Jan. 20, 2026
Cosmic Mysteries: Unveiling the Secrets of Black Holes, Jupiter's Oxygen, and Earth's Gamma Ray Revolution
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Gary - Series 29 Episode 9 In this episode of SpaceTime, we unravel the enigma of the universe's mysterious little red dots, delve into groundbreaking insights from Jupiter regarding the evolution of our solar system's...
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Gary - Series 29 Episode 9
In this episode of SpaceTime, we unravel the enigma of the universe's mysterious little red dots, delve into groundbreaking insights from Jupiter regarding the evolution of our solar system's planets, and mark the commencement of construction on Earth's largest gamma-ray observatory.
The Mystery of the Little Red Dots
A fascinating new study reveals that the enigmatic little red dots observed in early images from the NASA Webb Space Telescope are, in fact, young black holes cloaked in ionized gas. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute's Cosmic Dawn Center have determined that these black holes, much smaller than previously thought, are in the process of consuming gas, which creates immense heat and radiation, giving them their distinctive red appearance. This discovery sheds light on the formation of some of the universe's earliest black holes just 700 million years after the Big Bang.
Jupiter's Role in Planetary Evolution
New simulations indicate that Jupiter may contain up to 50% more oxygen than the Sun, providing fresh insights into how the planets in our solar system formed. By developing a comprehensive model of Jupiter's atmosphere, researchers have resolved a long-standing debate regarding the gas giant's chemical composition. The findings suggest that Jupiter's atmosphere circulates much more slowly than previously believed, which could alter our understanding of planetary migration and formation processes.
Construction of Earth's Largest Gamma-Ray Observatory
Engineers have officially begun construction on the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, set to be the largest gamma-ray telescope ever built. Located in Chile's Atacama Desert, this observatory will significantly enhance our ability to study high-energy cosmic phenomena, such as black holes and supernovae. With over 60 telescopes across two sites, the observatory will allow astronomers to observe gamma rays with unprecedented accuracy, potentially unlocking new discoveries about dark matter and the fundamental laws of physics.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Journal
Planetary Science Journal
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
(00:00:00) New study reveals little red dots in Webb images are young black holes
(00:07:30) Jupiter may have 50% more oxygen than the Sun, reshaping planetary formation theories
(00:15:45) Construction begins on the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory
(00:22:00) New data confirms 2025 saw record ocean heat storage
(00:25:30) Advances in autonomous driving technology showcased at CES 2026.
In this episode of SpaceTime, we unravel the enigma of the universe's mysterious little red dots, delve into groundbreaking insights from Jupiter regarding the evolution of our solar system's planets, and mark the commencement of construction on Earth's largest gamma-ray observatory.
The Mystery of the Little Red Dots
A fascinating new study reveals that the enigmatic little red dots observed in early images from the NASA Webb Space Telescope are, in fact, young black holes cloaked in ionized gas. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute's Cosmic Dawn Center have determined that these black holes, much smaller than previously thought, are in the process of consuming gas, which creates immense heat and radiation, giving them their distinctive red appearance. This discovery sheds light on the formation of some of the universe's earliest black holes just 700 million years after the Big Bang.
Jupiter's Role in Planetary Evolution
New simulations indicate that Jupiter may contain up to 50% more oxygen than the Sun, providing fresh insights into how the planets in our solar system formed. By developing a comprehensive model of Jupiter's atmosphere, researchers have resolved a long-standing debate regarding the gas giant's chemical composition. The findings suggest that Jupiter's atmosphere circulates much more slowly than previously believed, which could alter our understanding of planetary migration and formation processes.
Construction of Earth's Largest Gamma-Ray Observatory
Engineers have officially begun construction on the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, set to be the largest gamma-ray telescope ever built. Located in Chile's Atacama Desert, this observatory will significantly enhance our ability to study high-energy cosmic phenomena, such as black holes and supernovae. With over 60 telescopes across two sites, the observatory will allow astronomers to observe gamma rays with unprecedented accuracy, potentially unlocking new discoveries about dark matter and the fundamental laws of physics.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Journal
Planetary Science Journal
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
(00:00:00) New study reveals little red dots in Webb images are young black holes
(00:07:30) Jupiter may have 50% more oxygen than the Sun, reshaping planetary formation theories
(00:15:45) Construction begins on the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory
(00:22:00) New data confirms 2025 saw record ocean heat storage
(00:25:30) Advances in autonomous driving technology showcased at CES 2026.
The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.
WEBVTT
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This is Space Time Series twenty nine, Episode nine, for
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broadcast on the twenty first of January twenty twenty six.
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Coming up on Space Time, Solving the mystery of the
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universe's little red dance, What Jupid is now telling us
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about the evolution of the Solar System's planets, and construction
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begins on Earth's largest ever gamma ray observatory. All that
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and more coming up on space Time.
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Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
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A new study claims that mysterious little red dance that
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turned up in some of the first images captured by
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NASA Web Space Telescope are actually black holes concealed in
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cocoons of ionized gas. The findings, reported in the journal Nature,
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are fighting astronomers with new clues about how the very
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first black holes in the universe were created. Ever since
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Web began operations in twenty twenty one, astronomers have been
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scratching their heads trying to explain strange little red darts
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which were appearing among the stars and galaxies in their images.
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These little red darts can be seen when the universe
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was only several hundred million years old, and a billion
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years later, they all seem to have disappeared, so what
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are they? Should we say? What were they? Some scientists
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argued that there were probably massive galaxies powerful enough for
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web to detect them thirteen billion years later, but that
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hypothesis doesn't fit well with how long these galaxies took
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to evolve following the Big Bank thirteen point eight billion
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years ago. Now, after two years of continuous analysis, astronomers
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at the Nils Bore Institute's Cosmic Dawn Center have shown
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that these little red dots are actually young black holes,
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one hundred times less massive than previous believed, and shrouded
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in highly ionized cocoons of gas which they're in the
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process of consuming in order to grow larger. This feeding
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process generates enormous amounts of heat and radiation, which shines
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through the cocoon. One of the studies authors, Darrin Watson,
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says its radiation through the cocoon is what's giving the
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little red dots their unique red color. Watson says they're
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far less massive than previously believed, so scientists don't need
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to develop any new types of hypotheses to try and
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explain them. Mind you, although they're generated by some of
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the smallest super massive black holes, ever discovered, they're still
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fairly massive, weighing up to ten million times that of
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the Sun, with diameters of tens of millions of kilometers.
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The center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, also
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contains a super massive black hole, but it's relatively small,
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some four point three million times the mass of the Sun.
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Black Holes grow by consuming everything in their vicinity, but
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because the black holes event horizon that's the point of
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no return, is relatively small, the infalling material first has
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to form an accretion disc around the black hole, where
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it's crushed and torn apart at the atomic level in
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the precess, releasing vast amounts of energy that shine brightly
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across the cosmos. Now, while much of this material will
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eventually pass beyond the event horizon, falling forever into the
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black hole's singularity, a place of infinite density and zero
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volume where science is understanding the laws of physics breakdown.
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Some of the matter in the black hole's accretion disc
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is blown back out into space along the black hole's
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magnetic field lines, shooting out perpendicular to the accretion disk
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in the press, forming powerful superluminal jets which can be
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seen across the universe. Here on Earth we see them
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as quasars, active galactic nuclei, and blazars. Black holes and
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their roles in the universe are still shrouded in mystery.
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The new discovery, therefore, is shedding some new light on
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the early development of black holes, and it provides some
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of the answers to just how seven hundred million years
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after the Big Bang they could already be super massive
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black holes with masses up to a billion times greater
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than that of our Sun, and the dense cocoons of
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highly ionized gas around them is what's providing them with
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a fuel they need to grow this it's space time.
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It's still to come. What Jupiter is now telling us
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about the evolution of the Solar System's planets, and construction
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now underway on what will be the Earth's largest gamma
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rate telescope. All that and more still to come on
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space time. New computer simulations suggesting that the gas giant
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Jupiter could hold fifty percent more oxygen than the Sun
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is painting a new picture of how the planets in
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our Solar System were formed and evolved. The finding reported
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in the Planetary Science Journal, are providing a deeper look
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at the gas giant by creating the most complete model
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yet of the planet's atmosphere. Spectacular clouds swirl across the
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surface of Jupiter. These clouds contain lots and lots of water,
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just like Earth's clouds, but they're much denser on the
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gas giant, so thick that no spacecraft has been able
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to measure exactly white lies beneath, and that's where this
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new study comes in. The Studies analysis addresses a long
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standing question about how much oxygen the gas giant actually contains,
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and it concludes that Jupiter has about one and a
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half times more oxygen than the Sun, and that helps
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astronomers narrow down the picture of how all the planets
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in our Solar system formed. The studies lead author Yuhung
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Yang from the University of Chicago says the findings help
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resolve a long standing debate about planetary sciences. We've known
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about Jupiter's stormy skies for at least the last three
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hundred and sixty years. That's when astronomers using early telescopes
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first documented a curious, large, permanent blotch on Jupiter's surface,
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which these days we call the Great Red Spot. The
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Great Red Spot is actually a gigantic anti cyclone twice
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the size of the Earth, which has been swirling in
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Jupiter's atmosphere for centuries. But it's just one of many
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similar storms on the planet. As fierce winds and deep
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clouds mean the entirety of jupiter surface is covered in
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a kaleidoscope of these storms. What we don't know precisely
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is what lies beneath these storms. See the clouds are
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so thick that NASAs Galilea spacecraft lost contact with Earth
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as it plunged deeper into the atmosphere. Back in two
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thousand and three. The next mission to visit Jupiter was JUNO,
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and it's still currently cataloging the gas giant from the
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safe distance in orbit. June's measurements can tell astronomers a
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lot about the chemical composition of the planet's upper atmosphere,
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including levels of ammonia, methane, hydrosulfide, water, and carbon monoxide,
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and so scientists have combined this with knowledge about chemical
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reactions to build models of what Jupiter's deep atmosphere would
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be like. The problem is the studies have disagreed about
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just how much water and thus how much oxygen the
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planet really contains, and That's where Yang's new chemical modeling
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comes in. The Chemistry of Jupiter's atmosphere is incredibly complex.
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Molecules travel between the extremely high conditions deep in the
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planet's atmosphere and the cooler regions higher up near the
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planet's visible surface, changing phases and rearranging into different molecules
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through thousands of different types of reactions. To better capture
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all these phenomena, the authors need to incorporate both chemistry
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and hydrodynamic models into their simulations. Among the findings is
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a new calculation for how much oxygen Jupiter has, and
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according to their analysis, Jupiter likely has about one and
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a half times more oxygen than the Sun. For decades,
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astronomers have been arguing about this number. A major recent
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study is put much lower, only a third that of
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the Sun. But knowing the real figure is especially relevant
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for understanding how our Solar system formed. See, all the
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elements that make up the planets in our Solar System
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are really the same stuff that makes up the Sun.
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That's because it all came together in the same protoplanetary disk.
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But there are differences in the amounts of these materials
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condensed out of the protoplanetary disk at different distances from
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the Sun, and astronomers can use those clues the piece
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together how the planets must have formed. For example, did
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Jupiter form in exactly the place where it is now
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or did it form closer in or further away and
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then drift through planetary migration over time. Clues can come
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from the fact that much of the oxygen in the
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planet is bound up in water, which will freeze and
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behave differently if it's too far away from the warmth
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of the Sun. Ice is easier for planets to accumulate
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than water vapor. The new model also suggests that Jupiter's
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atmosphere likely circulates up and down much more slowly than
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previously thought. It suggests that affusion would have to be
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up to thirty five to forty times slower compared to
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what the standard assumptions have always been, and that means
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it would take a single molecule several weeks to move
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through Jupiter's layers of atmosphere rather than just a few hours.
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That changes everything. This is space time still to come.
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Construction begins on Earth's largest gamma ray observatory, and later
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in the Science report, a new study confirms that twenty
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twenty five, so Earth's oceans store more heat than at
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any other time since records began. All that and more
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still to come on space time engineers have begun construction
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and what will be the largest gamma ray telescope ever built.
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The new Sharonkov Telescope Array Observatory, which is being assembled
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at the European Southern Observatory's Parnell site in Chile's Atta
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Kama High Desert, will be the Southern Hemisphere's counterpart to
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an identical facility located at Lapama on the Canary Islands.
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Together they'll form the largest and most powerful gamma ray
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telescope ever built. The Northern Array at Lapama is designed
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to study extragalactic objects at the lowest possible energies or
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The new Southern Array, now in a construction, will cover
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the full energy range and concentrate ungalactic sources. Astronomers say
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the first telescopes of the Southern Array should be deployed
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by the end of this year. The observatory will transform
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sciences understanding of the universe, opening a new window into
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some of the most energetic phenomena in the cosmos. The
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showing Cupp Telescope Array observatory is designed to detect very
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high energy gamma rays emitted by the most violent and
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powerful events black holes, supernova explosions, the merger of stars,
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and gamma ray bursts. It'll comprise over sixty t telescopes
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across the two sites in northern and southern hemisphere, giving
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a total collection area of over a million square meters.
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The southern side alone will have more than fifty telescopes
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designed to capture a broad energy range from twenty gig
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electron vaults up to three hundred terra electron vaults. That's
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billions of times more energetic than visible light. The observatory
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will detectigh energy radiation with unprecedented accuracy and precision, far
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outstripping current gamma ray telescopes. When an energetic gamma ray
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photon hits the Earth's atmosphere, it produces a cascade of
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particles that cause the emission of what's known as sharon
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Kov radiation, a characteristic faint blue, visible flash of light. Now,
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this flash only lasts a few billions of a second,
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so it needs to be imaged with super fast and
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sensitive cameras with telescopes of enormous light gathering power operating
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under pristine dark skies. By pinpointing the sources of these
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gamma rays, the observatory will provide deeper insights than ever
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before into the most extreme events and in the universe,
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focusing on key areas like understanding the origin and role
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of relativistic cosmic rape particles, probing extreme environments such as
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black holes and neutron stars, and exploring the very frontiers
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of physics by searching for that mysterious unknown substance known
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as dark matter and as Susan Randall from the European
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Southern Observatory explains, it'll even be testing the limits of
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Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.
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This new facility, that Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory or CTAO,
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it will observe very different things. Supernova explosions, matter being
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accreted by black holes, gamma ray bursts, in short, the
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most energetic phenomena in the universe. These are best studied
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using gamma rays. The fact that gamma rays don't make
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it all the way down to the ground is good
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for us and our health, but less great when you
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want to observe them, and that's why the first gamma
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ray telescopes were space based, so why are we now
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building this one here down on Earth. For most telescopes,
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our atmosphere is a problem, something to be overcome. But
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for the CTAO, the atmosphere in away forms part of
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the detector. The telescopes on the ground will detect not
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the gamma rays themselves, but the faint blue glow induced
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by them as they travel through our atmosphere faster than
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the speed of light Cherenkov radiation. But wait a minute,
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particles traveling faster than the speed of light, isn't that
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breaking some fundamental law of physics or something. No, nothing
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can travel faster than light in a vacuum, but in
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a medium such as the atmosphere, the speed of light
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is lower, meaning that it can be exceeded by highly
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energetic particles, similar to a sonic boom. When the speed
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of sound is exceeded, these faster than light particles can
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then emit a short, faint and very blurry blue flash.
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This blue visible light can be observed from the ground,
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but since it's so faint, it needs very clear dark skies.
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That's why it's being built in the Chilean at a
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Karma desert and will be hosted within our Paranow Observatory,
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or at least part of it will be. In order
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to catch gamma rays hitting both the northern and the
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southern skies. The CTAO will be distributed across two sites,
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the southern one in Chile and a northern one on
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the Canary island of La Palma. It's a massive project
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led by an international partnership including ESO and countries around
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the world. The CTO will not just be one single telescope.
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It will instead consist of over sixty dishes spread across
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the two sites. They'll come in three sizes, small, medium,
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and large. But the CTAO is no interferometer like say Alma.
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The light waves recorded by the individual telescopes will not
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be combined into one coherent signal. Instead, the many telescopes
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