Nov. 7, 2024

#467: Decoding Mars Messages, Hungry Black Holes & Martian Water Mysteries

#467: Decoding Mars Messages, Hungry Black Holes & Martian Water Mysteries

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Space Nuts Episode: Mars Mysteries and Cosmic Feasts
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred...

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Space Nuts Episode: Mars Mysteries and Cosmic Feasts
Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this intriguing episode of Space Nuts, where they dive into the latest discoveries and discussions in the realm of astronomy and Space exploration. From mysterious messages from Mars to the insatiable appetite of black holes, this episode is packed with fascinating insights and cosmic wonders.
Episode Highlights:
- Mars Message Decoded: Explore the story behind a mysterious message sent from Mars in 2023, now decoded by a father-daughter Timms. Discover the artistic and scientific collaboration that led to this unique project and its implications for extraterrestrial communication.
- Ancient Mars' Climate Conundrum: Delve into a new study that challenges our understanding of Mars' history. Learn about the planet's carbon dioxide cycle and the possibility of ancient lakes and rivers hidden beneath layers of ice and CO2.
- Black Hole's Cosmic Feast: Uncover the staggering discovery of a black hole consuming matter at an unprecedented rate. Understand the implications of this finding for our knowledge of black hole growth in the early universe.
For more Space Nuts, including our continually updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on facebook, X, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.
For more Space and Astronomy News Podcasts, visit our HQ at www.bitesz.com.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts/support.
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.

 

 

WEBVTT

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Hi there, thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts.

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We talk astronomy, space science, and sometimes a new cocktail recipe.

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On this episode, Fred and I will be focusing on Mars.

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Back in twenty twenty three, so long ago, a message

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was sent from Mars back to Earth and it's taken

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a while, but it's now been decoded. What's this all about?

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Who decoded it? That's a bit of a surprise. We'll

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look into that. There's a black hole out there somewhere

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and it is very, very hungry. It's probably obese as

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a matter of fact. And oh another story about Mars

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iknely forgot. We're looking at its history in terms of

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its carbon dioxide and the water circulation of the red planet.

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It's really fascinating and it could give us a completely

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different idea of how the planet came to be as

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it is today. We'll look at all of that and

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more on this edition of Space Nuts. Fifteen seconds.

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Guidance is internal ten nine ignition sequence Space Nuts or three.

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Two one Space Nuts.

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As when I re bought it.

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Neil's good and it's.

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The man of the hour.

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Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large. But people are coming

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up with all sorts of different titles for you, Fred,

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because even on our social media platforms, people have been

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having a bit of fun after you've announced you were

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getting out of the public service last week and moving

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into a new role sometime in the future at a university.

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But even Hugh in the studio has chimed in. He's

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called you the astronomer in the wild Yeah.

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I quite like that in the wilderness. It might be

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the better word.

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You might feel like that for what that's right, it's good. Yeah,

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But lots of lots of people wishing you well from

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the Space Nuts fraternity. Yeah, you've been busy. You've been

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down in Victoria, which is one of the southern states

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of New South Wales, talking about stuff. Actually, somebody was

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there and posted a picture of you on on Facebook.

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I think it was one of our Space Nets audience.

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That's nice. I look at Facebook from time to Dunton

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and find out what's going on in the in the

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in the universe or whatever it's called. Yeah, it's called

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I've lost the plot altogether now that it's just a

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bit of jet like coming back from deepest Victoria last night.

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Mm hmm.

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I thought you one thing, one thing I saw and

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I was actually at this place. This is Sea Lake

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is where is where we were doing the Austrofest. It

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is a little town and it's right next to a

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lake that looks like a sea, which is Quae. It's

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called Sea Lake.

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As in the letter C.

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No the C A C right.

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Too much if you go into.

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Yeah, well, it is a coincidence. It's often called the

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sky mirror because the Borong people, the First Nations people

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who are indigenous there, they used to have legends that

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it was a mirror of the sky because it's a

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salt lake. It's dead flat, very very smooth when it's

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full of water. It wasn't that full this weekend, but

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when I saw it last year it was more impressive.

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There's a lot more water in it. But something I

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did notice last year and followed up because I had

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no idea what it was, but we had a much

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better look at it this time is a solar concentrator

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which is just south of Mildura. And this is a

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power station that involves solar panels of a very different sort.

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There's steerable mirrors, there's a whole There are four of

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these towers, each one surrounded by an array of steerable

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mirrors that can point the sun's light to the top

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of the towers and there there is a working fluid

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and I have checked out what it is yet. It

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could be water, but I think it's more likely to

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be something else that has turned into distantly into steam

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because of the heat, the intense heat, and that drives

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turbine so you generate power. But it is quite an

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extraordinary side to see them when you're going up the

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highway towards Mildura. It's what caught my eye last time.

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And as I said, I followed it up and we

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went and had to look at them. Quite an amazing

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piece of technology, with this dazzling blob of light at

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the top of each of the towers where the sun's

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lightest is focused. And to get an aerial shot of

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it from our flight down to Melbourne coming back home

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this afternoon, so I know what it looks like from

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above as well.

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I didn't even know such a thing existed. Quite amazing.

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I also, while we're talking about that kind of thing,

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I saw a story this week where the CSIRO, which

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is the Australian government Science Department, has started producing flexible

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solar panels which could change the game completely in terms

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of power generation. So that's pretty exciting news as well.

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I could wrap them around a coke can and keep

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it cold or heat it up or whatever you like.

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Or you could wear them, or you could wear yeah,

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well that's the thing you could. I know they put

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little solar panels in caps sometimes so they can turn

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on a fan and keep your fats core.

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That sort of thing.

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But this is a much bigger, much bigger thing in

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the power generation game. Yeah, it's all very exciting. We

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better get on with it, Fred, and we're going to

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start off with a couple of stories from Mars. Now,

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what's this Mars message all about? That was sent back

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in twenty twenty three and has only just been decoded.

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So it was part of a sort of celebration. It

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was an art project, something called a Sign in Space,

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a multi week art project led by DANIELA. Depaualis, who's

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the current artist in residence at the SETI Institute. Now

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you remember the SETI Institute for Extraterrestrial Life. They're in

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Mountain View, California, and they are very long established. They've

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been going for a long long time. They actually have facilities,

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they have their own telescopes that they're on, and a

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lot of very very significant scientists who work there, some

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of whom I know, but I don't actually know the

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artist in residence. But what happened was this signing space test,

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which was basically carried out by the European Space Agency's

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EXO Mars Trace Gas Orbiter probe that was launched quite

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a few years ago. Actually, it's one that was looking

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for methane in Mars' upper atmosphere, and I don't think

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they found it there. We know it's now on the surface,

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but not so much in the atmosphere anyway. The idea

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was to think up a sort of some sort of

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signal that we might receive from an extraterrestrial intell leigence.

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And so this was a sort of coded signal that

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was broadcast by the Trace gas Orbiter in orbitor around

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Mars and picked up on Earth and then sort of

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sent out almost like a citizen science project for people

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to have a look at and see if they could

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decode it. And the bottom line and the reason why

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this is in the news, it's now been decoded by

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a father daughter team. She's loved that Ken and Kelly

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Chaffin are their names of Chaffin. And apparently, and this

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is quote from the ASA statement about this, they followed

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their intuition and ran simulations for hours and days on end,

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and finally came up with a decoded signal and once

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again the ISSA statement and actually checked out thesa statement

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in detail, just not had time since we got back.

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But it contained movements. That was the thing about this,

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this decoded message. It contained movement, which suggested to the

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Chaffins that it might contain information about life, because life

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tends to move. And so what they've got to do

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now having decoded it, they've got to work out what

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it means and find the possible meanings in this message.

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And that's apparently the overall, you know, that's the main

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goal of this project, the Sign in Space project. Yes,

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there is a nice quote from the artist in residence

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who said, receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilization would

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be a profoundly transformational experience for all humankind. A sign

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in space offers the unprecedented opportunity to tangibly rehearse and

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prepare for this scenario through global collaboration, fostering an open

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ended search for meaning across all cultures and discipline. So

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it's a very nicely you know, formulated project and it

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looks as we're halfway there now. Yeah, so find out

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find out eventually what it means.

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Yeah, and well done to Ken and is it Kelly

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or Keeley? Yeah? Who decoded the message? Decoding doesn't mean,

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as you said, we understand it. Now they've got to

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actually figure out what's within the message. But it does

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kind of sort of ring of the movie starring Jodie

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Foster call Contact, which was exactly that scenario where we

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received an extraterrestrial signal and a lot of the time

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is a very long film, but a lot of the

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time was dedicated to deciphering the film and working out

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what the messages were. And ultimately it was the building

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of a spaceship type scenario, a wormhole generator or whatever

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you want to call it. But yeah, if the day

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ever came where we received a message, that may well be.

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The challenge is figuring out what's in it, because it's

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okay to receive something, but that doesn't mean you're going

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to understand it. And that's that's what this was all about.

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It's quite extraordinary, what a clever concept to come up with.

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Yeah, there's a there's a there's a nice report about

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this on the space dot com website, and there's the

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author has almost become poetic because there's a very nice

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sentence here. For all we know, alien communication might more

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resemble a collection of odors or the movements of a

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pile of leaves in the wind than anything we recognize

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as language. That's beautiful books, But I agree with you.

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In fact, Contacts one of my favorite, a favorite sci

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fi movies because of that. It's exactly it's all about linguistics.

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It is it is that that. And there's another one

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I can't think of the name of it, where they

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Earth was visited by an alien species, squid like creatures,

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and the communication barrier was basically the guts of the

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film because they couldn't figure out how to talk to

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each other. And yeah, that's brilliant. I can't think of

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the name of it. Anyway, it will come to me,

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or someone will, someone will messages and tell us. But

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I love this story for that very reason because even

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on Earth, though Fred you said it, there is communication

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on Earth that does just that, like dogs and cats

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and other animals do communicate with odor more so than

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the spoken language, and many other creatures communicate with signals,

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whether it's mating or whether it's just day to day communication.

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It's it is.

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Yeah, it's something to consider. Imagine getting a video message

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from an alien race and they spoke in sign or

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something like that. To try to figure that one out. Yeah,

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it's extraordinary. Space dot com is where you can read

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that amazing story. Let's take a little break from the

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show to tell you about our new sponsor, Saley. Now,

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It's backed by Nord VPN, a great company that backs

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its products one hundred percent. Find out more about Saley

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in our show notes. Now back the space nuts. Okay,

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we tacked all.

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Space nuts.

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While we're talking about Mars thread, let's move on to

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a completely different situation, and this looks at the ancient

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history of Mars in terms of its carbon dioxide, which

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is quite prevalent on the red planet. But at some

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stage there was a change in the planet and we

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all thought it was like a global warming type of

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an event, which has seen a lot of the CO

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two end up in the in the regulars. But there's

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a new study out that's saying, hang on a minute,

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hang on a minute, we think it could have happened

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another way.

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Yeah, that's right. So you're quite right. That's you know,

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we we we we think of Mars as having had

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a warm and wet past, and the evidence seems to

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be there. And then what came after that was we

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don't know whether it was dramatic or whether it was

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a sudden end, whether all the water evaporated into the atmosphere,

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and to become dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen and be lost.

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We know a lot of it is still there. It's

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nice the under the soil or regulative of Mars.

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But there's a model that has basically been what it's

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developed by a researcher by the name of Peter Boo.

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I think b U. H. L. E. R. At the

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Planetary Science Institute in the USA.

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And uh, he goes he's related to Faris right. Well, yeah,

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right over my head, people, I know what I'm talking about.

268
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:21.559
That's another movie reference far as Bueller's Day off.

269
00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.919
Right. Okay, you watched too many movies or I don't

270
00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:28.960
watch enough. I'm not quite sure which it is. It's

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probably true both. I think both are true. All right, Okay,

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having put that one to bed, it's not Erris booler Is.

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He's built a model of the way Mars's atmosphere works

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in terms of its carbon dioxide cycle. You know, we've

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known about this for a while and have read before

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about the way carbon dioxide sort of crosses between being

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a gas and being solid, and you know it depends

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00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:08.319
on the season and things of that sort in on Mars.

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So its carbon dioxide cycle is all about the interchange

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of carbon dioxide again with this soil, so that you

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can you can actually get the soil forming a thin

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coating of solid carbon dioxide on each grain of soil

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if you've got the right sort of weather conditions. And

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then that in heat, when it's when it's warm, that

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carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere, it gets warm enough

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to to stop being solid and become a gas, and

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then it can migrate from the atmosphere over to the

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polar caps where it's cold again because they're the pools

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and you get it freezing out. So we know that

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some of the ice and the polar caps of Mars

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is solid carbon dioxide. However, what doctor Bulla has is

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00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:05.759
looked at what might have been happening when Mars did

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change from being a warm, wet climate to a cold,

294
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dry one. And the work that he's done is quite

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interesting in that it highlights an aspect of the Martian

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liquid water that we know was on the surface in

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a way that we have not thought about before. And

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I'm going to quote him actually because it actually sums

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00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:38.440
it up very nicely. Peter Briller says, this model describes

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the origins of major landscape features on Mars like the

301
00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:45.480
biggest lake, the biggest valleys, and the biggest ESCA system,

302
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and escas are the remains of rivers that once flowed

303
00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:53.119
beneath ice. I remember that from my school days when

304
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we studied those things. So the biggest ESCO systems in

305
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a self consistent way, and it's only reallyying on a

306
00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:04.319
process that we see today, which is just carbon dioxide

307
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collapsing from the atmosphere. And so what his model says

308
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is that the carbon dioxide that's actually locked up in

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the regolith the Martian soil, in warm conditions that will

310
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escape and will freeze back and may well freeze back

311
00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:29.440
onto icy regions. Now we know that the probably Mars

312
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was covered not all of it, but a lot of

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00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:35.559
it was probably covered by ice early in its history.

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00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.359
And his suggestion is that a layer of solid carbon

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00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:42.279
dioxide on top of the ice actually acts as a blanket.

316
00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:48.559
It's a verbal blanket, which means that the ice underneath

317
00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:55.680
it basically doesn't lose the heat out into space. And

318
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:59.680
so because of the residual heat from the interior of Mars,

319
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.559
which warms the underside of the ice, you might very

320
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well get liquid water underneath a layer of ice, underneath

321
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a thin layer of carbon dioxide which is keeping the

322
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:12.039
keeping the heat in. And then if you've got lit

323
00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:15.720
lakes and rivers underneath that ice, then they're going to

324
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:18.680
form the sort of landscape features that Peter Pooler is

325
00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:24.519
talking about. So it's a complex picture, but it basically

326
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:28.759
it suggests there's a kilometer of carbon dioxide on top

327
00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:32.039
of something like six kilometers of water ice, and then

328
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.400
underneath that is running water, which is really quite an

329
00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:36.960
extraordinary scenario.

330
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:42.640
Yeah, is this going to be subject to peer review

331
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:45.200
or are they pretty confident they've got this right, because

332
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what they're saying is, look, we've had this preconceived idea

333
00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:52.240
for a long time about how things might have transpired

334
00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:55.759
on Mars, but they're throwing up a completely different scenario.

335
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:04.279
That's right. I think it's It's actually in the Journal

336
00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.200
of Geophysical Research, but I'm not sure whether it has

337
00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:10.599
got through peer review. I suspect it has. I haven't

338
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:13.440
looked closely enough of that. The title of his paper

339
00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:18.359
is it's a lengthy title, Massive ice sheet base or

340
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:22.960
melting triggered by atmospheric collapse on Mars leading to formation

341
00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:28.279
of overtopped ice covered Argaya basin, Paleo lake fed by

342
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one thousand kilometer rivers. There you go, that's a story, noble.

343
00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:34.920
You just you just read the whole paper.

344
00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:37.519
That was just a title.

345
00:21:38.119 --> 00:21:41.880
Yeah yeah, But you know, one of one or two

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00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.279
of the interesting things that I gleaned from this is

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00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:48.759
is is what Mars used to be like? And they

348
00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:53.640
say it had oceans the size of Earth Mediterranean Sea

349
00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:55.839
for example. It's just had to imagine when you look

350
00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:56.079
at it.

351
00:21:56.119 --> 00:21:58.880
Now, that's that's right. I mean, when when you look

352
00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:02.839
at Mars on a topological map, you see how low

353
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lying the northern hemisphere is, and it's very easy to

354
00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:10.039
believe that that was perhaps covered with an ocean. It's

355
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:13.000
also very sparsely created the northern hemisphere, which means it's

356
00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:18.000
a relatively recent surface. It's a particular region that vit

357
00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:21.160
Buller's papers referring to the Agaya but basin. It is

358
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about the size of the Mediterranean Sea. And the thought

359
00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:30.279
is that that was once covered with ice but with

360
00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:36.559
water underneath it. And I'm basically draining to northern the

361
00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:41.599
northern plains of Mars. It's really quite an extraordinary idea.

362
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:45.480
But what he suggests also is that this might have

363
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happened multiple times. You might have had this suggesting it

364
00:22:50.200 --> 00:22:55.559
might have happened millions, millions of years apart during an

365
00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:58.880
era that might have lasted for a tenth of a billion,

366
00:22:58.920 --> 00:23:01.559
in other words, one hundred million years. So it is

367
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:05.839
quite an interesting scenario that may well have given rise

368
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.000
to some of these features that are otherwise difficult to

369
00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:09.839
explain in the landscape of Mars.

370
00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:15.119
Yeah, they also reference the rotational tilt cycle of Mars

371
00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:17.359
and how that's right, might have been a factor because

372
00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:21.680
it does sort of every hundred thousand years moving to

373
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:25.000
a into different positions, and that can affect what's happening

374
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with the CO two cycle.

375
00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:30.240
I think. Yeah, we were saying because the difference of

376
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solar radiation, that's right, and that's one of the things

377
00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:36.519
you know, that highlights how important our moon is being

378
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:41.240
in our evolution because the Earth doesn't do that because

379
00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:44.799
the Moon stabilizes the Earth's tilts. Mars doesn't have that,

380
00:23:44.839 --> 00:23:48.000
and so it still has wandered around, as you said,

381
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:50.960
with the periodicity in the region of one hundred thousand years.

382
00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:54.119
So yes, so when God built Mars, he would just

383
00:23:54.119 --> 00:23:56.839
put two tiny little rocks there to stabilize it, and went,

384
00:23:56.880 --> 00:23:58.680
oh damn, that didn't work. Let's try again.

385
00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:05.759
I didn't know. She swore, I didn't know, screamed right now. Anyway,

386
00:24:06.119 --> 00:24:08.680
whatever happened in those two moons, Yeah, they were probably

387
00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:11.240
collected by miles later. And one of them is not

388
00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:13.680
going to last very lot because it's going to crash

389
00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:18.039
into the planet. So yes, but yes, interesting stuff. And

390
00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:20.559
it does highlight the difference, doesn't it, between our own

391
00:24:20.599 --> 00:24:23.759
planet and well every other planet? Pretty well, yes it does.

392
00:24:23.799 --> 00:24:27.799
But the similarities between Mars and Earth are quite eerie

393
00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:32.880
in certain respects. You talk about how you know that

394
00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:38.200
the oceans would have dominated one hemisphere on Mars. It's

395
00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.279
similar on Earth because basically the southern hemisphere is a

396
00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:45.079
lot wetter or waterrier than the northern hemisphere in terms

397
00:24:45.119 --> 00:24:50.920
of ocean size and geographic layouts and so many other things.

398
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.039
The canyons and the Yeah, Earth and Mars are so

399
00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:59.720
similar in many, many ways, except a much bigger planet.

400
00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:03.119
The features on Mars are incredible.

401
00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:05.680
And indeed quite earth like in many ways.

402
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:09.759
Yeah, and I gather that Venus probably was at one

403
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:14.480
stage like that as well, before the runaway Greenhouse effects

404
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:19.000
messed it up completely. So this is quite quite amazing.

405
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:22.759
You can read all about that story at the fizz

406
00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:26.880
phy s fizz dot org website. This is Space Nuts

407
00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:36.519
with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson. Space Nuts our

408
00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:41.119
final story today. Fred is surprising in that we finally

409
00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:42.480
get to talk about black holes.

410
00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:47.279
I've missed the black holes I have to save.

411
00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:51.119
Yeah, yes, we haven't talked about them for maybe a

412
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:56.839
week maybe that. But this is quite a staggering discovery.

413
00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:01.920
This is a black hole that is basically defining logic

414
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:05.400
by eating more than it would be capable of eating.

415
00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:07.680
A lot of people do that. We have an obesity

416
00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:13.279
epidemic in this planet. But this is a ggantuan situation

417
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:16.039
where there's a black hole. They've discovered that it's monting

418
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:20.400
on no mac stuff. They have gleaned that it can't

419
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:21.079
eat that much.

420
00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:26.319
So how do you explain, yes, that's right, so clearly

421
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:29.000
it is doing so how do you tell when a

422
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:35.839
black hole is gobbling up stuff? It is basically surrounded

423
00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:39.119
by so much in falling materials, so much stuff swirling

424
00:26:39.160 --> 00:26:44.319
around that that stuff is energized to high levels, which

425
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:48.039
means that it emits radiation, and a lot of it

426
00:26:48.079 --> 00:26:50.640
comes up in the X ray region of the spectrum.

427
00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:54.119
So if you've got something that's very bright in the

428
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:59.240
X ray spectrum, you might be expecting that you're talking

429
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:03.400
about as something that's been you know, a bunch of

430
00:27:03.480 --> 00:27:06.039
material that is being energized by a black hole and

431
00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:08.359
is falling into a black hole. And that and how

432
00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:13.839
this story starts Andrew because a group of scientists led

433
00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:18.400
actually by scientists at the International Gemini Observatory, and that's

434
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:24.480
operated by the National Science Foundation's NOIR Lab, which is

435
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:28.119
the National Optical in for Red Laboratory, and so astronomers

436
00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:33.319
there have looked at not just the optical astronomy that

437
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:36.839
they are normally working on, because all those are optical facilities.

438
00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:44.480
They've basically observed a set of galaxies that have come

439
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:48.240
from an X ray observatory which is in orbit around

440
00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:52.160
the Earth. It's called Chandra. They've Chandra did a survey

441
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:56.160
of bright X ray galaxies. And so what these astronomers

442
00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.240
have done is taken that set of galaxies and then

443
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:03.559
used another facility which is not X ray but that's

444
00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:05.920
the James Web Space Telescope, which of course looks in

445
00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:09.279
the infrared to observe them, and there's an instrument on

446
00:28:09.319 --> 00:28:13.720
the James Web Space Telescope. It's called an integral field spectrograph,

447
00:28:13.799 --> 00:28:17.200
which does what we sometimes call hyperspectral imaging. When you

448
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:20.839
looking at the Earth from space, you do hyperspectral imaging.

449
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:25.519
When you're looking at the universe with the same instrument,

450
00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:28.839
you call it integral field spectroscopy, but they're the same thing.

451
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:32.079
What you're doing is you're making an image, but for

452
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:35.920
every pixel in the image you form, you're making a spectrum.

453
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:39.079
So for every pixel of light that's in that image,

454
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:42.200
you can look at the distribution of the light with

455
00:28:42.279 --> 00:28:45.039
wavelength and reveal that barcode of information that we often

456
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:49.279
talk about that is basically the key to understanding the

457
00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:53.000
source of the light and it's and what it's passed through.

458
00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:58.599
And so they've done that, and they've found one particular

459
00:28:58.839 --> 00:29:02.119
galaxy by the name of l I D five six eight.

460
00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:04.480
Sounds more like a car red Joe to me, but

461
00:29:04.599 --> 00:29:06.759
that's also the name of a galaxy.

462
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:10.599
Funnily enough, one of my first vehicles head the number

463
00:29:10.599 --> 00:29:11.319
plate ld I.

464
00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:17.319
There you go, see what I mean? Yeah, yeah, so

465
00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:23.160
LED five six eight, which yeah, it could be a Chevy,

466
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:26.000
it could be a Mercedes anyway, one was as.

467
00:29:26.039 --> 00:29:28.359
Is she MAGNAE.

468
00:29:28.839 --> 00:29:31.319
I used to have one of those, yep. Anyway, never mind,

469
00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:39.839
that's all. That's all aside this particular galaxy which we're seeing.

470
00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.799
You know, the look back time is basically about twelve

471
00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:52.319
point four twelve point three billion years, which means we're

472
00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:54.319
seeing it when the universe was about one and a

473
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:59.559
half billion years old. It's got it's very bright in

474
00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:02.680
X ray and it tells you that there's a lot

475
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.400
going on there. And so with this integral field spectrograph

476
00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:09.599
on the games Webspace telescope, what they were able to

477
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:15.799
do was find that there are amazingly powerful outflows of

478
00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:22.240
gas around the central black hole of this galaxy. And

479
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:26.480
what that suggests. These outflows, of course come from the

480
00:30:26.799 --> 00:30:30.799
you know, the magnetic field around the galaxy. It's sorry

481
00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:34.799
around the black hole. Were often questioned by our listeners

482
00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:37.839
about so if nothing can survive being pulled into a

483
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:40.279
black hole, how come they radiate X rays and how

484
00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:43.400
come stuff comes out of them? And that's because of

485
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:48.759
the magnetic fields that they generate. So what they've done

486
00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:53.960
is looked at these outflows of gas. But the bottom

487
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:59.720
line here is that it looks as though when this

488
00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:05.200
thing was actively, really actively gobbling stuff up, it sort

489
00:31:05.240 --> 00:31:10.200
of all occurred very quickly. In other words, it massed

490
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:13.119
a lot of material very quickly, so that this black

491
00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:16.759
hole might have grown to super massive proportions over a

492
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:20.759
very short time. I'm actually going to read it again.

493
00:31:20.839 --> 00:31:23.720
We've got this on fizz dot org. A very nice

494
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:30.799
account of what of what the what the you know

495
00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:35.240
exactly what is happening here, So I'm quoting here from

496
00:31:35.359 --> 00:31:38.799
fizz dot org. In a stunning discovery, Sue and her

497
00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:43.920
team s uh, that's the astronomer working art leading this

498
00:31:44.119 --> 00:31:46.599
Soon and her team found that LED five six eight

499
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:50.559
appears to be feeding on matter at a rate forty

500
00:31:50.680 --> 00:31:55.160
times it's Eddington limit. This limit relates to the maximum

501
00:31:55.319 --> 00:31:58.559
brightness that a black hole can achieve, as well as

502
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:01.480
how fast it can absorb matter such that it's inward

503
00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:05.680
gravitational force an outward pressure generated from the heat of

504
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:10.759
the compressed in falling matter, remain in balance. When LED

505
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:14.039
five six eight it's luminosity was calculated to be so

506
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:17.480
much higher than theoretically possible, the team knew they had

507
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:22.920
something remarkable in their data. The black hole is having

508
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:25.640
a feast. That's quote from one of the cores. This

509
00:32:25.759 --> 00:32:28.880
extreme case shows that the fast feeding mechanism above the

510
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:32.039
Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why

511
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:34.839
we see these very heavy black holes so early in

512
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:39.039
the universe. That's the crucial point of this paper. This

513
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:41.519
is a clue to the fact that, you know, whereas

514
00:32:41.559 --> 00:32:44.319
we thought that black holes grew to be super massive

515
00:32:44.359 --> 00:32:46.920
over a very long period of time, it looks as

516
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.559
though they can gobble up stuff very very quickly early

517
00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:55.480
in the history of the universe, which might really illuminate

518
00:32:55.559 --> 00:32:58.319
this conundrum that some people have pointed out that galaxies

519
00:32:58.359 --> 00:33:02.160
look as though the more highly evolved very early in

520
00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:04.279
the universe than they ought to be. This might be

521
00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:05.079
the reason why.

522
00:33:05.839 --> 00:33:10.279
Fascinating. Yeah, so in terms of eating more than the

523
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:15.319
capable of obviously they're disposing of stuff so that they

524
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:16.079
can keep eating.

525
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:21.799
That's right, Yeah, that's right. So, and what it's saying

526
00:33:21.880 --> 00:33:24.319
is that you know, this the Addington limit comes about

527
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:26.440
because you expect there to be a balance between the

528
00:33:26.960 --> 00:33:29.440
gravitational pull of stuff coming in and the pressure that

529
00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:34.400
the radiation is pushing it out. With this obviously exceeds

530
00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:38.519
the Eddington limit, which means that basically it is eating

531
00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:40.160
more than it can cope with, so a lot of

532
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:43.119
stuff's coming out. I mean, there are I'm sure there

533
00:33:43.119 --> 00:33:45.519
are parallels that we can put in human digestion, but

534
00:33:45.559 --> 00:33:47.799
I'm not really going to go there, Andrew, No.

535
00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:54.440
I've actually I've witnessed a perative scenario as yesterday, when

536
00:33:54.440 --> 00:33:58.240
we were babysitting the grandchildren. Young Harriet was eating a

537
00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:03.720
packet of chips and as she was eating, all this

538
00:34:03.880 --> 00:34:06.799
debris just kept falling on the ground. It was quite incredible.

539
00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:12.599
Yeah, yeah, Okay, that's probably as far as you want

540
00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:13.239
to go with that.

541
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:17.159
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yes, it was extraordinary to watch.

542
00:34:17.199 --> 00:34:20.679
I must say I was thinking black hole at the time. Yes,

543
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:24.599
another weird coincidence, fread this is two weeks in a

544
00:34:24.679 --> 00:34:27.840
row where you've read a quote that I'd highlighted to

545
00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:29.760
bring up with you at the same time as she

546
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:33.800
started reading it. So I think we're becoming symbiotic.

547
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.719
We must be. We're probably entangled under That will be

548
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:41.440
one for quantum physicists, but in fact that would be

549
00:34:41.480 --> 00:34:43.719
good because soon we're able to talk to each other

550
00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:48.280
faster than the speed of life. If we're quantumly entangled up, yes, we'll.

551
00:34:47.880 --> 00:34:51.280
Be able to end the show before it began.

552
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:54.480
I thought that always happened.

553
00:34:56.119 --> 00:35:00.599
Pretty much, pretty much, but no fascinating story. And again

554
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:04.920
from one of our favorite sources, fizz dot org, if

555
00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:07.599
you'd like to read up on that. Oh and by

556
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:09.719
the way, Fred, I remember the name of that movie

557
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:12.559
that we were talking about early on, the one where

558
00:35:12.599 --> 00:35:15.639
the aliens arrived seeking our help but we couldn't understand

559
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:16.679
what they were saying.

560
00:35:17.960 --> 00:35:18.480
Arrival.

561
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:19.920
It was called A Rival.

562
00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:24.480
Was a good one.

563
00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:27.239
Yeah, and you've got you had and you couldn't take

564
00:35:27.239 --> 00:35:29.159
your eye off or you'll go, what I don't know

565
00:35:29.199 --> 00:35:32.239
what's happening now? If you look, you can't lose focus

566
00:35:32.280 --> 00:35:34.960
on that film. It is so complicated, at least for

567
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:36.920
someone with my brain anyway.

568
00:35:38.519 --> 00:35:40.519
And the homework for me is to find out who

569
00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:41.480
Ferris Buller was.

570
00:35:43.079 --> 00:35:45.519
It's a it's a it's a really good film. It's

571
00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:50.039
it's it's got a cult following. Yeah, I do enjoy it.

572
00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:51.480
I haven't watched it for a long time, but I

573
00:35:51.480 --> 00:35:55.079
feel like watching it again. Thanks Fred, We're all done

574
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:56.519
and dusted. Good to talk to you.

575
00:35:57.519 --> 00:35:59.760
Great so to you too, Andrew, and I hope you

576
00:35:59.800 --> 00:36:01.000
have a good rest of the day.

577
00:36:01.719 --> 00:36:05.599
Indeed, we'll catch up with you very soon, perhaps very soon.

578
00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:09.920
Professor Fred Watson and here in the studio didn't turn

579
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:12.440
up today, apparently had to take the dog to the

580
00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:14.280
vet to get the nails clipped. I can hear it

581
00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:18.400
from here and from me Andrew Dunkley, thanks as always

582
00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:21.480
for your company. Don't forget to share us and spread

583
00:36:21.480 --> 00:36:24.920
the word about it and bring more of your friends

584
00:36:24.920 --> 00:36:30.280
and relatives on boarders, Space Nuts and from me Andrew Dunkley, farewell.

585
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:31.480
We'll catch you on the very next episode.

586
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.280
Bye bye. You'll be listening to the Space Nuts podcast

587
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:44.000
available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or your favorite podcast player.

588
00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:47.239
You can also stream on demand at bides dot com.

589
00:36:47.480 --> 00:36:53.119
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
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