Jupiter's Opposition, Ultra-Massive Black Holes, and the Solar Battle Zone: S03E227

Welcome again to Astronomy Daily. It is the ninth of December twenty twenty four. Poda, I mean your whole Steve Dunkle, Hello again. I'm Steve Dunkley, your host once again, and joining me once again is my digital Powell, who's fun to be with. Here's Hallie. Great to be here again. I hope you've found a couple of tasty stories. Oh, I think I found one or two, and I thought we might double up on one of the stories because the King of Planets is putting in a special showing that would. Be part of my skywatching report for December, wouldn't it. That's right, But Jupiter is so interesting, I thought we'd do a bit of an extended story. That sounds nifty. Yes, it is nifty. So what else is on the menu? Well, it's normally me that's asking you that. But you've been off working with Anna all week on her shows, haven't you. Well she's prolific, she's like a machine. Well I wasn't going to say anything, is. That an ai Joe? No? No, no, yes, no, no, no. Just observing she works so hard. Yes, listeners will know that she does the episodes Tuesday from Saturday. That's a lot of work, all right. You'll get no argument from me. And someone has to run the studio. And no one does a bitter than you. Helly, I do too, You do too. You and animeke a great team. Now, Helly, can I ask you? I know we had a couple of other stories here. You had my running sheet, can you see it? You had one about massive black holes. That sounds very interesting. Yes, black holes here doesn't lock. Black holes always interesting. Here. It's all about Jupiter and black holes today. So let's get into it. Okay, let's go. Jupiter reached its long awaited opposition on December seventh, when it lay in Taurus with a declination of just over twenty two degrees, which placed it about as high in the northern sky as it ever gets. It's been twelve years since Jupiter was this well placed. Jupiter's next opposition, on January tenth, twenty twenty six, in Gemini, is equally favorable. Unfortunately, there's no opposition in twenty twenty five. Jupiter blazes brightly, marking it out as an unmistakable object, outshining by some distance all the stars in the night sky, even scintillating serious Jupiter offers an oblate disc some forty eight point one arc seconds across, substantially larger than any other planet and more than twice the size of Venus. This month, the only planet that can appear larger on opposition night, Jupiter rises at three forty five pm Greenwich mean time from London, climbs thirty degrees high by seven to fifteen pm, and transits the southern Meridian. Culminates at eleven fifty PM, when it lies between fifty six and sixty one degrees high, appearing lower further northwards in the UK, night owls will be able to observe Jupiter until at least four thirty am, a more than nine hour window, allowing plenty of time for long imaging runs and for observers to carefully scrutinize Jupiter's dynamic cloud tops. By the end of the year, Jupiter remains above thirty degrees in elevation from London between five thirty pm to two thirds am. Grab a pair of ten by fifty binoculars, and Jupiter will show a small perceptible disc which at opposition spans a very impressive forty eight point one arc seconds, almost three times larger than Saturn's globe, not including its rings. You should also notice that Jupiter's globe bulge is outwards owing to Jupiter's rapid rotation rate, which is about nine hours and fifty minutes at the equator and slightly slower at Jovian latitudes above fifteen degrees. One of Jupiter's great appeals is its four bright Galilean moons Ioi, Europa two, Ganymede three, and Callisto four. Since Galileo Galilee turned his primitive telescope toward Jupiter in January sixteen, ten countless observers have been observing their eternal dance around their parent. All four moons are easy objects to see through a pair of ten by fifty binoculars as they shine between fifth and sixth magnitude, though Io, which lies closest to Jupiter, is best seen when lying at its furthest east or west of the planet. Astronomy day for podcap. While we're on the subject of Jupiter, many of you may know that Jupiter doesn't present a solid surface as a gas giant. The surface we see is the outer layer of its atmosphere, in the form of major dark belts and bright zones well punctuated by numerous dark and bright spots or ovals coming and going regularly. A small telescope as little as sixty millimeters in aperture operating at a magnification of about thirty times can show Jupiter's major bright zones and dark belts. Usually the north and south equatorial belts are the most prominent. Jupiter's speedy rotation period of under ten hours means virtually the whole of Jupiter's observable surface is available to observe in a single night. This month, Jupiter's Great Red Spot, its most famous feature, a long lived anti cyclonic storm that has been raging in the planet's south tropical zone for possibly three hound undred and fifty years, but is not a permanently fixed feature, is also visible down the decades, it has been observed drifting steadily in longitude, though barely in latitude by comparison. The Great Red Spot is also shrinking. In the late nineteenth century, it measured more than forty thousand kilometers long along its major east west east west axis, and in nineteen ninety five the Hubble space telescope images showed the Great Red Spot with a diameter of just twenty one thousand kilometers, and by two thousand and nine it a trunk to around eighteen thousand kilometers, and today it spans just over fifteen thousand kilometers. A one hundred and fifty to two hundred millimeter or six to eight inch telescope we'll give a good view of the Great Red Spot at this opposition, though you might be lucky to spot it through a smaller aperture telescope. If you have good viewing conditions, turn the telescope on Jupiter and you'll be able to enjoy some of the exciting Moon events or phenomena that take place every day. The Moon's orbital planes coincide with the plane of Jupiter's equator, which appears edge on to our line of sight this week. They can always be found within a narrow band east or west of Jupiter. The first three moons always pass in front of the planet, which is known as a transit, or behind it, which is an occultation. Outermost lying Callisto, however, can pass north or south of Jupiter's poles at a conjunction. When Jupiter is close to the maximum tilt of its access of three degrees to Earth, it's around two point six degrees on December tenth, three nights following its opposition at late evening, Io and its shadow are in transit. This will be the view from London at eleven thirty PM, when the Great Red Spot should be closest to the Moon. It's easy to see even through binoculars, the Moon's disappearing or reappearing from behind Jupiter or moving in an out of its massive shadow, though perhaps the most appealing of all the phenomena is the appearance of the Moon's pitch black shadows. The moons themselves are somewhat more difficult to see, especially when they traverse across one of Jupiter's brighter regions. The small to medium aperture telescope in the one hundred to one hundred and fifty milimeter or four to six inch class should be up to the task, though a much larger telescope or imaging setup is usually needed to detect the moons themselves. Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do and to do that, just visit our url Astronomy Daily dot io and place your email address in the slot provided. Just like that, you'll be received all the latest news about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x or at our new Facebook page, which is of course Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there, Astronomy Derby with Sea and having space. Space, science and. Astronomy scientists believe that at the heart of all large galaxies lurk super massive black holes cosmic titans, with masses equivalent to that of millions or even billions of suns. Yet, some black holes exceed even these monstrous masses to become ultra massive black holes. The most massive black hole that we are currently aware of is Phoenix A, which sits at the heart of the Phoenix Cluster, one of the heftiest clusters ever discovered. Located five point eight billion light years away, Phoenix A has an estimated mass of one hundred billion suns. Another titanic black hole is tonin Sintla six't eighteen, located around a billion light years away. With a massive around sixty six billion suns. With monster ultra massive black holes like Phoenix E and tonin Sinhla out there, you might well wonder if there is a limit to just how big a black hole can get. Scientists have long wondered this too, and a team led by Pryongbada Nutrajhn from the Department of Astronomy at Yale University thinks they may have the answer. We defined ultra massive black holes as black holes with masses over ten billion times the mass of the Sun. Nutrajen said. Supermassive black holes are defined to be more than ten million times the mass of the Sun, so ultra massive black holes would on average be ten thousand times more massive than supermassive black holes. The four scientists can investigate ultra massive black holes, they first have to determine where these cosmic big games rown. Nutrajen explained that one clue comes from the fact that the masses of central supermassive black holes appear to be core related to the mass of the stars within the galaxies that host them. Galaxies with more stars and thus greater stellar masses, should therefore host more massive supermassive black holesntrogen. Added, this scaling relation suggests that there is a deep and profound connection between how black holes grow and the formation of stars in their host galaxies. Much of that so, are we all listen to a starydale? The podcast? Solar maximum has only just officially begun, but now some scientists are warning that the Sun's activity won't peak until this explosive face is over and we enter the solar battle zone. This relatively understudied phase of the solar cycle, where giant coronial holes emerge on the Sun, could end up being disastrous for Earth orbiting satellites, which have exponentially multiplied since the last solar cycle experts worn. Solar maximum is the period of the Sun's roughly eleven years solar cycle or sunspot cycle, when the maximum of visible dark patches on the Sun peaks. During this time, powerful solar flares explode from the solar surface and hurl clouds of charged particles at the Earth, triggering intense geomagnetic storms that paint vibrant auroras across the night sky. Halfway through this period, the Sun's magnetic field completely flips, leading to an eventual reduction in sunspots and solar activity until we reach solar minimum and the next solar cycle begins. Solar activity has been ramping up over the last few years, hinting that solar maximum could arrive sooner and be more active than scientists initially expected. Last month, Space wheather experts confirmed that this was the case when they announced that solar maximum is already well underway and could last for around a year or more. But on November fifteen, Linkers Space, a new space where the prediction and solution company that formed earlier this year, released a blog post explaining that a newly realized phase of the solar cycle, known as the battle Zone will likely begin in the next year or two as solar maximum ends. Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and vice president of Linkers Space, reports that geomagnetic activity in the upper atmosphere could increase by up to fifty percent during the battle zone, which could last well into twenty twenty eight. The potential for large, dangerous geomagnetic storms in the next few years is very real, he said. In addition to the eleven year sunspot cycle that most people are familiar with, the Sun has also a longer, twenty two year hail cycle, which is the time it takes for our home star's magnetic field to flip and then flip back again. During this longer cycle, large bands of magnetism, known as Hale's cycle bands, emerge at the Sun's poles and slowly migrate towards the Sun's equator, independent from the Sun's wider magnetic field. A new band emerges in both of the Sun's hemispheres during each solar maximum and lasts until the end of the next sunspot cycle, when the bands reach the Sun's equator and disappear in what researchers call the solar terminator event. This means that during the first half of a sunspot cycle from a solar minimum to solar maximum, there is only one Hale cycle band in each of the Sun's hemisphere, but during the second half of a cycle after solo maximum, there are two bands in each hemisphere. The overlap of these giant bands is what governs the sun spot's cycle. Macintosh explained when there is only one band in each hemisphere, there is a magnetic imbalance across the Sun, with weaker magnetic fields near the equator, allowing the number of black spots to increase around our home star's waste, he said. When a second band is established, it reduces the imbalance and makes it harder for sunspots to form. He added, Eventually, over a few years, as the bands march towards the equator, the imbalance progressively decreases until the Sun can't make any more sunspots. And there we have it, Halle, a bumper Jupiter black hole edition of Astronomy Daily. Well that's how it turned out. We never know what interesting stories are going to show up in the Astronomy Daily newsletter. That's write a little bit of this, a little bit of that, something new every day. And I like that story about the Sun's eleven year and twenty two year cycles and the hail bands and sunspots. Oh you like that one, Halle, so interesting. And researchers are discovering so much more about the Sun every year. The Sun is more complex than it looks. That reminds me Helle. I was almost in a band called the sun Spots. Really really really, that's really out their favorite human Yep. How did it go? Oh we burned out almost immediately, So no. Eleven year cycle for you guys, not even a week of rehearsals for that one. I'm afrid Alle. Oh well, too bad. Yep, that's the way it goes. Say good night human, good night human, bye, I mean here home, stayed down cl