June 25, 2026

Supernova Secrets: Uncovering a Stellar Explosion Near the Milky Way's Heart, Quantum Insights into the Big Bang

Show Notes
Transcript

SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 76 A possible supernova remnant discovered in the galactic centre Astronomers may have discovered a supernova remnant near the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. A new quantum view of Big Bang A new study could change what science knows about the Big Bang and the earliest moments of cosmic history. Work begins on new Western Australian ground station for lunar missions Construction has begun on Kongsberg’s new 20-metre parabolic dish antenna ground station at Mullewa in outback Western Australia. The Science Report Brain computer interface patient continues to communicate after two years. Powerful heatwave in Antarctica continues to push temperatures up. Study warns people eating ultra processed foods have higher risk of heart disease and death. Japan sends a transformer robot to the Moon. Skeptics guide to skeptical psychology. Our Guests This Week: Dr Hadrien Devillepoix from Curtin University NASA Swift scientists Brad Cenko and Regina Caputo Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee Katalyst LINK lead Kieran Wilson And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics 🌏 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/ For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen to. Thank you…

The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

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This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode seventy six, for

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broadcast on the twenty sixth of June twenty twenty six.

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Coming up on space Time, a possible supernova remnant discovered

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at the center of our galaxy, a new quantum view

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of the Big Bang, and work begins on a new

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Western Australian ground station for missions to the Moon. All

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that and more coming up on space Time.

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Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary.

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Astronomers may have discovered a super nova remnant near the

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super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

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Super Nova remnants are the expanding remains of exploded stars.

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They provide elements like i and oxygen and silicon, which

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are critical for the formation of planets and for life

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as we know it. Nuclear effusion at the cause of

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stars creates elements from the hydrogen and helium that were

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abundant at the beginning of the universe. When massive stars

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explode at the end of their lives a supernovae, they

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send out these newly synthesized elements into the interstellar space medium,

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providing material for future generations of stars and planets. This

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new superin overrem that, if confirmed, would be one of

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the nearest ever seen to satur terras a star, the

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super massive black hole at the center of the Milky

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Way Galaxy, an exotic region crammed with massive stars, long

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threads of magnetic fields, and dense clouds of gas, all

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orbiting rapidly around the galactic center. The new findings reported

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in the Astrophysical Journal, based on data gathered by NASA's

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Chandra X ray space telescope, European Space Agencies XMM Mutant

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Space Telescope, as well as ground based radio observations by

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the MeCAT telescope in South Africa, and optical images from

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the Panstar's telescopes in Hawaii, Astronomers detected X rays emanating

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from a blob buried deep within the large cloud of

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expanding gas known as an H two region surrounding a

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massive young star located some twenty six thousand light years away.

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This BLOB's thought to be the remains of a star

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that exploded as a supernerva. The surrounding cloud of gas,

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called Sagittarius Sea, is a bright radio source. It's composed

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of ionized hydrogen, that is, hydrogen which has had its

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electron stripped away. If this is indeed a supernova remnant,

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then it's expanding at well over three million kilometers an

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hour and is at least one thousand, seven hundred years old.

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Previous observations had shown evidence of an expanding shell of

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gas surrounding Sagittarius Sea, and this gave astronomers a hint

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that a stellar explosion may well have occurred there. An

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alternative explanation for the X ray blob is that the

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hot gas comes from a collection of massive stars in

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the region, but the authors of this study think that's

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unlikely because the X ray mess from the blob is

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more than ten times spreader than the X ray emissions

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from large non stellar clusters with bright massive stars. The

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authors searched the x ray data look signs of increased

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amounts of key elements in the remnant, which would have

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been caused by the supernova blasting them into space. The

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trouble is they didn't find any, but that could simply

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imply that the stellar debris already mixed into the surrounding gas.

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This report from MESSATV.

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Sagittarius c astronomers may have found a supernova remnant near

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the Milky Way's center. If confirmed, this would be one

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of the closest known to the galaxy's giant black hole.

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NASA's Chandra and ESA's x MM Newton found evidence for

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this exploded star. Supernova remnants are critical for planets and

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life as we know it to form and thrive.

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The discovery is another example of the incredible science still

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being achieved by NASA's Chandris space telescope.

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In Florence, Italy. In the year sixteen oh nine, world changed.

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Using a small telescope, Galileo proved that the Earth is

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not distinct from the universe, but part of it, and

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he showed that there is much more to the universe

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than we see with the naked eye. In the twentieth century,

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astronomers made another revolutionary discovery that optical telescopes reveal only

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a portion of the universe. Telescopes sensitive to invisible wavelengths

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of light have detected microwave radiation from the Big Bang,

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infra red radiation from protoplanetary discs around stars, and X

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rays from explosions produced by black holes. We have booster

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ignition and lipped off.

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Of Columbia, reaching new height for women X ray astronomy.

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On July twenty third, nineteen ninety nine, the most powerful

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X ray telescope ever made began its exploration of the

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hot the universe.

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NASA's Chander X ray Observatory in orbit since nineteen ninety

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nine studies the high energy universe, where black holes, exploded stars,

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and mysterious matter hold sway. X ray telescopes like Chandra

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are not like telescopes you find in backyards or at

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the local observatory. In addition to being above the Earth's atmosphere,

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they need to have special mirrors to detect the X

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rays that pass through most objects. Let's listen to scientists

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Martin Elvis explain more about Chanderis technology.

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The main thing Chandra does is take these superb shop images.

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How does it do that?

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Well.

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X ray telescopes are different from optical telescopes. They have

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a very different shape. Well, in fact, they're really reflecting

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light in just the same way as optical light. It's

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just that with X rays you have to coax them

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into being reflected. If you have a normal mirror, you

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look at yourself in the mirror, and the light's going

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in and straight back, so it's being bounced through one

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hundred and eighty If you try that with X rays

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they just get absorbed, but you can get in specular

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reflection if you come into the grazing angle of a

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degree on this. Once you get that specular reflection, X

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rays act just like optical light.

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You can concentrate them and.

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Focus them no problem. Trouble is you're only bending the

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light through one degree on each reflection. Who we hided

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up having two reflections in our mirrors. That means that

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the light's only coming together very very slowly, So we

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tend out very long telescopes, most of it being just

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empty space. We're just waiting for the light to converge

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down to its focus. The bad thing about these mirrors

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is you're looking almost edge to end on at a cylinder,

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so the area of glass that the light's reflecting of

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is only inannulus. It's what we do is pile a

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whole bunch of telescopes nested one inside the other to

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build up the area. But basically you still have to

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polish a hundred times as much glass as you would

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for a normal optical telescope. So this one point two

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meter diameter Chandra mirror is focusing light down on to

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an exquisite point just one thousandth of an inch across.

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That's why Chandra's power.

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In addition to its special mirrors, Chander also travels in

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an unusual orbit around the Earth. Unlike its partner mission,

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the Hubble Space Telescope, Chander cannot be serviced by astronauts.

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That's because it does not circle relatively closely to Earth

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as Hubble does. Martin explains more about why Channer travels

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in unusual circles, or more accurately, ellipses.

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Chandra doesn't just go above the atmosphere because a third

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of the way of the Moon getting well away from

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the Earth, but can't get above the atmosphere twice, So

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why do we bother? The ounce is to be much

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more efficient at observing. It's only a small telescope, and

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we tend to have to observe a long time. But

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if we're down where the space station is, then wherever

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you want to look half the time, the Earth is

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in the way, not what you want if.

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You're looking at the next three telescope.

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So instead, if you can afford the energy to push

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you way out there, the Earth looks very small, and

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if you point almost anywhere without getting in the way,

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that's very useful for many observations, but mainly it doubles

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the efficiency of chander.

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Now that we've heard a little about how chander works,

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to Martin give us an introduction to X rays are

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produced in the universe.

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There are three different ways you can get matter to

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be that hot. One is simply an explosion like soup

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and ova, such as the one in nineteen eighty seventh,

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and the large matter l a cloud. What we see

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there is very fast moving gas that's hit material on

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the outside is now glowing with a shock at a

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few million degrees. The next way you can make X

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rays is a more complicated process, and that's by having

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very fast moving charged particles in a magnetic field. Basic

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law of physics is that any charged particle moving in

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a magnetic field, it's swirl around, and in doing so,

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it's accelerating around a bend and accelerating charge radiates. It

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turns out there are lots of places in the universe

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where we get magnetic fields and very fast moving we

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call relativistic particles. They're moving very close to the speed

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of light. The crab nebula, for instance, is powered by

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a pulsar at the center which has so much energy

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in it that the little wisps and things you see

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in the image which look like they're sort of swirling

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around the nebula, they answer whirling at all. They're moving

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outwards at extraordinary velocities. This type of X ray making

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mechanism we find very commonly also in quasars and blazers,

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which are things with these huge jets that come out

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maybe many times the size of a whole galaxy, and

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these are powered in X rays by the same mechanism.

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The third way of making X rays is perhaps the

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least likely. It's just dropping something down a hole. If

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you have a lot of mass somewhere like a planet,

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or better still, a neutron star or a black hole,

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and you drop something in, then it speeds up and

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when it hits the surface or some other gas coming

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from a different direction, it heats up. A space ship

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re entering the Earth's atmosphere does the same thing. It

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starts glowing very hot. Spacecraft is generating heat through friction

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with the air and slowing down, and that's just transferring

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the energy of its motion into heating. So it's a

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very simple process. Really. It just turns out that most

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of the X ray sources in the sky are powered

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this way.

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This is space time still to cam and you quantum

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view the Big Bang and w now underway on a

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new Westernstraan ground station for future missions to the Moon.

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All that and more still to come on space time.

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A new study could change what science knows about the

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Big Bang and the earliest moments of cosmic history. The findings,

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reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, writes a new

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way to understand how the universe began thirteen point eight

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billion years ago and how its rapid early expansion known

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as cosmic inflation, could have arisen naturally from a deeper,

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more complete theory of quantum gravity. To reach their conclusions,

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the authors developed a new way to try and combine

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gravity with quantum physics. Most existing explanations with the Big

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Bang rely on Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, and while

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general relativity has been very successful for more than a

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cent describing the universe on the cosmic scale, it breaks

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down at the extreme conditions that existed at the birth

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of the universe. To address this problem, the authors used

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what they call quadratic quantum gravity, which they say remains

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mathematically consistent even at extreme high energies similar to the

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kinds which would have been present during the Big Bang.

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They claim their approach offers a more unified picture that

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connects the earliest moments of the universe to the world

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tested cosmology scientists observed today. They found that the Big

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Bang's early expansion, this cosmic inflation, can emerge naturally from

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the simple, consistent theory of quantum gravity without adding any

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extra ingredients. Now, this early burst of expansions are central

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idea in modern cosmology that hopes to explain why the

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universe today looks pretty much the same in all directions.

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Their model also predicts a minimum amount of primordial gravitational waves,

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which are tiny ripples in space time geometry created in

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the first moments after the Big Bang. Now, if we

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can eventually detect them, these signals would offer a rare

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chance to test ideas about the universe's quantum origins. The

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studies lead author Naishaf Shorty from the University of Waterloo,

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Since the work shows that the universe's exclusive early growth

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could come directly from a deeper understanding of the theory

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of gravity itself, instead of adding new pieces to Einstein's theory.

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The rapid expansion emerges naturally once gravity is treated in

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a way that remains consistent at extremely high energies have

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short He says that even though the model deals with

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incredibly high energies, it leads to clear predictions that today's

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experiments could already start looking for upcoming galaxy surveys. Cosmic

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microwave background experiments and gravitational wave detectors are now becoming

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sensitive enough to test ideas that were once purely theoretical.

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At the same time, scientists defining limitations to the simplest

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models of the early Universe's expansion, increasing the need for

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new approaches grouded in fundamental physics. This space time still

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to come. Construction begins on a new Western Australian ground

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station for future missions to the Moon and later in

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the Science report, Japan sending a transformer robot to the

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lunar surface. All that and more still to come on

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space time. Instruction works now begun on Kongsburg's new twenty

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meter parabolic dish antenna ground station being established at Malowa

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in outback Western Australia. The company's partnering with Star Site

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to build and operate the new facility. Four hundred and

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fifty kilomet is north of Perth. Star site will then

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manage and maintain the installation, which is designed to support

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lunar missions. Kongsburg already operates over three hundred antennas at

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twenty eight sites around the world, including a mid latitude

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dish at Peterborough in South Australia's mid North that's designed

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to provide coverage across the entire Oceana region, and a

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twenty meters antenna optimized for deep space communications at Cojarina

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east of Geraldon. That cord arena site also houses the

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classified Australian and US National Security and Defense ground stations

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as part of the Signals, Intelligence and Eselon Networks Echelon's

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better known to civilians It's five eyes, This is space time,

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and time that I take another brief look at some

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of the other stories making news in science this week.

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With a science report, American Dutch researchers say a man

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with severe paralysis and speech difficulties caused by als has

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been able to use an implanted brain interface to operate

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a computer and speech system independently now for almost two years.

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Is the team in planeted electrodes into an area of

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the man's brain related to speech, which then decoded the

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data they received into text and cursor control. The man's

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now used this system for more than three eight hundred hours,

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communicating over one hundred and eighty three thousand sentences at

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an average of fifty six words per minute. A report

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in the journal Nature says research shows that these kinds

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of brain computer interfaces can be used without the need

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of assistance and for extended periods of time. Scientists eraising

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the alarm as a powerful heat wave in Antarctica is

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continuing to push temperatures up more than twenty degrees celsius

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above average for this time of year. On June the sixth,

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researchers at Argentina's s Perenza, based on the Trinity Peninsula,

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recorded a temperature at fifteen point four degrees celsius, breaking

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the previous June record by more than two degrees celsius.

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And you've got to remember, it's the middle of the

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Southern Hemisphere winter right now. So the anomaly of warm

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weather soaking the Antarctic peninsula is a clear warning that

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things simply aren't right. The warmth is linked to stronger

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westerly winds influenced by climate change. It's triggered rain on

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glaciers and widespread surface melting during what should be the

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depths of ANTARCTICUS cold season. At Arctica's ice is critical

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for global sea surface stability, and scientists are contending to

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monitor vulnerable areas such as the Sweits Glacier I. Meanwhile,

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the Colins glaciers already seen warm rain and active melting

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replace the usually deep snow and solid ice which is

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normally experienced this time of year. While a single heat

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wave won't cause antarcticas massive ice sheets to collapse, these

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extreme warm conditions are becoming more frequent and that's a concern.

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A new study warns that people who eat more ultra

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processed foods have a higher risk of heart disease and death.

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The findings, reported in the European Heart Journal, highlights the

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risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and death

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from heart disease, all of which have now been linked

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to eating large amounts of ultra processed foods. The authors

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are calling on doctors to talk to their patients about

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how much ultra processed food they're eating and give advice

293
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on how to reduce this intake. A palm sized sphere

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that can transform into a wheeled robot has been sent

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to the Moon by JACKSA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

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A report in the journal Science Robotic says the tiny

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transformers already been active, taking lots of photos while trundling

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around the insight of its lun Orlando. The images were

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then transmitted to a second robot, which is designed to

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move around by hopping from one place to another, and

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then sent back to Earth. The engineers behind the project

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say these small light robots would be much easier to

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send into space and could independently explore cramped regions where bigger,

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boggier robots simply can't reach. The problem with psychology is

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everyone's different, so gaining solid insights into the human mind

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and behavior is difficult now. A report of the General

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Psychology Today has tried to make sense of a number

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of high profile tests trying to replicate past results which

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have failed to yield consistent outcomes. The resulting replication crisis

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as implications that might not actually reflect real phenomena, and

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as a result, has an impact on scientists trying to

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study human behavior. The skeptics ten Mendum says work's now

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being done to try and get the basics right and

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find common human characteristics more likely to hold up generally

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under tighter scrutiny.

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It psychology. You've got to sort of use the fairly

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loose definitions of hard and self science, right. The hard

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science for those things you can empirically test and give

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a yes or no answer or a replicable answer as well. So, yeah,

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physic and theology, and then there are the soft sciences,

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which is a pretty pejorative term, those things which are

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like sociology and you know, sort of political science and stuff.

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I mean, medicine can be half and half medicine per se.

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Obviously you can do a lot of testing and the

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empirical testing, but there's also the human element.

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Everyone's had a different life experience, Everybody has different gans,

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Everybody goes through different things in their lives and have

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different exposures and as a result suffers from different maladies

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and conditions and environmental factors.

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That's right. I mean, there areology, there are some aspects

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of medicine which you can test in the physical aspect,

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but yeah, there's a human element which is the variable.

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Psychology is all human elements and The question is how

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much testing and replicable testing can you do to move

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it into the quote hard post quote science sort of category.

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And there are discussions about that, and it's sort of

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loved in with sociology and things like that. One of

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the problems that's the curve actually recently is the reports

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about the difficulty in replicating past results, and it's finding

340
00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:38.559
that many of the studies that people relied on the

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past do not yield consistent outcomes. Replication is a key

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part of science.

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And societal norms are playing a huge role in it.

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Two we're seeing that with the debate on trans people

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at the moment where what was psychologically considered a correct

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response previously is now no longer considered a correct response.

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Yeah. I mean, there's also all sorts of responses about

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genetic backgrounds to behavior, various of the behaviors as to

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what the fount in nature of these things. Is there

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a testable physical thing or is it a variable, a

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highly variable thing like psychology. And they're saying that this

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replication crisis in psychology is that major issue, But then

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they're also looking at areas well, let's cut it back

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to those things we can trust, those sort of are

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pretty reliable. The first one is personality traits are largely

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stable in adults, where you're not going to change your

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character that much when you get past of your formative

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adolescent years. So you can almost think that trying to

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change someone's personality is going to be pretty difficult.

360
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If never changes spots.

361
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Yeah, that's right. That's one of the aspects that the

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people state the saying in their characteristics. Another one is

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that people are swayed by what they think most of

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their group thinks. So if they think their group would

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do this, even if that don't tested, if they think

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their group would do this, then they tend to go

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along with it. And that applies in many areas. Applies

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as science and all sorts of areas which are a

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bit Softerle's say, people seek in subtle ways to confirm

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their pretty existing beliefs. This is standard thing you spot

371
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in in skeptical areas, confirmation bias, even if there's the

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evidence is sort of against it. If I want this

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result to occur, if I expect this results of occur,

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this is preferable to my life philosophy, I will therefore

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tend to sort of lean towards it. That's when you

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reconstruct things to reconstruct the evidence around your belief. There's

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also people's choices are influenced by how options are framed,

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and this is classic. Instead of questionnaires and questions and things,

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you could easily say that this meat contains ten percent fat,

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but marketers would prefer to say this meat is ninety

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percent fat free. It sounds a lot better, right, It's

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the same thing, but it just sounds a lot better.

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So how you phrase a question, how you phrase the

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options people have can influence what they believe. And then

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there's other sort of things that they regard as pretty

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well agreed to. Some people will refer to authority even

387
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that that means hurting a stranger. But that sort of

388
00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:44.039
the old electric shock sort of theories, etc. Which were

389
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:47.279
pretty pretty weird. Anyway, people may recall saying something they

390
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:49.720
didn't Well, excuse me, this is skeptical territory through and

391
00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:51.240
through you with a lot of things.

392
00:21:51.319 --> 00:21:52.680
That's the Mandela thing, isn't it.

393
00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:54.799
That's right, that's right. Ther theory then, was that people

394
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were convinced that Nelson Mandela die in prison, then they

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heard about it, they knew when it happened. Is that well,

396
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.119

Supernova Secrets: Uncovering a Stellar Explosion Near the Milky Way's Heart, Quantum Insights into the Big Bang

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