The Unmade Podcast - 157: Personal Stuff

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Tim and Brady discuss Peter Haran (1948-2025), a new licence plate, a very special asteroid, and things named after people.Catch the bonus Request Room episode when it is uploaded - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFMJoin the discussion of this episode on our subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/Unmade_Podcast/Catch the podcast on YouTube where we often include accompanying videos and pictures - https://www.youtube.com/@unmadepodcastUSEFUL LINKSPeter Haran - https://www.bradyharanblog.com/blog/peter-haran-1948-2025Brady’s videos with Peter - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLky6yurD40o4ul8xen0x-BKBKCCkMpgrDTim’s licence plate pic gallery - https://www.unmade.fm/episode-157-picturesPlus see a video of it being attached in the YouTube version of this episode - https://www.youtube.com/@unmadepodcastAsteroid 46925 Bradyharan - https://www.bradyharanblog.com/blog/an-asteroid-named-bradyharanBrady’s video about the asteroid - https://youtu.be/VLLrHQVMx64Catch the bonus Request Room episode - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFMInformation about getting the Request Room into your podcast feed (for patrons) - https://bit.ly/3uQWhNz

Hey everyone, sorry if the audio is a little bit off in today's episode. It was recorded under unusual circumstances as you'll soon find out. Also, if you go to our YouTube channel there'll be a version of this podcast with lots of pictures and videos to illustrate all the various things we talk about. I think it could be a really interesting way to absorb the episode if you Difference today. It's going to be quite a personal episode, a few personal things, particularly in my life but a bit in Tim's life as well. And then we'll have a bit of fun at the end with the podcast idea.

Things are going to start a little bit serious, a little bit somber, but things will lighten up and we'll try to keep you smiling. I'm in Australia, I'm in Tim's office right now and the reason for that is that my father passed away about a week ago. He passed peacefully, it was not a surprise, he'd been sick for a while, I'd come and visited him previously, but a sad moment in my life. My personal life is not something I endeavored to go into in great length in my work, but the podcast obviously blurs those lines.

We talk about Tim's dad all the time. We've talked about my dad. I made videos with my dad that I've put on YouTube. So I feel like there is a kind of blurring of the lines between public and personal and it was something that should be at least mentioned and marked and commemorated on the podcast. Well man I absolutely agree. He was something of a legendary figure in his own right wasn't he? He was, he was. Peter Haran's his name?

Yes, Peter Haran. I'll do a very quick biography for you. All this is fresh in my mind from delivering his eulogy just a couple of days ago. He was born in 1948 in Birmingham in England. He spent his childhood in Rhodesia in Africa, which is now called Zimbabwe. He had a very adventurous and fun childhood with lions and elephants and Victoria foals and things like that. He was in Rhodesia by the way because his father was a builder and wanted to sort of seek opportunity there. His father was Irish, his mother was English. Oh, his father was Irish. He was an Irishman from Sligo, a county in Ireland.

Of course, because you went to Ireland many years ago, tracing your roots. I did, I did. I tracked all that down. They moved back to England, but it was so freezing cold they left and went to Australia. When he graduated from high school, my dad spent six years in the army. Not a lot of people realised the Australian forces served in the Vietnam War. My dad did two tours of Vietnam. The most memorable thing about that, well, you know, besides the fact he was fighting in a war, was that he was a dog tracker. So he spent his experience in the war, in the first tour at least, with a dog called Caesar that became like his best buddy and had all sorts of amazing

tales and scrapes and my dad wrote a very successful book about that called Trackers, his experience with the dog in the war. After he left the army my dad became a journalist and he was a newspaper journalist for many, many years. Mainly sort of a crime reporter, crime journalist. Did lots of other things, feature writing and things like that. He was in the game for a long time and was a bit of a legendary figure in South Australian media. Retired, had a happy retirement, doing all sorts of things. Art, a lot of more books about the war, worked

at a war museum, was a radio DJ, did a bit of everything and died the day before his 77th birthday. He was 76 years old. I know we've talked before about my fascination with people dying on their birthday and for a moment there I thought maybe my dad was going to join that exclusive club. Yes. But he fell a day short. We loved him very much. He was so important to all of us as a family and if you want to see him in action I went to Vietnam with him and made some videos. I've talked about them before. I'll link to them. You can go and watch them. I am now in Australia. We've just had his funeral a couple of days ago. He was good friends with Tim, obviously through

me, but in his own right. Tim was a friend of my dad's. Tim went and saw him a few times in his final months and Tim presided over the funeral for the family, which we appreciated very much and did a magnificent job. Tim was the, led the service, which makes me realise my dad's funeral was something of an unmade podcast because both you and I were speakers at it. Oh indeed, that's right, yes. So yeah, but it was a great day. It was a great send off.

Obviously, I'm sad to have lost him, but overjoyed to have had him and I'm really pleased with the farewell we've just given him. So thank you for indulging me a little bit here on the podcast and letting everyone know that sad news. Oh, that's not at all, man. And I'm sure everyone joins in sending their condolences and sensing their condolences and thoughts with you. Look, I was thinking just as you were speaking about when I first met your father. And it's weird when you're a school student, the parents hover around and they come to events, but I think the first crystallized moment I have

is when we went and saw a film. I can't remember what the first film was, but of course, as I think we've mentioned before, because he was a film reviewer for the Sunday Mail newspaper, we got to go to these previews. And going along to one of those with you and him, I thought was like going to a Hollywood premiere. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. No one else in the cinema but us and getting to see the film before it came out for free.

Like all of those things were just like blew my mind. And so going along, but having that time beforehand where we'd grab a bit of dinner, be in the car with him, and then I'd listen to you and him talk about the future, you wanting to be a journalist and planning what you're gonna do next year and him talking about, you know, advice. Oh, I just found that fascinating that it was like you were,

you know, two adults talking and my dad and I didn't seem to talk in that same way about things because he was out in the world working whereas my dad was sort of retired and stuff. So that was intensely fascinating and he was such a force of nature. He said, I'm going to dip into an impression here of his fantastic voice. Oh, Braid. Very deep, gruff, you know, ex-soldier, fantastic sort of voice. So, wonderful mustache. He did? The full package. Yes. He had, my dad had an amazing mustache. And the reason for that was he was actually attacked by a pet dog, not his war dog,

about a week or two before his wedding. a family dog like bit him on the lip and it was quite a serious injury and he ended up with like a bad scar on his lip and he grew the mustache to conceal the scar and he had it all his life. So he had a mustache. I never knew him without his like you know trademark mustache. That's wonderful, you can't imagine him with without it. No. Probably the other thing to get people in their mind is the sort of legendary leather or that with a leather or vinyl jackets that he'd wear. He was sort of a, if you can imagine like a 1970s kind of, you know, journalist kind of out on the beat, um, and,

and put that person into the 1980s and the 1990s, but still wearing the 1970s outfit. That was your dad. He was a, yeah, we shouldn't be speaking ill of the dead, but I did make a few references to his fashion sense in the eulogy, amongst all the positive things. But yeah, he was a courageous dresser. Yes.

That's well put. That's fantastic. Everything he wore, including his glasses, came in and out of fashion as the years went by. But he stuck with them, so he was always coming in and out of fashion, depending on what the actual fashion of the time was. That's right.

But yeah. But bringing it closer to home for our purposes, one of his greatest gifts, probably his greatest gift, was as a communicator, a storyteller. He could tell a story and have you enraptured like nothing else. Which if you do, and even if you're not particularly interested in the Vietnam War, follow the links and have a look as as to Brady's films, where he describes some just intense moments you're drawn straight in, he really needed

his own Netflix series, because he's just a magnificent way of being able to draw you into a story. I think that was probably his, you know, he was a wordsmith but I think verbally his best effect was made and you've got a bit of that yourself. Yeah, I mean, I'm not at his level. He was like a top tier storyteller in all mediums as a writer and as a speaker and he was very, he was a really good communicator. And I think like the community of, particularly the community of soldiers and men who fought in the Vietnam War were blessed to have him and felt blessed

to have him as like an ambassador because he was a really good, he really like communicated the horror and the humor, the camaraderie and all those things that happened in war, the sacrifice as well and I think he, yeah, that's a real legacy of his that he's left behind, is he really helped those men who was always, who was sometimes more humble and withdrawn and affected by war. He really gave them a voice and it helped a lot of people understand what happened in the Vietnam War. So, so yeah a real legacy he left behind. There we go. Alright. Rest in peace Peter Haran. And if anyone's wondering if Tim

did a good job presiding over the funeral he did an excellent job and everyone was patting him on the back afterwards and saying thanks Tim which is you know which is nice but if want proof, he did a good job. The woman who ran the funeral home was trying to recruit him after the service to come and do more funerals. She was like, are you available? Have you got a business card? So I said, are you trying to poach my minister?

So you obviously did a good job, Tim, well done. Thank you. That was a bit awkward to be thanked at a funeral. Look, it's just, and particularly for someone for whom it's, you know, you have such a connection, it was a real massive privilege and honour to do it. Yeah. And Tim gave us like a really good price as well. So thanks for that, Tim. I joke. Of course I joke.

We have more personal news from our lives to discuss. Now before we talk about more personal news from my life, happier news this time, let's talk about some personal news in Tim's life. general, but that also meant serendipitously it coincided with an exciting delivery and moment at the Hine House. And I was there for it. I was there at the dinner table with your family when this moment occurred. Do you want to tell us the story? I do, I do. So regular listeners, civilians and others will remember last time on the episode, quite spontaneously I decided to get some number plates for our

car in tribute and themed by inspired by the Unmade podcast. So Unmade 3 was purchased online. Well Unmade 3 it's like it's I think it says Unmade but you're using the 3 as the E. That's right even though it's back to front, bit wonky like the podcast generally. Some of our stories, some of our memories. Yes. Yes. So anyways, we ordered these,

of course we didn't tell my wife. This was an unauthorized purchase for a shared vehicle, the family car. And, but I took the risk, I thought, yeah, no, this will be all right. It's worth it to lay down my life for the podcast Anyway, they took a while to get here but a little while ago the app then the sort of the SA car registration app thing updated and

I saw that it was real. It's really happening. The new rego was on there as our car Yeah, and then waiting waiting waiting waiting for the for the physical plates the physical plates to arrive the metal ones to actually come Which I mean, I wasn't really sure how this would happen but literally they just send them in the mail and you and you go out you unscrew them and you screw the news ones on. So I was just waiting for this to happen and then thankfully they arrived yesterday and Brady was coming for dinner last night which we had. I purchased a KFC for the family as a little thank you to Tim for his service to my family. So it was the full cliche.

We're all sitting around with Brady eating KFC and I pull out. And so we played for my wife, the little portion of the podcast, and she had not heard, where we sort of talked through the last episode, you know, purchasing them online. And you could see her eyes widening just a little bit as she was listening.

What are you doing here Timmy? Are you actually buying these things she's thinking? And we reached the climax, the great moment and I pulled them out of the package and said, well here they are, just as she realised. And that went over pretty well I have to say. I think she was pretty relaxed with it. She was, yeah of course she was cool. I mean you did have company, you had a guest at the table so maybe she had to you know conceal her true feelings you know for the sake of

polite company. She didn't throw both of them at me. That was great so then we went downstairs and screwed them on to the chariot and and then my wife had to go out so she had the honors of getting out into the world and they're out they're out there today they're out and about. Streets of Adelaide, if you see Unmade 3, Unmade, the Unmade Mobile, that's the Hine family car. Give them a wave, give them a honk. Hmm, say g'day. If you look in the driver's seat

and someone's picking their nose, someone's stolen my car and just drive on, report it to the police and let me know. Yes. If however they're drinking an iced coffee, please say g'day. There's been a lot of interest from civilians about the idea of having unmade license plates and already you've kind of been beaten to the punch by another Tim. Timothy Koo got in touch and Timothy lives in Victoria which is another state of Australia. It's the state Tim happens to hail from, so it's a very important state to Tim.

And in Victoria, you can purchase full words. Tim couldn't buy the full word unmade because of the rules of the combinations of letters and numbers, but you can in Victoria. And Timothy has bought from VicRoads, which is the people who govern transport and cars in Victoria, the license plate unmade. And he says, I've decided to put this on our camper van so these plates might be making a visit to a state near you sometime. All the best. And Timothy says that he also did not seek permission from his wife. He says, P.S. Don't tell my wife. But here here Tim here's a picture of Timothy's campervan with the unmade. Oh that's awesome. Oh look at that and that's a lovely colour too. Yeah he seems to have that kind of shade of greeny aqua bluey that

we use. Teal sort of yeah. Yeah that we use in our branding. So he's I mean he has succeeded where you fell short in some ways. There's your new co-host. Yeah. So, so well done. Well done, Timothy. If you're driving around country Victoria or indeed he may go on holidays into your state around Australia and you happen to see a camper van with Unmade on the plates again, give you Timothy a wave. Fantastic. And I did promise a colonel ship to anyone who got Unmade as their official license plate.

So we may have to in the next ceremony and the next bestowing of colonel ships We'll have to we'll have to put him on the on the list we've got a full vetting process first and you know, we can't just we can't just wave these things through but uh Timothy I think you can I think you can sleep pretty easy Did you hear back from the the Nobel Prize people about combining our ceremonies next year? What, the colonelship ceremonies in the Nobel Prize? Yeah, I know. Because you were there last year anyway,

and I thought while you were there, everything's set up, the cameras, the special, we're all in suits. I don't know, like the Nobel Prize obviously is incredibly prestigious. But it is a little bit tainted by controversy. People sometimes get a bit upset about who are awarded them.

They don't always agree with who gets the Peace Prize. I don't really want the Nobel Prize to drag down the reputation of unmade colonel ships. So I'm not entirely sure about that. I'll have to give that more thought. That's true. The miry world of European politics, I'm not sure if we want to taint the good legacy

of the unmade colonel. Agreed. Taint the good legacy of the unmade Colonel agreed Now let's move on to Something else that's been personalized. Well, this is huge and I have a hundred questions about this But you you you you get bragging rights you get to go first you explain how this came about This is really quite something else Brady has had a hemorrhoid named after him This is really quite something else. Brady has had a hemorrhoid named after him. How long have you been waiting for that? Very nice. I like that. Well now that you've completely tainted and cheapened my big moment.

I have had the incredible honor, one of the great honours of my life, of having an asteroid. Asteroid, sorry, yes, yes, sorry. An asteroid has been named after me. So I received this incredibly happy and surprising news a few weeks ago now that there was an asteroid that had been discovered in 1998. It's one of many, many, many asteroids that have been discovered. But they don't all get names. They usually get like numbers and designations. This was known as asteroid number 46925. 1998, SS 27 SS27 was its designation. But people who discover asteroids do have the right to submit a name for it. And the people who discovered this asteroid, they're called the Catalina Sky Survey. It's actually like an organisation that kind of mass discovers a lot of asteroids.

They do these surveys of the sky looking for particular movements and detections to pinpoint these rocks in space. It was suggested to them by some other people that maybe it should be called Brady Haran, this particular asteroid. I guess I've made a lot of science and math videos, a lot of space videos and things like that, and as some kind of little thank you and recognition from the nerd community, they suggested the name. It went through a process. It was submitted to an organization called the International Astronomical Union. These are the people who name things in space and decide what official names are. They're most famous for demoting Pluto. They were the people who made the official decision that Pluto was no longer a planet.

That's their most controversial and famous decision. And they green-lighted it and said, okay, yep. And in their latest bulletin that they publish every now and then, where the latest names of things in space, they announced this particular asteroid is now known as 46925 it keeps its number for identification reasons but it's known as 46925 Brady Haran Brady Haran all is one word so that's okay a hundred question firstly I just love that it's like these asteroids got personalized number plates now yeah it is yeah just Brady Aaron. But this body that decides this like is that located in our galaxy or some other galaxy like do they govern all the galaxies? They are earth based. They are earth based. Yes they are earth based. Yeah. But they're looking out at asteroids.

Now okay so but so don't we just know asteroids when they're flying towards us. Isn't that what an asteroid is? No. Oh. No. So asteroids are large rocks in space. They can be small. They can be 20, 30 metres across. They can be huge.

They can be the size of mountains, the size of countries. They can be huge. There are some very, very massive asteroids. Most of the asteroids we know live in something called the asteroid belt, which is a whole bunch of thousands, hundreds of thousands, I don't know, maybe millions, I don't know, but like some incredible number of asteroids

that are all orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. So there is this- What are they orbiting? They're orbiting the sun. They're going around the sun. Like everything else is going around the sun, they're going around the sun. So it's just a whole bunch of rocks

that aren't big enough to be planets and they don't do all the things planets do, but they're just pootling around, well they're going incredibly fast, but they're pootling around the sun in orbit. And, but because these things are a bit more like pinballs and different things can happen to them, and there are so many of them, sometimes they're not orbiting around the sun. Sometimes they're closer to the earth.

Sometimes their orbits are very stable and circular, and they just keep pootling around the sun for billions of years. Sometimes they've got very eccentric orbits that are like that brings them close to the sun and then further away from the sun. So they're all moving in relation to one another. It's like a cloud of... Well when I was a boy growing up that's what I imagined you know the Millennium Falcon moving through. Yeah yeah yeah. And when I would draw pictures of the planets you would draw lots and lots of dots between Mars and Jupiter. If you ever see like cartoonish depictions of the solar system, you'll see lots and lots of rocks in this big band between Mars and Jupiter. But in fact,

it is still very sparse. They're millions of miles apart from it. You know, like you could, you know, you drive, they drive satellites and not satellites, space probes through the asteroid pretty safely without any danger of being hit. But there are lots of them. I've never heard of this belt. News of this didn't reach my primary school in Tarelgan obviously we just simply had the planets. But I believe you it's out there and they're all sort of there right? And when you say they've discovered another one in 1998 was it? But the belts there, they're all the same relative distance to us. How

come we didn't go, oh look there they all are? Well, because they're very hard to see from the Earth. So what people who keep the list of asteroids do, they go through the quite difficult and technical task of finding them all. But when you see them for the first time, they're usually just a dot. They're just like a tiny pinprick. So they'll say, oh, that pinprick's moving, and it was there last night, and now it's there, and now it's there, and now it's there. And they collect lots of readings and observations of where it is, and they very cleverly map

out its orbit, and they figure out exactly where it's going, exactly what path it follows. And once they've confirmed its path and they know everything about it, and they're like, okay, we know that one, we know all this information about it, it goes into the database and they can keep track of it. And now at any time they can go and find out where it is or where it was at any time. The main reason for doing this, besides it's not just stamp collecting, right? I mean, there is a degree of that and it's just good to know what's out there and where everything is. But the main reason these organizations receive funding is because they also spot the ones that are a bit

more rogue, the ones that famously could come and hit the earth. So the big danger... So they're not stuck in this belt? They could fly off or there are others that are coming from far far away heading towards us? Well the ones that are in the belt are pretty much stuck in the belt unless something knocks them out gravitationally or physically. Millennium Falcon. Yeah, yeah. So they can, you know, the collisions happen, they can get knocked off balance by going

too close to a big planet like Jupiter. So occasionally an asteroid will get knocked onto a different orbit and some of them have these wacky orbits and sometimes these wacky orbits they have, these big elliptical oval type orbits they have will cross the path of the Earth. And if it happens to cross the path of the Earth at the same time that the Earth is at that part of its path, they collide. As the dinosaurs learned. It was bad news for them when an asteroid hit the Earth.

And the big worry is, you know, will another one hit the Earth? We see all these Hollywood films about it. It's been in the news this week. They found one just recently that they have discovered has a 3% chance of hitting the Earth in about 5 to 10 years' time. So the main thing they're doing is looking out for collisions. But they're also charting all the other ones. The one that my one they found is very stable, very safe, far away, will not hit the Earth. Where is it? What do you mean safe far away? Is it closer to Jupiter? It is further away than Mars and it is closer than Jupiter. It is in that belt

between the two. I'll give you, let me give you a little bit of info about my asteroid. Okay, alright. So it takes 4.2 years to go around the Sun. Okay, because it's further away. It's further away so it's got a longer journey to take. So it takes 4.2 Earth years is one year on my asteroid. Yeah right, so that's sort of the opposite of dog years, right? So you know how you know one year is seven dog years and but actually one human is four Brady's asteroid years. Yeah, so it takes four times longer. You would have, you would have, yeah, you would, you would have only have one birth, you have four birthdays on Earth in the time you'd have one birthday on my asteroid. Living on your asteroid

is a little bit similar to being born on the 29th of February in terms of birthdays. It is very much so, very much so. Comes around like the Olympic gate. Yeah, it is spinning on its own axis as well. Like it kind of has days, it sort of tumbles and turns around. It's hard to know exactly how long it takes to have its own rotation,

but they think about nine hours, probably. It's not round, but it does not round. It rotates in a consistent way, does it? They haven't got that degree of information about exactly how it's turning and that they can make some, I mean, depends how deep you want to, I could go pretty deep on this,

but you're looking at nine hours to rotate. The other thing though that's quite interesting about it is what's called its inclination. So I was telling you about how you know the planets Mars and Jupiter the earth we all go around the Sun and they all go around the Sun like kind of on the same disk, the same plate. You always wondered about that. It's all flat. It's all flat. Yeah it is flat like you know. So it's. So they're all going around reasonably flat, but sometimes things will go around, but be tilted. They can have a tilt.

That's called your inclination to what's called the ecliptic, that flatness, because that's called the ecliptic plane. And the planets are pretty much all going around on that, on that big disk, and they're all going in the same direction as well, pretty much. But you can be on an angle so that you're going around the circle, but you're also kind of going up and down a little bit. And my asteroid has got quite a

high inclination. It's at quite a steep angle. So for half the year, it's north of the ecliptic. It's up above all the planets looking down at them. And then it drops down below the ecliptic, it's up above all the planets looking down at them and then it drops down below the ecliptic and suddenly it's below and you have to look down to see it for the other half of the orbit and then it's back up. So it's kind of on this angle to the ecliptic. Is it a bit of a lone ranger doing that or are there others doing it too? No, others do it too. It's not like the whole Milky Way is following one pattern and your asteroid is this little

bit. No, no. But it is unusual. It is unusual. It is unusual. It's like, it's, yeah. And the reason that's interesting is it means that for half the year you can see it from the Northern Hemisphere.

If you live on the northern part of the Earth, you'll see it up in the sky. But then suddenly it will drop down below the horizon and you can't see it anymore for the second half of the year But everyone in the southern hemisphere can see it. Oh, right. And what part of the year we in at the moment at the moment? It's northern hemisphere, but it quickly coming down south. So it will be it will be south soon. Stay tuned Hmm stay tuned to those of us in the south. Obviously. Yes You're flying so and actually the reason I even bring this up is that's one of the reason they chose this asteroid for me. They decided because I live in the northern hemisphere but I hail from the southern hemisphere they wanted an asteroid that could be seen from both. Yeah, that's kind of one of the reasons. That's pretty nice. That's a nice little personal touch. It is

nice. Can I interrupt your facts just for something at this particular time? Because when I think about something in space being named after someone I feel like there are two categories right. One one of the categories are things that are like named after Greek and Roman gods like Mars and Jupiter and stuff like that. And then there's another category of things which are like I've got a fiance and I've bought her a star and it's now called the you know the Cindy Lauper star and I bought it for her on her birthday and then she's got a little piece of paper saying it's all ridgy-didge and all the rest of it. Which category is it closest to? So when I first told Tim this news, he didn't, I didn't really get the reaction I was hoping for.

Like I thought he'd be a little bit more happy for me. And like, I know he's not into space and stuff, but I thought he'd be a little bit more congratulatory or like that. Because some of my friends and family, they were like, oh, that's amazing. You must be so proud and happy. And Tim kind of just didn't give me anything.

And I thought, okay, fair enough. I didn't think he'd be super impressed, but I thought he'd be. But then I learned later on, like I think he then said something to me like you know how much did that cost yes I thought you'd bought it yeah yeah as a novelty like oh you can do this I'm gonna do that and then I realized you didn't that was that was different so this is not those things where you can for a start you can't they don't name stars after people stars themselves and that's a

scam that's like that's that's not a real thing. There are also things where you can buy a piece of the moon, like a piece of land on the moon. Someone will just claim ownership of the moon and start selling it. That's a scam as well. These name a star things. If you are paying money to have a name put on something in space, that is a scam. It is not real, it has no official standing. Now someone could also argue that a bunch of astronomers in a human organization on Earth deciding to name an asteroid or a planet

after something or someone also carries no actual weight. But the people of Earth have decided, and all the nations of Earth have decided that this international Astronomical Union can have this authority to name things in space, and they all recognise the names. And this naming of the asteroid comes under that classification.

But it is only an Earth-based authority, this body though, isn't it, as well? So we haven't legitimised it. There's not been bilateral or multilateral conversations with other galaxies. This is true. If we start communicating with alien life, we will have to resolve some of these issues about who gets their names attached to things. But anyway, putting that aside.

Putting that aside. Yeah, this is not like you can buy a thing. It's an, you know, it's an official thing. I'm, I'm, even though we haven't talked about it, because we thought we'd save it and talk about it here, it, it, um, there's been enough information dripping out that I now understand, um, the no pun intended gravity of, of this particular announcement. I think that's pretty cool. And can I just say my asteroid is a bit of a whopper. Yeah. I think it's like about maybe 16 kilometres across. It's one, it would destroy the earth if it hit the earth. It wouldn't just like kill a city. It's what we call a global killer. A global killer. That's the line from Billy Bob Thorne, I think in Armageddon. That's what we call a global killer.

So it's massive. And of all the asteroids that have been named after YouTubers, because there is a small number that have been named after YouTubers, mine is by far the biggest. Is it? By far. It's a whopper. What else is interesting about it?

Oh, the other question a lot of people ask is, can you see it Well yeah yeah yeah, I assume you can from Earth, is that right? With a telescope or? You get, an amateur could see it with quite a small light telescope if they knew what they were doing. You will only see a dot moving among the stars but it is visible. But you cannot see it with the naked eye. Can you, is it one of those, you know how you have those apps that you can put up at the sky and it tells you what stars what, will it appear on anything like that? It would not appear on one of those apps. But you can track it on using websites, there are websites you can, maybe, you know, I don't

know the answer to that, maybe it is on some apps because it's in the database of everything. You can go and, you can go to websites and see where it is right now, where it is on any given date. An interesting thing, an interesting thing, when they, no it's not an interesting thing but I find this interesting. When they found it, when they found it in you know in 1998 and they'd spotted it. What day in 1998? Do you know the date? Oh I do but I didn't write it down. It was September something. Interesting if it was the same day the Crows won write it down it was September something.

Interesting if it was the same day the Crows won the premiership in September 1998. Oh I don't know I just got just then I'll come back let me look up the date and then I have to tell you about an email I just received that moment I just received an email that's going to catch your attention on this very subject it was discovered on September 25, 1998. And the Adelaide Crows football club won the grand final on September 26. Oh the day before! There you go. Another interesting thing on this subject is that when it's discovered and they can they track its orbit, they can obviously go forward in time but also back in time to see where it was in the sky at any time now. Oh yeah right. So you know in time to see where it was in the sky at any time now. Oh yeah, right.

So you could find out where it was when Jesus was around and stuff like that. So they went back and looked at previous pictures they've taken of the sky at different times to see if they could find it. Because there are these surveys and pictures of the stars that have been taken over the years that they then can just go back to it later date. And the earliest picture they found of it, where they can look at it and go, there it is, that dot there, that's the same asteroid, is from 1976, a month before I was born. And it's a picture that was taken from a telescope in Australia. Oh, wow. Oh, that's classic. But of course, it's been there for perhaps millions of years. Billion years. Yeah, yeah right.

Do you know the distance, how exactly far it away or does that change depending on the orbit? It changes, the distance from the sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. It doesn't change by a lot though because its orbit is quite circular. The eccentricity of an orbit is how pure the circle is and the lower the number is the more circular it is and it's got an eccentricity of 0.05. So it is quite a consistent distance from the sun. Of course its distance from the Earth changes because the Earth is moving independently. So the other thing they try to do is figure out its shape and there are different ways

you can figure out the shape. Some they haven't been able to do to this asteroid. I won't bore you with information about that. It's occultations for people who are interested in such things. But they can measure what's called its light curve. So how much light is coming from the asteroid at different times of the night tells you how much of its face is showing the Earth

and they can use clever techniques and science to, and they figure out its shape and they've given, they have a rough estimate of its shape. This is like picking up a rock and it might have, but it's not, it's got jagged edges or it's not smooth. Yeah, yeah, and it's like potato shaped, it's not round. But this is why I was interested in an email I just saw, a guy called Daniel Bamberger, he's an amateur astronomer, he was a real driving force behind the naming process but also is a real asteroid expert and asteroid spotter. He's been emailing me all sorts of information over the last couple of

weeks as he finds out more about it and he just sent me an email just now while we were talking and the subject says your asteroid is a guitar pick and I have not yet read this email I'm about to read it good morning I've got some exciting stuff for you I'm actually excited now firstly I finished reprocessing the light curve data yesterday evening after putting it all together the rotation period is unambiguously nine hours one minute and 40 seconds. So that's how long a day is. Yep. Give or take a minute or so. It turns out the light curve has three distinct peaks

rather than two. That was the first indication that your asteroid has an unusual shape. I then found a couple of data sets that I wasn't aware of that include information about your asteroid etc etc. So what are you talking about here that when it spins you can see different sides of it and you've got to put all that together? Different amounts of light so like over the course of nine hours it's really bright at the moment oh and now it's gone darker oh it's bright again and that gives you clues to its shape. Okay okay yeah yeah right. How much of it is facing the earth? Like the moon, we can see the bits of it

that are lit up, yeah, right. Yeah. So he's used these other data sets. They've got the orientation of its pole. It's a retrograde rotator. It spins on its axis in the opposite direction of the Earth. So the sun would set and rise in the opposite side of the Earth.

So that's interesting. And it says, their shape model shows that your asteroid indeed has an unusual shape. It looks like a guitar pick, roughly triangular, thicker along the triangular plane than perpendicular to it. See here for what it looks like from the sides and from above. So there we go. It's a guitar pick shaped asteroid. Have you got a photo of what it looks like? It'll be like a computer generated model, but I'll show you. There it is from different angles. Oh it is too, yeah yeah it's quite it's quite an even it's quite it's very

much like Tommy Emanuel's guitar pick. There we go, finally found something about it that would interest him. So there we go, it's quite dark object, it's quite black object. What's it made of? It's rock and a lot of carbon. It's quite a dark object, it's quite a black object. What's it made of? It's rock and a lot of carbon. It's for people who are interested in asteroids, it's a CX class asteroid, which means it's very carbonaceous. It's lots of carbon, very sooty, very black and sooty and charcoal-y and lots of carbon in there.

Right, definite bath after you've visited. Yeah, I imagine it would be a dirty place to visit yeah but it's massive. Yeah there we go asteroid Brady-Harran. There we go that's well that is pretty good so Brady-Harran one word capital B. What capital B? And then the rest lower case so the Harran is lower case attached to the Brady. What are you do you have any kind of rights to it like can you have photos of it on stuff or? I have no rights I have nothing. No, you're just the name. It means nothing, like all honours and awards and everything in life.

But I'm really excited by it. Like when I first found out about it, I was way more excited than some other things that people that have come my way, fortunately, like you know, my Order of Australia medal. I was way more excited about the asteroid. Now that the dust has settled I think maybe that maybe that previous honour probably is a bigger deal and more important but but but but the asteroid like excites me more like you know like if you told little Brady that something in space would be named after you. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

And will continue to have its name for thousands of years to come. Yeah, as long as humans are here and for as long as they, you know. Until one of the asteroids actually hits the earth. We have to start all over again. As long as things stay politically stable enough for people to, for the International Astronomical Union to work and things like that. So there we go. God, can any more bragging or you think that's enough?

That's, that's, well, that's, that's huge. It is. I think it's interesting. I don't hear you bragging. I think that's really quite fascinating. It's nothing I ever would have thought of that, that happens legitimately. I thought of, I really thought of those two categories, that sort of, oh well, whatever, you name some, you star after someone, I'm sure that doesn't really matter too much,

but it's a nice idea. And the other category where everything's already named, but there we go. There are lots and lots of unnamed asteroids. They're finding asteroids way quicker than they can do the naming process. I don't want to rain on your parade too much, but I do think having an asteroid being named is, it is, it's not, it's not a bronze medal, but it's like the gold medal, like the moon is still unnamed. And I'm, I'm, you know, if there was something, if you could upsize. The moon's not unnamed. It is, it's unnamed, it's not named after, it's called, it's called the moon. Yeah, that's. That's what's up with International Astronomical Union is called it the moon or lunar.

Yeah and I'm just saying would you well it could have been Brady Haran. I mean I would have taken that. I have joked before when someone has said if you could have anything named after you what would it be I did say the moon yeah oh isn't the Brady Harren beautiful tonight nice work well massive amount of Brady bombs being dropped in the first half of this episode incredible I mean we did talk about your license plate first in the running order so well that's true that's true but I do feel that was the opening act. But I've renamed my car, and I've named it after our podcast. Very good.

OK. Thank you for indulging me. If you've got any more questions, I'm working on a big video all about it at the moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That should be out maybe before or after this podcast. I don't know. But I'm making like a deep, deep dive video.

Well, now I'm across a lot of the detail. If you need me to be some sort of interviewee, I'm happy to do that. Okay. Unless you're gonna get someone from this sort of earth-based body to speak on. A lot of the asteroids are named after just like, authors or poets or people that the person who found it

liked and things. I mean, asteroid Tim Hine is not off the table. So this is not a million miles away from a good podcast idea, is it? I mean, if we could come back closer on track, naming things that are named after people and what's named after people, what's not named after people? Because I think this is an interesting category. This is our podcast idea for today that Tim and I have decided, we discussed this last night, we've jointly decided today's podcast idea, and neither of us is claiming it as our own idea,

today's podcast idea is a podcast about things that are named after things. I mean, it was my idea. What? No, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna name, this is the Tim Hine memorial idea. Okay, we're naming this idea after you. I do find it fascinating.

I always love knowing what mountains are named after. Oh yeah, right. Is it always the person who climbed it first? In fact, I would say pretty much never the person who climbed it first. Well, Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia, was that named after a person called – I went to Kosciuszko Street Primary School and I have no idea how to spell Kosciuszko or what Kosciuszko mountain was. He was an explorer.

Was he Polish? He was an explorer. Sounds Polish. He was an explorer, Kosciuszko. I don't know if he climbed – this is Australia's highest peak, by the way, which is not a particularly impressive peak. I don't know about he climbed, this is Australia's highest peak by the way, which is not a particularly impressive peak. I don't know about Mount Kosciusko.

Mount Everest is named after, correctly pronounced, Everest. Is named after George Everest, who was the head of the Indian survey organisation that surveyed all of India, and first realised that Mount Everest was the highest mountain in the world from a distance, from far, far away they were measuring the peak using like, you know, different devices and that was like that peak on the horizon, which was called Peak 15, it didn't even have a name to them, you know, the locals had a name for it but they didn't have a name for it. Well, that's the thing, there'd be indigenous names for a lot of these places.

Yes, and Everest has a couple of indigenous names, including Sagamatha. But Peak 15, as they called it, they realised from a distance, hang on, that's the highest mountain in the world. And they named it after George Everest, who was their boss, who never saw it. Oh, really?

He never even saw it. He was just like their boss back at head office. And they said, oh, let's call it that. So Mount Everest named after George Everest. Was his dog named K2? No, K2, the second highest mountain in the world, was just a designation. It's in the Karakoram range of mountains and they just put numbers, K1, K2, K3, K4 for peaks in the Karakoram. And they later realised K2 was the highest.

And when lots of other mountains got named, K2 they just kept. It was just catchy, cool sounding names. So it was just like a placeholder, a letter, a number that they kept. Is it is it? This is a little fact in Tim's head that's almost certainly I'm realizing now. Not true. I thought K2 was right next to Everest. I thought they were there together as the tallest and then the second tallest like the one you get to to get to the big one or something like that. But is K2 in a different continent? Is it?

No, no, not a different continent. It is kind of same part of the world, but not really. I mean, no, they're not that close to each other. K2 is in Pakistan. Oh, right. okay, sure. Yeah, so, and Everest is on the border between Tibet and Nepal. Of course, Mount McKinley's been in the news a lot lately because Mount McKinley's in Alaska. It's the highest peak in the US, and it was named after President McKinley,

one of the US presidents, but it was renamed Denali. When President Obama was in office, they decided to give it its sort of local name. And the current president of the United States has been on a bit of a renaming binge, and he has decided he wants it to be McKinley again. So that's, you know, depending on, I don't know where people stand on that, but McKinley is a US president that the mountain was named after. Well, that's right. So to come a little bit more urban, presidents notoriously have an enormous

amount of things named after them. Notably, I noticed from TV shows from the United States, schools tend to be named after presidents, which is unthinkable here in Australia we tend to name our schools particularly primary schools after the street they happen to be on but Lydia Road primary or whatever which is kind of you know charmingly unpretentious rather than going to you know Lyndon B Johnson you you know, elementary, which is quite impressive. Would you like to have something named after you? And if so, what would you like? It'd only be for the sort of fun novelty value. I think there's something, something that you couldn't help but feeling a little bit chuffed if there was a little thing that was

was your like a little bridge or something. A bridge? I'm trying to think. A pine bridge? I mean. A Tim Hine bridge? I like the idea, if I stop and think about something. What about a mountain? Mount Hine? No, no, I've no real interest in mountains. No? No, it'd have to be a piece of like something urban. Like I would like a thing that's been built. Okay. Rather than, you know, a desert or a plane or something like that, which is which is probably less prestigious, but it's something that I'm interested in. I would rather it be... what do we normally do? There's something like a street or a court around cities are sometimes renamed after people or musicals.

What about churches are never named after humans, are they? They're always named after, like, unless it's a saint. Aren't they usually named after saints or places? They are. They're usually named after biblical biblical characters but every now and then they do name them after people. Very rarely but sometimes you do sometimes a founding sort of minister or an early an early some sort of early church father or you know you're coming a bit more forward in church history than the biblical characters but it's pretty rare. Okay so you're not likely to get a church then. And I don't know if I'd like that. It feels a bit uncomfortable. I like a church having quite a plain name.

What about a building, like the tallest building in Adelaide being Hyde Tower? No, because I don't like that tall, the tallest, biggest, I don't like that. I like it being something small and charming. Humble. I like the idea of back in Tarelgan, there was like the main and most beautiful building in Tarelgan is the post office where my dad worked and had his heart attack. I kind of like the idea of the post office being named after dad. Like I think I'd kind of enjoy that as a touch point rather than, you know, the skate ramp being named after me or the

kindergarten or something like that. Or the swimming pool. Yeah, there's often Australian swimming pools are named after prime ministers. I think that's actually quite a thing. Well, yeah, well, there was one named after Harold Holt, wasn't there? Australian prime minister who famously then drowned, disappeared at sea. So so just for the record, our podcast idea then is a podcast where you discuss things that have been named, like how did it get the name or who's and who's the named after, like origin stories.

Is it appropriately named? Yeah, should it be renamed? Yeah, it is interesting because obviously a lot of things do get renamed as well, particularly when people fall into disgrace or... Such as Rhodesia itself. Yes, Rhodesia, I was thinking that. After Rhodes, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah.

Whole nations, yeah, usually after a revolution of some kind. Yeah. That's a big one. So I think I'd probably go with Australia. If they wanted to, they wouldn't rename Australia, Tim Land, or Timothy or something like that. I'd think about it. And then I'd probably say, look, yeah, go ahead. No, no, no, Tim and Brady land, I'd like to kind of want to share it. I mean, yeah, I don't your name doesn't really lend itself that well to naming things, does it? No, it's not. Not that it's mine for the record, but yeah, I just think it doesn't have a grand name.

But maybe these names only really work over time. I did a quick look before on a few things that have been named after people. And there's things that are really interesting like the saxophone was named after its inventor, Adolf Sax. Ah nice, nice episode of our podcast there, well done. Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of cool. I like that. He was a Belgian inventor.

I didn't get as far as working out the name, but nicotine is named after someone. Nicotine? And I can't remember. Is that true? Yeah, it is. Yeah. I would have for sure guessed that nicotine was somehow chemical based, like, you know, benzene and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's a chemical and it's got, that's amazing. It's named after a person they contain the thing I'm amazed about around Like a city like Adelaide is how many times the same name turns up for multiple

It's like they had four really well-known people early on yeah, and everything got named after them. Yeah repeat So I mean notoriously here that we have, you know, Matthew Flinders. Yes early explorer He was an explorer and many many many things in, he was from Lincolnshire, I believe, in England, but he sailed around and did a lot of navigation and exploring around this part of southern Australia. And so many things in Adelaide and South Australia are named after Matthew Flinders. We've got the Flinders Ranges Mountains, Flinders University, where Tim studied. Flinders Hospital right next to it. Flinders Hospital. Flinders University where Tim studied. Flinders Hospital right next to it. Flinders Hospital.

Flinders Street. Yeah. Flinders Park, the suburb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just Flinders everywhere. And I think Bill Bryson, when he came to Australia, what was the one he joked about? I think it was Macquarie.

There was a guy called Macquarie. Oh, yeah. And particularly in the eastern states, in New South Wales, lots and lots of stuff are named after Macquarie. And he observed that in his book about Australia, joked about how Macquarie was plastered all over everything. Yeah, yeah. There's a few like that. There's a significant early South Australian who's surname is Bar Smith. And I feel like there's, I know there's a road up to where I drop my kids to school that's Bar Smith Street and then there's the Bar Smith Library that's

at Adelaide Uni and there's some some sort of bar smith foundation these sorts of things pop up again and again and again particularly in a young country I guess or a young nation in an old country that kind of thing yeah so these these things are sort of named or is there anything in around yeah I mean you know Adelaide a little bit anything in Adelaide or somewhere around the world that you think needs to be renamed that's a good podcast idea too isn't it the renaming podcast where you just re-suggest new names for things or names for things that don't have names. Yeah.

What are you thinking of something that's got an inappropriate name now or just a bad name? No, no, I don't want to, I mean, there's that sort of political side to it as well, isn't there? But it's not- I'm not a fan of renaming, right? Let me say that from the start. Like I have bit of a policy which we have, we stuck to it. No Let me say that from the start. Like I have a bit of a policy which we have we stuck to it? No we haven't stuck to it but I think when you get a pet like and you get like a uh a rehomed pet or a rescue pet and things like that you should keep their name like a lot of people get a dog from a pound and give it a new name. I don't like that.

I don't like that. Like I believe in keeping their original name. I just think it's like, that's your name. That's the name you got. It feels too arbitrary. When we got our Greyhound Lulu, we would never have called a dog Lulu. But that was Lulu's name. So Lulu it is. Yeah. Like and I'm a big believer in that. Like I like, so I don't like seeing things renamed. I like, I'm a, let's, and I'm not veering into the politics of, you know, because of course I call Mount Everest Mount Everest, and I know that's, there is a, some may consider that insensitive and local populations have names for Mount Everest. Mount Everest is not a good example because there is a lot of ambiguity around even what local populations call that peak. But yeah, I know there's, and Denali is this other sensitive issue and there are millions of those. So that's a whole other. There could be a few things that are done well

in that where it feels, it does feel a little bit ridiculous after a while when you think about something like in Australia we have Uluru and Ayers Rock and it was Ayers Rock for years and it's Uluru, it's like well it's been something for 30,000 years and it's been you know a Western and English name for 100 years well yeah okay let's go back that makes sense it's very meaningful. I'll be very disappointed if it turns out the Martians have been calling my asteroid something else for a billion years and then people are like oh well we call it Brady Haran well no we're gonna go back to the Martian name. We're going to.

What is it? R2486 or whatever it was called. Just that's a real name. I'd hate to be culturally insensitive to the Martians. Well, let me wrap it up by bringing us full circle and ask again, back to Peter Haran, your father. Yes. Is there something, now's the time to consider,

if there was something that was appropriate as a bit of a legacy, if you could name something, I don't know, here in Vietnam, in Birmingham, in Zimbabwe, what do you think is something that would be appropriately renamed in Peter Haran's honour? I think it's an interesting question. Dad spent a lot of his time campaigning and getting monuments built around the place in various locations for dogs and war dogs. So he was more about the commemoration of war dogs than himself of course. He never liked the attention

to be on him. But that was a real thing for him and he was quite successful in course. He never liked the attention to be on him. But that was a real thing for him and he was quite successful in that. He had dog monuments built around Australia. We haven't actually mentioned just Caesar at this point, his legendary dog from his first tour. When I first used to come over and crash at your place of course he had subsequent dogs and the first subsequent dog was named Caesar in his honour. So I know Caesar and I know who's named after the legendary Caesar in Vietnam. Exactly, yeah. So there has been, there is a statue of Caesar on the East Coast of Australia as a monument

to war dogs. Is there really? Yeah, and it was stolen and recovered. It's a whole story. Some people stole it for the metal but it was recovered. I'll put some links in the show next time. Oh please do, I'd love to go and see it. It's new, a train station, and it's got a little bowl underneath it that's full of water so people can let their own dogs have a drink when they visit.

Oh that's brilliant. Yeah, it's good. But in terms of if something was going to be named after dad, I think like a track or a trail in Vietnam, maybe there was a particular trail where I went with him and we filmed something where a really famous incident happened in his life where his dog saved his life. So maybe like a location or a point there. But I'm not sure the people of Vietnam would want to name things after Australian soldiers. I would love the idea of some kind of award or medal to be named after Dad. Like something that commemorates people who do things that he believed in. Like some kind of communication.

Like a young journalist award. Journalist or dog trackers or probably something more military related. Although dad spent much more of his life as a journalist and he was very famous for it and very accomplished, I think more and more as he went through life he identified with his military service. So maybe something to do with his military service. I wonder if there could be a combination. It could be sort of the Peter Haran award for, you know, military writing or writing on reflections on something like that.

Exactly. Yeah. Something like that, I think, would be a good way to go. And it's something I should give some thought to as well. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for putting that idea in my head. Yeah. Yeah, cool. All right. Nice work. We will record a request room while we're here for Patreon supporters. So hang around for that. I've got a big list of questions from people. We've got a guitar here. So hang around for that extra episode. Thank you for listening today. Thank you for indulging both me talking about dad and My asteroid and Tim talking about his license plate. What a self indulgent episode We have had today, but but in a nice way. I feel like I went on a little bit about the number plate That's a little bit too many facts. I didn't say how long it was and how wide it was. No, it's rotational period. It's angle on your car to the ecliptic plane of the solar system. Very good.

I came up here to say goodbye to the dogs because we were going to leave them here. New guys were taking them over and I came up and I didn't let them out. I put my hand through and just padded him. And I spoke to him. And I said, I've got to go and you've got to stay. And then I stepped back and he looked at me and I looked at him. And then I turned around and I walked straight away. And I heard him standing up and he had the bowl in his mouth and dropped it straight onto the concrete floor and he realised it's gone.