April 17, 2025

Stellar Microbes, Titan's Mysteries & the Quest for Life Beyond Earth

Stellar Microbes, Titan's Mysteries & the Quest for Life Beyond Earth

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pace Nuts Episode 513:...

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pace Nuts Episode 513: Microbial Life in Space, Titan's Secrets, and the Search for Intermediate Black Holes
In this engaging episode of Space Nuts, host Heidi Campo returns with astronomer Professor Fred Watson to explore the intriguing intersection of microbiology and space exploration. From the mapping of microbes aboard the Tiangong Space Station to the potential for life beneath the icy crust of Titan, and the latest discoveries about intermediate black holes, this episode is a cosmic journey filled with fascinating insights.
Episode Highlights:
- Microbial Mapping on Tiangong: Heidi and Fred discuss the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program (CHAMP) and its efforts to map the microbial life aboard the Tiangong Space Station. They explore the implications of a sterile environment in space and how it might affect astronauts’ health upon their return to Earth.
- Life on Titan: The conversation shifts to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, where researchers are investigating the possibility of life in its sub-ice ocean. Fred explains how organic nutrients from Titan’s surface might migrate through its thick ice layer, and the challenges of sustaining microbial life in such a harsh environment.
- Geothermal Activity and Microbial Life: The duo delves into the potential for geothermal activity on Titan and how it might support life. They discuss the fascinating idea of life forms based on liquid natural gas, as well as the ongoing excitement surrounding NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan.
- Intermediate Mass Black Holes: The episode concludes with a discussion on the search for intermediate mass black holes, particularly in globular clusters. Fred shares insights from recent research that suggests the existence of these elusive black holes, shedding light on their formation and significance in the 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 Music Music, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favorite platform.
If you’d like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about
Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.
(00:00) Welcome to Space Nuts with Heidi Campo and Fred Watson
(01:40) Discussion on microbial mapping aboard the Tiangong Space Station
(11:20) Exploring the potential for life on Titan
(22:15) The implications of geothermal activity in Titan's ocean
(30:00) New findings on intermediate mass black holes in globular clusters
For the commercial free versions of Space Nuts join us on Patreon, Supercast, Apple Podcasts or become a supporter here: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.

 

 

WEBVTT

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All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to

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another fantastic episode of Space Nuts, the podcast that is

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out of this world. I am your host for this week,

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Heidi Compo. Here back again with the commentary and the jokes.

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I know I am not your beloved Andrew Dunkley, but

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I promise I will continue to do my best.

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Fifteen Shack and Guidance is in Channel ten nine Ignition Sequench.

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Space Nuts NY four three two one.

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Space nurtse At Then I report it feels good.

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But hey, the best part of the show's right here

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with me.

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Professor Fred Watson, Astronomer at Large.

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How are you doing today, Fred?

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Pretty well, thank you. It's very bright morning here in

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Sydney and the sunny shining and where it's a nice,

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crisp autumn day if I can put it that way,

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which I know makes no sense in the United States

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of America, but it's an autumn day.

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That's okay.

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Well you've got so I'll give you our weather report

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over here from Space City, Houston, Texas. It's a beautiful

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spring afternoon. It's late later in the day here. We

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have had a really fantastic week. The birds are chirping,

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the flowers are starting to bloom, but it's about to

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start really heating up. So I think it's going to

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start creeping up to ninety and it's not gonna it's

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not going to go down until.

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A few few months from now. So we're going to

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have a nice hot summer as usual.

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What a surprise.

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Yeah, So here's a Here's an interesting thing that I

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learned recently from a friend of mine who is a

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flight surgeon.

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She we were at a we were at a conference.

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We were actually at the Space White Human Optimization and

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Performance Summer at this time last year, and I was

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sitting there freezing cold, and I asked her. I was like,

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why is it always so cool when you go to conferences?

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Every conference I've ever been to is freezing cold. And

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she looks at me and goes, oh, well, there's a

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reason for that. When they keep the conference rooms cold,

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it helps prevent the spread of germs. And I was like, really,

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they do this on purpose, And I thought that was

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super interesting that there's a reason for it, and they

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don't want to just make all the attendees miserable. It's

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all about, you know, preventing the spread of germs.

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Did you know that?

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No, I thought I agree with you. We were in

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the conference a month ago in which the auditorium was

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cold and we were all sitting there well wrapped up.

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I just assumed it was so that the the you know,

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the delegates didn't fall asleep. That's why I thought it

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was cold, so that you keep everybody away miserable. But yeah,

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spread of germs sounds a lot more, you know, a

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lot more important in fact.

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Yeah, And speaking of germs, it's something to really consider

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when we're up in space. I mean, the astronauts have

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to go through vigorous health testing before they go up

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on the shuttle, and then when they are up on

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the space station, there needs to be a way to

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keep track of what hitchhikers, what little microbial hitchhikers went

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up with them. And that looks like something that China

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is really been working on lately with It looks like

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the microbial map is something that they've been coming up with.

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Yeah. The reason I thought this story was interesting, and

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you're quite right, this is a microbial profile of the

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Tiangong Space Station has been or is been mapped with

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a program. I love the acronym. It's CHAMP is the acronym.

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It's the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Program, And

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that sounds very much like an acronym that was chosen

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and then the words strained to fit into it, like

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most acronyms are. But the reason why I thought it

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was an interesting one is that we had a story,

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it's probably about a month ago, which was commenting on

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the return of one of the recent crews from the

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International Space Station, and it was probably, I don't know,

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I think it was probably late last year who fell

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mildly ill on their return to Earth. And I can't

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remember which crew it was or what, And I don't

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think we ever found out what their illnesses were, just

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as a you know, it's a privacy thing. But the

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comments that were coming after that from people who know

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a lot more about this sort of thing than I do,

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was that the International Space Station may be two sterile,

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It may be an environment that does not have its

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own sort of MicroB population, and there were suggestions being

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made like two or three dogs or cats up there

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might kind of help, you know, with desterilizing it a

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bit and make it an environment that is not detrimental

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to astronauts. If everything's too sterile. Yes, you're not going

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to get infected with anything, but you might get ill

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when you get back down to Earth. And that was

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the thing, you know that I thought, well, it's interesting

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that the other space station, and there are only two

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at the moment, the Tiengong Space Station, which has its

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own set of experiments and things of that sort. They

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basically have this program that goes into the genomics of

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the microbes that are there. They've gone into great detail

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about the probably the microbial species. They've investigated how well

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these microbial communities evolve, how well they know they replicate,

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and essentially how well they adapt to micro gravity. Now,

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I'm sure there have been experiments like this on the

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ISS as well, because one of the main thrusts, as

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you know as a space medical person, one of the

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main trust is how humans behave in the environment that

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we put them in on the space station. But we

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I specfull we haven't heard quite as much about it

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as what we're hearing in this research report that has

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come out. It is called the research report is an

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early Microbial Landscape Inspiring Endeavor from the China Space Station

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Habitation Area Microbe Biome Program or Champ and it comes

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from the Shenzao Space Biotechnology Group. So it just struck

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me as being an interesting, an interesting insight into how

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China is approaching this issue of microbes in space.

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And it really is so interesting to think of, you know,

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a space being two sterile. And I always just think about,

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you know, like our with our food, and I think

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back to a conversation I had years ago. I was

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at the farmer's market and I.

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Was purchasing I think it was just like lettuce or

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something from a farmer and there was a little bug

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on it.

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And I was like, ooh, a bug.

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And the farmer looked at me with the sweetest, kindest

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look and smile.

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He had it.

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He was one of these farmers who just like, you know,

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they're just a good, good human. And he looks at

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me and he's like, you know, if there's a bug

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on it, that means it's probably good for you and

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it's not full of all that other bad stuff. And

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I was like, it's like if the bugs want it,

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you know. He's like, your food is your and he

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went on into this whole spiel about your food is

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life and our our gastro intestinal systems and our entire

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body and our own microbiomes that live on us. Is

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a very symbiotic relationship between us, our food, the environment

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around us. And if you sterilize everything from the food

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that the astronauts are eating and their spaces around them,

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you know, there's a very delicate balance of our microbiomes

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that we need and live in and on and around us,

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that potentially need to interact with the ecosystem outside of

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us as well. That disappears when they are up in

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space for that long.

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Yeah, quite remarkable. I mean, you can understand why you

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would want to sterile environment in space just to try

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and keep people healthy. But if in doing that you're

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totally destroying this symbiosis that you've mentioned, then people are

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going to get sick, and that might be what this happened.

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I think you've talked to astronauts Hidie in the past,

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as any of them commented on how they felt when

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they returned to Earth, whether they did feel as though

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they had any deliterious effects in terms of their things

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like digestion and things of that sort.

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I guess I think the conversations I've had in either

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interviews or casual conversations is just really they give me

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kind of the HR answer because I don't. So, just

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to be clear, I don't work at NASA, and I

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don't I am still I'm still just a student working

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in exercise countermeasures in human space flight and optimization. So

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I'm not quite as deep in as i'd like to

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be yet. But from what I have heard, you know,

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at tertiary level is they they do feel a little

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bit crummy when they come back, and it takes a

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little while to adjust, sorry, adjust to being back here

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on Earth and some of that. It's like, you know,

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think about like a sailor, like it takes time, like

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they get their sea legs on the ship, and then

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when you get back, you're like, man, it's like adjusting

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to any different ecosystems gonna kind of alter you a

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little bit. But Sonny, she's doing great, she's back, she's

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I guess she's doing her fitness class. This is again

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she does CrossFit, which I don't know if I agree with.

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That's a topic for another time. But doing.

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The things that are part of your regular routine and

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getting you back to your regular routine should be the

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priority because that's where your body is going to be

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the happiest, and so if we can figure out a

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way to kind of create that environment up in space,

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even on a bacteria level, they're going to be so

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much better adapting when they get back here instead of

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having that stark kind of shift.

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It's fascinating stuff and of great importance, of course, as

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we contemplate future very long space flights, if we embark

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on interplanetary travel.

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Absolutely, you know, one little kind of a sci fi tidbit,

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So for those of listeners who plan on reading Hyperion

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and don't want it spoiled, you should fast forward five seconds.

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But there is a concept of a tree ship. So

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they have in the sci fi book they've grown a

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tree to be so large that it has its own

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atmosphere and ecosystem, and they use it as a interstellar

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interstellar ship. And then the real big reveal later on

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in the last book, fast forward five seconds if you

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don't want it ruined. Does they create a organic dyce

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in sphere out of trees? Which is a very interesting

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concept that's very far fetched, very sci fi, but so

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interesting when we're thinking about organic matter in space, and

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who knows, you know, we might realize that the author

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of Hyperion was onto something.

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Murdered.

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You're here all about spacemuts, but life in space is

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something that we are always interested about and curious about,

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and it looks like there might be some thing on Titan.

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Yeah, Titan perhaps the most interesting world in the whole

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Solar System, after our own planet, of course, and with

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similarities to our own planet. Very briefly, what we have

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with Titan and the biggest moon of Saturn and actually

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the second largest moon in the whole of the Solar System,

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bigger than the planet Mercury, an extraordinary world which has

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a rocky core overlain by a liquid ocean, probably of

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brine or at least a very mineral rich water, on

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which is a layer of ice, which, at the temperature

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of minus one hundred and ninety five degrees celsius I

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don't know what that is in fahrenheit, is very cold.

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That temperature the ice layer over the water to behave

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just like rock. And so we have this curious aspect

218
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of depressions in that surface which have lakes in them,

219
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but not of water. They're of liquid natural gas methane

220
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and ethane a mixture, and there is a weather cycle

221
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on the surface of Titan. Titan has a thick atmosphere,

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and you know, you get methane rain on Titan and

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phenomena related to the weather cycle on Earth. Now, the

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scientists who have engaged in the study that I wanted

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to mention, who are from universities in the United States.

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They are at the University of Arizona and also Harvard.

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They have been looking at the prospect of living organisms,

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water based living organisms in the sub ice ocean. And

229
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what they've done is they've looked looked at the transport

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of organic nutrients. And we've just been talking about organic

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nutrients on the International's PlayStation. These are the chemicals, the

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prebiotic chemicals on which any living organisms might feed. They've

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looked at the migration of that from the surface of Titan,

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which we believe is very rich in these organics just

235
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because of the chemistry of the atmosphere itself, how that

236
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might migrate through the ice layer, which could be something like,

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you know, four hundred and fifty or so three hundred

238
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miles four hundred and fifty kilometers or so thick, a

239
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very thick layer of ice. How that would perhaps track

240
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down into the ocean to feed any microbial organisms that

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were present in the ocean underneath Titan's surface. And the

242
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conclusion they get, which is not that surprising when you

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think of three hundred miles of ice to get through,

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is that not much comes down there, and so that

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if microbial life exists in the oceans of Titan, then

246
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it would be at very very low levels. They talking about,

247
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you know, I think they said oneself a per cubic

248
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meter or something of that sort, which means that when

249
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you add together all the ocean of Titan, you've got

250
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enough microbes to make a dog or something of that sort,

251
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not very many. And so this is sort of depressing

252
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from the point of view of whether there is microbial

253
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life in the ocean of Titan. But what surprised me

254
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was that this article paid no heed, and that's because

255
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this is not the research of the people who are

256
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working on it. This is not their particular topic. But

257
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certainly a few other astrobiologists have looked at the prospect

258
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for life based not on water, as all life on

259
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Earth is, but on liquid natural gas ethane and methane

260
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that makes up the lakes and seas of Titan on

261
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the surface. And I know, early on in the Cassin emission,

262
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when Titan was first being explored with the Cassini radar

263
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and the Huygen's lander, which touched down on the surface

264
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of Titan. When that mission was in progress, people were

265
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speculating about microbial creatures that use methane and ethane as

266
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they're working fluid, and there were some suggestions that they

267
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might breathe hydrogen, which is there on Titan in Titan's atmosphere,

268
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and perhaps eat or feed on acetylene, which is a

269
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complex organic molecule, which is also plentiful around the surface

270
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of the shores of the lakes of Titan. So that's

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perhaps the alternative view, and it might be a wonky view.

272
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I'm not, as I'm always pains to point out a

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biologist of any kind apart from being a cell talk one.

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But the.

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Idea of a microbial or living organisms generally which base

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their existence on a different fluid from water, I think

277
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is a fascinating one. And that's why the Dragonfly mission,

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which NASA is planning to sent to Titan, a little

279
00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:27.119
airborne vehicle, a bit like Ingenuity on Mars, but a

280
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bit more complex and a bit cleverer. That's why the

281
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Dragonfly mission is so interesting, which we're looking forward to

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so much.

283
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That is so cool.

284
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I've never quite understood how.

285
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I mean. I guess it's just because.

286
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The core is a little bit warmer, because it's like,

287
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how can liquid exist underneath the ice? That's always been

288
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kind of hard for me to wrap my head around.

289
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When I was living in Iceland for a winter years

290
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years ago, I went for a tour inside one of

291
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the glaciers and I learned that inside glaciers there are

292
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ecosystems just like every other ecosystem. And I was blown

293
00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:14.839
away because inside a glacier you can have rivers of

294
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moving water, and you can have lakes of liquid water

295
00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:23.319
inside of a glacier, and I just could not wrap

296
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my head around how water surrounded by eyes doesn't freeze.

297
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And that was so fascinating to me to see that.

298
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They're like, yep, here's a lake inside of the glacier,

299
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and it looks like Titan has that same kind of deal.

300
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So is there do we know if there's any kind

301
00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:46.319
of geothermic activity happening, maybe we could get some bacteria

302
00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:48.119
bubbling up from deep within.

303
00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:52.599
I think the thinking is very much that the answer

304
00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:58.599
to that is yes. So what keeps the rock of

305
00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:03.559
Titan wall is the tidal interactions with Saturn. So you've

306
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.400
got this squeezing and squashing, very very slight in the

307
00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:10.279
case of Titan, because it's a big, big world. Not

308
00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:13.799
anywhere here's big as Saturn, of course, and so that

309
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the tidal effect as we call them, and it's tides

310
00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:22.119
not in oceans, but in rock heats heats, the heats

311
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the rocky core of Titan, and to some extent that

312
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:27.960
helps to keep the ocean liquid. Plus the pressure of

313
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:29.920
the ice on top of it. So when you compress

314
00:19:29.960 --> 00:19:32.960
a liquid then you change the freezing point. Plus the

315
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:37.160
fact that it's probably very very rich in minerals like perchlorates,

316
00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:40.000
which drop the freezing point by many tens of degrees,

317
00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:47.279
and so it's easy, reasonably easy to understand why you

318
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:49.559
might have a liquid ocean. And it's not just Titan,

319
00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:52.400
of course, probably about half a dozen worlds out there

320
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:55.839
that we think have this same the same structure on

321
00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:58.200
at least one of them, and that's Enceladus, another of

322
00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:02.920
Saturn's moons. There is a vidence of hydrothermal activity because Cassini,

323
00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:06.839
one of the most wonderful space missions that was ever

324
00:20:07.400 --> 00:20:11.319
carried out, Cassini flew through the plumes of ice crystals

325
00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:14.720
that were being squirted out around Enceladus his south pole.

326
00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:21.400
These guysers of ice which did contain molecular hydrogen, and

327
00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:27.000
that was seen as a symptomatic of geothermal activity at

328
00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:31.400
the base of the ocean there, so you know that

329
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:34.720
you're probably right. And as soon as you've got hydrothermal vents,

330
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.319
we start thinking, oh, yes, living organisms and things being

331
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:41.720
formed using the energy of just the hydrothermal energy itself

332
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.480
to form life. And I suspect that's where these scientists

333
00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:47.759
who've done this particular research that we're talking about are

334
00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:50.119
coming from the fact that we probably do have this

335
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:54.839
geothermal activity. Therefore we probably do, perhaps do have living

336
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.079
organisms deep in the ocean of Titan. But the downside

337
00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:01.880
is you're not going to the nutrients coming down from

338
00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:06.039
the surface through that thick layer of ice on top.

339
00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:12.480
It's remarkable stuff. I am I find, you know, myself,

340
00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:15.880
being excited about the possibility of future missions to these

341
00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:18.480
worlds where we really do start tinkering around and finding

342
00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.559
out what there is in the oceans underneath. But they

343
00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:23.319
might be quite a long way in the future.

344
00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:26.519
Yeah, And how these things could be so similar, maybe

345
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:29.039
so different from life on Earth.

346
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Isn't there a theory? Are you familiar with the Tarti grade?

347
00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:36.400
Of course, yes, yeah, so you've heard that.

348
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:39.039
There's like some some people speculating, and I could be

349
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:41.720
totally wrong. Some people speculate that the Tardi grade is

350
00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:42.599
not from Earth.

351
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:48.240
I like that idea, and they think, probably think that

352
00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:52.480
because the Tardi grade has survived rather well, or some

353
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.200
of them on the outside of the International Space Station.

354
00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:57.880
They turn into there's a name for it, is it

355
00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:00.960
a ton t un They turn into a d hydrated ball.

356
00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:04.960
When they're in an environment that's not the normal environment.

357
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:07.680
They get rid of all the water and turn into

358
00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:11.880
this little solid ball of stuff which is still alive

359
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:15.400
but isn't really doing anything, you know, all the all

360
00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:22.079
the that the biology that keeps us alive is on pause.

361
00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:26.799
And so that is probably why people think that they

362
00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:29.359
might come from other worlds. I find that very hard

363
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:31.880
to believe. I think they've probably got a fairly well

364
00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:36.880
sequenced genome here on a terrestrial environment. But they are

365
00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:38.039
remarkable creatures.

366
00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:39.720
They're so cute.

367
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:42.640
They're very cute. Yeah, and half a millimeter long. They're

368
00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:45.119
called water bears. You don't have to run away from

369
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:50.359
them because they're half a millimeter. Yeah, they are the

370
00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:52.759
post a child of the astrobiology world.

371
00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:57.839
You know, it would be really crazy to think about,

372
00:22:58.200 --> 00:23:02.319
is hundreds, maybe thousands of years from now, would we

373
00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:06.519
finally do figure out what's in a black hole? And

374
00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:08.400
what if we found a Tarti grade in there?

375
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:12.359
It might be a stretched out Tardi grade. It's gets

376
00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:15.319
spaghettified when it gets near the black hole. But look,

377
00:23:15.599 --> 00:23:18.759
Tardi grades can turn up in the most unusual places,

378
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:23.240
So you could be right and yes, go ahead, tidy.

379
00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:27.160
Sorry, Oh that's just maybe maybe something to think of.

380
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:30.519
That's what's inside a black hole. We always, we always

381
00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:32.880
that is the that is the most popular topic here

382
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:36.400
on Space Nuts is black holes and the real fringe

383
00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:41.599
of astronomy, science and cosmology. But you know, sometimes it's

384
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:43.640
funny to think, you know, a black hole, you know,

385
00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:45.279
it's not a wormhole to another dimension.

386
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:48.480
Maybe it's just a it's a little playground for Tarti grades.

387
00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:51.559
Yeah, it could even a Tardi grade hole to another dimension.

388
00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:53.359
You never know, that might be where they came from.

389
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:56.559
Yeah, maybe the Tardi grades are the ones running the

390
00:23:56.559 --> 00:23:57.160
whole show.

391
00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:02.000
And be sure, Okay, we checked all.

392
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:04.839
Space nuts.

393
00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:08.039
So while we're talking about black holes.

394
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:10.200
While we're talking about life, well it.

395
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:13.759
Just happens to have come up in the conversation. There

396
00:24:13.880 --> 00:24:18.680
is some new work that we think sheds light on

397
00:24:18.680 --> 00:24:22.200
one of the big mysteries about black holes, and that

398
00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:25.200
is that they seem to come only in two sizes,

399
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:29.279
very big and very small. Well not really that small,

400
00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:34.079
let me clarify that. So we've got what we call

401
00:24:34.119 --> 00:24:37.039
stellar mass black holes about the mass of a star.

402
00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:39.559
In fact, it's that they're more than the mass of

403
00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.599
a star, because a single star like the Sun, is

404
00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:44.759
not massive enough to turn into a black hole. But

405
00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:46.880
there are stars which are much more massive than that,

406
00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.160
and at the end of their lives, they the core

407
00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:52.640
of the star collapses to form a black hole, and

408
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:55.519
we call those stellar mass black holes. Their masses are

409
00:24:55.519 --> 00:24:59.240
typically ten to twenty times the mass of the Sun.

410
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.480
And then at the other extreme, we've got these super

411
00:25:02.519 --> 00:25:07.319
massive black holes, which we think populate the center of

412
00:25:08.039 --> 00:25:11.599
all galaxies. We think there's a super massive black hole

413
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:16.279
in the middle of every galaxy. That's a relatively new deduction,

414
00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:19.000
perhaps only in the last ten to fifteen years or so,

415
00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:22.279
including our own galaxy, which has a black hole with

416
00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:26.079
a mass of about four million times the mass of

417
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:29.519
the Sun sitting twenty five thousand light years away as

418
00:25:29.559 --> 00:25:34.279
the crow flies in the constellation of Sagittarius. So super

419
00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:37.960
massive black holes can extend in mass up to not

420
00:25:38.119 --> 00:25:40.799
just millions, but billions of times the mass of the Sun,

421
00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:44.559
and we know of many examples of that. But the

422
00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:48.640
conundrum is that there's nothing in between. You've got these

423
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:51.480
small ones and the big ones, but you know, where

424
00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:55.119
are the ones that have ten thousand times the mass

425
00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:57.240
of the Sun or something like that. And we call

426
00:25:57.319 --> 00:26:01.480
these objects intermediate mass black hole. They should exist because

427
00:26:01.799 --> 00:26:04.839
big ones and small ones exist, and so that the

428
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:08.599
issue has been very much in trying to find them.

429
00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:15.480
Where can we find these intermediate mass black holes? And

430
00:26:14.359 --> 00:26:21.400
the thrust of people's research has been to look at

431
00:26:22.039 --> 00:26:26.839
the globular clusters. Globular clusters are clusters of stars. They're

432
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:30.519
sort of globular or more or less spherical in appearance,

433
00:26:31.480 --> 00:26:36.160
very dense clusters tightly packed together. The best examples of them,

434
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:38.079
I'm sorry to have to say this, I did, but

435
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:41.960
they are in the southern hemisphere sky Onlyga Centauri and

436
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:46.079
forty seven Tokrani. They are brilliant globular clusters even when

437
00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:49.480
seen through binoculars. Believe it or not, you don't need

438
00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:51.839
a big telescope to see that there's something quite different.

439
00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:57.960
But these objects consist of perhaps hundreds of thousands to

440
00:26:58.039 --> 00:27:04.400
millions of stars in a relatively small volume, and because

441
00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:07.799
the stars are relatively tightly packed in a globular cluster,

442
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:13.000
the insights have been that if you're going to find

443
00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:16.000
intermediate black holes, that might be the kind of place

444
00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:18.960
to look, because in a sense, a globular cluster is

445
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:21.960
like a sort of mini galaxy, although it's part of

446
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.200
our own. The ones we're looking at a part of

447
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:27.400
our own Milky Way galaxy, but they've got characteristics that

448
00:27:27.440 --> 00:27:30.200
are almost as though they were the nucleus of a

449
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:33.200
galaxy whose outer stars have been stripped away, something of

450
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:36.119
that sort. We don't know that that's necessarily their origin,

451
00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:41.119
but because people think that these supermassive black holes grow

452
00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:46.119
over time, maybe the globular clusters would let you see

453
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:50.319
a sort of freeze dried version of a galaxy whose

454
00:27:50.359 --> 00:27:52.960
evolution has stopped, and so you've got a black hole

455
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.599
that's only grown to something like hundreds, you know, hundreds

456
00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:00.440
of thousands, tens of thousands of times the mass of

457
00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:04.319
the Sun. And so cut to the chase. I'm sorry

458
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:07.039
that's a rather long preamble, but you did ask me

459
00:28:07.079 --> 00:28:12.640
about black holes, and so the new research that we're

460
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:16.240
talking about. Once again, this is clearly a Chinese episode

461
00:28:16.279 --> 00:28:22.319
of space nuts, because they come from Chinese researchers using telescopes,

462
00:28:22.759 --> 00:28:24.359
one of which I had quite a bit to do with,

463
00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:27.160
the telescope called lam MOOSTE, which is the Chinese large

464
00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:31.440
apperture multi object spectroscopic telescope. That's what LAMOSTE is an

465
00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:35.000
acronym for. I sat on two committees during the early

466
00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:36.400
two thousands.

467
00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:38.599
Were you in China?

468
00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:41.079
I was, yes. It was as a guest of the

469
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:45.640
Chinese Academy of Sciences to help them decide, you know,

470
00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:48.240
how this telescope should be built and what they should

471
00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:50.200
do with it. Is a very interesting experience.

472
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:51.440
How long were you there for?

473
00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:54.039
It was a matter of a couple of weeks each time.

474
00:28:54.119 --> 00:28:58.000
It wasn't a long stay, but it was certainly very illuminating.

475
00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:02.960
I learned a lot and met some fantastic Chinese astrophysicists

476
00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:06.240
and colleagues. All. We had a great time. Actually it's

477
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:09.720
very very enjoyable. But to cut to the chase, other

478
00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:15.720
instruments have been used by these Chinese astronomers. Chinese Academy

479
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.720
of Sciences is the main institution where they're involved. And

480
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:23.799
what they've done is they've looked for stars associated with

481
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:29.200
a globular cluster that have very high velocities, and they

482
00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:32.480
found some. And the reason they're doing that is that

483
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:35.759
you can envisage that in the nucleus of a globular cluster,

484
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:39.160
in the heart of this really densely populated region of space,

485
00:29:40.279 --> 00:29:42.519
if you did have a black hole at the middle

486
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:47.400
of it, what you might find is stars that have

487
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:51.039
close encounters with that black hole. Now, if these stars

488
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:54.640
are binary systems, that's to say they're in pairs, and

489
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:58.160
actually most stars in the it's not quite true, about

490
00:29:58.200 --> 00:30:01.440
half the stars in our galaxy are in pairs. They're

491
00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:04.440
members of binary systems. If you had a situation like

492
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.440
that and a binary pair goes near an intermediate black

493
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.359
hole near the center of one of these globular clusters,

494
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.759
what happens to it It gets ripped apart in the

495
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:16.440
sense that one star gets sucked into the black hole

496
00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:19.920
and the other is given an enormous boost in velocity

497
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:23.480
that essentially projects it out of the globular cluster. And

498
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:26.160
so they've found a number of stars with very high velocities,

499
00:30:26.200 --> 00:30:28.960
including one with a velocity of five hundred and fifty

500
00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:32.960
kilometers per second, which is an extraordinary high speed for

501
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:35.839
a star that's not just leaving the globular cluster, it's

502
00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:38.759
leaving our entire galaxy. It's fast enough to leave the galaxy.

503
00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:43.720
And so what they're speculating is that that is evidence

504
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:47.319
of that, and other observations that they've made is evidence

505
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:50.640
of there being an intermediate black hole at the center

506
00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:54.079
of the globular cluster. And the reasoning just to prolong

507
00:30:54.119 --> 00:30:57.759
this a little bit longer. The reasoning is that in

508
00:30:57.880 --> 00:31:01.119
order for this, in order to find a start leaving

509
00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:03.599
at such high velocity, it must have gone through this

510
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:07.359
process of being part of a binary system, and one

511
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:10.240
half of the binaries pulled in the other gets thrown out.

512
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:17.440
But in order to do that, you need a large

513
00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:20.319
mass in a very small space, So you can rule

514
00:31:20.359 --> 00:31:24.640
out a dense cluster of stars right at the middle

515
00:31:24.759 --> 00:31:27.599
doing the same gravitational trick. That wouldn't work because the

516
00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:34.000
cluster would be too big in volume, and so what

517
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:38.680
it can only be a black hole. Moreover, the fact

518
00:31:38.680 --> 00:31:41.839
that it is not showing itself in any other way,

519
00:31:42.039 --> 00:31:45.720
it's not gobbling up stuff and releasing X rays all

520
00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:49.440
the time like the super massive black holes do. Therefore,

521
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:52.000
it must be something of a smaller mass than a

522
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:55.359
super massive black hole. And I think these scientists have

523
00:31:55.640 --> 00:32:00.359
basically put a figure on the size of the black

524
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:03.160
hole that they think is at the center of this

525
00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:06.119
globular cluster. And I can't remember how big it is.

526
00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:09.200
It's a few tens of thousands of solar masses. And

527
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:11.519
they've done that by looking at the dynamics of this

528
00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:15.480
star that's been ejected. Really interesting piece of work and

529
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:19.640
perhaps not definitive proof because we haven't seen it yet,

530
00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:22.720
but really good evidence for the existence of intermediate black

531
00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:24.640
intermediate mass black hole.

532
00:32:25.359 --> 00:32:29.480
Wow, that's that's amazing. I want to circle back to

533
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.720
one thing you said. You said it's ejected, it moving

534
00:32:31.759 --> 00:32:35.319
it would you say, five hundred and fifty per second

535
00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:39.240
per seconds? What's the average speed of a star for

536
00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:40.920
you to have that reference point?

537
00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:49.400
Yes, so that's that's right. So it's our motion through

538
00:32:49.480 --> 00:32:54.559
the galaxy. The Sun's motion is in the region of

539
00:32:54.599 --> 00:32:55.720
two hundred.

540
00:32:55.680 --> 00:33:00.519
Kio Okay, so more than double yeah, right.

541
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:03.039
So this is what a star would have if it's

542
00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:05.839
circulating in a kind of well behaved fashion, as our

543
00:33:05.960 --> 00:33:09.920
Sun is doing, thankfully, in a well behaved fashion around

544
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:12.640
the center of our galaxy. That will be a typical

545
00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:15.920
speed a couple of hundred kilometers per second. So something

546
00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:18.519
at that five hundred and fifty kilometers per second is

547
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:23.279
definitely leaving the galaxy. Another project that I was involved

548
00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:25.720
with some years ago is a project with the delightful

549
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:29.279
name of RAVE. Rave was the Radial Velocity Experiment. We

550
00:33:29.319 --> 00:33:32.240
could mean, we could write papers with titles like rave

551
00:33:32.319 --> 00:33:35.759
on and you know, raving mad, all of that. Anyway,

552
00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:40.559
we the RAVE survey was a survey of the speeds

553
00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:44.359
of roughly half a million stars in the Sun's environment,

554
00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:49.720
and we did find outliers within that cohort of stars.

555
00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:52.880
I think the fastest we found was four hundred kilometers

556
00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:56.759
per second, and we interpreted that stars that had interacted

557
00:33:56.799 --> 00:33:59.200
actually with the black hole at the center of our galaxy,

558
00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:02.119
because that was where they were coming from, not to

559
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:04.839
do with the globbi the cluster. But yeah, I was

560
00:34:04.839 --> 00:34:08.360
a project manager for Ray. That was very interesting, very interesting.

561
00:34:08.920 --> 00:34:13.400
Slingshot slingshot out. It really is amazing. I mean, you know,

562
00:34:13.480 --> 00:34:15.440
thinking today and we we talked about.

563
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:18.039
The tiniest little things, little microbes, and that the biggest

564
00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:22.960
things is full, big giant interacting and that's That's just

565
00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:26.199
one of the fun delightful parts of space is it's

566
00:34:26.719 --> 00:34:29.880
there's a I think this is a tagline somewhere someone's

567
00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:31.360
using this or space for everyone.

568
00:34:31.559 --> 00:34:37.559
Everybody's interests align in space, and whether you are a biologist,

569
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:43.199
an astronomer, cosmologist, uh, you know, a human physiologist, you

570
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:46.039
know there's there's a job for you. You know, everybody

571
00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:49.360
can find a place working in this industry. I even

572
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:53.239
saw something that NASA had put out that they have

573
00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:55.039
someone working there who's a seamstress.

574
00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:57.199
It's like, well, you know, we still need a seamstress

575
00:34:57.280 --> 00:34:57.800
to put.

576
00:34:58.119 --> 00:35:03.559
These these sales, take together the suits and the sales anytime,

577
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:09.000
anytime there's textiles involved. So you know, not everything NASA

578
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:14.159
and space is STEM specific. I mean it's obviously heavily STEM,

579
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:17.719
but I just want to remind everyone that if you

580
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:20.760
have interests in these things, and you have skills, then

581
00:35:20.840 --> 00:35:24.599
you probably can find a place where you fit in.

582
00:35:25.559 --> 00:35:29.280
So I think, on that happy note spread, Is there

583
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:31.960
anything you would like to add to today's conversation.

584
00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:36.440
No, I think we've covered pretty well everything. I think

585
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:39.159
what you've just said is absolutely right. When people ask

586
00:35:39.239 --> 00:35:41.960
me how they get into astronomy and space, you know,

587
00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:45.000
I tell them the same thing. It's stem heavy, but

588
00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:49.599
really there are openings in the world of astronomy as well.

589
00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:53.079
I'm not sure about seamstresses, although big telescopes occasionally need

590
00:35:53.119 --> 00:35:57.840
fabric covers and things of that sort. I'm sorry. Seamstress

591
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:01.280
is very gender specific, isn't it. Is there a word

592
00:36:01.400 --> 00:36:04.000
for I don't know.

593
00:36:04.199 --> 00:36:08.159
Actually, I've never thought of that. It's I guess you know.

594
00:36:08.199 --> 00:36:12.360
That is the funny thing about language is I heard

595
00:36:12.360 --> 00:36:15.039
somebody the other day refer to the moon as heat,

596
00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:18.679
and I was like, wait a second, that's wrong. Everybody

597
00:36:18.719 --> 00:36:21.360
always refers to the moon in the feminine and the

598
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:23.719
sun and the masculine, and it's like, there's no rule

599
00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:25.599
that says you have to do it that way. But

600
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:29.000
that's just the way that mythology has evolved around these

601
00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:30.079
celestial bodies.

602
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:35.039
Let me surprise you. Aboriginal culture here in Australia has

603
00:36:35.239 --> 00:36:35.960
a male mood.

604
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:44.960
Really that can be a tangent for another episode.

605
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:49.599
Then yeah, there's a lot I'm picking that actually, yeah.

606
00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:52.840
There's a lot of interesting if you look at etymology

607
00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:54.760
and how that's played in see there you go.

608
00:36:54.840 --> 00:36:58.199
If you're an etymologist or a linguist, you there's a

609
00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:01.039
there's a job for you too, all right, Fred, Well,

610
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:04.039
it has been a delight and a wonder and this

611
00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:07.480
is Heidi Coompo signing off. I hope you all have

612
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:10.119
a wonderful rest of your day and thank you for

613
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:11.800
listening to Space Nuts.

614
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:21.400
Space Nuts to the Space Nuts podcast available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio,

615
00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:23.480
or your favorite podcast player.

616
00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:26.760
You can also stream on demand at bites dot com.

617
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:32.679
This has been another quality podcast production from nights dot com.
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