Aug. 6, 2026

Black Holes Unleashed: The Cosmic Power Beyond Our Galaxy

Black Holes Unleashed: The Cosmic Power Beyond Our Galaxy
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Season 29
SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 94 Black holes are a hundred times more powerful than we thought Astronomers have been forced to rewrite their textbooks on the power of supermassive black holes after new observations have shown that these cosmic monsters can generate enough energy to impact galaxies hundreds of thousands of light years away. The dramatic collision the flipped our Milky Way galaxy A new study suggests that our home galaxy the Milky Way may have undergone a dramatic change in orientation following a head on collision with another galaxy. A successful return to Earth for the crew of the Soyuz M-28 The Roscosmos Soyuz M-28 spacecraft has returned safely to Earth bringing home the expedition 74 crew who have spent the past 8 months aboard the International Space Station. August SkyWatch The red supergiant Antares, Barnard’s star is the second nearest star system to the Sun, and the annual Perseids meteor shower are among the highlights of the August night skies on SkyWatch This Week’s Guests NASA WB-57 pilot Tom Parent NASA WB-57 Sensor Equipment Operator Cary Klemm Nation Wide Eclipse Ballooning Project Principal Investigator Dr Angela Des Jardins from Montana State University. Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio Texas Juno Launch Director Omar Baez NASA Juno Mission Manager John Calvert NASA Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics And Senior science writer and Sky and Telescope magazine contributor Jonathan Nally 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn . The discounts and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ If you’d like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member, you can do just that through The Big Bang editions on Patreon, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on the Support page on our website https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/support/

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

WEBVTT

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This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode ninety four, for

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broadcast on the seventh of August twenty twenty six. Coming

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up on Space Time, it turns out black holes are

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a hundred times more powerful than previously thought. The dramatic

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collision which flipped our Milky Way galaxy and a successful

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return to Worth for the crew of the Sawyers M

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twenty eight. All that and more coming up on space Time.

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Welcome to Space Time with Stewart Gary.

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Astronomers have been forced to rewrite their textbooks on the

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power of supermassive black holes after new observations have shown

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that these cosmic monsters can generate enough energy to impact

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galaxies hundreds of thousands of light years away. Scientists previously

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believe that the impact of winds generated by super massive

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black holes was contained to the host galaxy, but the

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new findings reported in the General Nature Astronomy, reveals that

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the energy produced extends to surrounding galaxies three hundred thousand

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light years away, one hundred times further than previously thought.

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The studies lead author Satashi Yomta from Tohoku University says

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the discovery demonstrates that these explosive winds impact vast expanses

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of space far beyond the galaxies they inhabit. It Mata says.

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Black holes are largely known for sucking in matter, but

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they also eject gas in the form of powerful winds.

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These winds were thought to be contained within the galaxy,

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but your Madas study reveals the force is immensely more

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powerful than previously understood. Your matter and colleagues use the

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CHRISM X ray space telescope to observe the activity of

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a quaser cataloged as H eighteen twenty one plus six

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forty three, located some three point four billion light years

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away in the direction of the constellation. Draco. Quasars are

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extremely luminous jets of energy and matter given off material

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being crushed and stretched in the accretion disk of feeding

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black holes. The rapidly growing black hole containing the quasa

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is located in the center of a galaxy caster, where

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it's driving turbulence and the surrounding hot gas emitting X

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rays in the process. The authors precisely determine the motion

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of the gas by analyzing spectroscopic emission lines from iron ions.

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The observations revealed that the high temperature gas surrounding the

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black hole isn't remaining static, but violently disperses over a

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wide area due to turbulence, and they also confirm that

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the flow of the gas extends far beyond the host galaxy,

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reaching distances of more than three hundred thousand light years.

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The amount of energy involved in the turbulence was approximately

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one hundred times greater than what previous estimates had made,

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and equivalent to several billion supernova explosions, the blasts that

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occur when stars reach the end of their lives. You

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might have says. It's the first time anyone has shown

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that black holes can influence such a broad cosmic environment,

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and it demonstrates that black holes are key drivers of

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gas flow and motion in space, transporting vast amounts of

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energy materials to very distant regions of the cosmos. This

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is space time still to come. The dramatic collision that

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flipped our Milky Way galaxy and a successful return to

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Earth for the crew of the Sawyer's M twenty eight spacecraft.

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All that and more still to come on space time.

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A new study suggest that our home galaxy, the Milky Way,

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may have undergone a dramatic change in orientation following a

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head on collision with another galaxy. The findings, reported to

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the Royal Astronomical Society's conference in Birmingham, help us explain

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a long standing mystery about our galaxy. Using supercomputer simulations

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of galaxies like the Milky Way, astronomers found that galaxies

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with slowly rotating stellar halos are more likely to have

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experienced a major disc flip. That's where the galaxy's disc

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changes its orientation by more than ninety degrees. Most of

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the Milky Way stars are located in the flat spiral

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disc of the galaxy, and surrounding this disc is a

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much larger but spars stellar halo, made up mostly of

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stars that are originally formed in smaller galaxies before being

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pulled into the Milky Way through galactic mergers. Observations by

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the European Space Agency's Guian mission have shown that the

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Milky Way stellar halo rotates very slowly, but astronomers have

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not understood why. So they analyze the evolution of twenty

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five Milky Way like spiral galaxies in the rigious squid

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of cosmological computer simulations, and they followed their development over

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billions of years. They found that galaxies with the slowest

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rotating stellar haloes shared two important features. Each experienced a

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major head on merger or collision with another galaxy, and

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they also underwent a disc flip during their revolution. The

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studies lead author Kirol Batrikov from Durham University says astronomers

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already know that the Milky Way had a massive head

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on collision in the past with a galaxy known as

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the Guy Sausage and Soladus, and this new data suggests

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that may have caused the Milky Way's disc to flip.

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The Guy of Sausage and Soladus was a massive dwarf

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galaxy that collided with and was absorbed into the early

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milky Way somewhere around ten to eleven billion years ago.

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This defighting galactic merger was the largest single event in

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the early history of the Milky Way, and it reshaped

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our galaxy, leaving billions of stars orbiting in a highly

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elongated sausage shaped path. Identifying a past disc flip gives

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astronomers a new way to understand how the Milky Way assembled,

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and it may also provide indirect clues that the motion

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of its invisible dark matter halo. A disc clip also

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means most of the Milky Way stars moved on very

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different trajectories compared to the way they moved today, possibly

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even our own son Any our stable spot in the

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galaxy might not have been quite so stable in the past.

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The study also found that the rotation of the Milky

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Way stellar halo is closely linked to the rotation of

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its dark matter halo, and that suggests the two possibly

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evolve together as the galaxy grew by a creation of

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the smallst satellite galaxies. This is space time still to come.

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A successful return to Earth for the crew of the

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Sawyers M twenty eight. The red super giant antaries, Barnard Star,

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the second Earestar system to the Sun, and the annual

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Percied's meteor shower are among the highlights of the August

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night skies on SkyWatch. The ros Cosmos Sawyers M twenty

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eight spacecraft has returned safely to Earth, bringing home the

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expedition seventy four crew who were spent the past eight

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months aboard the International Space Station. The capsule touchdown of

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the world in script Kazakhstan stick three and a half

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hours after the patting the over the outpost.

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We are covering the return of the Suyu's MS twenty

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eight spacecraft with NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Ross Cosmos

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cosmonauts Sergei Kodsvirzkov and Sergei Mikhaye, returning under its main parachute,

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slowing it down for a touchdown on Earth. We did

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hear confirmation from the crew that everything was nominal or

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as expected on board. That's so us MS twenty eight

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spacecraft suspended under the orange and white parachute, and that

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main parachute covering an area of one thousand meters. It's

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slowing the capsule down to about sixteen miles per hour,

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quite a contrast from the seventeen thousand, five hundred miles

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per hour this crew was traveling just three hours ago.

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You course is how do papy me? I am? This

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is quesche Yas was pretty much us. We read you

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loud and clear.

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I love my space kid, but its.

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Ballistic myths is for seconds. We are in the controlled

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automatic descent. We see you, guys, uh one feeling great, creature,

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two feeling good, three feeling amazing. That is good news, guys.

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Confirmation from the crew themselves that they are are all

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feeling good, great and amazing. The crew also has a

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voice and visual with the search and recovery forces. Russian

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Search and Recovery at vs continue making their way towards

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the anticipated landing site.

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Cious search and rescue forces. What's your altitude?

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Thirty start for them?

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Our altitude is three kilometers seven fifty meters. Oxidizer jobs

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figure on.

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Matter, I apprecail a point at you.

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As the crew continues drifting down to Earth under that parachute.

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The aiometric altitude on the INPU panel is three kilometers.

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The next major milestone, and essentially the final milestone just

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before landing, is the soft landing engine firing says when

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six engines will fire to slow the descent rate to

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one point five meters per second, so just over three

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miles an hour when soy US is less than one

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meter above the ground. So the spacecraft now traveling about

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sixteen miles per hour ahead of those soft landing engines

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that fire just before touchdown to help ease the return

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to Earth. And a reminder that radio beacon that you

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is completely normal. This is establishing communications that begon coming

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from the spacecraft. You're hearing communications to and from the

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SWAYUS MS twenty eight spacecraft. Once you're hearing that of

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Commander Sergei Kidsfirzkov Ross Cosmos cosmonauts speaking with the mission

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control team in Moscow again. Conditions at the landing site.

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Visibility about six miles with twenty four mile per hour

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winds and eighty eight degrees fahrenheit.

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This is questions. I'm getting to nine hundred meters, hold

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your arms close to the body and please.

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Do not speak your globo docture and.

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This is going to stay true all the way and

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still handing.

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Landing now less than thirty seconds away. Crew receiving final

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instructions as they prepare for.

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Touchdown reference altitude, braceful landing.

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Touchdown. Chris Williams, Sergei Mikaev, and Sergi Kispertzhkov have returned

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to their home planet at five twenty seven am Central

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time three twenty seven pm in Kazakhstanzois.

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Is on its side and there is no fire. That's

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the rescue force is reporting all right, and the helicopters

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approaching to land.

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So I heard the call that the Soyus is on

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its side. This is not uncommon for the Soyuz, and

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the crew will be extracted from the spacecraft upon the

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recovery forces arriving at the capsule.

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The two hundred and forty one day mission launched from

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the Bike and or Cosmo drove and the Central Asian

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Republic of Kasek stand back on November the twenty seventh

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and involved obening the Earth some three thousand, eight hundred

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and fifty six times, traveling more than one hundred and

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sixty million kilometers. While on station, the crew were involved

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in more than two hundred and fifty scientific experiments, including

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research on new cancer treatments and improving in space manufacturing

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of materials used in high performance computers and electronics. They

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also undertook two extra vehicular activities or EVAs NASA speKt

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for spacewalks. These were designed to prepare for station power

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system upgrades and to replace a faulty joint in the

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Canada ARM two robotic arm. For more than twenty five

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years now, people have lived and worked continuously in space

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aboard the International Space Station. The Orbiting our Post is

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helping NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight

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for long duration missions to the Moon and eventually onto

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Mars and beyond. As part of the Artemis program, However,

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the space station's future is now limited, with NASA planning

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to deorbit one hundred and nine meter long four hundred

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and twenty one our posts sometime in late twenty thirty

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or early twenty thirty one. It'll be replaced by smaller

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commercial space stations and a major expansion of China's Tiangong

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space station, which will double its size this space time

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and Time Out of turn oives to the skies and

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check out the celestiousphere for August on SkyWatch. August is

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the eighth month of the year in the Julian Engagorian calendars.

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It was originally named six Tillius in Latin because it

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was the sixth month of the original ten month Roman

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calendar under Romulus in seven fifty three BCE, when the

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year started in March. It only became the eighth month

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when January and February were added to the start of

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the year in the year eight BCE. It was renamed

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in honor of the Roman statesmen and military leader Augustus,

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who had achieved several military victories, including the conquest of Egypt.

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During the month. Okay, turning to the heavens and the

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constellation s, the Scorpion is high overhead this time of year,

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covering almost a third of the August night skies. At

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the heart of Scorpius, located some four hundred and seventy

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light years away, is the red super giant Antaries. A

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light year is a distance of about ten trillion kilometers,

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a distance of photon can travel in a year at

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three hundred thousand kilometres per second, the speed of light

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in a vacuum and the ultimate speed limit of the universe.

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The name Antaries means rival of Mars, and indeed, when

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they're close together in the sky, they do look very similar.

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And Tari's, or Alpha Scorpius that's sometimes called has some

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twelve point four times the mass and an incredible four

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hundred and fifty times the diameter of our Sun and

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is one of the largest known stars in the universe.

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And Tari's is so big that wordplace where the Sun

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is at the center of our solar system, it would

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engulf all the inner planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

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It's outer surface would rich almost as far as the

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orbit of Jupiter. And Tari's is a binary system, there's

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a companion style orbiting with it called Antari's B, a

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massive spectual type B blue white star at least seven

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point two times the mass and five point two times

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the radius of the Sun. It's located about two hundred

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and twenty four astronomical units beyond the primary star. An

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astronomical unit is the average distance between the Sun and

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the Earth, about one hundred and fifty million kilometers or

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eight point three light minutes. Astronomers describe stars in terms

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of spectual types, a classification system based on temperature and characteristics.

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The hottest, most massive, and most luminous stars are known

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spectro type O blue stars. They're closely followed by spectual

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type B blue white stars, the n spectual type A

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white stars, spetual type F whitish yellow stars, spectro type

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G yellow stars. That's where our Sun fits in, special

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type K orange stars, and the coolest and least massive

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of all stars are spectual type M red stars, commonly

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referred to as red dwarfs. Each spectral classification is further

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subdivided using a numeric digit to represent temperature, with zero

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being the hottest and nine the coolest, and a Roman

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uneral to represent luminosity. Now put all that together, and

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our sun is a special type G two V or

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G two five yellow dwarf star. Also included in the

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stellar classification system are special types LT and Y, which

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are assigned to feldstars known as brown dwarves, some of

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which were actually born as spectral type M red dwarf stars,

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but became brown dwarves after losing some of their mass.

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Brown dwarfs fitted to a category between the largest planets,

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which are about thirteen times the mass of Jupiter, and

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the smallest spectral type M red dwarf stars, which are

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about seventy five to eighty times the mass of Jupiter

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00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:52.440
or zero point zero eight solar masses. Located near antaries

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is the spectacular globular cluster Messi four or M four

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for short, named after the eighteenth century of frenchist ronomoer

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and commet hunter Charles Messier, It's one of a catalog

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of one hundred and three fuzzy objects which weren't comets

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and so were of no interest to Messier, and so

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he made a list of them so he didn't waste

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his time looking at them. Other astronomers have since added

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further celestial objects to the catalog, bringing the turtle to

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around one hundred and ten. Located some seven thousand light

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years away, messi at four can be seen through a

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00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:26.119
pair of binoculars, making it one of the closest globular

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clusters to Earth. Globular clusters are densely packed fees containing

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thousands to millions of gravitationally bounced stars, which it's thought

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were either originally all born at the same time in

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the same stellar nursery, or of the surviving cause of

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galaxies that have been cannibalized by larger galaxies. They're almost

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00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:48.759
always found orbiting the halo of galaxies. The Milky Way

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00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:50.759
has about one hundred and fifty of them, and they're

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all usually very ancient, some dating back to around twelve

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00:17:54.200 --> 00:17:58.440
billion years. Located just below the sting of Scorpius are

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two open star clusters M six and M seven. M

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00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:05.119
sevens the nearer of the two, located about eight hundred

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00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:07.839
light years away, while M six is a more distant

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00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:11.799
two thousand light years. Open clusters are less densely packed

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00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:15.160
than their globular cluster counterparts, with the stars inside them

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00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:19.200
less gravitationally bound and more prone to drifting away over time.

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Another open star cluster in Scorpius is NNGC sixty two

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00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:27.240
to thirty one, located about six five hundred light years away,

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00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:31.640
just near the stars Zeta Scorpii. NGC sixty two thirty

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00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:34.319
one is a bright, open star cluster containing around one

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00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:38.039
hundred and twenty stars, including a significant population of highly

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00:18:38.119 --> 00:18:42.440
luminous supergiants, numerous white yellow stars, and at least two

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Wolfrayet stars. Wolfrayets are extremely luminous evolved stars reaching the

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ends of their lives. Having run out of hydrogen for

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core fusion. They're no longer on the main sequence and

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00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:58.440
are instead fusing progressively heavier and heavier elements in their cores.

298
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:01.640
This causes them to have surface temperatures of up to

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00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:05.839
two hundred thousand degrees celsius, and such extreme temperatures generate

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00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:11.799
powerful stellar winds. Just behind Scorpius is the constellation Sagittarius,

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00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:15.640
the half man, half horse of Greek mythology, and as

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00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:18.160
we mentioned in last month SkyWatch, the center of the

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00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:21.880
Milky Way galaxy is found in Sagittarius, roughly twenty seven

304
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:25.440
thousand light years away. The name Sagittarius could be traced

305
00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:29.279
back beyond the Greeks to the ancient Mesopotamian archer god Nergel.

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00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:33.000
Sagittarius is known for its many nebula and clusters, more

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00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:36.480
than any other constellation. One of the largest and brightest

308
00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:39.640
is the globular cluster M twenty two, big enough to

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00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:43.279
be visible to the unaided eye, located about ten thousand,

310
00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:46.240
six hundred light years away near the galactic bulge. M

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00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:50.000
twenty two is more elliptical the most globular clusters. It's

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00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:53.039
located just south of the ecliptic that're played in the

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00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:56.160
sky upon which all the planets orbit the Sun, and

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00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:00.119
it contains over seventy thousand stars covering an area of

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00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:03.480
around one hundred light years. It also contains at least

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00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:06.079
two black holes, and he's one of only a handful

317
00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:10.079
of globular clusters known to contain planetary nebulae, the puffed

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00:20:10.119 --> 00:20:15.000
off outer gases envelopes of dead sun like stars. Located

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00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:17.960
in the sky next to Scorpius in the western Sagittarius

320
00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:21.240
in the east is the constellation of Fayusius, the healer

321
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:24.759
or serpent bearer, often betrayed as a snake coiled around

322
00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:28.839
a man in Greek mythology, Opaiucius raises a rind from

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00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:32.240
the dead after he was bitten by Scorpius O Fa

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Yushius contains several star clusters and other interesting features, including

325
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:40.079
Barnard Star. Barnard Star is the second nearest star system

326
00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:43.960
to the Sun, beaten only by the Alphasentaury Triple star system,

327
00:20:44.519 --> 00:20:47.880
located some five point nine light years away. Barnard Star

328
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:51.240
is a spectral type M red dwarf, about zero point

329
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:54.400
one four four times the mass of the Sun. Our

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00:20:54.519 --> 00:20:58.000
Sun is around four point six billion years old. At

331
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between seven and twelve billion years of ever age, Barnard's

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Star is considerably older than the Sun and maybe among

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the oldest stars in the Milky Way galaxy. It's lost

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00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:11.319
a great deal of rotational energy, and its periodic slight

335
00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:14.920
changes in brightness indicate that it's rotating about once every

336
00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:19.119
one hundred and thirty days. By comparison, our Sun rotates

337
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.119
roughly once every twenty nine days. Given its age, Bernard

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Star was long assumed to be quiercent in terms of

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stellar activity, but in nineteen ninety eight astronoms observed an

340
00:21:29.720 --> 00:21:33.799
intense stellar flare, indicating that Barnard Star is indeed a flare.

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00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:38.480
Star flare stars of variable stars they can undergo unpredictable

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00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:42.799
dramatic increases in brightness, lasting a few minutes. It's believed

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that the flares of flare stars are analogous to solar

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flares in the Sun, and that they're generated by stellar

345
00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:53.119
magnetic energy stored in the star's atmosphere. Lying just to

346
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the west of the scorpion is the constellation Libra at

347
00:21:55.960 --> 00:22:00.240
the scales. In Greek mythology, Libra represents the core of

348
00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:04.279
Scorpius the scorpion. However, the Romans considered Libra a distinct,

349
00:22:04.319 --> 00:22:07.599
separate constellation from Scorpius, and thought them to be the

350
00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:10.960
scales symbolizing the equinoxes, the times of the year in

351
00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:13.839
March and September, when the Earth gets equal lengths of

352
00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.039
day and night. That's because two thousand years ago, when

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all this was made up, the Sun moved into Libre

354
00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:23.000
at the time of the September equinox, but due to procession,

355
00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:26.000
as the Earth Spentax's wobbles in direction, this point in

356
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:30.279
time has now moved into the adjoining constellation of Virgo.

357
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If you look to the south and the southern cross,

358
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that's the constellation Centaurus. Another half man, half horse mythical

359
00:22:37.079 --> 00:22:40.640
beast Centaurus was the teacher of many of the Greek

360
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:43.759
gods and heroes. He was placed among the stars in

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00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.039
the heavens after accidentally being kured by a poisoned arrow

362
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:51.000
fired by Hercules close to the point of star nearest

363
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the southern cross. Beta Centauri lies NNGC fifty one thirty nine.

364
00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:59.640
Omega Centauri the largest and brightest globular cluster in the

365
00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:04.160
visible sky. Because of its brightness, the ancient Greek mathematician

366
00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.480
and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy originally thought Amiga Centauri was a star.

367
00:23:09.319 --> 00:23:11.319
It has a diameter of more than one hundred and

368
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:15.640
fifty light years and contains an estimated ten million stars,

369
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.839
giving it some four million times the mass of our Sun.

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00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:23.079
Located some fifteen thy eight hundred light years away, Amiga

371
00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:27.119
Centauri is another very ancient globular cluster, around twelve billion

372
00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:31.599
years old, and it contains many so called population two stars.

373
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:35.319
These are the second generation of stars to have formed,

374
00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:38.279
and were created directly out of the remains of the

375
00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:41.839
very first stars in the universe. Stars in the core

376
00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:45.160
of Amiga Centauri are so crowded yarreestimated to average only

377
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:48.119
zero point one light years away from each other, and

378
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:51.519
that compares to the nearest start of our sun proximate century,

379
00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:55.599
which is some four point two light years distant. Located

380
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:59.440
close to a megasentaurium the sky is the giant lenticular

381
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:04.039
galaxy NNGC fifty one twenty eight Centaurus A, which we

382
00:24:04.119 --> 00:24:06.359
see looking like it's split in half by a thick

383
00:24:06.400 --> 00:24:09.839
band of dust. The galaxy was discovered in eighteen twenty

384
00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:13.279
six by astronomer James Dunlop from his home in what

385
00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:16.759
is now the Sydney suburb of Paramatta, a time long

386
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.240
before the bright lights of a modern city would make

387
00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:23.799
such a discovery impossible. Located some thirteen million light years away,

388
00:24:24.079 --> 00:24:27.039
Centaurus is one of the strongest radio sources in the

389
00:24:27.079 --> 00:24:29.799
sky and is thought to be the result of a

390
00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:33.640
merger between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy. It can

391
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:36.640
easily seen using a pair of binoculars, but you'll need

392
00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:41.160
a telescope to make out its spectacular dust lanes. August

393
00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:43.400
is also the time of the peak of the annual

394
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.880
Percied's meteor shower. The meteors are the debris trail ejected

395
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.720
by the comets with tuttle as it travels along its

396
00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:54.160
one hundred and thirty three year orbit through the Solar System.

397
00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:57.240
As its name suggests, the perseed's radiant that is the

398
00:24:57.279 --> 00:24:59.960
point of the sky from which the meteors appear to originate.

399
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.839
It lies in the constellation of Perseus. The Perseids one

400
00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:07.680
of the oldest known meteor showers, with early Chinese historical

401
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:10.839
records of its activity going back almost two thousand years.

402
00:25:11.480 --> 00:25:15.440
They're active between July seventeenth and August twenty fourth, with

403
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.240
a peak on August twelfth, with around sixty meteors an

404
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:21.920
hour being visible. The Perseids are very bright and fast

405
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:26.200
moving meteors traveling at speeds of fifty nine kilometres per second.

406
00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:30.119
The best scene between midnight and just before dawn, producing long,

407
00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:34.720
bright trails and some fireballs. Most Perseids burn up in

408
00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:38.920
the atmosphere altitudes of over eighty kilometers. Their best scene

409
00:25:38.920 --> 00:25:42.079
from the northern hemisphere, so for southern hemisphere sky watchers

410
00:25:42.279 --> 00:25:44.759
look to the north, with the radiant below the northern

411
00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:47.720
horizon and joining us Now for the rest of our

412
00:25:47.759 --> 00:25:50.640
tour of the August night skies. Senior science writer and

413
00:25:50.680 --> 00:25:53.400
sky n tell Uscout magazine contributor Jonathan Nally.

414
00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:55.640
Day Stuart well as winter here in AUSTRALAISA, so that

415
00:25:55.720 --> 00:25:58.400
means that stargaze is down here have at their disposal

416
00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:00.279
the thickest part of the Milky Way and the center

417
00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:02.119
of our galaxy to view up there in the night sky.

418
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:04.240
So if you go outside in the mid evening during

419
00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:06.680
August to find the Milky Way stretching across the sky

420
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:08.880
from the northeast all the way down to the southwest,

421
00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:10.640
and the center of the Milky Way in the region

422
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:13.559
of Sangitarius is pretty much directly overhead for those that

423
00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:16.039
roughly the latitude of Sydney. The Milky Way, of course,

424
00:26:16.119 --> 00:26:18.400
is just our galaxy scene from the inside. Most of

425
00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:20.759
its stars are too far away and dim to be

426
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:23.279
seen individually, so if you add them all up collectively,

427
00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.799
light adds up to form a sort of hazy band

428
00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:28.000
of lights stretching across the sky. It looks really bright

429
00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:30.759
and prominent. If you have dark skies throughout the countryside

430
00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:32.680
and you've let your eyes adapted to the darkness to

431
00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:34.839
the night sky. Takes about twenty minutes or so to

432
00:26:34.839 --> 00:26:36.920
get your eyes dark adapted. So if you're out there

433
00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:39.599
in the bush or a desert or a rural area.

434
00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:41.759
If we call of the bush in Australia, then you

435
00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:43.640
should get a really nice view of the Milky Way.

436
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:47.000
If you have even mild light pollution around, then it

437
00:26:47.079 --> 00:26:48.920
starts to drown out the haze of the Milky Way,

438
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:50.559
so it might be very dem or hard. It's hard

439
00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:52.519
to see. And if you live in heavily light pollute

440
00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:54.759
the suburbia, well just forget it. You'ren't going to see

441
00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:56.680
the Milky Way, which is a real shame because when

442
00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:58.519
I was growing up, you could even in suburbia because

443
00:26:58.519 --> 00:27:00.519
there won't have so many lights around. I don't remember

444
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:02.440
when I was growing up in the city. I was

445
00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:04.920
in too many decicated too many decades ago to mention.

446
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:06.559
They used to turn all the street lights off late

447
00:27:06.599 --> 00:27:08.720
at night. I think partly because there were very few

448
00:27:08.759 --> 00:27:11.599
people driving around, and also at the time I think

449
00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:13.559
there was a bit of a just general power shortage

450
00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:16.480
in our state. Needed to build more power station moving,

451
00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:18.519
so there's to conserve a bit of energy and save

452
00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:20.440
a bit of coal and turn the lights off later.

453
00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:26.359
Melbourne, Yeah, Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Yeah, but I had that

454
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:28.279
in Sydney they were on to the Meltman came in

455
00:27:28.279 --> 00:27:28.599
the morning.

456
00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:30.079
Yeah, I think. I think in Melbourne at the time.

457
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:34.119
Melbourne was a huge influx of migration after World War two,

458
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:36.480
and that's the stacks of people and it was growing

459
00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:39.720
very quickly and they just needed to build small power

460
00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:42.160
stations and they at least turned the lights off just

461
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:44.160
to conserve a bit of energy, I think, And I

462
00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:46.559
remember blackouts, you know, when there simply wasn't enough power.

463
00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:48.400
But anyway, did a little bit off topic the well,

464
00:27:48.599 --> 00:27:50.359
blackouts are good for a stargaze and of course, but

465
00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:52.119
it's not good for other things. So we were all

466
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:53.759
up to well anyway. So yeah, so the center of

467
00:27:53.799 --> 00:27:57.039
our galaxy is really good thing. It's a focus of

468
00:27:57.079 --> 00:27:58.960
a lot of attention for as drammas actually, and it's

469
00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:00.200
one of the reasons why they were saying and in

470
00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:03.720
professional and semi professional observatories located in the southern hemisphere,

471
00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:05.759
because when we look in the direction of our galaxy's core,

472
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:08.519
we're actually looking through the densest and deeper section of

473
00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:10.119
the Milky Way. So there are lots of things to

474
00:28:10.119 --> 00:28:13.240
see what astronomers called deep sky objects. We've got star

475
00:28:13.319 --> 00:28:16.920
clusters of both kinds, open and open and golobular we've

476
00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:19.839
got bright and dark Nebulay got law, And of course

477
00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:21.920
for the professional astronomers, we've got the right sort of

478
00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:24.119
year to study it. They can look right into the

479
00:28:24.160 --> 00:28:26.240
heart of the Milky Way, into the area where the

480
00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:28.920
black hole is that lives right in the core of

481
00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:31.319
our galaxy. Our friends in the northern half of the sky, yes,

482
00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:33.359
say the United States through in the southern United States,

483
00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:35.519
you can certainly see the Sagittarias and see most of

484
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:37.720
the dead, But the further north you go, it starts

485
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:40.039
starting to get really low on the horizon and hard

486
00:28:40.039 --> 00:28:42.559
to see or even below the horizon if you're quite

487
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:45.440
far north, because it is a southern constellation. So yes,

488
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:47.359
it's a lucky thing for us down in the southern

489
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:50.319
minisphere that we've got the center of our galaxy nicely overhead.

490
00:28:50.319 --> 00:28:53.160
That's partly because just where it is in space compared

491
00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:55.759
to us, and of course the tilt of our planet,

492
00:28:55.839 --> 00:28:58.279
so we're a bit lucky in that way. Now, further

493
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:00.240
down in the south, we've got the other famous thing

494
00:29:00.279 --> 00:29:02.319
that you can see down here, which is the Southern Cross.

495
00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:04.599
It's in the southwest at the moment, got halfway up

496
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:06.799
from the horizon and lying on its right hand side.

497
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:09.279
The Southern Cross area is within the Milky Way, the

498
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:11.839
band of the Milky Way and stretching away from the

499
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:14.680
Cross in the line northwards along the Milky Way, there

500
00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:17.759
are lots of other really interesting constellations to have a

501
00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:20.000
lookout constellation. It's just an area of the sky. In

502
00:29:20.039 --> 00:29:22.880
the old days, the constellation was like a stick figure arrangement,

503
00:29:22.920 --> 00:29:24.799
you know, joined the dots of stars and it let's

504
00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:27.160
a triangle or a this or that, or an animal

505
00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:29.920
or some kind or These days, as far as astronomous concerned,

506
00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:32.400
it's just an area of sky. But there's lots of

507
00:29:32.440 --> 00:29:35.079
lots of interesting constellations along me. You've got Centaurus, which

508
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:38.000
is near the southern Cross. You've got Scorpius, Scorpio. You's

509
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:41.039
got Saburtarius we've mentioned, and another one called Stutum. Now

510
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:43.359
a lot a lot of people outside of astronomy have

511
00:29:43.400 --> 00:29:45.839
heard of Centaurus, and fewer still have heard of Scrutem.

512
00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:49.519
As the name suggests, Scutum is named after a scooter,

513
00:29:49.799 --> 00:29:51.960
but it's not the kind of scooter with two wheels

514
00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:54.039
that cool people like me right around on Stewart, you know,

515
00:29:54.079 --> 00:29:57.920
it's named after a Scooter s cut a, which is

516
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:01.119
a Latin word for the type of ancient Roman shield,

517
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:04.400
and scooter is Scooter is the constellation of the shield. Now,

518
00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:06.519
if you're out there stargazing for long enough, as night

519
00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:08.599
goes on and the Earth turns, you'll notice that from

520
00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.039
our vantage point, the band of the Milky Way appears

521
00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:13.400
to shift. So I said earlier on that are stretching

522
00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.440
across the night sky from the northeast to the southwest. Well,

523
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:19.200
as the Earth turns, the Milkie Way and in the

524
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:22.440
night sky moves seems to move as well. So by

525
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:25.400
the time you get to early morning, it's no longer

526
00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:28.200
a right overhead, it's now all the way around the horizon.

527
00:30:28.279 --> 00:30:31.200
And that's just simply because our viewpoint has changed. And

528
00:30:31.240 --> 00:30:33.000
then the next night of courses the Earth has turned

529
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:34.720
to more it'll be back and roughly the same part

530
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:36.480
of the night sky. So if you're a morning person,

531
00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:38.839
there is plenty to see, particularly in the eastern half

532
00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:41.599
of the sky. And this includes the constellation of Ryan

533
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:44.559
the Hunter, where it's bright stars rideal and Beetlejuice, and

534
00:30:44.599 --> 00:30:46.720
it's very easy to see group of three stars in

535
00:30:46.759 --> 00:30:49.759
a row which formed the built of the mythological figures clothing.

536
00:30:49.880 --> 00:30:52.160
I always remember as a kid that these three stars

537
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:54.519
stood out, and I didn't know anything about astronomy really

538
00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:56.599
or constellations things back then. I just new to do

539
00:30:56.640 --> 00:30:58.519
as a part of the sky where there's really three

540
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:02.240
stars and the perfect line, perfectly sort of equally separated,

541
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:04.279
and I always just look for them and now, and

542
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.559
of course that is part of the constellation Orion. A

543
00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:08.519
little way from Orion, not too far around to the

544
00:31:08.599 --> 00:31:10.960
right or the south, you'll find Serious, which is the

545
00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:13.599
brightest star in the night sky. And further around to

546
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:15.480
the right you've got the star Canopus, which is the

547
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:17.960
second brightest star of the night's sky. Canopus is quite

548
00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:20.640
deep into the southern part of the heavens. So a

549
00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:22.359
lot of people look for the equator, don't get a

550
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:24.039
view of it at all because it's down below the

551
00:31:24.119 --> 00:31:26.279
horizon for them. Now, so is the planet's scope. For

552
00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:28.279
August this year, at least, there's only one we can

553
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:30.640
see actually in the early evening sky, and that's a venus.

554
00:31:30.839 --> 00:31:33.640
You simply can't miss it. Wait, stuff get dark, when

555
00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:35.559
the sun's gone down, and look in the western half

556
00:31:35.559 --> 00:31:37.000
of the sky, and there it is big and bright

557
00:31:37.039 --> 00:31:38.359
when I was looking at it just the other night,

558
00:31:38.400 --> 00:31:41.039
and it's really quite spectacular. In particular, have a look

559
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:43.279
on the sixteenth if you can, the sixteenth of August,

560
00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:45.559
if you got clear weather, and you'll see Venus in

561
00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:48.240
the moon quite close together. That should look pretty spectacular.

562
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:50.559
Getting closer to midnight, there's a second planet now, so

563
00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:52.839
we've got Saturn rising out of the eastern horizon around

564
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:55.519
about midnight. It just looks like a fairly bright, slightly

565
00:31:55.640 --> 00:31:57.799
yellowish star. If you can get a telescope onto it,

566
00:31:57.880 --> 00:31:59.640
even a small one, you'd be able to see the rings.

567
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.519
It's always pretty good sat and never ever disappoints. You

568
00:32:02.599 --> 00:32:04.359
have to wait until about four o'clock in the morning

569
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:06.720
until the next planet makes an appearance, and that's Mars

570
00:32:06.799 --> 00:32:09.200
that will come up over the horizon just after four o'clock.

571
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:12.240
It looks like a sort of a reddish orange, medium

572
00:32:12.319 --> 00:32:14.559
brightness start. I say it looks like a start. It's

573
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:16.440
not a start. It looks a bit like a start.

574
00:32:16.519 --> 00:32:18.319
And the only other planet around at the moment that's

575
00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:20.559
easy to see is Mercury. But I say easy to see,

576
00:32:20.559 --> 00:32:22.160
but it actually is quite hard to see at the moment,

577
00:32:22.359 --> 00:32:23.640
and you only have a week or so to do,

578
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:26.519
so you need to look into the orange pre dawn

579
00:32:26.680 --> 00:32:29.359
glow before the sun rises and try and pick it

580
00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:31.920
out low on the horizon. Just the first week week

581
00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:34.039
and a half of August. It'll be quite low down,

582
00:32:34.200 --> 00:32:36.279
looks like a tiny pin prick of life within the

583
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:38.880
pre dawn glow. It's hard to see mercury a lot

584
00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:41.599
of the times when it is above the horizon. It

585
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:45.000
is not high above the horizon and not particularly bright,

586
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.119
and it can be obscured by trees or buildings or

587
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:51.079
whatever because it never really gets too high other times

588
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:54.440
of the year. Other times it can actually be reasonably

589
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.880
prominent and you can see it quite easily, but no

590
00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:00.559
pin intended mercury can be a bit mercurial. The easiest

591
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:02.519
part to see. That's because it is so close to

592
00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:06.079
the sun. It's never you might call an angel a

593
00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:07.960
distance away from the sun and they're not in the sky.

594
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:09.799
It never gets very far from the sun, so you

595
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:13.359
either see it just before dawn or just after sunset,

596
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:15.440
and it's a bit of a harder type during the

597
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:18.319
other plants. But anyway, that's the night sky for August run.

598
00:33:18.440 --> 00:33:21.279
That's Senior Science writer and Skye tell Let's Goote Magazine

599
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:40.160
contributed Jonathan Elly. And this is space Time, and that's

600
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:43.720
the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday,

601
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:48.319
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00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:55.920
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00:33:56.039 --> 00:33:59.960
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00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:29.360
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