#409: Eclipse Escapades & Stellar Shadows: Fred's Cosmic Journey & The Heaviest Black Hole Discovery

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Hi there, Thanks for joining us
again on Space Nuts, where we talk

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astronomy and space science. My name
is Andred Uncle, your host. It's

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always good to have your company.
Thanks for joining us. Coming up today,

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we are going to talk about Fred's
trip to the US where he saw

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clipses, he saw rocket launchers,
he saw dogs and cats living together.

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There were all sorts of things happening, and we will be revisiting that little

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tour because some pretty exciting things happened, and this wasn't exciting. This was

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probably a bit harrowing space junk hitting
a house in Florida. That doesn't happen

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often, and probably one of the
biggest stories in recent weeks or months,

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the most massive stellar black hole yet
found in our galaxy. We'll be talking

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about that and on our upcoming Well
that's it. That's it. We've got

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to keep forgetting. We're split ap
the show in too so i'll tell you

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about the Q and a episode later, but those things coming up on this

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episode of Space Nuts. Fifteen seconds
guided in Channel ten nine ignition Space Nuts

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or three two one Space Nuts,
as I reported, real good and here

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he is, fully jet lagged and
ready to go. Professor Fred what's our

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astronomer at large? However, who
are you again? That's right? And

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the other the other thing I didn't
realize overnight television was so horrible. That's

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the other thing that Jet LaGG teaches
us. You know, I haven't gone

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there. It's been it's not been
too bad. Actually, it's it's it's

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coming. Coming this way, I
think is a little bit better than going

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the other way. Definitely, we
lost Friday, the what was it Friday,

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the twelfth of April that disappeared over
the dateline. We didn't see any

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of that, which was all right. It's just a weird thing, isn't

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it. Though. You take off
on a Friday and you get home on

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a Sunday and you go, hang
on what happened there? Yeah, it's

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just it's such a strange thing.
But going the other way, you sometimes

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continue to live the same day for
like thirty six or forty hours. It's

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really bizarre. But that's, you
know, one of the first world problems

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we deal with. Indeed it is. But yes, thank you, where

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we're fine really still in a way, it's still processing this marvelous journey that

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we've had over in North America.
So we started off in Vancouver in Canada.

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I have never visited Canada before,
and I you, I've been pressed,

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and I was. It is a
lovely place, yeah, especially British

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Columbia where we were took in the
snow up there as well all sorts of

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things. We went up by train
to, which is Subarctic. It's in

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Yukon. One of the highlights of
that train trip was a lovely couple who

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turned out to be from the Central
Coast in Australia, who came up and

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said, do you Fred Watson.
There were space nuts fans, so shout

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out to them, Hello, Hello, Yeah. And the great thing about

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white Horse, of course, is
that, as I said, it's Subarctic,

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and so they do get the aurora
there, they get the northern lights.

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And we did spend three nights aurora
hunting. We were quasi successful.

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We saw the Northern lights on well
some of us saw them on all three

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nights, but they weren't spectacular displays. There were green streaks in the sky.

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What pleased me was that I now
know how to use my iPhone to

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take photographs of the aurora. So
when we go up to Lapland next year,

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I shall be armed with the iPhone
and something to stand it on,

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so we get dramatic images hopefully to
bring back to space. Now Rusty from

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Donnybrook taught me how to do it. So this is on an iPhone.

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So I don't know if you can
see that, but you press that little

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up arrow. Yeah you're doing and
there's a yeah, and then there's a

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little moon icon there. That's right, and that's that gives you the capacity

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to increase the exposure time and things
like that. He said. A photo

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of the sky from Western Australia and
the stars the other day, brilliant photo.

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Amazing yep, all with it,
all with an iPhone, all with

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an iPhone. Well, no,
it's extraordinary. So yeah, so that

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yeah, so that was that was
great. We actually caught up with the

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White Hors Astronomical Society as well,
which has twenty two members. But they've

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got a lovely observatory out there in
the bush. We we spent a night

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sky watching there waiting for an aurora, which turned up actually just after we

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left, but some of other groups
saw it, so that was great.

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From there it was down through the
ice to Jasper and Lake Louise, places

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which are extraordinary in was it was
it still frozen when you saw it.

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Yep. Lake Louise was frozen solid. Yeah, it was. Were people

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being buff heads and walking out on
top of it? Oh yeah, all

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over the place there were buildings.
I wouldn't do it. There snow persons

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on it. We we had a
we had a rain sleigh ride actually which

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didn't it did go over the ice
just to turn around at the end of

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the lake come back. Yeah.
Anyway, Yeah, there was confluence in

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the thickness of the ice there.
We knew from you know, white House

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what the thickness of ice was because
you could see it in the river.

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It was the best part of two
frees or something like that, maybe even

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more. Yeah anyway, well that
sounds look Having done a similar trip to

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you only last year, I can. I can. Yeah, you brought

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back a lot of memories for me
of Canada is just the most beautiful place,

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and as is the northern part of
the United States. Similar countryside and

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just a glorious part of the world. I loved Vancouver. I love Seattle

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for that matter, they're both in
the same vicinity. In fact, I

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did the shortest international flight I've ever
done from Seattle to Vancouver, which I

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was in twenty to three minutes.
Not very and no, we spent more

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time on the tarmac waiting than we
did in the air. But yeah,

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glorious part of the world. And
yeah, very lucky to live there,

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except I could not stand your cold. It just does not get that cold

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here, and I don't want it
ever to get as cold as that's in

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my part of the world. No
way, But you did go over there

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for one specific reason, Fred,
the eclipse, that's right. So we

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took a flight down from after we
left Lake Louise, we took a flight

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down from Calgary to Houston, and
the first thing that I got was an

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email from the Angle Australian Telescope,
which was more or less Houston, we

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have a problem, which they did
with the mirror elevator at the telescope,

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which was rapidly fixed, I have
to say, but it was very odd.

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As soon as I arrived in Houston, I got this email the paraphrased

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it, Houston, we have a
problem. Of course, the space the

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Space center there, mission control.
We took in all that we took in

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the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences,
which is an extraordinarily good Museum then took

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in sort of via San Antonio up
to Dallas and Fort Worth, and it

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was from there that we made our
eclipse expedition. We saw the eclipse at

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a place called Bristol, which is
the name of a big town in the

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United Kingdom, but it's also the
name of the little village not very far

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from Dallas, probably an hour or
so from Dallas, and there's a winery.

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That's where we had our eclipse location. We were one of about the

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one hundred people there, so we
were quite a large group among that and

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had a wonderful morning waiting for the
sky to clear. Because it was cloudy,

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we could get glimpses of the Sun. We could see after twelve twenty

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two, which is which was the
time of first contact, we could see

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the Moon's disks starting to slip across
the disc of the Sun. Totality was

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at one forty Texas time, and
at about one thirty nine the sky cleared

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completely. The whole sky just cleared. It was astonishing, and so we

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were in this We're in this completely
blue sky for the total eclips of which

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we had four minutes twenty three seconds. It was a long eclipse, very

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dramatic, lovely views of the corona. I didn't bother trying to take photographs

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because I know I'm rubbish at it, but I had binoculars, got some

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great views of the corona, some
very prominent prominences, as they're called,

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these pink blobs that are clouds of
glowing hydrogen being pushed off the surface of

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the Sun into its inner atmosphere.
Yeah, almost the chromosphere. All that

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was really dramatic. We saw Bailey's
beads, those little gaps where you're seeing

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the Sun itself through through valleys on
the Moon's surface. We saw the diamond

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ring effect, which is just a
big version of that. And then the

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eclipse was over, and everybody cheered
and were very happy, and all of

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those people who weren't about to talk
on TV like I was, had lots

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of glasses of wine. I didn't
touch any till the evening. Because it's

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funny you should mention that, because
I was on are on the radio at

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the time and I glanced up at
one of the TV news services and there

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was free What's And I thought,
oh, seriously, yeah when it happened,

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so yeah, yeah, I saw
you talking on Sky News here that's

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not necessarienipity that Yeah, and there
was another couple at the winery who were

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space nuts phones as well. I
didn't get to talk to Marty did marvelous

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Well. I was certainly jealous because
I would have loved to have been there.

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But if I'm patient enough, I
won't have to go anywhere, because

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in twenty twenty eight we get our
own right here in Dubbo total eclipse of

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the Sun at one fifty two PM
I think it is, and it'll be

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fine now, it'll be yeah about
that, but it'll be three minutes and

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fifty two seconds of totality in Dubo. Okay, yeah, Well, after

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you've seen it in Dubble, the
moon Shutdow will be right overhead here where

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I'm sitting now, Yes it will, because yeah, it's going to come

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across from the northwest of the state
over central New South Wales and it's going

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to totally black out Sydney like it
did in Melbourne in nineteen seventy whatever it

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was for you, some three,
was it? Yeah? Yeah, I

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was quite young and they wouldn't let
me go outside. I so wanted to

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see it, but yes, not
advisable without protection. And these days,

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of course, you can buy sunscreen
and rub it in your eyes and that's

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sold the problem. Now, don't
do that. Don't do that. No,

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no, I think that could be
misinformation that, yes, could be

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yes, yes, just ignore that. No, that don't put sounds greened

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in your eyes. But yes,
you wear good proper glasses and filters and

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all that sort of stuff. And
yeah, I can't wait twenty twenty eight.

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That should be very exciting. But
a great trip by the sound of

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it, frit Yeah, we sorry, God, yeah, I was gonna

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say, on a scale of under
ten, what what you're rating about twelve?

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We wrapped up. We wrapped up
with with a flight down to Orlando

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from from Dallas Fort Worth, where
we took a trip to the spaceport to

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Cape Canaveral and our hotel one was
such that we had a view of the

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whole of the launch area, and
in fact, it was a it was

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a bit. It was one of
those things where you're racing against the clock

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because the the Dallas Fort Worth Orlando
flight was delayed significant and we knew there

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was a launch coming up around having
and we had a coach transfer from the

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airport, so we got in I
don't know, nine p thirty or something

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like that, hurled ourselves into this
coach to get to the hotel and made

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it just in time, except that
they delayed the launch, so it was

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originally twelve, but eventually it was
a SpaceX Falcon nine. Its registration in

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terms of starling satellites which it was
launches launching, was six forty eight.

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And so we saw it very very
clearly from our hotel, which had a

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viewing platform, especially for watchings based
launches. They're all set up there.

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Yeah, so I got the binoculars
out again again. I didn't try and

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photograph it, but very spectacular,
marvelous thing to happen. Some of our

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some of our number actually followed it
right through to when the first stage was

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you know released, the second stage
went on its way, first stage turns

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around to come back down. By
the time we'd finished watching, it was

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already sitting on a barge in the
Atlantic Ocean. I this must not go

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beyond these four walls, Andrew.
But I had the binoculars on and there

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was cloud there. So the rocket
exhaust or the you know, the basically

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the fiery exhaust of the Falcon nine
disappeared into the clouds, and then it

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reappeared and I thought, that's fantastic. I'll watch for the second stage,

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yeah, you know, parting of
the two components. Watched and watched and

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watched and thought, it's funny this. It's not really moving. There's two

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bright stars on either side of that
rocket launch. Then the penny dropped.

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I was looking at the star antaries
in the scorpius, the scorpion, which

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looked exactly like the exhaust of this
falcon. So I the binoculars quietly away

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and yes, that was fantastic,
wasn't it. You know, rocket side

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has fred that's for sure. It's
actually the second time that's happened, because

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I remember once decades ago. It
was in Gunnadar, which is in northwestern

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New south it's just from us,
not very far from you, and I

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was waiting for to meet somebody off
a coach during the night, and basically

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it was standing outside the bus station
at night and this flaming red object passed

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overhead and there was a coach driver
standing next to me and I said,

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look at that. I said,
that looks to me like like a re

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entering bit of space jump. Because
it's you can see that it's fire.

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It's red, it's it's coming in
at quite a high speed. I reckon,

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that's what it is, and he
said to me, actually, no,

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it's not. He said, it's
a garbage bag with the firelighter tied

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underneath. Some kids been launching that. The police are trying to find out

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who he is before he sets the
whole town of fire. So I told

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him. I told him what I
do for a living, and he almost

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wet himself. He was so amused
by the fact that that's brilliant. That

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is brilliant. Yeah, I love
it. Of course. I'm Ganada,

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home to the one hundred and fiftieth
time one hundred and fifty degree time iridian.

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Is that it? Uh, it's
yes, I think it's one fifty.

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I think that's right. Yes,
yeah, yeah, very good.

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All right. Did you do you
want to talk about the space junk now

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or do you want to leave it
till the next No, let's just mention

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it because it's Yeah, it's as
you said, it's in the same neck

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of the woods. This is a
story about a gentleman in Actually it's one

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of the seaside cities in Florida.
Naples, and he basically had something come

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through his roof, which didn't cheer
him up much, but when he looked

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at it, he's very This gentleman
is very astute about space technology. He

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reckoned. It was part of a
palette, basically a support palette used to

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mount batteries which are being basically re
entered to burn up in the atmosphere.

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And it was a piece of metal
round about four inches ten centimeters by one

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and a half inches or four centimeters, weighing a bit more than half a

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kilogram one point six pounds. And
yeah, sure enough, that was what's

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00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:42.840
gone through his roof. It's been
analyzed. It was well burnt up.

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00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:47.639
Actually. You can find this story, by the way, on space dot

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00:16:47.679 --> 00:16:52.080
com, very nicely covered there with
some pictures of before and after for one

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00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:56.399
of these stand shops. Yeah look
at that. Yeah wow so yeah,

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00:16:56.440 --> 00:17:00.600
so yeah, so then I've had
him off the International Space Station. Yes,

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it basically was something that was being
thrown away from the International Space Station.

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00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:14.039
It was you know, chunk that
was that was being basically being allowed

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00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:18.559
to burn up in the atmosphere.
And normally that sort of thing burns up

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00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:22.839
completely, but sometimes it doesn't and
in fact, I think the Space Agency

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00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:26.079
itself, NASA, have launched a
bit of an inquiry to find out why

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that did not burn up in the
end. Yeah, that's a strange one.

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Gosh, it's a good thing it
didn't hit a person that would have

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made it. That's that's right.
Yeah, so far the odds are remote,

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00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:45.279
but yes, not impossible. That
Yeah, space junk landing in Naples,

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Florida rang a bell. I think
they play a PGA too, a

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00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:53.559
golf event in name Florida revenue.
And talking about the ISS has just reminded

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00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:56.920
me of one of the real highlights
of the trip. You know. I've

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00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:03.319
talked about the spectacular ones, but
the Kennedy Space Flight Center, where we

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00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:08.559
went the day after we'd seen the
Falcon nine launch utterly mind blowing. It

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00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:14.880
absolutely took my breath away, all
my favorite bits of space hardware there.

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I've got so many photographs now of
me standing in front of the Gemini Titan

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combination, which I as a rocket
park. Yeah, that's right, rocket

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00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:29.039
park. It's thrillingly you know.
I was thrilled by all that while I

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00:18:29.079 --> 00:18:32.200
was a university student in the nineteen
sixties, and it just brought it all

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00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.799
back. It was fantastic. But
the thing that surprised me most Andrew,

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00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:41.680
you know that the Space Shuttle Atlantis
is there at Kennedy Space Flight Center in

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00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:48.920
the same enclosure is a life size
replica of the Hubble space telescope. And

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00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:52.640
for some reason, yes, I
know it's a two point for me to

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00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:56.559
telescope, but I just hadn't expected
it to be so big. Oh wow,

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00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:02.240
which is huge. And yes,
it's a big telescope. You know,

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00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:04.720
you've got this the tube which in
all the photographs we see of it

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00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:08.599
deployed in space, it looks relatively
small, but that thing's ten feet in

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00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:15.440
diameter. Effectively it's nearly three meters
or thereabouts, and the instrumentation package at

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00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:18.240
the back is much bigger. So
it is a very very large piece of

246
00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:23.559
kit. And yes, it kind
of really enhanced my appreciation for the fact

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00:19:23.559 --> 00:19:29.319
that it was taken into a bit
by a space shuttle in its cargo bay

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00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:33.079
and just what I think it was
the biggest thing that they ever put in

249
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:34.519
the cargo bay, I think,
with about an inch to spare on either

250
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:38.880
side of it. So yeah,
really remarkable. That was one of those

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00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:42.279
epiphany moments that I didn't really expect
I would have thought. You know,

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I knew that the space the Hubble
Space Telescope was big, I didn't realize

253
00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:52.799
just how big it is. And
of course the James Web Telescope is even

254
00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:57.759
bigger, much much bigger, with
a six point five meter diameter. Anyway,

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00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:00.680
enough of that, Sorry, I
druff Really no, that's okay.

256
00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:06.960
Yeah, we can live through your
travels and enjoy them as almost as much.

257
00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.039
But I must say, Kennedy Space
Center mind blowing. I can add

258
00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:15.759
one more footnote to it. Yeah, you go. For us, it

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00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:21.119
was even more special for us because
we had a guide. We had a

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00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:23.680
friend of a friend, Kerry Doherty
in Adelaide, used to work at the

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00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:29.799
Parahause Museum. She was the Parahause
Museum space specialist, very well known in

262
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:36.359
the Australian space well. She has
a friend called Tim Gannon and she basically

263
00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:41.640
got her friend Tim, who works
in the Kennedy Space Center, to give

264
00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:45.720
us a personalized tour. Now,
Tim is a very special individual because he

265
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:52.039
is a space artist and he has
designed nineteen of the mission patches that have

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00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:56.680
flown with astronauts, mostly on the
Space Shuttle, but others as well.

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00:20:56.920 --> 00:21:02.519
So he's his artwork has been in
space and as he works with astronauts to

268
00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:04.599
say, what do you want on
this artwork? Extraordinary man, and we've

269
00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:08.880
got to get him on space.
Note and maybe he could design us a

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00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:12.279
mission patch for space. Now hey, now you're talking, woudn't that be

271
00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:18.119
cool? The logo, Yeah,
that's my brother's design. I like that.

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00:21:18.279 --> 00:21:22.519
I love those two little characters.
Yeah. But yeah, getting Tim

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00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:27.279
on the job would would be remarkable. Can I I know many of our

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00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:30.960
listeners can't see this, but I'm
going to show you something anyway where you

275
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:36.079
can see. It's in YouTube,
and don't forget to subscribe below. You

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00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:38.240
got it in there. I got
it in there. When he said goodbye

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00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:42.160
to us, Tim knew that I
was a mad, keen fan of the

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00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:48.279
Gemini missions, which preceded the Apollo
missions. There were two person spacecraft and

279
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:52.000
it was all of there were twelve
missions, all of which are about learning

280
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:55.119
how to dark and round everyone and
things like that. So Tim knew I

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00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:57.039
was keen on it. And actually
the day after we saw him, became

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00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:03.319
especially to our hotel to give me
to give me this YEP, which is

283
00:22:04.119 --> 00:22:08.240
kind of giant is patch for geminy
two. That's right, but all the

284
00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:14.440
other ones around the edge way around
one, two, three, four,

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00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:18.319
five, six, and seven flew
together and eight, nine, ten,

286
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:22.160
eleven, twelve, twelve. Is
that one there? Yeah, So that's

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00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:25.160
a giant sized mission patch which is
going to be in a frame and on

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00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:27.960
my wall here in the office before
too long. It wasn't that great?

289
00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:33.759
What a what a what a gracious
and talented and knowledgeable man. It was

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00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:36.440
a delight to be with him.
So heads up to you, Tim,

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00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:40.640
Thank you very much for that incredible
all right, I will leave it there,

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00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:45.400
but you're listening to Space NATS with
Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.

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00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:51.599
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space Nuts. Now back to the
show piece. Nuts, now Fred to

340
00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:44.440
something extraordinary. We probably get more
questions about black holes than anything else,

341
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.880
and they are in the news all
the time. And a new piece of

342
00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:52.640
information that's now been brought forward and
I've heard this on the news in the

343
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:59.960
last day or so, and this
is basically the most massive stellar black hole

344
00:27:00.039 --> 00:27:03.839
yet found in our galaxy? Would
that be the right way of describing it?

345
00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:08.519
Perfect, That's exactly what it is. That's right, and it's great

346
00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:18.359
because well it's got strong connections with
Australia, not direct connections, but they

347
00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:23.200
are there. The original discovery was
made using the European Space Agency's GEIA spacecraft,

348
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:27.319
and I'll explain how that happened in
a minute. GEIA is an astrometry

349
00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:32.680
spacecraft measuring the positions of starsbury accurately. But the follow up work was done

350
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.279
with the VLT, the very Large
telescope of the European Southern Observatory down in

351
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:42.079
northern Chile at Sarah Paranel. The
telescope that impact. It's four telescopes,

352
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:47.400
but they can be used in combination
or singly eight point two meter mirrors each

353
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:53.519
one those telescopes are accessible by Australian
astronomers because of the strategic partnership that we

354
00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:57.359
have with the European Southern Observatory.
So it's a good news story, not

355
00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:00.839
just from the science point of view, from the fact that we can brag

356
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:07.480
about, you know what, is
effectively Australia's National Optical Observatory, not on

357
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:11.839
Australian soil, but down there in
Chile because we have this partnership. So

358
00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:15.000
it's a good news story. So
what's the story. What's the story?

359
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.920
Friend? I hear you say big
in the sky. That's great, that's

360
00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:30.240
right. So what happened was scientists
who were working with the Gaya mission.

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00:28:30.839 --> 00:28:33.960
So this is as I said,
it's an astrometry mission. It measures the

362
00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:41.759
positions of stars in the sky very
very accurately. Working these astronomers are from

363
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:49.559
institutions in Europe, notably Observe de
Paris Paris Observatory, very nice building as

364
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:56.440
well as a nice institution. They
they noticed that one particular star had a

365
00:28:56.559 --> 00:29:02.960
wobble to it that was, you
know, detected by the Geyer spacecraft.

366
00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:06.920
So this thing's measuring star positions very
accurately. If you do that over time,

367
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:11.720
you can tell if a star is
moving or wobbling or doing something funny

368
00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:19.079
like that. And they analyzed the
wobble spectroscopically using the very large telescope and

369
00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:25.119
realized that what was happening to this
star is that it was in orbit around

370
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:30.599
something else, something else that was
invisible. And their calculation showed that this

371
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:37.440
object had a mass of thirty three
times the mass of our Sun, which

372
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:41.000
makes it the only candidate that it
could be is a black hole. But

373
00:29:41.079 --> 00:29:48.559
it also makes it a record breaker
because the next most massive stellar mass black

374
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:53.279
hole in our neighborhood. I put
Jordie in here so he wouldn't do that

375
00:29:55.440 --> 00:30:04.880
is quiet audience place. Yeah anyway, Yeah, it's all happening. So

376
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:11.559
the next most massive known it's twenty
one solar masses that signa s X one.

377
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.960
It's a very famous one of the
first black holes ever discovered. This

378
00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:21.160
one is one and a half times
the mass of that thirty three solar masses.

379
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:27.960
Quite exceptional. There are more massive
black holes in other galaxies, but

380
00:30:29.079 --> 00:30:32.960
this is significant because it's in our
own galaxy. It's only two thousand light

381
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:41.079
years away, and it's challenged our
understanding of black holes because remember we're talking

382
00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:45.279
now about stellar mass black holes.
That means black holes with the mass of

383
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:48.920
about one star is thirty three in
this case, which are ones that have

384
00:30:49.039 --> 00:30:52.559
been formed when a star gets to
the end of its life and collapses,

385
00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:56.839
so that they're not the super massive
black holes that we think about in the

386
00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:02.680
centers of galaxies. They are probably
formed by black holes are creting together,

387
00:31:03.359 --> 00:31:07.799
you know, building up a very
very solid array of a very solid mass

388
00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:12.000
of black holes, sometimes billions of
times the mass of the Sun. But

389
00:31:12.279 --> 00:31:17.079
in the stellar mass region, this
is a record holder within our galaxy.

390
00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:22.319
And as I said, it's challenging
astronomers understanding of how something this massive could

391
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:26.720
form because typically they are ten solar
masses something like that. How could you

392
00:31:26.759 --> 00:31:32.880
get something as massive as this?
And a clue comes from the companion star,

393
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:37.279
which may well have been formed at
the same time as the progenitor star

394
00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:40.400
of the black hole, the thing
that was the star before it exploded and

395
00:31:40.599 --> 00:31:45.039
created the black hole. Because it's
highly metal poor. And as you know,

396
00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:52.319
everything except hydrogen and helium to an
astronomer is a metal and this star

397
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:57.079
is very metal poor. It means
it's mostly hydrogen and helium with not much

398
00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:02.119
else, and that makes it a
bit different from your normal star. You

399
00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:07.799
know, most stars have got quite
significant amounts of other elements in them,

400
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:13.400
like sodium, carbon and oxygen and
iron and all of those things, whereas

401
00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:16.759
there these metal poor ones have only
very small amounts of that. And so

402
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:22.680
maybe it is something to do with
the fact that the companion star and almost

403
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:27.039
certainly the progenitor star of the black
hole were metal poor. That might be

404
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:31.200
a clue to why we have this
super this not super massive black hole,

405
00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:37.519
but very massive stellar massive black hole
general galaxy. The other theory I have

406
00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:44.079
is it's actually thirty three and a
third times the mess of the sun and

407
00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:49.119
it's not a black hole, it's
just a vinyl LP. Ah. Now

408
00:32:49.240 --> 00:32:53.200
you're talking. Now, I hadn't
made that connection, Andrew, and I

409
00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:59.400
have to say it is a fairly
tenuous connection on the one link that I

410
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:05.680
think gives it with some credibility.
One thing that gives it some credibility is

411
00:33:05.720 --> 00:33:09.319
that vinyl LPs are black. Yes, that's right, that's the only connection

412
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:15.880
I was making, really, and
kind of the same shape without the whole.

413
00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:17.759
Now they've got the hole in the
middle. Yeah, a hole in

414
00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:22.319
the middle. I suppose you could
equate the edge of the vinyl to the

415
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:27.039
event horizon of a black hole.
That might be. It's just a thought,

416
00:33:27.400 --> 00:33:31.880
just a thought, but yeah,
quite an incredible discovery. Makes you

417
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.559
wonder, what, you know,
if there's anything potentially bigger out there in

418
00:33:36.599 --> 00:33:39.839
the stellar mess. Yeah, the
black hole arena. I mean, you

419
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:44.960
know, the reason why we haven't
known about this before because it is close,

420
00:33:45.839 --> 00:33:50.079
much closer than signal s X one. It's because it's quiescent, it's

421
00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:53.480
not gobbling anything up, because that's
what normally gives them away. If you've

422
00:33:53.519 --> 00:33:58.920
got the accretion disc which is swirling
around the black hole, you're going to

423
00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.160
get radiation from it, and that's
what we normally discover, but not in

424
00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:07.559
this it's the wabble of the star. It's like finding a volcano that's been

425
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:10.800
there for billions of years and you
only just notice this nut rigs a bell

426
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:17.760
too. Indeed, all right,
Fred, we are done, but a

427
00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:22.760
reminder to everybody, if you're particularly
watching us on YouTube, to subscribe,

428
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:28.519
which you can do that down there. One of those finger points to the

429
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:31.719
subscribe button, so please do that. Don't forget to visit our website and

430
00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:36.320
have a bit of a peruse.
I love using all these weird words,

431
00:34:36.760 --> 00:34:40.480
and yeah, don't forget our social
media platforms as well as Space Nuts official

432
00:34:40.519 --> 00:34:45.000
Facebook page and of course the Space
Nuts podcast group, which is getting more

433
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:46.760
and more active and more and more
people. I think more people are on

434
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:52.800
that Facebook page that actually ever listen
to us. But it's a great fun

435
00:34:52.840 --> 00:34:55.679
page where you can all talk to
each other and swap photos and yarns and

436
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:00.559
so it's a good time place.
Fred, we are done for another day.

437
00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:04.280
Thank you so much. Good to
have you back in person. We've

438
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:07.360
we've kind of been in pre record
mode for the last month or so,

439
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:13.239
but we're back and things will be
normal for probably a week or two before

440
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:17.039
someone else goes overseas. I wonder
that'll be who knows? Yes, yes,

441
00:35:17.079 --> 00:35:20.880
all right? Thanks Red, so
soon, cheers, Thanks for not

442
00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:23.800
changing. Fred Wat's an astronomer at
large part of the team here at Space

443
00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:27.639
Nuts. Good to have Hu back
as well, although he's forgotten how to

444
00:35:27.679 --> 00:35:30.320
do everything. And for me Andrew
Dunkley, thanks for your company. Catch

445
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:35.000
you on the next episode a Q
and a episode of Space Nuts soon.

446
00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:42.400
Bye bye, sus. You'll be
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447
00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:47.159
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448
00:35:47.199 --> 00:35:52.119
also stream on demand at bites dot
com. This has been another quality podcast

449
00:35:52.159 --> 00:36:00.360
production from nights dot com.