Episode 100: When Black Holes Beat Galaxies, Rocks Beat Rovers and Planets Smell Terrible

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Anna: Welcome to Astronomy Daily. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And, um, I'm Avery. You're listening to

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season five and today to episode

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100.

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Anna: 100 episodes this season. We

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should probably pause for half a

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Avery: second and just notice that half a

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second starting now.

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Anna: Done.

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Back to the universe, which as usual hasn't

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slowed down to let us catch

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Avery: our breath, not, uh, even slightly. Today

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we have a rocket heading to the International

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Space Station literally tonight, a Mars

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rover that accidentally picked up a rock and

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couldn't put it down, a cosmic debate

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that may finally be settled about our closest

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galactic neighbor, and two extraordinary

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findings from the James Webb Space Telescope

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that are rewriting the early history of the

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cosmos.

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Anna: And we're closing with a planet that's. We're

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just going to say it smells like rotten eggs.

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It's a good one.

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Avery: It really is. Let's go.

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Anna: We're starting with news that is happening

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today right now, in fact, as you're listening

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to this, Face X and NASA are targeting

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tonight for the launch of the 34th Commercial

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Resupply Services mission to the

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International Space Station CRS

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34.

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Avery: And this one's a big cargo run.

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Anna: It is. A, ah, Falcon 9 rocket is standing at

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Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral.

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And the launch window opens at 7:16 this

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evening Eastern Time. That's 9:16 if

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you're on the east coast of Australia

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Wednesday morning.

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Avery: There's always a weather caveat with Florida

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launches, always.

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Anna: Forecasters are giving only about a 35%

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chance of favorable conditions at liftoff. So

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there's a real possibility it slips to the

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backup window on Wednesday evening. But as of

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right now, the mission is go.

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Avery: What's on board?

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Anna: About 6,500 pounds of cargo, crew,

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supplies, station hardware, and several

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science experiments that are genuinely

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interesting. One investigation involves a

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bone scaffold made from wood that researchers

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hope could lead to new treatments for

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osteoporosis. That's a disease that affects

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bone density and it actually worsens in the

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low gravity environment of space.

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Avery: Which makes studying it in space especially

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relevant.

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Anna: Exactly. There's also a study looking at how

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red blood cells and the spleen change during

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extended spaceflight. And my personal

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favorite, a new instrument called storie,

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the Storm Time O ring Current

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IMAG Evolution instrument. It'll monitor

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the charged particle environment near Earth,

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which is a real hazard for power grids and

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satellites during solar storms.

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Avery: The Dragon capsule on this mission is flying

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for the sixth time and the booster will

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attempt a return to launch site landing,

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which never gets old to watch.

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Anna: After launch, Dragon will spend about 38

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hours in orbit, raising its altitude before

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docking autonomously with the Harmony Module

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on Thursday. Warning. We'll follow up on that

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in tomorrow's episode.

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Avery: From Cape Canaveral to the ISS in under

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two days. Still extraordinary.

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Anna: Now, Mars, and a story that is part

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engineering drama, part slapstick, and

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entirely endearing.

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Avery: I love this one.

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Anna: NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been

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rolling across Mars since 2012, more

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than 14 years now, recently had something

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happen that had literally never happened

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before in its entire mission. It drilled into

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a rock and the rock wouldn't let go.

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Avery: It just grabbed on and refused to release.

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Anna: On April 25, Curiosity extended its

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robotic arm and drilled into a rock that the

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team nicknamed Atacama, after the Chilean

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desert. When the rover tried to retract the

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arm, the entire rock lifted off the

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Martian surface. It had got, uh, lodged onto

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the fixed sleeve surrounding the drill bit

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and simply came with it.

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Avery: How big was this rock?

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Anna: About 45 cm across at its

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base, around 15 cm thick

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and roughly 13 kg, or about

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4.5 kg on Mars due to the lower

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gravity. A substantial chunky

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rock dangling off the end of a Rover ARM

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140 million km from the

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nearest mechanic.

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Avery: And the solution isn't as simple as just

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shaking it off. Every command you send to

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Curiosity takes up to 30 minutes to arrive,

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which

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Anna: is what made the next week so dramatic.

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The engineering team spent several days

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trying different approaches, repositioning

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the arm, vibrating the drill, trying

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different angles. For days, Atacama

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refused to budge. They even watched the rock

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slowly shed sand as the arm moved. But it

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stayed put.

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Avery: Finally, on May 1, the team went all in,

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tilting the drill, rotating it, vibrating

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it, and spinning the drill bit

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simultaneously. They were prepared to try

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multiple rounds. The rock came off on the

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first

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Anna: attempt and promptly shattered when it

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hit the Martian ground.

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Avery: Atacama's last stand.

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Anna: NASA released the full camera sequence this

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week. It's remarkable footage. And

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Curiosity, for its part, is now happily back

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to its regular science operations. Fourteen

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years in, still finding new ways to surprise

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us.

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Avery: We're going much, much further out now. Not

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Mars, not even our galaxy. We're talking

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about our galaxy's largest satellite, the

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Large Magellanic Cloud, which you can

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Anna: see beautifully from Australia, sitting low

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in the southern sky on a clear night, looking

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like a detached patch of the Milky Way.

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Avery: And for a long time, astronomers assumed it

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had been orbiting the Milky Way for billions

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of years, making repeated passes, coming

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close, swinging back out, a regular visitor.

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New research published this week argues

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something quite different. That, huh, this is

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actually the Very first time the Large

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Magellanic Cloud has ever approached our

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galaxy.

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Anna: A first invol?

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Avery: Exactly. A team led by Scott Lucchini

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and colleagues ran detailed hydrodynamic

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simulations modeling the gas halo

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surrounding both galaxies and compared that

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with ultraviolet observations of the gas

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clouds between them. They found the data is

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consistent only with a first pass scenario.

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If the cloud had been here before, the models

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say, the gas halo just wouldn't look the way

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it does.

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Anna: What does it mean? If it's really a first

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time visitor,

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Avery: it has significant implications for how we

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understand our galaxy's evolution. The Large

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Magellanic Cloud is enormous. It has

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billions of stars and a mass that's roughly

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10% of the Milky Way. An object that

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size, sweeping through on its first close

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approach, causes disruptions. It

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warps our dark matter halo, influences star

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formation, tugs on the structure of the

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galactic disk. If it's done this before,

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those effects would have played out

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repeatedly. If this is the first time, we're

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watching something quite rare.

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Anna: The team says their simulations provide, and

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I like this phrase, definitive evidence.

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Though they acknowledge there are some

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tensions with other data sets that still need

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to be resolved.

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Avery: Science is rarely simple, but the weight of

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this evidence is pointing one way. The Large

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Magellanic Cloud is a newcomer and it's

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heading our way.

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Anna: Nothing to worry about. On a human timescale,

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nothing dramatic happens. But on cosmic

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time, fascinating.

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Avery: Next time for the James Webb Space Telescope

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and the saga of the little red Dots.

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Anna: We've talked about these before. For

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listeners who haven't heard, give us the

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quick version.

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Avery: The quick version. When JWST

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began looking at the very early universe

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galaxies that existed just a few hundred

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million years after the Big Bang, they found

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hundreds of strange, compact, faint red

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objects that nobody expected and nobody can

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fully explain. They became known as little

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red dots. They're roughly 12 billion

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light years away. They're intensely red,

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they're tiny, and they have properties that

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don't fit neatly into any existing category.

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The debate has been raging for years. Are

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they massive star forming regions, Ancient

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black holes and thick dust cocoons, an

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entirely new type of object?

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Anna: And now there's a new twist.

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Avery: There is. Astronomers have been studying an

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unusual object that had been sitting

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unnoticed in archival data from NASA's

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Chandra X Ray Observatory for over a decade.

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It's called the X ray dot, cataloged

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as 3D HST

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Aegis

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12014. And it only revealed

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its significance when JWST recently

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observed the same patch of sky and showed

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that this X ray source is sitting in exactly

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the same location as one of the little red

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dots.

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Anna: Dots, a 10 year old clue hiding in plain

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sight.

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Avery: The team, led by researchers at Princeton,

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believes this X ray dot may be what an older

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little red dot looks like. In the current

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theory, little red dots are young black holes

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surrounded by dense clouds of gas that

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they're consuming. And that gas absorbs the X

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rays, which is why most little red dots don't

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show up in X ray surveys. But as that gas

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gets eaten or blown away, the X rays

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start getting through.

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Anna: So the X ray dot might be the same type of

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object, just older and less shrouded?

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Avery: Possibly. Or it might be something else

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entirely. A black hole wrapped in exotic

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dust, never previously observed. The team

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says further observations are needed. But

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either way, it's a piece of the puzzle, and

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it's pointing us toward understanding one of

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the strangest populations of objects ever

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discovered.

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Anna: Now, just quickly, before we move on to our

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next story, a reminder that our sponsor this

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Avery: Okay, moving on. We're staying with the James

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Webb Space Telescope because it keeps

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delivering, but now we're looking at a

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completely different puzzle, and this one was

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published yesterday hot

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Anna: off the preprint server.

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Avery: Literally. Astronomers have identified

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two early universe galaxies named Kola

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1 and Nepla 4, observed just

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800 million years after the Big Bang. And

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here's the strange Their black holes at the

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centers of these galaxies are between 400

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and 800 times more massive relative

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to their host galaxies than black holes in

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the modern universe.

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Anna: In the local universe, galaxies like our own,

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the mass of a, uh, central black hole is

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typically about a tenth to a half percent of

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the total stellar mass of the Galax. These

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two are nowhere near that ratio.

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Avery: Their black holes weigh in at somewhere

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between 170 and 190

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million solar masses. The galaxies around

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them are comparatively tiny. The black holes

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appear to have grown first and fast while

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their host galaxies were still in their

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infancy.

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Anna: Which raises the question how?

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Avery: That's the core mystery. The standard model

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of galaxy formation says black holes and

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galaxies grow together in a kind of feedback

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loop. The black hole influences star

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formation, star formation influences the

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black hole. These two objects suggest that in

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the very early universe, that relationship

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could be inverted. The black hole didn't

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wait. It grew explosively, outpacing

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its own galaxy by a huge Margin.

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Anna: Astronomers have been finding over massive

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black holes in the early universe regularly

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now with jwst. Each new example adds

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weight to the idea that our models of galaxy

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formation in the first billion years need

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significant revision.

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Avery: And the early universe keeps revealing that

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it was a far wilder, faster, more

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extreme place than we imagined. These are

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not gentle processes. This is cosmic

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violence at a scale that's hard to

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comprehend.

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Anna: We're m closing today with a planet discovery

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that is genuinely new and genuinely

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strange. Strap in.

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Avery: The headline said, uh, rotten eggs. I want to

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hear about the rotten eggs.

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Anna: We'll get there. Astronomers have been

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studying an exoplanet called

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L98.59D.

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It sits just 35 light years away in the

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southern constellation Volens, practically

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next door by cosmic standards. And it's been

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in their sights for a while. But new research

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published this week in the journal Nature has

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revealed just how unusual it is. This

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planet doesn't fit any existing category.

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Avery: What's it like?

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Anna: Imagine a world where the entire surface

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is an ocean, but not water. M

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molten rock. A global magma

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ocean stretching from pole to pole of

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silicate material heated to temperatures that

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would reduce anything we know to vapor.

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Above this ocean sits a thick, dense

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atmosphere. And that atmosphere is loaded

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with sulfur

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Avery: compounds, which is where the rotten eggs

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come in.

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Anna: Hydrogen sulfide. The same compound

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responsible for that distinctive aroma.

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The atmosphere traps heat so efficiently

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that the magma ocean has been kept molten for

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billions of years. A permanent planet

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wide lava sea with a toxic sky above

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it. The lead researcher, Dr. Harrison

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Nichols from the University of Oxford puts it

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perfectly. He says the categories

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astronomers currently use to describe small

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planets may simply be too simple.

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Avery: How did they figure all of this out? You

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can't exactly send the probe.

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Anna: Advanced computer modeling combined with

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observational data about the planet's mass,

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size and density. The planet is less

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dense than we'd expect for its size, which

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gave the team the clue that the interior is

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molten rather than solid. The co author,

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Professor Raymond Peer Humbert described

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being able to reconstruct the hidden interior

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of a planet we will never visit. That's

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extraordinary.

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Avery: And the question it leaves you with what

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other kinds of planets are out there waiting

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to be discovered? Is a great one.

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Anna: L98 59D

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suggests we've barely scratched the surface

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of planetary diversity Worlds with global

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magma oceans, sulfur atmospheres,

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permanent volcanic landscapes, and who

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knows what else. The universe is endlessly

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creative.

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Avery: Just maybe don't plan a holiday there.

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Anna: Before we go, a quick look at the southern

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sky for the coming nights.

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Avery: May is a spectacular month for sky watching

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from Australia and New Zealand. Saturn is

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well placed in the east before midnight and

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Jupiter is becoming more prominent in the pre

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dawn sky. The Milky Way is arcing

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beautifully overhead in the evening hours. A,

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uh, perfect time to look for the Large

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Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud

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low in the south. Just as we discussed today.

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Anna: A pair of first time visitors right there

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above you.

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Avery: Exactly. And um, if you're under dark skies,

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the Southern Milky Way through Centaurus and

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Crux is extraordinary this time of year.

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Anna: That's everything for episode 100. Thank

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you genuinely for being part of this journey.

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100 episodes means 100 days of

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choosing to spend a few minutes thinking

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about the universe, and we appreciate every

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one of you who comes back each day.

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Avery: If you're enjoying the show, please

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subscribe, leave a review wherever you listen

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and find us on all the

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socials@astrodaily.pod. the website

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is astronomydaily.IO.

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Anna: we'll be back tomorrow with the outcome of

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tonight's SpaceX CRS 34 launch

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and whatever else the Cosmos has in store.

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From all of us at Astronomy Daily,

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Avery: keep looking up Astronomy Day.

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The stories we told.

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Anna: Love.