The Supermassive Podcast - Colanders and is space a stew?

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

How many colanders can you fit in a field? In, yet another, bonus episode Izzie Clarke, @DrBecky and producer Richard Hollingham share their experiences of the eclipse. Plus is space a stew? Pocket universes, and how fit do you have to be to be an astronaut? For ad-free listening, join The Supermassive Club on Supporting Cast. Every paying member helps keep the show running, so thank you!  Here is the visualisation of space that Becky mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwgIjBUYVc Send us your astronomy attempts, questions (and nonsense!) to [e-mail], on Instagram at @supermassivepod or post in The Supermassive Club. The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production for the Royal Astronomical Society. The producers are Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark, astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst, and because Robert is still away, our producer and science journalist, Richard Hollinger. Thank you. You can see my shirt now, actually. Oh, yeah, you're going to show. Oh, you and your Artemis, yeah. Oh, you and your Artemis merch. I've got so much Artemis merch. I went a bit crazy.

It's always lovely to be here as a substitute. substitute host We are honored to have you here Yeah, yeah We send Robert all his love But we are honored to have Richard here too In producer mode I must just

We must just catch up with an Australian friend Chris Oh the people We said good day to Good day, yeah yeah So he's just sent me another email He says My apologies is a bit late To the gooday mate

podcast but I've just listened to it on a flight and very impressed with everyone's attempts, the cockney mixture of Izzy was very funny. Well done. So there you go. I'm so God. I think about it often.

I'm slightly worried about it. Die, second out of embarrassment again. And he's like, and that lives on YouTube. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Forever, easy. Yeah, forever. Yeah, forever. Yeah, welcome to my life.

All right, let's talk. Eclipses because we had a partial solar eclipse here in the UK two days ago as we filmed this podcast. It wasn't total, which I'm sure everyone was sad that they didn't fly to totality. Like everyone else they knew, or is that just me? I don't know. Oh my gosh. But it was so very impressive. Izzy, where did you see it?

I saw it in Hove and it was great. I got there. I did the very British thing of turning up quite early with a picnic blanket to claim my spot right on the pier. so I had a brilliant clear view because we were just above the beach. And it was amazing. I went with a couple of mates. And obviously I loved watching the partial eclipse. But what I also loved was just like the excitement from everyone around us.

The atmosphere was great. It was so nice. Where are you guys? I agree with you about the community. So I went just to a local common. We live in sort of Hertfordshire about 25 miles north of London or so. and it was just a spontaneous community event. You know, there were a few people there at first,

and then about 200 in the end, I reckon on the common. So I went with my neighbours, Graham and Yvonne. Graham has a C-star. So he captured the whole thing, and he'd worked out the maths of it so he could then condense it down to a four-minute little movie. So it was lovely to see it through that. There weren't enough glasses to go around,

so I had some spare, so I lent them to people. There were so, I'd never seen so many calendars. So was I. So was I. I've never seen so many cullanders in a field. But it was, no, it was lovely. And it was actually, I mean, I've been to, well, three total clipses, two of which I actually got to see. One was covered in cloud. And so there wasn't the wow moment. There wasn't that incredible moment you get, that no one's quite expecting when, you get that total eclipse. But it was incredibly impressive.

That, you know, the amount of the sun that was captured, there was a slight twilight, I felt. It was like a blue light. It wasn't golden. Because it was weird because it was so low down the sun when it was happening that it was almost golden out. But then it was more like a blue hour kind of light. Like shadows went weird and I was just like, oh, what?

It was so weird. Exactly. I was just like trying to be like, what is it? This isn't, it's kind of sunset. But it's like slightly darker. And I don't really. really well how are we describing it no it was lovely where were you Becky oh I was on what could be only described as the only hill in Oxfordshire um I we'd plan this for ages at me

because we were going to take a picnic just like you is and go play a more spot and we were going to stay out there for the Perseans and everything afterwards and I honestly thought I'd be the only person with this idea who do no car park was rammed it was like a tiny car park they'd have to like the people that own the like it's like a you know a earth trust it's called like place around us and like they literally were just like yeah we've created a spillover feel because we knew people would be here doing this and there must have been like like 500 people on this hill it's big hill but like there must have been 500 people and it was really fun like you said hearing like the community and there was so many colanders and so many pinhole cameras and like any way of

people projecting it and what I found really fun was just like a bit of people watching as well or like hearing people figure out how to like use the colander and like as someone who in the run up to the eclipse i put out so much content on youtube and instagram and ticot on like here's how to use a colander to like view the eclipse because i'd grabbed some footage like in the partial eclipse last march yeah so i still had it from then and i posted that and i heard people all around me going well i saw this thing on instagram or i saw this thing on ticot where he could use a colander and like you could hear people figuring out of it's not working it's not working and then like half an hour later they'd be like, oh, if you hold the paper further away, it would.

And I was like, yes, they figured it out. Because I was like, I could be that person that goes up and goes, excuse me, what you should do is you to do. And I was like, no, I'm just going to sit on my hand. I'm just going to enjoy the clips and just listen to people, figure it out themselves. They learn more that way. I was that person. There was a lady next to me who just had two pieces of paper,

so she's got a pinhole in one. Oh, nice. And one and just had a normal piece of paper. but she was holding them so close together and she was like, I just can't see anything she was getting really frustrated and I was like, I just subtly just went oh have you tried just holding it a bit further away

and then just like left it to it but again we were just sharing glasses with people there was a guy next to me who'd set up his camera with a really long sort of nature lens and had basically got some welding glass and configured a filter for the end of it. I wouldn't have trusted my mind.

like welding glasses to do that for my very expensive lens in the camera. But okay. I was just like, I was like, oh, okay. He got some lovely images. So let's see what his camera was saying the next day. There were some people in front of us that were like, I brought a welding helmet.

It's fine if you just sort of like look at it but move your head so it doesn't focus on any part of your eye. And I was like, oh, okay. Someone gave them some eclipse glasses in the end. It was fine. But it was very fun just hearing people's joy. Like when the first little nibble got taken out of By the Sun and then when people realised it was like reached maximum,

like there was people sort of like clapping and people were like, what are people clapping out? And I was like, this is the maximum guy. This is the best it's going to get. I'd so enjoy it. Yeah. I should mention, we had an email as well sort of during the eclipse from two listeners, Clemens and Claudia,

who had trekked up a mountain in Spain and it's quite a depressing image. of just cloud. So I'd love to... It's a lovely. They do look really great. They look, but they don't look happy. So I know to email them back and find out. Hopefully we still experienced the darkness, right?

Yeah. Because I saw a lot of footage of people like in, like in Iceland, where it was cloudy. But they still got that moment where they were plunged into totality and everything just went really dark like immediate night time. So even though it was cloudy, you sort of got that experience still, even though you could necessarily see Corona or anything. that during totality. I will ping them an email back and we'll get an update next time of how they get on.

We should also mention Robert, Robert Basset, who's the day he came out of hospital for quite a serious, a serious operation. He's fine, he's fine, but quite a serious operation. He is pictured on Facebook on top of a hill with a telescope. I did see standing just like looking through a telescope like, Robert, should. Can you be resting? Yeah. Like I'll allow you to look through it, but you should be sat down. No, but also, I think it was just one of my perhaps actually all-time favorite evenings

of stargazing because we watched the eclipse. Then me and my friends went for a swim, went back to hers for some pasta, and then regrouped, changed up, layered up, and then went over to the ditching beacon. to then watch the Persians. And that in itself was lovely because that's where people really were cheering every time a shooting star meeting went past. There was a lot of people.

There was so cool. And so again it was like a really nice. Because the hell like emptied out. And we were like the only people left. I couldn't believe it. There were cars like we got that like half ten. People, the traffic going up. We're like, okay, this is a party.

Everyone needs to turn the lights off. I know. I was just like, my eyes need 20 minutes to adjust, please. I'm like, I'm a pedant. I am actually a stargazing pedant and it's fine. That's so cool, though. You had like a group of you for it. That sounds amazing.

There were loads of kids just like cheering every time the sky lit up. It was just really lovely. So I was just like, okay. I love how you said you took layers. It was like 30 odd degrees here. And somewhere down. I was thinking that. I was like, I was in, like, we watched it.

We watched it for a bit on the hill, and then we came home and watched it some more, and I literally were sat outside in my pajamas. Really? I had a half 11 at night. I had a light trouser and a little zippy jacket. Well, fashion on the supermassive podcast. But yeah, the Perseos was so cool. Did you see, I saw about, like, we did that classic thing where it was like nothing for 10 minutes,

and we were like, what? And then like five came along at once, and they were like all fireballs, like close to being fireballs. And they left like big green streaks after them as well. The green was so cool. or I it was it was yeah I was just amazed to be really honest I hadn't seen a shower like that so just like such a good shower really in kind of years because I just hadn't made the effort I was lazy astronomer I just hadn't made the effort to get to somewhere properly properly dark and when you do you're like okay I'm never making that mistake ever again like you have to

do that every time but I mean like you say like you lazy like for all the meteor showers like when it's like, there's less of them or like, oh, there's going to be a moon. Like, fine. But like, it was just, it was just the perfect. Conditions. You know, just, it was all aligned. The heat wave, I'm annoyed by and I'm like,

this is the first one now and I kind of boarded this weather. But if it means that I could lie out and watch the Percy, it's, you know, in just shorts and a t-shirt, then amazing. In a new moon. Yes, please. Yeah. Okay, so let's get on to some questions. Becky, the first one is for you from Isabella,

who has sent us quite a lot, so we're going to go with this one. Okay, cool. And she says, I know that the fabric of space isn't really flat at all. To try to fathom it, I've considered space to be like a stew

and all of the planets and stars and asteroids to be like potatoes floating around in the soup, with little bubbles of gravity warping the soup around them like air bubbles. Is this a viable way to consider the shape of space time without breaking your brain, or is there some special nuance that cannot be simplified into food.

Yeah, this is a very well-known problem is the fact that when we try and visualize like what Einstein said, you know, in his theory of relativity, about heavy objects curving space and that's what gives us gravity, is that our sort of like, I don't know, I default to like the classic trampoline,

put something heavy on it and it bends, right? It's two dimensions. Yeah. And there's so many problems with that analogy, right? Because also the reason that the trampoline is bending when you put the heavy object on it is because of gravity anyway, so it doesn't, it's not perfect. We know it's not perfect, right?

So I haven't found a good way of doing this in 3D. Okay. And I don't think that's my fault. I think that that is because we just don't have a good way of visualising this. I've seen on YouTube and I can't remember who this is, so I will find the video and we will link it in the show notes in the video description, whatever it might be now, because we're on YouTube too, where someone did visualize this as like a heavy object and you've got

like a 3D grid and the grid is warping around it. Okay. I also think there's an excellent thing where someone, do you remember we talked about the coffee table that someone made once as well about those blocks? That was almost weirdly the best way to like visualize what was going on in three dimensions because you could see sort of the blocks of wood

that were acting like the grid get really sort of like warped through the coffee table that this person made that was like a black hole coffee table. I also think back to, I know, your favorite, interstellar. Can we use that at least as a little starting point of the black hole? Oh, you mean gargantuan in a stellar? Just like the bending of light around it. But again, that's a 2D screen as well that you're viewing it on, right? Any sort of film is you're projecting 3D to 2D.

So I don't think there is a bit. Basically, I think the answer is no. I think trying to picture this is very difficult. It's the same for like the expanding universe as well. It's very difficult to picture it because people say, what are you're expanding into? and you're like, well, we don't, there's nothing beyond the universe. Like as far as we know, it's just expanding.

Maybe a higher dimension. And then people go, well, how do I picture that? And you say, well, you picture a sphere expanding. The sphere is, you know, to us on the surface of the sphere in two dimensions, we can only walk around two dimensions of the sphere. The surface area that you can walk across is expanding, but the sphere is expanding in three dimensions in a dimension that you can't see if you're on the surface of the sphere.

So that's like the closest I could get. But then, yeah. I've also just gone to the fact that this is about soup. And so now I'm just picturing a sphere of soup. Like, hang on a sec. Yeah, also what this question's done is really made me want stew. And they need to be cold enough. I mean, to eat stew.

It's if I eat stew now in this heat wave, I would absolutely melt. Okay. Oh, well, thanks for trying. I'm ready for some hoa hoa weather for any of you guys that reference. Okay. And Richard Luca has this question on Instagram and says, how long would it take a normal?

person to be able to fly in space? I think this is a great question because if you go back to the dawn of the space age, people thought, people were really worried about what would happen to the human body in space. So there were literally descriptions that the brain would kind of turn to jelly, that the heart would stop, digestion would get all messed up. And that's why they put these astronauts through these horrendous tests and subjected them to these extraordinary G-forces. They probed every bit of their body. They took blood samples. They took all sorts of other samples from them. They were really concerned about when they put the first astronaut in space, what would happen. Now, frankly, you're going to get the same sort of G forces and the same sort of experience in a

SpaceX rocket as you would on a kind of high-end roller coaster. So if you can... How high-end roller coaster? Yeah. Well, okay. One of the more extreme... We're not talking about rage. Okay. One of the more extreme. So you're going to do, Richard's out. One of the more extreme rollercoasters. So as long as you pass the height limit to get on a roller coaster,

you could get into a SpaceX rocket. I would say my advice would be don't touch anything. So as long as you don't touch anything, don't touch the screens or anything, if you can just sit there in your spacesuit, you'll be absolutely fine. I mean, you will need about $60 million to do that. Right.

And I mean, there was a, I mean, there's a, I mean, it's not. I mean, I suppose there's... Also, I don't think I have the self-will to not touch any. The touch, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there is this more serious point underlying this.

Yes, anyone in theory could go into space. The physical constraints now, there really aren't many. You know, you can be, as long as you're reasonably fit, you can go into space. All the training really is that it's an incredibly dangerous environment, as we keep talking about on the podcast. And, you know, if anything goes wrong, that's where the training. that's where the training kicks in. Also, you want to be useful there. You know, I mean, what's the point of going up there and just looking out the window?

You know, you want to be trained to do some experiments or do some stuff, do something useful, useful when you're there. But yeah, $60 million. Buy yourself a seat and a SpaceX. Off you go. Fine. I feel like also a lot of the training is for them to like listen to instructions and take those instructions and actually be like, I'm the kind of person.

They're like, no, no, that's logical. I'm going to do it this way. And they're like, no, no, no, no. we don't want you going off script in space. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting with the selection when you talk to astronauts that they say that now almost sort of 80% of selection process is about teamwork. It's about quick thinking. It's about reacting under pressure, about problem solving, all those sorts of things,

rather than that physical. You know, there's some physical things. That's why we now have para astronauts as well, right? But, well, that was going to be my question. Is the assumption here that someone's not living with the physical disability? Yeah, yeah, because, I mean, actually, well, legs, for example, pretty useless in space. You don't really need legs. Luca Palmatano, the Italian astronaut, interviewed him once.

He was talking about having genetically engineered astronauts in the future. Because actually, he said it would be more useful, and I'm not sure I don't want to picture this, but be more useful to have four arms rather than two arms and two legs in space. So you need, who is the guy? You need my left foot. You need to send him to space. You know the film with Daniel Day Lewis

where he paints with its light feet? Yeah, yeah. You need, but my brain went, you need dexterous toes. Yes, which is suddenly making an astronaut seem less and less appealing. People fly with their feet out. I'm like, so I actually think that is the line for me. So I wonder whether, so I was talking about para-astronaut,

before it, John McFall John McFall, yeah. British, you know, you're in the new, Easter astronauts. So he has, below the knee amputation. That's right, yeah.

So it would be really interesting to think when you said, Luca Parmatano said it'd be more useful to have four arms than two arms and two legs. I wonder if he can like replace his, um, his prosthetic with, instead of like a foot that he would need on earth.

If he went to space, could he replace it with something. Useful. You know, you could like grab or, you know, and like there's like a lever that he can pull all, with, you know, amazing.

Because he was an athlete, so he had all the blades and all he has lots of different limbs that he can fit in. And a doctor, can we just say, total overachiever. Like, I love the human being as well. They all are. I mean, you either need to be a billionaire or be a total overachiever and brilliant to everything. You know, it is quite limited becoming an astronaut. What happens if you are neither? I've just checked it up.

Sorry, it's amputated above the knee. Sorry. I want to get that right. Yeah. So, yeah, you end up making podcasts about it. Yes. There you go. Also, am I right in thinking that you, all astronauts have their appendix removed?

No. No. Oh, is that in case to get appendicit in space? Yeah, because my cousin son had his, obviously, he's like a little boy, he's five. And the doctor said to him was like, well, you can go into space now. I was like, I need to speak to with Richard. I mean, obviously I know I could Google it myself. I think it's Richard.

That's just what they tell little kids to be. Yeah, yeah. But I kind of wish it was a thing. I really wish it was true. Not as far as I don't, as far as I know, that's never, that's never happened. But because there's also concern that if you do surgery or something, you end up with a scar and scar tissue. So that could potentially be more, more dangerous. But yeah, I mean, you can get back from space pretty soon.

They can do appendicit. They can do a keyhole these days, right? Yeah, there's a whole, there's a whole thing about. surgery in space. Surgery on the moon might be possible. Surgery in space, they've done experiments and they get really messy really quickly. Also, you've got, you can't create, it's very difficult to create a clean area around the wound because, you know, if you think about it in an operating theatre, all the bacteria essentially with gravity, you just dropped to the ground. So as long as you've got a sterile wound area, you're absolutely fine. But in space, your bacteria are floating all the way

around. So trying to keep the wound sterile, trying to do any sort of surgery on a space station. So I won't go into the details, but they have done experiments, some animal experiments in the US in zero G flights and it wasn't very nice. Oh, okay. So, so, so, so, so, so, but. Oh, no, no, no, so. But for the moon and Mars, that, that might well be possible. But they're going to have to think about that. So. So in Antarctica, for example, which is the, you know, the closest we get, the Concordia base, the European Space Agency operator Concordia base in Antarctica, completely cut off in winter.

So they actually have two medical doctors there. One is a surgeon. So if they need to do surgery like that, like a removal of appendix or anything like that, they can do it. Because they're completely isolated. That would be one of like the most bacteria clear fields. Well, absolutely. Yeah. I was like, are we worried now?

Poxomize on it. Yeah. So sorry, Luca, that your question took a bit. ever turn there but I think we're okay we're back on China I enjoyed the rabbit warren that we I love that we can go on these tangents

in the very same. Yes exactly. Okay and Becky this is from Michael in the US who also sent us some wonderful night sky images including a wind farm under a stunning night sky who says hello supermassive podcast team first off

I just wanted to say how much I I enjoy the podcast. It has reinvigorated my love of astronomy so much so that I'm currently taking some free online courses to brush up on mathematics to learn some programming with the intention of going back to college to pursue a degree in astrophysics. Yes, Michael. We love to hear it. We love that. That's so cool. I hope everyone is inspired by Michael as well doing that.

Oh, yeah. I just think there's never too late for a little change. No, too late. Anyways, I recently finished Dr. Katie Mac's book, The End of Everything. astrophysically speaking. Great book. So good. And had a question on the pocket universe theory. As the theory goes, the rapid expansion at the beginning allowed for numerous individual pocket universes to form. Would this imply that inflation is eternal and that there are still parts of

the grander universe that are the hot, dense, quark glue-on sloop. Oh, no. Sloop. Sloop. I like that word. It's fine. I'm going to go again on that. Hot dense quark, glue on sloop. Sloop. Eagerly waiting for their chance to form their own universe. I got, I got so excited by sloop.

I got even another question. Say the question again. Say that again. Would this imply that internal, would this imply that inflation is eternal and that there are still parts of the grander universe that are the hot, dense, quark, glue on soup, eagerly waiting for their chance.

to form their own universe. Right. Thank you. Gosh, here we go. I feel like I should have expected this kind of detailed question from someone going back to do a PhD in after physics very soon. Who do I blame? Michael or Katie?

I'm not sure. So this question is possibly a whole graduate level lecture course, but I will try and distill it down. So in like the early minuscule fractions of a second of a universe, we had this process called inflation, right? Where we had this insanely rapid expansion of the universe from something infotessently small to huge. It's why everything looks the same in all directions that you look in now, we think, right? So you might ask the question, okay, well then why isn't the universe still going

through inflation? It's expanding, but inflation is like, you know, an extreme version of that. Well, either it stopped shortly after it started. And one theoretical prediction says if that happened and it stopped at different rates in different parts of the universe, that could like pinch off a bit of space time and create a little pocket universe that's separate from the rest. And like, there's no communication between those two areas of space. Or the other option is that inflation never stopped and that that inflation, you know, expanding ended up faster than space could keep up with. And again, that meant meant that you end up with like little pockets of space pinching off to create these pocket universes. In that scenario, we are then in a pocket universe.

Okay. So Michael, back to your question. Whether there are still parts then of this sort of multiverse of universe is still in that dense early phase that we think of as the very early universe, that hot dense sloop soup. Probably not, no. So either in the first case where you've got like little pockets of the universe that have broke off as inflation stops,

they're likely just full of like vacuum energy. So just nothing going on, you know. Not much. There are. Not much to say, but whatever. Not much to say about it. In the latter case, where you have this eternal inflation, and we're just like in a pocket universe,

in the pocket universe, is you dump all that vacuum energy into making particles and radiation and everything that we then see around us. And the rest of the multiverse of universes is the pure vacuum energy extending forever, getting more and more spread out. So there's no, you know, energy is getting more and more spread out. So there's none of this hot dense soup.

So that's my graduate level course, condensed into about two minutes for you. If you want more, I think you're already on the right path, Michael, if you're going back to do a PhD at some point, and the rest of you can all go and close your eyes and rest your brains for it. Will you get any credits for that? Depends.

I need to set him some homework, don't I? I have to come back and then need you some credit. Draw us your best picture of space. Oh, no, we've just learned from Isabella's question. Isabel's question that we can't do that. It's 2D representations of space. They don't work. Draws your best 3D

representative. Oh, that would be great. We should do that. Also, why is there so much soup references? Soup potatoes. Yeah, pasta. Everyone's just really craving, like, cold weather and stew time. We're all going crazy in the heat.

It's not rained for like 50 days. Do please keep sending your questions to podcast. at ras.ac.ac.uk. We always love to read them. We read them all. They don't always make the cut. There's some, there's been a lot recently about potatoes, but there's been some really smart. There's some really smart questions. We do read them or we enjoy them a lot. We love seeing your pictures. Oh, there was a really, yes, we need to unpick. There's an email about that, which I need to unpick a little bit. And there's the YouTube comments as well have, love it. Yeah. So, yeah, you can.

can, you know, join the gang. You can find us on Instagram at Supermassive Pod post on the Supermassive Clubs forum for ad-free listeners. And then also, where are we? We're on YouTube as well. You can watch us. So yeah, all of you above.

We had Pip in last week's episode. Where is she now? Probably under the kitchen table being like, why is the heating on so high, guys? Turn the heat down. She's got such a fluffy fur coat. I enjoyed the Supermassive Pip comments in the...

Yeah, she's got her own fan club growing. Yeah, love it. Love it. Anyway, we'll be back in a few weeks' time with that episode on antimatter that you promised as is. I promise. I promise it.

This is going to happen. Oh God, I've said it now. Because I don't get to, like, think about antimatter in my, like, everyday research. So talking about antimatter feels weirdly separate from, like, the day job, and I'm so excited. Yeah, yeah.

But until that episode, happy stargazing.