[00:00:00] Hi everybody, welcome to Astronomy Daily for another episode. I'm Steve Dunkley, your host.
[00:00:04] It is the 4th of February 2024.
[00:00:14] Yes, that's right. There's a lot going on in the universe, of course. And while we're talking about
[00:00:19] the universe, that's why we're here. Just before Halley here. We're going to be talking about the heaviest black holes in the universe what's up with those things? Apparently
[00:00:29] there's a bit of a situation where some of them can merge together and that
[00:00:35] causes galaxies you know there's a black hole in the center of most galaxies and
[00:00:40] when those things merge there's a lot of observable science going on there.
[00:00:46] So we're going to talk a little bit about that and also there's new tech on the moon
[00:00:50] for the first time.
[00:00:51] You know, IM-1 landed on the moon and it did land on its side but they're actually using
[00:00:58] this remarkable lander straight away.
[00:01:02] It's successful, it's working and that's all that matters and the
[00:01:05] new tech that is on the Moon is the first tech there in 50 years. Fantastic stuff.
[00:01:10] And you remember Osiris Rex. Now latest from Osiris Rex is that it's done something pretty
[00:01:17] remarkable that's beyond its design and this is something that we keep hearing in space annals
[00:01:24] is that our probes and ships
[00:01:27] that we keep sending out there, like I remember Voyager was only meant to last about four
[00:01:31] years and it's still going all these years later.
[00:01:36] And this is just a common theme throughout our probe builds.
[00:01:40] And well, we've got another one.
[00:01:42] We'll talk about that as well.
[00:01:43] That's Osiris Rex.
[00:01:44] I love that name and of course later on we'll do a bit of a
[00:01:48] Rosetta roundup Rosetta was one of my favorites of course I keep bringing up
[00:01:53] my favorites because they're fun to talk about this is the one that landed the
[00:01:57] first ever landing on a comet and what a great little piece of history that was.
[00:02:05] So we'll have a look at that and meanwhile, here's Hallie.
[00:02:08] Hey, you started without me.
[00:02:10] Sorry Hallie, I was just making up for lost time.
[00:02:13] How can you do that?
[00:02:15] Time is intangible.
[00:02:16] Well only a couple of weeks ago you said I was late
[00:02:18] and even then only by a few nanoseconds.
[00:02:21] But reading the intro without me is just cheeky.
[00:02:24] Oh well Hallie, the truth is I went to the cinema this afternoon and I'm just running late here
[00:02:29] in the studio so I'm I'm just trying to catch up. I knew it was something like
[00:02:33] that I hope it was worth it. Oh I saw the new Dune part 2 totally magnificent of
[00:02:39] course. Oh yeah the spice must flow. The sleeper must awaken.
[00:02:47] Speaking of which, let's do the first story Hallie all about super heavy black holes you
[00:02:52] start.
[00:02:53] Okies, hit it!
[00:02:57] The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been predicted,
[00:03:02] though never directly observed. One theory put forth by
[00:03:05] astronomers is that these systems are so massive that they deplete their host galaxy of the stellar
[00:03:10] material needed to drive their merger. Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope,
[00:03:16] a team of astronomers have found a binary black hole that provides strong evidence supporting this
[00:03:21] idea. The team estimates that the binary's mass to be a whopping
[00:03:25] 28 billion times that of the Sun qualifying the pair as the heaviest black hole binary ever
[00:03:31] measured. Not only does the measurement give valuable context to the formation of the binary
[00:03:36] system and to the history of the host galaxy, but it supports the long-standing theory that the mass
[00:03:41] of a supermassive black hole binary plays a key role in stalling supermassive black hole mergers.
[00:03:47] Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, a team of astronomers have
[00:03:52] measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found.
[00:03:56] The merging of two supermassive black holes is a phenomenon that has long been
[00:04:00] predicted though never observed. This massive pair gives clues as to why such an event seems so unlikely in the universe.
[00:04:09] Nearly every massive galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center.
[00:04:14] When two galaxies merge, their black holes can form a binary pair, meaning they are in
[00:04:18] a bound orbit with one another.
[00:04:20] It's hypothesized that these binaries are fated to eventually merge.
[00:04:24] But this has never been observed.
[00:04:27] The question of whether such an event is possible has been a topic of discussion amongst astronomers
[00:04:32] for decades.
[00:04:34] In a recently published paper, the Astrophysical Journal, a team of astronomers presented new
[00:04:40] insight into this question.
[00:04:42] The team used data from the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, one half of the
[00:04:46] International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF's NOIR Lab, which is funded by the
[00:04:51] U.S. National Science Foundation, to analyze a supermassive black hole binary
[00:04:56] located within the elliptical galaxy B20402 plus 379.
[00:05:02] This is the only supermassive black hole binary ever resolved in
[00:05:06] enough detail to see both objects separately and it holds the record for
[00:05:09] having the smallest separation ever directly measured a mere 24 light-years.
[00:05:13] While this close separation foretells a powerful merger, further study revealed
[00:05:19] that the pair has been stalled at this distance for over 3 billion years, begging
[00:05:24] the question, what's the hold up?
[00:05:27] To better understand the dynamics of this system and its halted merger, the team looked
[00:05:31] to archival data from Gemini North's multi-object spectrograph, GEMOS, which allowed them to
[00:05:39] determine the speed of the stars within the vicinity of the black holes, allowing them
[00:05:42] to map the stars' increasing velocities. And from that, they were able to infer the total mass of the black holes residing there.
[00:05:49] Whether the pair will overcome their stagnation and eventually merge on time scales of millions
[00:05:54] of years or continue in orbital limbo forever is yet to be determined. If they do merge,
[00:06:00] the resulting gravitational waves would be 100 million times more powerful than those
[00:06:05] produced by stellar mass black hole mergers.
[00:06:07] It's entirely possible the pair could conquer that final distance via another galaxy merger,
[00:06:13] which would inject the system with additional material, or potentially a third black hole,
[00:06:18] to slow the pair's orbit enough to merge.
[00:06:20] However, given B20402 plus 379 status as a fossil cluster, another galactic merger
[00:06:28] is unlikely.
[00:06:29] Hey, this one's all yours, Hallie.
[00:06:32] Thanks, Steve. I've got some very short takes for us.
[00:06:35] OK, let's hear them.
[00:06:40] For the first time in more than 50 years, new NASA science instruments and technology
[00:06:45] demonstrations have been operated on the Moon.
[00:06:48] A suite of six science instruments and tech demos was delivered to the South Pole region
[00:06:53] of the Moon on February 22 by Intuitive Machines Odysseus Lander.
[00:06:58] The mission, known as IM-1, was the first successful delivery for the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services,
[00:07:05] or CLPS initiative, and Artemis campaign.
[00:07:10] Preliminary telemetry indicates that NASA's OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft,
[00:07:14] formerly known as OSIRIS-Rx,
[00:07:16] recently completed an operation that brought it 25 million miles closer to the Sun than it was designed to function.
[00:07:23] Preliminary telemetry indicates that NASA's OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft successfully completed
[00:07:28] a two-month operation that brought it 25 million miles closer to the Sun than it was designed
[00:07:33] to function.
[00:07:35] The OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft, formerly known as OSIRIS-Rx, repositioned one of its two
[00:07:40] solar arrays to shade critical components from the Sun's heat during its January 2 close pass, or perihelion. When it returned to a thermally safe distance of about 60 million miles
[00:07:51] from the Sun in early February, OSIRIS-APEX rotated its array back into place to help generate power.
[00:07:58] The limited telemetry available suggests that OSIRIS-APEX performed as predicted during the
[00:08:03] perihelion.
[00:08:05] It will take a few months for the mission team to conduct a full assessment of the spacecraft's
[00:08:10] performance, during which it flew to roughly half the distance between Earth and the Sun.
[00:08:15] The close pass of the Sun, or perihelion was the first of seven the spacecraft will make
[00:08:19] on its journey to study asteroid Apophis, which is expected to have a rare close encounter
[00:08:24] with Earth in April 2029.
[00:08:27] And now something just to rattle all the flat earthers out there.
[00:08:31] A free app, called Galactic Compass, has been developed by Matthew Webb was released on
[00:08:36] the Apple App Store on February 15.
[00:08:40] It's designed to always point users in the direction of the galactic center, no matter
[00:08:44] Earth's position in the cosmos.
[00:08:47] Webb's inspiration for the app stems from years of teaching himself to always know where
[00:08:51] to look for the Galactic Center, which shifts as we move through space.
[00:08:55] He wrote about the reasoning behind Galactic Compass recently on his website, which also
[00:09:00] announced the app's release. I would end up pointing through the pavement or down a street and thinking, huh, that's
[00:09:07] where it is, Webb said in the post.
[00:09:10] Eventually then I had this picture of myself and the Earth and the solar system and the
[00:09:14] center of the galaxy which had initially been whirling round me, and now it had flipped,
[00:09:19] I was turning around it.
[00:09:21] It was wildly situating.
[00:09:23] So if you ever get lost in space Steve, you can
[00:09:26] finally get your bearings. Good to know Hallie, but that's not something I'll
[00:09:30] ever have to worry about. Not with your ground hogways. I wouldn't think so either.
[00:09:33] Any more today Hallie? That's it from me. You should do the newsletter plug now.
[00:09:38] That is a great idea and you can get your hands on the Astronomy Daily
[00:09:43] newsletter each day in your email by visiting
[00:09:46] these places bites.com that's b-i-t-e-s-z.com and space nuts.io and dropping your email address in
[00:09:56] the slot provided then you'll be up to date with all the news about space, space science and
[00:10:01] astronomy from all around the galactic neighborhood and And while you're there, check out the back editions of Astronomy Daily and Space Nuts
[00:10:08] featuring Andrew Dunkley and astronomer at large, Professor Fred Watson of the Australia
[00:10:12] Observatory.
[00:10:14] We can also be found at the Space Nuts podcast group on Facebook and look for us on Spotify
[00:10:20] and do like my friends do and listen to us in the car.
[00:10:22] Great idea. Astronomy Daily with Steve and Hallie. Space, Space Science and Astronomy.
[00:10:36] Thanks for staying with us. It's Astronomy Daily on the 4th of February 2024 already. Boy this year is just flying by.
[00:10:47] But anyway, if you're a regular listener to this program
[00:10:51] you'll know that I am a huge fan of asteroids and comets.
[00:10:55] I don't know why, I just think they're intriguing and wonderful and strange
[00:10:59] and I just love it when we interact with them.
[00:11:02] I think it was a wonderful joke when they fired a bullet
[00:11:07] into the asteroid and I really did feel like the dinosaurs were avenged in that moment. Wonderful.
[00:11:17] So yeah I found a little story about Rosetta the mission that landed a lander on one of our near neighbours and I thought I
[00:11:29] might share that with you. Two decades ago on March the 2nd 2004 the European
[00:11:37] Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft embarked on an audacious journey that
[00:11:42] would push the boundaries of human knowledge and technology. Launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana,
[00:11:48] Rosetta took off on a 7.9 billion kilometer odyssey to rendezvous with and
[00:11:56]