stones. These smaller five-toned stones came all the way from the Presley Hills and whales. That's a journey of over 140 miles. Think about that. These ancient builders didn't have Amazon Prime.

Starting point is 00:03:25 They had grit, ingenuity, and we have to assume a lot of very sore backs. It's the ultimate prehistoric DIY project. And they didn't even have YouTube documentaries and tutorials like this one. So how did they do it? The truth is no one knows for sure. It's one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries. Right up there along with the pyramids and the Easter Island heads. But that doesn't stop us from making some very educated guesses with the help of modern science

Starting point is 00:04:00 and a bit of logic. Forget alien interventions, the real answer lies in human genius. The leading theories suggest a large combination of brute force and brilliant engineering. Were they rolling these giant behemoths on longs, hoisting them with massive A-frames and rope? Maybe they built enormous earthen ramps. There are some huge dunes and berms near buy, that some say are even more impressive than the stone structures themselves. Imagine trying to assemble the world's heaviest flat-packed furniture from IKEA, but your instructions are 5,000 years old and written in, well, nothing at all. The builders even carved woodworking joints, mortis and tenon, into the stone.

Starting point is 00:04:44 They were shaping the very bones of the earth with the precision of master carpenters. Bob Vila, take a back seat. It's a testament to the idea that with enough brain power, you can move mountains, or at least engineer parts of them. Now it's easy to get fixated on Stonehenge itself, but if you zoom out, you'll find it wasn't built in isolation. It was the spectacular centerpiece of a much larger sacred complex. The ancient motto seems to have been the same as your realtor today, location, location, location.

Starting point is 00:05:27 You have Avebury, a stone circle so vast it contains an entire village. You have Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, where the builders likely lived, feasted and celebrated, and probably put some Dones-medicated backpatches on their backs. At least, I hope they did. Then there's Silbury Hill, a man-made mountain of chalk, the purpose of which is still a mystery to this day. This wasn't just a monument. It was a thriving landscape, a Neolithic metropolitan area buzzing with activity for over a thousand years.

Starting point is 00:06:04 It tells us that the people who built Stonehenge weren't just building a structure. They were shaping a whole world. And why would someone want to shape the ancient world? Well, perhaps it was really a timepiece to help them find their place within the cosmos. This is where Stonehenge truly transcends from an impressive structure to a work of the sheer genius. The entire monument is a celestial calendar precisely aligned with the movements of the sun. On the summer solstice, the sun rises directly over the heel stone, flooding the central axis with light. On the winter solstice, it sets perfectly between the tallest

Starting point is 00:06:52 trillathon. It's a cosmic clock, a way to mark the passage of time, the changing of the seasons, important events, harvests, and perhaps even to predict eclipses. These ancient astronomers, without telescopes or computers or even Zoom meetings and slack messages understood the rhythms of the universe and encoded them in stone. They weren't just watching the stars. They were in a dialogue with them. And that conversation is when we're still trying to decipher. You might think that after 5,000 years Stonehenge would have given up all its secrets. You'd be wrong. The story is still being written. Today we're applying the full power of 21st century science to this ancient wonder. Ground penetrating radar reveals hidden structures beneath our feet. Geochemical analyses are rewriting

Starting point is 00:07:49 the story of where the stones come from. We've only just recently confirmed that the altar stone is from Scotland just this past year. Who knows what new technologies like muon tomography might bring to this ancient altar of stone? Every new discovery, every new technique brings us one step closer to understanding, not just how they built it, but why? Stonehen reminds us that there are still great mysteries waiting to be solved, written in the language of stone, time, and starlight. The universe is whispering its secrets and all we have to do is listen and maybe marvel at their ingenuity and the creation they made. Our journey continues. A simple train ride, just a couple hours from one part of England to another.

Starting point is 00:08:39 Roughly the same distance from the stone quarrying sites of Scotland and Wales to Stonehenge itself. But the real distance we're about to travel isn't ordinary at all. And it's not to be measured in miles, but in millennia. Now, the train is a time machine too. With every click of the rails, we're hurtling forward through time. 5,000 years of human history. A year every click. We're leaping past the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the rise and fall of empires, the Renaissance,

Starting point is 00:09:10 the Industrial Revolution, the Information Age, the Space Age, all of it. We're trading in the Stone Age for the Space Age. We have arrived at Jodril Bank. Here we no longer track the sun across the sky with stones. We listen for the whispers of cosmic creation itself. We'd gone from charting our nearest star to capturing the echoes of the Big Bang, from seeing the light to hearing in the darkness. The tools have changed, but the quest has not.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Astronomers, both modern and ancient, have the same exact curiosity. The same curiosity that inspired our ancestors to raise those stones back at Stonehenge now drives us to build these colossal dishes and ultra-cold telescope components. The desire to look up, to ask what's out there, and what's our place in it all? that's the timeless engine of human discovery. All right, here we are the famous Professor Lucio Picciarillo, former director, was a director? Yeah, I have been director for a brief period.

Starting point is 00:10:15 Now we're here at the Lovell. It's Lovell or Lowell? Lovel. Lovell telescope after going to Stone Hanish, you see come to a very different type of observatory. Much more modern? It's still pretty, pretty in sync with mankind's oldest desires.

Starting point is 00:10:32 Here we have some more scientists here. Well, for example, the CIA took it over. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And wasn't it used on the Apollo missions? Because no, it was used to truck the Sputnik. Ah, that's right. That was tracked.

Starting point is 00:10:44 So that was the only... This one? Yeah, the only antenna that could get the signal from the Sputnik. So they worked with the CIA? Well, that's what I've been told. That's the official. This was built 70 years ago. about 70 years ago. Wow, how it makes it a diameter? So it's 76 meter diamont 20 so a football pitch.

Starting point is 00:11:08 It's very very impressive. I mean the structure is still sound. Can you protate? Do they still use it for anything or is it just to display? No, no, this is working. They work most of the researchers in Pulsar. Oh yeah. And they are trying to detect avatational ways. Ah, from the Pulsar timing. Yeah. I know we have one of these. Voluccio's going to build this one. You can see a big bearing there. Yeah. The elevation bearing is part of a ship, the cannon, you know. Oh, a turret. Yeah, a turret all this all the camera. Wow. How long did it take to build here? Oh, he was uh,

Starting point is 00:11:49 the probably is written here. It was not long. I mean who was the founder and the So what he did after the war, he was one of the other people that actually worked on the radar. So he had a lot of equipment. He said, what do I do with this equipment? And so he said, okay, let's build a radio telescope. So they first tracked Spotneck to see if it was a, the father was a weapon, basically, right? It was just a radio trunes. See, yeah, it's like a little. They did. I met the man. I had, oh, he was a remarkable man. Remarkable. Maybe somebody? Yeah. Oh shit.

Starting point is 00:12:24 Yeah, the elevation the elevation turret. I mean the bearing of the air. Battleship, yeah. Yeah. So it could point 360, 180, you could flip over. Does it go all the way over or just up to 90 degrees? No, no, it does the full.

Starting point is 00:12:40 Well, you can see the thing goes full. Is that communication? So no, this one is actually trucking Kassay. And then it was used? Was it used? See, these Shareskoy use to monitor poles, especially crab poles, especially crab poles, so we use that talle for polarization for the Simon's Observatory.

Starting point is 00:12:57 I know. That's our calibration sources. So, 7 is the Mark 2 telescope, okay? E! It's the first one... It's completely automatic. And it's soft of the emeraldine, you know. Now tell me about S-K-A-L.

Starting point is 00:13:13 What is S-K-A? Here, come on this. Some kilometers right. S-K-A stands for square square. for square kilometer array. It's a century telescope whose aim is to get a one square kilometer collecting area, obviously with many, many dishes.

Starting point is 00:13:31 Oh, he's moving? No, it might be... That's my dover. No, I think they're preventing to move. Oh, okay. So you've been in there? Not, I have been up to there, not inside the... Inside the day.

Starting point is 00:13:46 Inside is only for... for the technical, the one that the service, man, yeah. Although I wanted to, brother. Yeah, I'm sure. I wanted, really. So you can see actually the access to the inside of the, you see the, you see some steps there.

Starting point is 00:14:03 You see? Yeah, that's that and then it goes into a door, then you can access the GD. You go all the way up here. There's a catwalk, it looks like, from that side. That's an interesting walk to do. Yeah, sure. In the winter, at night, with wind and yeah it's a nice day so anyway it's a it's a remarkable it's a remarkable dish

Starting point is 00:14:25 and they have machine shops here they yeah there is a machine show now you know all the scientists are in manchester here just the technical stuff running the tares was it always affiliated with manchester yes zara lowell was uh research well it's uh his base i don't know actually why it was given to the university of manchester but I think part of the funding. Certainly now, you know, Manchester is... There's a bribe. Paying.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Yeah, paying for it. Now there's another telescope here. That's a seven meter diameter telescope, a little bit bigger than the Simon's Observatory Telescope. Then there's a big telescope over there, and they're looking, that telescope just looks at a calibration source called the Crab Nebula or Taurus A. It's a polarized supernova remnant discovered in the year 1054.

Starting point is 00:15:18 in a milky white. In the center of it all is the crab's pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star. The pulsar has an incredibly strong magnetic field and rotates very fast. It produces a wind of energetic particles that we call a pulsar wind nebula. These thin bright lines trace the shape of the magnetic field around the pulsar. That was actually used for calibration for the Simon's array and the Simon's observatory. Yeah, the pulsar has a pulsar at the center of it, and it can detect it really easily. Now, when the first pulsars were discovered by my past guest, Jocelyn Bell Mernell. It's peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast.

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Starting point is 00:16:22 She thought that she had been seeing alien communication because the pulses are so regular, they come off from salt. No, it was a tongue-in-cheek nickname that I gave these things. We needed some sort of short name. You can't talk about, you know, that funny source we keep seeing at 1919 plus 23? Yeah, indeed. So I was, you know, ruminating, you know, last night as I was looking over your books and your work. And there's a wonderful short documentary about you in the New York Times from earlier this year. I will link to that in the video and text description.

Starting point is 00:16:58 But I was thinking you really did do something quite remarkable, perhaps for the first time in human history, which is that you use your brain to discover something, not just your eyes through a telescope. Because you made these first discovery of these objects, which we call you. call pulsars to this very day. And I was thinking about all the serendipitous things that had to come about for that to happen, the right wavelength, the right time, the right instrument. And I wonder if you can tell me, are you as fascinated by pulsars now as you were when you discovered them, you know, 54 years ago?

Starting point is 00:17:32 Just to backtrack slightly, I think we don't want to imply that nobody else has a brain. No, that's true. That they thought it was actually an alien communication. network that was coming in from space and that they couldn't detect. They were actually being, so they called the sources Little Green Men, LGM. Today they still look for aliens, but they haven't seen any yet. So the whole telescope tilts on the axis like this in the elevation and then rotates on this huge rail track in Azimum.

Starting point is 00:18:22 It's kind of about twice or three times the distance of Stonehenge. They're both used for astronomical purposes. We know more about this one, but it seems to be in even worse condition. That me. Stonehenge. So this huge rail system goes back and forth, and then it rotates on this other track system here. So this track system works perfectly. We're going to go get a tour of the inside.

Starting point is 00:18:51 All the computing takes place inside. They use massive computers to connect the telescope. And so what's going on with the Simon's observatory? What's being built here? Explain what's being built here. Oh, we have two sets. They build radio frequencies. That's 150 gigahertz and 90 gigahertz. That's where the sign be in the wireless. So we went for the peak around the peak of the CMB. And they're using kid detectors?

Starting point is 00:19:20 Instead of TES, yeah, you're using kids detectors. It's very different than this, right? Very different than that. What kind of detectors were inside of this? With the radio? Radio. Radio. What frequencies that are in opera in it? They're usually from 1 to 5 gigaers. 1 to 5 gigar, yeah. It's very low frequency.

Starting point is 00:19:37 But that's where the water line is, 14. That's when the old stars are detected. All stars were good. But now the actual array that she, the pulsar detection, she used a bunch of linear antennas, right? Or in a field somewhere, right? Yeah, about other districts like this, smaller, but no, this way, this way. And so...

Starting point is 00:20:00 Actually, the human being described by Simon Gavis. So we can, it will give you the proper data. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, the proper data. Perfect. Now we've come and explored a lot at Jadro Bank, but it still has many more secrets, including some of the most incredible

Starting point is 00:20:23 scientific components and contributions to the Simon's Observatory. That will enable us to achieve a wide range of science goals. We're going to see soon where this research takes place, but before we do, we want to take a deeper look in some of the most fascinating research conduct anywhere on Earth, and it's all taking place at Jodrell Bank. The United Kingdom received funding at an astonishing amount of over 20 million Great British

Starting point is 00:21:11 pounds, and that's going to be put to great use to enhance and upgrade the Simon's Observatory. What is known as the updated Simon's Observatory will have three SATs funded by the Simon's Foundation. It was originally called S-O-Nominal. Then, it will have two additional SATs, small aperture telescopes looking for the primordial beam mode polarization due to gravitational weights from inflation if inflation took place. Two of them are funded by the United Kingdom, built with different technology, including kids, kinetic inductance device detectors. Lastly, our colleagues in Japan are building a third set, which will operate at low frequencies to help guard against foreground contamination. This is funded entirely within Japan.

Starting point is 00:21:53 So we've got funding from three different continents to enable incredible scientific return. So the SATs started observing in late 2023 and will continue going through at least 2028, which time we'll switch over to the full contingent of six SATs plus the 30,000 or more detectors in the Simon's Observatory Large Aperture Telescope, which large as it is is much smaller than the level telescope shown here. We're the S-K-A, which is the largest radio telescope of Maine. They have different printouts. Asimic signal versus trai.

Starting point is 00:22:35 We need to go to the room. Wow, so this is the control room. Well, that is authentic. That's authentic when it's right. Yeah, opposition. This is Peter Timmy, past guest on the podcast. He's backlit, harb, and calling this direction. We're ready for your call it.

Starting point is 00:22:51 All right, so, Peter, remember your appearance on the podcast? You do a fan favorite. It's best guest, Father's Day episode. I think it was 2021. It's been a while since you've been in Wisconsin and spent your own days at the observatory and through the cold winter and so forth. But we're, yeah, we've passed into a new phase before the bugs have come. At first glance, this could be a plantation of Christmas trees in the Australian outback,

Starting point is 00:23:18 but you're looking at what some are calling one of humanity's biggest ever scientific endeavors. This is an artist's impression of what's known as the SKA Low Telescope, currently being built in Western Australia. It's one of two critical components that, when completed, will together form the S-K-A Observatory, or S-K-A-O. The second part is the S-K-A-Mid telescope, now under construction in South Africa. SKAO will consist of more than 130,000 antennas and almost 200 dishes across the two continents. That will make it the largest radio observatory in the world, promising to answer some of our biggest questions about the universe.

Starting point is 00:23:44 A.N.U.'s Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, who discovered a spiral arm of the Milky Way, and is chair of SkaO's Science and Engineering Advisory Committee. She says SkaO will enable science to take a giant leap forward. It's the chance to be able to see the very first stars in the universe of when those turned on and then everything from the very beginning to us here and looking at how planets form in our own galaxy. For that to happen, radio telescopes must be located a long way from other human-made transmissions, such as TV, radio and mobile phone signals, which can interfere with the relatively weak

Starting point is 00:24:11 radio waves coming from space. That makes this site on Wadjee Country ideal. It's already home to precursor telescopes like this one. The site itself is called in Yerimana Ilgari Boundera, the CSIRO-Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory, which translates to sharing sky and stars. The traditional owners agreed to host the science facilities on their land as part of a broader agreement that will ensure educational, social and economic benefits for community. And the benefits to society as a whole can't be overstated. Science Minister Ed Husek says SKAO's cutting-edge technology will expose Australian businesses to new skills and capabilities. We will see those changes flow on for generations to come. SKAO will also enhance Australia's growing space industry, with scientists

Starting point is 00:24:41 from around the world making regular use of the observatory. Some will even be on the lookout for intelligent extraterrestrial life. If an alien species were out there trying to reach out and say hello, by the time that radio signal got to Earth, it would have been so weak we wouldn't be able to detect it, says SKA Lowe telescope director Dr Sarah Pierce, but that changes. with SKAO. The observatory will start producing science before the end of the decade. So yeah, let's take a look. Now we're about to hear something fascinating.

Starting point is 00:25:05 The SKA is one of the most impressive and ambitious projects that humanity has ever devised, let alone in astronomy. Okay, yeah, we're all hearing. Okay, I'm doing. Welcome to the observatory. This is the Harby Observatory, this is the control room. Both the big lot of the telescope turns around 50 foot and a whole network of telescopes that we operate and trussed the pantry. We draw remotely but remotely operated but it can't even be here. You might need to run and click.

Starting point is 00:25:39 You've had a look at the telescope and outside already, I guess. You've been up there. So right now we're doing some painting on the telescope. You need to do some painting every year to try and keep it in a big condition. condition. It's been here since 1957. So remarkably fast project. So the telescope was conceived in 1950. So we had the moment of the meeting of the Royal Astronaut society where they said, okay, let's go ahead with this project in some form in February. By October, November, they had the whole steelwork design. And that was lucky because that was when Sputnik was launched, right?

Starting point is 00:26:23 Yeah, yeah. Well, this is 1950. Oh, in 1950, I think so it's like it's 70. So they had the whole design, so from sort of let's go, the whole design was six months. They started digging in spring 1952 and by 1957, it was to replete. So remarkably fast. What was amazing was also they changed the design of the telescope while they were building it. The original design didn't love by this.

Starting point is 00:26:52 was designed for much longer wavelengths so 8 meter wavelength with very coarse four inch mesh for the surface there's just a single girder between two towers like a grouch that is built by a bridge designer so it's just a single sort of beam between two towers and then radial ribs to support a mesh surface but but after they built the foundations and started to build the towers they completely changed the design realized they wanted to go to higher frequencies they wanted to 201 centimeter, so let's way one centimeter straight through, that stuff. And also the being the Minister of Defense said, could you make it work for a missile

Starting point is 00:27:32 track? And they made that suggestion, said, okay, that we need to make it much better performance that I agree with this is much better surfaces and then step back. Said, okay, you have some of our wind plans now. So the telescope decaying completely changed its design. So this is, you know, just guys with drawing tables and slide drawers, redesigning that in a matter of months, completely changed the design. But stuck to the schedule, eventually, and just, and then it ended up, because, twice as eight, four times the cost in bed wishes. So it was on schedule, as a factor of four or five under budget, which was a financial crisis at a time, as you say, what say did was split me.

Starting point is 00:28:17 Yeah. So just, you know, in the month that they finished it, the first satellite was launched. And this is one of the first things I did track the Sputovic satellite. It is not the satellite of a rock. So they got a relay that they put out 36 megahertz and then 100 degrees our rocks. And they got an echo on the Sput. Rock body, which was fully orbit separately from the Spuronic. So certainly it's built entirely for radio stormy.

Starting point is 00:28:41 Yeah. But had the second role in some space tracking activities in the other. Was it used at all during the Apollo, like communicate as a communication link or anything? link or anything else. Yeah, so actually this, so during the Apollo landing, the small telescope there, a small telescope on the roof tracked the Orlando and we have the Doppler signal as you see Armstrong taking the manual control in there as a Doppolis as it begins wiggling eye dot. But at the same time, so there's a Soviet mission landing on the moon at the same time.

Starting point is 00:29:13 Right. So lunar 15 was the Soviet sample return mission. It landed on crash to crash in the surface. Yeah. While they were, while Armstrong and Kerr were on the surface and moved. So we have, so we've got the recordings of them tracking that. So this was tracking the Soviet, sorry, it's a while, crashing into the new surface.

Starting point is 00:29:36 And so we have them, you know, and they realized straightway that we crashed. They haven't been successful life for which they could do it for, right. So yeah, so did that, um, so that was 69, you know, early in the 60s, it was. In the early in the 60s that we've intercepted signals from all the Soviet nuclear missions and space missions, which it was in their interest for us to do that. So it was in the Soviet interest to have a sort of independent capital of municipality verification, right, what they're doing. Nowadays there's a whole cohort of people online that don't believe the

Starting point is 00:30:09 moonlit, Apollo moon landing happened, but it's actually the Soviets that confirmed that the Americans did that. Yeah, there's certainly skepticism in the US. Yeah, in the US. It's good. Okay. Here it's just crop circles, right? That's the only thing that said.

Starting point is 00:30:21 So that was, you know, a small part of its time, obviously it was built entirely of science and continues to be used to science and still a front rank in some really. Most already does at the moment is pulsar tining. So it's, you know, one of these pulsar tining arrays. Yeah. Where we're getting a whole network to fox cells for a long king. Great. Shemorrh.

Starting point is 00:30:39 So a ray, that's a nanosecane residuals over. Do you know that? that works is nearing a detection, it's not a detection yet, but the combination was on when this was built where there's a knife cast a volatile scopes near here they've already established the site so it's like yeah so the site is established right after the war so indeed there was was May 1945 by July Lofall was here doing experiments but you was trying to get radar echoes from cosmic ray from the airspace

Starting point is 00:31:15 A few charge powers for all sunny star rampant who said try and get a very direct from that. He brought some equipment here who was no electricity in. No, no houses have electricity. He went to the garage. This garage where we used to get our car serviced just over the road. They have a little generator. So he hooked up his equipment to that generator, that go. And then late, and then that led to, so by December they came and set things up on this side, probably.

Starting point is 00:31:43 So they promised they used to use tenors. on a search line now and then they built this table two and you're sure in here but now it sounds this piece no it doesn't worth it and that problem test is a bit still you could up in right each from troglips first to be issued radiational radio mission from the galaxy we we got to about seven seven here and yeah so i've done certainly up there even done on radar stuff the seven degrees it was sal here and then then then

Starting point is 00:32:12 then the network of other telescopes are built me level happened ambitions for much bigger. Probably the Mastonikaa, so it would be 500 feet past. So 5 kilometers across. So you will see it there. Along this road and on the right you will see the... So with Wendul's just scrap the sabote area, perfect.

Starting point is 00:32:36 He had plans for a... that was... So this was the Mark 1. The Mark 2 is that elliptical over there. The Mark 3 was this... All these written down in 1910. 161. Mount 3 was like a Macaulano version of the market. Thank you very much for it.

Starting point is 00:32:51 Very well. Initially, thought having that on a rail track to do variable baseline in topometry and then thought about sighting ways. That was, they did a massive, and a lot of money on the feasibility of that had the full design, got a model of the design here. It was that the designer for that same designer as this, that was going, didn't believe in the principle of anthropology to make a you know a parabola that deformed but say it's a parabola and idea for if it's a third time of thing not all other tell us

Starting point is 00:33:23 going out so who's trying to build it as a rigid structure and it was just getting heavier and heavier and then having to be more richer and just getting bigger and bigger I became very expensive so it went and they had when they put in the final proposal for that they had sort of you know this if you don't fund this then over an envelope B and Envolute B was the plans for a network of telescope which became our human network of you know, so long-based network of you know, so long-based line fronters. So the same guys who were building and using this in the 1990, the late 1950s, developed long baseline informantries. So they were taking transports well antennas.

Starting point is 00:34:03 They're teakway to the next field, to the next village, across the country, connected back here with a radio. So not, not constrained by a cable connected in front. and a radio connected being a parameter. So, you know, they did one kilometer, four kilometers, 10 kilometers, 100 kilometers. So even by like 1950s or the 60s, they had pre-V-I, so real-time connected via radio and they, but 100km basically ends.

Starting point is 00:34:33 And with that they discovered compact sources, which weren't known as, you know, and that those positions were passed to the Caltech group We're using Palma to search for whatever they were, yeah, murder the Shire, and that became Quasos. Did these, it was that, those long baseline experiments, sending their latest results on the comfort options to count that could lead to, that this story requires us.

Starting point is 00:35:00 We have a time constraint for the SKA, sorry to interrupt. So I got a show the history, but I say, yeah, no, it's very weird. You know, I mean, emailing is the leading instrument for high-reservation, yeah, it was normally. Can we get an explanation of it or is they go? going to use it out. Probably. Can we get, can we take a look over there with us in?

Starting point is 00:35:17 Or do you have a quick explanation that you murder. Not of writing the moment because we're doing some main credits as we are on your time. So this is, this is 200 kilometers of separation of antennas. Can I hold that. So across the UK. So that gives us 50 million arc second resolution. So similar resolution to... Sorry, how many caliscopes are right?

Starting point is 00:35:37 So there's five other telescopes across the UK plus two telescopes here, so seven telescopes all seven telescopes all together. So yeah, that gives us a resolution of 50, 100 million arc seconds, same sort of resolution as the HST or web, a bit of radio waked lens. And that's a UK facility, international facility used by hundreds of scientists in the UK and around the world for everything from formation of planets, formation and evolution of stars, evolution of galaxies, even weed lensing for That's the longest baseline between the... 220 kilometres.

Starting point is 00:36:14 Wow. Okay. Yeah. And that's up north or south though? That's from actually from Cambridge or from... From Cambridge is the most distant one. Yeah. To one in Shropshire which is a bit south and to the west of. And two of those are offline or... Yeah, well we're doing maintenance at various telescopes at the moment because it's summer. We do, we do... So in the moment we're doing some painting of... So these ones, so knock in and...

Starting point is 00:36:40 To my ASE, PICMIR, they're similar to the VLA dishes, so they're 25 meter 80 foot, 35 foot dishes. Cambridge is 32 meters, so I respect. And this is tracking sources. This is the planetarium software here. That's, yeah, just so we can see where we're points. So we're not pointing in the moment because we're just doing some may turns. So no staff, any of those sites, all remotely operated from here. And then we have our own Optal Fiber network,

Starting point is 00:37:12 dial fiber network connecting those to a correlator here. So as much bandwidth as we want from those telescopes and then correlated in real time using a hardware correlator built it. It's analog and not digital or is digital? No, no, it's digitized at the telescope. Oh, and then sent by fiber. Yeah. But in the moment, well, we're just upgrading it to 100 gigabit network.

Starting point is 00:37:32 But at the moment, that's the sort of proprietary format of correlation here. Wow. When you need to build up your team to handle the the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more.

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Starting point is 00:38:14 Out until there. Famously sunny skies South Manchester We have had a very nice summer relatively recently So yes A little bit clearer during our visit Yeah so far

Starting point is 00:38:27 Anyway Hi my name's Keith Grange So I'll take you over to the SKA headquarters there But just on the way I'll point out this Radio telescope here And just actually really for comparison Because this is a 12.8 metre

Starting point is 00:38:44 diameter telescope So just bear that in mind when I tell you about what the SKA is going to be. So the SKA is a new radio telescope that's being built at the moment. And it has a slogan of three sites, two telescopes, one observatory. So this is one of the sites, the headquarters here. And then we've got two telescopes actually being. constructed at the moment in one in South Africa one in Australia and they're actually rather different telescopes I'll show you shortly hopefully well the two

Starting point is 00:39:31 different types of technologies there we go right so welcome to SKA headquarters so the the the Skaa is going to be an basically much the same as much the same as Simon's just been telling you about E Merlin and it's going to be made up of telescopes like this one here except that those are going to be 15 meter diameter so by comparison just a little bit bigger than the one you just saw out there the thing is though there's going to be 197 of these

Starting point is 00:40:13 scattered around in the Karoo Desert in South Africa Africa. And so the maximum baseline, so the maximum distance between any of those antennas, it's going to be 150 kilometers. And as Simon told you, that's what actually gives you the angular resolution, the resolving power to be able to actually pick out really fine detail in astrophysical sources. Also, if you have a look at this thing, you can see it's made up of panels of which this is an example here. So if you get yourself, I don't know, eight you or so of these panels and stick them together, then you will actually allow yourself to build one of those SK dishes. So these triangular panels are

Starting point is 00:41:03 basically shown in miniature there, almost as big as Peter. Yeah. So I think that this was taken off to, we recently had a summer science exhibition down in London. where people were invited to go and sign the thing, which is why it's quite so colourful. And I think this is also part of the display where you can actually find out wonderful facts about what the epoch of realisation is and things like that. So that's the telescope that's going to go down to South Africa. In Australia, we're going to have a rather different type of telescope, which is made up of this rather less prepossessing type of antenna like this.

Starting point is 00:41:49 This is a log periodic antenna. Okay. But the amazing thing about this is that in Australia, we're going to have 131,000 of these. So that's just a mind-boggling thing. The simulations of what this will look like are quite incredible. And now they've actually got, their best part of 8,000 of these things already deployed.

Starting point is 00:42:13 And they're in the outback. It's in a really deserted part of Australia just to the north of Perth. And in fact, the area that they've got has a longest baseline about 70 kilometres or so, and it's so deserted that the population in that area is about 21. So it's the size of the Netherlands with a population of 21. So we're really trying to get away from human habitation to try and get as little radio frequency interference as possible. And the difference between these two telescopes is this one's going to be looking at low frequencies,

Starting point is 00:42:57 so long wavelengths. So it's going to go from 50 megahertz all the way up to 350 megahertz. For realisation. Exactly, yes. Whereas those rather more traditional kind of dish telescopes, of which we have 197, those are going to go from 350 megahertz up to 15.5 gig. And so actually we span quite a huge range of frequencies which mean that there's a gigantic amount of science that you can do which are just to to illustrate that here's his his the SKA science case

Starting point is 00:43:34 Anybody want to feel the weight so this is a hundred and thirty five chapters worth of sign that was come up with back in Yeah, it's quite good. If you're ever looking for a Christmas present for someone, there you go. And it really does, the thing about the SKA is it really does have a really broad science remit. And so there's plenty of these kind of panels here showing the different science working groups of the SKA and the type of work they're going to have going on. The other thing, because I'm mindful of the fact that I've only got three minutes left,

Starting point is 00:44:17 just if you come this way, I always feel as though, although it's not actually anything to do with the signs, but it's quite nice to see. As long as they're not using it, we should have a quick peek into the council chamber. The council chamber. Okay, come on in. So, this is, this is for the sound. This is what you do. I mean, it always feels to me as though this is either the UN or you should have a stablo-blowfelt sitting here with a white cat. Kinds or that's a trokey guess. One million dollars will unleash the labour.

Starting point is 00:44:58 Exactly. And the other thing to say is this is quite an international experiment. Here's the flags of all the... Yes, you can now go and stand beside your favourite flag. So this is actually used regularly for local internal meetings. It's used for council meetings. We also actually get to as part of the University of Manchester to be able to borrow this every now and again.

Starting point is 00:45:29 So for, yeah, so for example, the symposium that happens often happens here. So that's a... Well, for a group meeting, it might be a little bit over-intimidating, but it's a night nice kind of thing to have available. And it is a, I really love working here because if you're in the middle of a really tedious Zoom meeting, you can just look out the window and you get a bit of inspiration for seeing the level telescope out there. So it's a very nice site to work at. From stone circles to great steel dishes. The tools have evolved, but the fundamental quest remains the same. We want to get to know our universe and how we fit into it.

Starting point is 00:46:14 Today we've taken a journey from the Stone Age to the Space Age to the S-K-A-A-A-A-A. We've mapped the hidden architecture of the solar system, gone beyond it to the local cosmos, looking at pulsars, the beating heartbeats from dead stars. But the quest will not end until we get back to the very first stars to ever form. That will come online soon with the square kilometer array. Soon we will be listening to the first sounds of the early cosmos, this earliest structures to form. The early cosmos remains a mystery, shrouded in what's called the Dark Ages, but they won't remain dark for much longer. Stay tuned next time for another

Starting point is 00:46:55 fascinating journey into the impossible with me, Brian Keating, the Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego, as we explore the cosmos bringing with it our insatiable curiosity. Click here for a video that I know you're going to love. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

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Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - I Went From Stonehenge to the SKA: 5,000 Years of Cosmic Curiosity In 45 minutes

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