Red Dots and Black Hole Stars: Unraveling Cosmic Secrets

This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred and sixteen, for broadcast on the twenty sixth of September twenty twenty five. Coming up on Spacetime, mysterious red dots in the early universe could there be black hole atmospheres? The discovery of mudible episodes of habitability on the red planet Mars, and the European Space Agency's newest Australian deep space dish about to begin operations. All that and more coming up on space Time. Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary. Astronomers believe that a population of mysterious red dots spotted in the very early universe could be exotic stellar atmospheres around ancient black holes. The findings were a port order of the journal Astronomy. In astrophysics might represent a missing link the rapid growth of super massive black holes. Stellar mass black holes are created through the supernova deaths of massive stars, and those stellar massholes can get bigger and bigger through mergers. But the discovery of super massive black holes in the early universe has remained a problem. See there's no way enough stellar mass black holes could have merged back then in the amount of time available since the universe began, and that's where these tiny red objects come in. They were spotted by NASA's web Space telescope and there offering scientists new insights to the origins of galaxies in the universe, and they may represent an entirely new class of celestial object, a black hole swallowing massive amounts of matter spitting out light. Using the first data set released byweb back in twenty twenty two, astronomers who first discovered those mysterious little red dots suggested the objects might be galaxies. They were as mature as our current Milky Way is, but at a time when the universe itself was only five hundred to seven hundred million years old. That suggests that these so called universe breakers are far older than anyone expected in the infant universe, and that calls in the question what scientists had previously understood about galaxy formation. This new hypothesis suggested that dots may not be galaxies, but an entirely new class of object known as a black hole star. The authors say their analysis indicates these tiny pinpoints of light may be giant spheres of hard gas that are so dense they look like the atmospheres of a typical nuclear fusion powered star. However, instead of fusion, they're being powered by super massive black holes at their centers, which are rapidly pulling in matter and converting into energy in the process, giving off light. One of the studies authors, Joel Leega from Penn State University, says, as his team studied the red dots, they eventually found one that had so much atmosphere around it it couldn't simply be explained as a typical star. They originally thought it could be a tiny galaxy full of many spectrotype M red dwarf stars, but instead it's actually effectively just one giant, very cold star. Most stars are low mass spectral type M red dwarf stars. In fact, that population makes up about three quarters of all stars in our galaxy. They're typically hard to see because they're washed out by rare and more luminous massive stars. Still, astronomers can identify these stars by their glow, which is primarily in the red optical and their infrared end of the electromagnetic spectrum. While the gas around supermassive black holes is typically very hot millions of degrees celsius, the light from these red dot black holes was instead dominated by very cold gas, and that's similar to the atmospheres of low mass red dwarf stars based on the wavelength of the light they're giving off. The most powerful telescope in space, Web was designed to see the genesis of the cosmos using infrared sensing instruments, which are capable of detecting light that was emitted by the most ancient stars and galaxies. Essentially, webs allowing scientists to see back in time roughly thirteen point five billion years, pretty well near the beginning of the universe as we know it, and from the moment the telescope turned on, astronomers around the world began seeing these little red dance objects that appeared to be far more massive than what galaxy models predicted. At first, they thought these objects must have been mature galaxies, which tend to get redder as the stars inside the age, but the objects were too bright to be explained. Those stars would need to be packed in side galaxies at impossible densities. If this interpretation holds, it implies that stars form through extraordinary processes that have never been observed before. To better understand the mystery, the authors needed spectra, a type of data that could provide information about how much slight the objects emitted at different wavelengths. So between January and December twenty twenty four, astronomers used nearly sixty hours of WEB observation time to obtain spectra from a total of four thousand, five hundred distant galaxy is and that makes this one of the largest spectroscopic databases yet obtained from WEB. In July twenty twenty four, the authors spotted an object with a specter that indicated a huge amount of mass, making it the most extreme case of such an early large object. Astronomer's nickname the object the Cliff, flagging it as the most promising test case yet to investigate exactly what these little red dots were. The extreme properties of the cliff forced astronomers to go back to the drawing boards and come up with entirely new models. This object was so distant that it took light almost eleven point nine billion years to reach the Earth. The spectral analysis of that light indicates it was actually a super massive black hole, pulling in surrounding material at such a rate that it cocooned itself in a fiery ball of hydrogen gas, so the light wasn't coming from a thick cluster of stars, but from just one single giant object. Super Massive black holes are found at the cet as of most, if not all galaxies. In some cases, those black holes are millions to beans, at times more massive than our Sun, pulling in nearby matter with such strength that it converts to energy it shines. No one's ever really known why or where these gigantic black holes are the centers of galaxies come from, and these black hole stars maybe will be the first face of formation for these super massive black holes. Webs already found evidence of high mass black holes in the early universe, and these new black hole star objects, which are essentially turbo charged mass builders, could help explain the early evolution of the universe and may therefore be a welcome addition to current models this space time. Still to come discovery of multiple episodes of habitability on the red planet Mars, and the European Space agencies newest Australian deep space antenna about to begin operations. All that and more still to come on space time NASAs Mars perseverance rovers discovered strong evidence the red planet's Jezro crater experienced modible episodes of liquid water flooding, each with conditions that could have supported life as we know it. By analyzing high resolution geochemical data from the six wild casseised mobile laboratory, scientists have identified two dozen types of minerals that help reveal a dynamic histuy of volcanic rocks which were altered during interactions with liquid water on the red planet. The new findings, reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, provides important clues about the ongoing search for ancient life on Mars. The studies lead author Elinor Moreland from Rice University says the minerals in Jezro support modible, temporarily distinct episodes of fluid alteration. She says it indicates there were several times in history when these volcanic rocks interacted with liquid water, and therefore more than one time when this location hosted environments which would have potentially been suitable for life. Minerals form in the very specific environmental conditions of temperature, pH and chemical makeup of fluids, and that makes them reliable storytellers of a planet's geologic history. In Jezro, the twenty four mineral species they're found reveal the volcanic nature of the Martian surface and its interactions with water over time. The water chemically weathers the rocks and creates salts or clay minerals, and the specific minerals that form depend on the environmental conditions. The identified minerals in Jezro reveal three types of fluid interactions, each with different applications for habitability. The first squid of minerals, including greenolite, is ingerlite, and ferro aluminous cellar dunite, indicate localized high temperature acidic fluids that are only found on rocks on the crater floor. When these are interpreted as being some of the oldest rocks included in the study, the water involved in these episodes is considered the least habitable for life since research on Earth that's shown that high temperatures and low pH can damage biological structures. Now all these would be most challenging for life on Earth. Life can still persist even under these hot ascidic conditions. We're talking about the geothermal geyser pills of water at Yellowstone, so it doesn't rule out habitability. The second squad of minerals reflects moderate neutral fluids that support more favorable conditions for life, and which were present over a larger area. Minerals like minnesotaatee and Klinopdylo light formed at lower temperatures and neutral pH with minnesotype detected on both the crater floor and in the upper fan region of Gezo, while clinopdilo light was also detected on the crater floor. Finally, the third category represents low temperature alkaline fluids and is considered quite habitable from an Earth type perspective. Sepio light, a common auto mineral on Earth, formed under moderate temperatures and alkaline conditions and was widely found distributed right across Jezo. The presence of sepiolite in all these areas reveals a widespread episode of liquid water creating habitable conditions in Jezro crater and in filling sediments. Moreland says these minerals are telling scientists that Jezro experienced a shift from harsher hot acidic fluids to more neutral and alkaline ones over time, conditions increasingly supportive of life. Because Mars samples can't be prepared or scanned as precisely as Earth samples, the authors developed an uncertainly propagation model to strengthen their results. Using a statistical approach, Moreland colleagues repeatedly tested mirror identifications, considering the potential errors, similar to how meteorologists forecast hurricane tracks by running many models, and the results confirm that Jezro, once home of an ancient lake, experienced a complex and dynamic aqueous history. The new mineral discoveries not only brings scientists closer to answering whether Mars ever could have supported life, but it also sharpens perseverance of strategy for WIT samples to collect for a possible future return to Worth mission this space time still to come. The European Space Agency about the commission its newest Australian deep space dish, and later in the science report, researchers finally confirm that people really do see colors the same way. All that and more still to come on space time. The European Space Agency is about to inaugurate its fourth Australian deep space antenna at its new Nausea tracking station in Western Australia. The new thirty five meter parabolic dish will reinforce eas's deep space communications capabilities, supporting upcoming deep space missions and meeting a growing demand for the deep space network. The new Nouseier complex offers a strategic geographical position, complimenting aces deep space antennas in Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, French, Guiana and Argentina. They're all linked to ASA's European Space Operations Center in Damstadt, Germany. This report from ACTV LISA. The European Space Agency operates several missions in deep space and ensures that they meet their science objectives. Teams of specialized engineers design and deploy the technology needed to communicate with spacecraft that are exploring our Solar system. When designing space communications system we are confronted with strong constraints on board in terms of mass and power. Therefore, we try to move the complexity into the ground station where we can build much larger ground stations with much more performance. ISSA has deep space stations around the world organized in a network called s Track. We obviously need to receive data from the spacecraft. This is in particular scientific data coming from the instruments. It is navigation measurements and it is status information from the space cruft. On top of this, we need to command the spacecraft in order to navigate it and to operate it. When receiving data from deep space, we want to collect as much signal energy as possible, he says. Antennas are thirty five meters wide, with the same surface as an Olympic swimming pool. The dish alone weighs one hundred and thirty tons and we can point it with the accuracy of six milli degrees to any position in the sky. The mechanical design makes it possible to compensate for the rotation motion of the Earth or The received energy is captured by the large dish. It's focused on the so called sub reflector and the signal is then guided to the base of the antenna, where special dichroic mirrors separate the incoming frequency. Bands amplifies undertate the critical task of amplifying this week signal coming from the space using the high texts and conductor technology developed by European industry to woost this signal around one million times or sixty dep The use of Indian phosphi technology and pulling down to menus two hundred and sixty degrees celsius allows to genervate only five degree scalving of thermal noise that is only twice the cosmic background noise, the lowest nose you can find in the universe. The demodulated and decoded signal eventually goes through the Spacelink protocol processing, which outputs the data in a format we can easily handle. This is the telemetry data that includes the low rate data from the spacecraft platform and the high rate data from the scientific instruments. Communication also needs to be in the opposite direction. We need to transmit the so called telecommands to the spacecraft in order to activate thrusters or control our scientific payloads. Typically, we need to transmit around twenty kilo wards of radio frequency power. This is using clystone, is a high density energy debase that transforms around one hundred kilowatts of electrical power into twenty kilowatts of radio frequency power, amplifying the signal some one hundred one thousand times, or what it is fifty divies. The clystron amplifies signals by converting the kinetic energy in a DC electron beam into radiofrequency power. The beam is passed through an input cavity resonator and thanks to a phenomenon called bunching of electrons in turn produces a high power radio frequency field in the output cavity. Then the signal, following the same path as the download signals, but in the opposite direction, goes through the beam waveguide made of solid and dichroic mirrors. It is then reflected by the sub reflector onto the main dish and radiated into space. In order to navigate our spacecraft through the Solar System, we need to know their position. This is no easy task at planetary distances. Therefore easas deep space antennas perform radio geometric measurements that allow us to derive spacecraft position and velocity. Basically what we go on that is three type of measurement we range to the satellite. Today, we are able to resolve the distance of the satellite within one meter. We measure the radial velocity of the satellite respect to our antenna to an accuracy which is below zero point one millimeters per seven. We can also measure very precisely the angle under which the satellite is seen. By combination of the three techniques, we are able to localize the satellite in a box of hundreds of meter to a distance between the Earth and Mars. This is specially important during certain critical phases where you want to inject spacecraft into a planetary orbit. To achieve this level of precision, special range, Toppler and interferometric techniques are used, which rely on the stability of our ground clocks, typically one second deviation in one hundred years. We keep the antennas with a very stable clock which are based on an atomic transition like hydrogen based masers, which are able to behave in an extremely stable manner along the propagation time of the lights across the masuraments. These are times which arrange above or in the order of the hour, and during this time the antennas must be a very stable. Man Another important aspect is time synchronization. We constantly need to synchronize the clocks on board our spacecraft with the universal time coordinated we have on Earth. The data received from the satellites must be assigned at the ground station at the antennas with a precise time tag. This time tag is required by the scientists to put in relation on the data which is received by the satellite with their scientific models. To our deep space network is built a call into internationally a great standard for covering radio frequency modulation telemagy coding. This enables us to give cross support to external agencies such as JPL, the Chinese, Russians and Japanese. We have a ground segment reference facility which we use to replicate the same configuration that we have in our deep space network. In addition, we have a Faraday cage which we use to mount the flying transponder and on board data handling system which we use to make representative compatibility testing for the flying missions. Is as deep space stations work at different frequencies up to thirty four giga heads. The new challenge in space communication is optical communication, in particular in the infrared domain at one to one point five micrometers corresponding to two hundred terra heads. Optical space communication direct to ground through the Earth's atmosphere is much more challenging because a the beam is much narrower and b the atmospheric effects are much more prevalent. By the way, the narrow beam and the higher frequency is what gives us the highat rates. Based on ISSUS heritage from the early days with Artemis and spot For and the current generation of space terminals being deployed on eders and sentinels, we will be able to build deep space optical communications systems. Is there already operates an optical ground station laboratory at ten Reef which will be used for the first time to demonstrate optical deep space communication from a spacecraft orbiting the Moon. Optical technology will allow unprecedented data rates from deep space, thereby maximizing the scientific return and enabling new types of missions like planetary remote sensing as we are used today from Earth. And in that report from ACTV, we heard from ace's head of Ground Station Systems Division, Class Jurgen Shultz, is his ground Station Subsystems Engineer. Salva or Martini is his head of Systems and Project support Manager. Marco Lenucara is a systems project support manager. Kevinkewan and is his head of Ground State Subsystems ORSIA. This is Space time and time that to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week, would the science report. A new study claims specific types of intestinal bacteria could be linked to insomnia. The findings, reported in the Journal of Journal Psychiatry, suggests the microbiome could even play a role in causing the condition, Using a technique called mendelium randomization, which uses genetics to allow scientists to determine whether one thing causes another, rather than them just being linked. The authors found fourteen types of intestinal bacteria that may contribute to the risks of insomnia. They also found eight groups of bacteria that could help protect against insomnia, and that this link also works in reverse, and that insomnia could also cause the microbes to be altered. Scientists have finally confirmed that people really do see colours all the same way. The findings reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, so that colours are represented and processed in the same way in the same parts of the human brain in different people. The authors were able to predict which colors a group of people were looking at by using a machine learning tool that was trained on the brain scans of a separate group who had been shown various colors. They found that different colours are processed by subtly different areas within the same brain region, and that different cells respond more strongly to specific colours than others. Scientists have identified a new species of stingray at a local Fiji in fish market. A report of the Journal of Fish Biology claims researchers from the University of the South Pacific identify the new species, which they've named Fiji mask ray. The fish is only found in local Fiji in waters. Although the ray is common around the island nation and most widely traded in local markets, it's never actually undergone a detailed taxonomic description until now and time once again for our selliest story of the week. An infamous allegedly haunted Raggedy and Dole, popularized in the Conjuring movies, apparently went missing after it was claimed to have started a fight during a psychic and spirit festival in New Orleans. Timendum from Australian's Skeptics says the story got almost hysterical coverage around the world despite the fact that it didn't have an ounce of truth about it. It's a story about a dull named Annibal, which is supposedly a doll that was sort of infamous because there was possessed, a haunted that had paranormal powers. It could attack people, it could move, you can send messages that attack people, doing all sorts of nakety things because it was possessed. It was in the collection of a couple of ghost hunters, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are quite famous. We've mentioned them before. We have mentioned them before, they were quite famous. They both passed away. Now, Warrant was a man who there was no pointing ever saw it that didn't exist. I think he was ever a debunker. I mean, he will the whole range from things Enfield in the in the UK. He was a big conspiracy theorist. And his wife was a nicer lady, but she went along with them. Have some sea they were, I don't know. I think definitely the Rain. I think the wife was very since here I don't know that. So anyway, this doll was in their possession, but it's been moved around a bit on display. People go and see it, a bit of a traveling circus. So I was down in Louisiana for an exhibition and lo and behold, naturally. Did the dolls start the fire? That's the theory, of course, instantly said this Annabel doll started the fire. No reason to say suggests that's just how the Annabelle doll was in Louisiana and the fire was in Louisiana. Now the question was was the Annabel doll in Louisiana, Because then the rumors started it had disappeared. So Annabel Doll, haunted, possessed, being as it is, was running looser around the countryside because of the disappeared trouble was fire not associated with anything else, obviously, was just a normal fire, and the Anniviel doll did not disappeared. Even though this had headlines around the world believe it or not, you know, not see anyone from Indian newspapers and all sorts of places that the Annibal doll had disappeared and it was causing all this chaos, and that quickly pointed out animal does not disappear, that we have it in our possession, that's going on to the next city's on the tour. This fire is not associated with it. There's an absolute, I mean part of the fact that the doll is not haunted. Probably I think it's unlikely. Oh, I see, you're going back to first principles. Are Yeah, prove proof of this thing is harnted to get association with a fire or anything like that. Just prove that the doll is haunted, possessed. And I don't think it's it's the raggedy and doll, you know, with the big eyes and red hair and things, and someone's painted on some tears and makes them look a bit more evil. Of it, doesn't the team mean you've killed someone in prison or something. Which obviously obviously this this if dollars attacked people, and don't know if they ever actually killed anyone, but it probably has some unders why not. So there we have it. It's a strange thing. This disappearance didn't have and the fire didn't happen. The doll's not haunted, but the Mexican story anyway, and it just cut coverage around the world, which is an amazing thing. I mean, it's pretty unimprissied dole. I've seen nasti are looking hoarded dolls. Many people are painted on nasty are looking faces. It'll go on. That's the way I get. I mean, it's the same thing. I was just nerding today that killer bees are back in the news in the United States, and it turns out that every year at this time you'll find a killer bee story. They come out at this time of the year. Every year. You can go back ten years, twenty years, you'll see them in the news that they've been killer bee. You've seen it's always at this time of the year. So there are these things which are constantly recycled, and Chuckie Dolls are one of them. Yeah, yeah, I mean there are certain sort of paranormalities that keep appearing in the UFOs A pretty persistent. Psychic powers are persistent. Other things come up and they go and they disappear, thank you, But there'll always be something to replace. Seven of professions that was pretty paranormal. It's the raggedy and dollars haunted. Why are a lot more dolls Dan, because there's soles that sort of thing that I don't know. It's one of those things you just got to put your head in your hands and you think, really. That's timendum from Ustra in Skeptics, and that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, pocker casts, Spotify, acast, Amazon Music, bites dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Own Radio and on both iHeartRadio and tune in Radio. 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