#space #astronomy #spacetime #science #blackholes #nasa
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-with-stuart-gary--2458531/support.
00:00:00
This is space time series 26 episode 100 and 12 for broadcast
00:00:05
on the 18th of September 2023. Coming up on space time finding
00:00:11
the nearest black holes to Earth discovery of one black hole that
00:00:16
's solely devouring a Sun like star and the newly discovered
00:00:20
comet swinging through the hood all that and more coming up on
00:00:24
space time.
00:00:27
Welcome to space time with Stuart Garry.
00:00:47
Astronomers searching for black holes near the Earth have
00:00:50
discovered what appears to be a seething nest of them in the
00:00:53
Haiti star cluster just 100 and 53 layers away. The findings
00:00:59
reported in the journal of the monthly notices of the Royal
00:01:01
Astronomical Society suggested there are several black holes in
00:01:05
this roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars located in the
00:01:08
constellation to the ball.
00:01:11
The stars of the Hayes open cluster appear to have all been
00:01:15
formed in the same molecular gas and dust cloud. At the same
00:01:18
time, they share the same age, the same chemical
00:01:22
characteristics and a common motion through space.
00:01:26
So the idea that some have already collapsed to form black
00:01:29
holes shouldn't be surprising since their discovery black
00:01:34
holes have been one of the most mysterious and fascinating
00:01:37
phenomena in the universe and they've become the object of
00:01:40
study by researchers all over the world.
00:01:43
And this is especially true for stellar mass black holes which
00:01:47
were the first to be confirmed using gravitational waves. In
00:01:51
fact, since the detection of the first gravitational waves in
00:01:54
2015, experts have observed many events that correspond to
00:01:58
mergers of what must be low mass black hole binary pairs.
00:02:03
Now, for this study, astrophysicists use simulations
00:02:07
that track the motions and evolution of all the stars in
00:02:10
the Aedes reproducing their current trajectories and state.
00:02:14
The simulations were then compared with the actual masses
00:02:17
positions and velocities of the stars in the eighties which are
00:02:21
precisely known.
00:02:22
Thanks to observations made by the European Space Agency's GAA
00:02:26
satellite. The study's lead author Stefano Torii from the
00:02:30
University Of Padua says the only way the simulations could
00:02:34
reproduce the exact observations of the orbits and motions of the
00:02:38
stars in the real high eighties was if a number of stellar mass
00:02:42
black holes were also present within the cluster.
00:02:45
He says the observed properties of the Aedes are best reproduced
00:02:50
by simulations where there are two or three black holes present
00:02:53
at the very center. Although simulations were, all the black
00:02:56
holes had been ejected from the Aedes within the last 150
00:02:59
million years or so, roughly the last quarter of the cluster's
00:03:02
overall age could also still provide a good match.
00:03:06
That's because the current evolution of the cluster did not
00:03:09
erase the traces of this previous black hole population.
00:03:13
What the results suggest is that the Haitis born black holes are
00:03:17
either still inside the cluster or they're very close to the
00:03:20
cluster either way at 100 and 53 light years.
00:03:24
It makes them the nearest black holes to Earth out previously at
00:03:29
the nearest black hole was GAA bh One that was located some
00:03:33
1565 light years away.
00:03:36
Of course, there could be other black holes even closer rogue
00:03:41
ones traveling through interstellar space which aren't
00:03:44
affecting any surrounding material and are consequently
00:03:47
invisible and unseen. This is space time still to come. The
00:03:53
discovery of a black hole devouring a Sun like star and a
00:03:57
newly discovered comet swinging through the hood, all that and
00:04:01
more still to come on space time.
00:04:20
Now, while we're on the subject of black holes, astronomers
00:04:23
using NASA's Swift space telescope had discovered the
00:04:26
black hole that's repeatedly consuming a Sun like star
00:04:30
ripping at the pieces bit by bit on every orbit.
00:04:34
The discovery reported in the Journal Nature is heralding a
00:04:38
new era of Swift science made possible thanks to a novel new
00:04:42
method of analyzing data from the Earth orbiting x ray
00:04:45
observatory.
00:04:46
When a star strays too close to a black hole, gravitational
00:04:50
forces create intense tides that can break the star apart,
00:04:55
tearing bits off it in a stream of gas, the leading edge of the
00:04:59
stream swings around the black hole while the trailing edge
00:05:02
escapes the system. These destructive episodes are known
00:05:06
as tidal disruption events.
00:05:09
Astronomers see them as flares of multi wavelength light
00:05:12
created when the stellar debris collides onto an accretion disk
00:05:16
of material already orbiting around the black hole. And
00:05:19
recently astronomers have been investigating variations of this
00:05:23
phenomena which they're calling partial or repeating tidal
00:05:26
disruptions during these events.
00:05:29
Every time an orbiting star passes too close to a black
00:05:32
hole, the star bulges outwards and sheds material but not
00:05:36
enough to destroy it. So some remnants of the star still
00:05:40
survives and the process repeats over and over again on each
00:05:45
orbit.
00:05:46
Eventually the star will lose so much material, it'll break apart
00:05:50
and disappear forever into the black hole characteristics of
00:05:55
the individual star and black hole binary system determine
00:05:58
what kind of emissions scientists observe and that's
00:06:01
creating a wide array of behaviors to categorize.
00:06:04
Now, previous examples have included an outburst that
00:06:07
occurred every 114 Earth days, potentially caused by a giant
00:06:12
star orbiting a black hole with some 78 million times the mass
00:06:16
of our Sun.
00:06:17
Yet another flared up every nine hours around a black hole some
00:06:21
400 times the Sun's mass and that was likely caused by an
00:06:25
orbiting stellar corpse known as a white dwarf. This latest
00:06:29
discovery occurred on June the 22nd last year Swift captured
00:06:34
what appears to be a total disruption event involving a
00:06:37
system that's been cataloged as Swift J 023017.0 plus 2008, 36
00:06:45
+03.
00:06:46
A report in the Journal Nature Astronomy describes the system
00:06:50
as around 500 million light years away in the northern
00:06:53
constellation triangulum. As the x-ray observatory watched nine
00:06:58
additional outbursts from the same location were observed
00:07:01
roughly every few weeks.
00:07:04
The study's lead author Phil Evans from the University Of
00:07:07
Leicestershire says the event marks the repeating tidal
00:07:10
disruption of a Sun like star orbiting a black hole with over
00:07:14
200 times the Sun's mass.
00:07:16
Evans and colleagues are estimating the doomed star is
00:07:20
losing about three Earth masses of material on each pass. This
00:07:25
system provides a bridge between other types of suspected
00:07:28
repeating disruptions and it allows scientists to model how
00:07:32
interactions between different star types and different black
00:07:35
hole sizes affect what's being observed.
00:07:39
The discovery was only made possible thanks to a new
00:07:42
automated search of x-ray telescope observations developed
00:07:45
by Evans and called the Swift x-ray transient detector.
00:07:50
After the telescope observes a portion of the sky, the date is
00:07:53
transmitted directly to the ground and the program then
00:07:56
compares it to previous Swift snapshots of the same location.
00:08:00
If that portion of the x-ray sky is changed, astronomers get an
00:08:04
alert. This report from NASA TV.
00:08:10
Astronomers spotted a black hole repeatedly munching on a
00:08:14
sunlight star thanks to NASA's Swift satellite.
00:08:18
When a star gets too close to a black hole, gravitational forces
00:08:23
cause it to bulge and break apart into a stream of gas. This
00:08:28
is a tidal disruption event.
00:08:33
In some cases, scientists see what they call repeating tidal
00:08:37
disruptions. That's what's happening here with an outburst
00:08:41
called Swift Jo 2 30. The sunlight star orbits a monster
00:08:46
black hole every few weeks. The star gets so close that the
00:08:51
black hole pulls off about three Earth masses of material but the
00:08:55
star survives.
00:08:58
Astronomers saw it in a distant galaxy. Thanks to a new way to
00:09:02
analyze data from Swift's X ray telescope. They developed a new
00:09:06
way of scanning the instrument's observations so that they can
00:09:10
quickly identify and study events like these after nearly
00:09:15
two decades in space, Swift is still learning new tricks and
00:09:19
teaching us new things about our cosmos.
00:09:23
This space time still to come, a newly discovered comet swinging
00:09:29
through our neighborhood. And later in the science report,
00:09:32
physicists have for the first time detected oxygen 28 all that
00:09:37
and more still to come on space time, astronomers have
00:09:57
discovered a new comet swinging through our cosmic neighborhood
00:10:00
for the first time in 437 years.
00:10:04
The kilometer wide comet's just made its closest approach to
00:10:07
Earth passing 125 million kilometers away from the planet.
00:10:12
The rare green comet named C 2023 Piu Nishimura was
00:10:16
discovered last month by Japanese amateur astronomer
00:10:19
Hindu Nishimura.
00:10:21
Now, our northern hemisphere listeners should be able to see
00:10:24
the comet about 90 minutes before dawn if they look towards
00:10:27
the northeast just above the horizon in the direction of the
00:10:30
constellation Leo. Although visible to the unaided eye, the
00:10:34
comet is extremely faint so it's best to make sure you're well
00:10:38
away from a built up, lit up area.
00:10:41
Of course, it brightened quickly as it moved closer to the Sun.
00:10:44
And it's now at perihelium passing well inside the orbit of
00:10:48
mercury and just 33 million kilometers away from the Sun's
00:10:51
visible surface. But this trajectory means it's dipping
00:10:55
lower in the sky, making it harder to spot.
00:10:58
Now, if it survives its close encounter with the Sun, and that
00:11:01
's a big if it should become visible for our southern
00:11:04
hemisphere listeners sometime over the next week or so. Again,
00:11:07
sitting very low on the horizon in the evening twilight right
00:11:11
near the setting Sun.
00:11:12
This comet last visited our neighborhood 437 years ago. And
00:11:19
when you think about it, that was a decade or two before
00:11:22
Galileo first invented its telescope this space time and
00:11:44
time. Now to take a brief look at some of the other stories
00:11:46
making news in science this week with the science report.
00:11:50
Now, if you want to be green and save the planet, here's an easy
00:11:53
solution. Scientists have found that by simply replacing half of
00:11:58
all animal products, humans eat with plant based alternatives.
00:12:01
You could reduce agricultural and land use greenhouse gas
00:12:04
emissions by 31 per cent by 2050.
00:12:08
The findings reported in the Journal Nature model, the impact
00:12:12
of halving the amount of pork, chicken, beef and milk produced
00:12:15
and replacing it with a range of ingredients that could be used
00:12:18
to make substitutes of similar nutritional value and know that
00:12:23
doesn't mean eating bugs.
00:12:25
The research has found that not only would this reduce the
00:12:28
industry's emissions by a third, it would almost completely stop
00:12:32
the overall reduction of forests and natural land. The authors
00:12:36
say that restoring the land no longer needed for animal
00:12:39
agriculture to its natural state would double the benefits to the
00:12:42
climate.
00:12:44
A new study claims managing your blood pressure could help reduce
00:12:48
your risk of dementia. The findings reported in the journal
00:12:51
of the American Medical Association combined the results
00:12:54
of 17 studies and potential links between dementia, blood
00:12:58
pressure and blood pressure medications.
00:13:01
The researchers found overall untreated, high blood pressure
00:13:04
was associated with a higher risk of dementia than those who
00:13:07
were treating their blood pressure with appropriate
00:13:09
medication. And it found those who treated their high blood
00:13:13
pressure with medication had no greater risk of dementia than
00:13:16
those with healthy blood pressure levels.
00:13:20
Physicists have for the first time detected oxygen 28 an
00:13:24
isotope of oxygen that has 12 extra neutrons packed into its
00:13:28
nucleus. Scientists have long predicted that this isotope
00:13:32
existed because it should be unusually stable. But initial
00:13:36
observations of the oxygen 28 nucleus suggest this isn't the
00:13:40
case.
00:13:41
Instead, they found that it decays rapidly after creation. A
00:13:45
report in the Journal Nature suggests that if the results can
00:13:48
be replicated, physicists might be able to update theories on
00:13:51
how atomic nuclei is structured. Key to the findings is the
00:13:55
strong nuclear force. It's one of the four fundamental
00:13:59
interactions of nature together with the weak nuclear force.
00:14:02
The electromagnetic force and gravity, the strong nuclear
00:14:06
force acts between subatomic particles of matter. The strong
00:14:10
nuclear force in the form of gluons binds quarks together and
00:14:14
clusters to make more familiar subatomic particles such as
00:14:17
protons and neutrons.
00:14:19
Current hypotheses suggest that atomic nuclei with certain
00:14:23
so-called magic numbers of protons and neutrons are
00:14:26
inherently stable because protons and neutrons fill up
00:14:29
shells in the nucleus. You see when a shell is filled with just
00:14:33
the right numbers of protons and neutrons, it becomes far more
00:14:36
difficult to add or take away particles.
00:14:39
Now, these magic numbers include 28, 2028 50 82 and 100 and 26
00:14:46
particles. And it becomes doubly magic and therefore even more
00:14:50
stable. If the nucleus has a magic number of both neutrons
00:14:54
and protons, the most abundant form of oxygen is oxygen 16,
00:14:59
which is doubly magic because it has eight protons and eight
00:15:02
neutrons and oxygen 28 which has eight protons and 20 neutrons
00:15:07
has long been predicted to also be doubly magic.
00:15:11
But physicists haven't been able to detect it. At least not until
00:15:14
now, observing oxygen 28 required intense streams of
00:15:19
radioactive calcium, 48 isotopes being fired into a brilliant
00:15:23
target that created a fluorine 29 ice tube.
00:15:28
Now, the nucleus of this isotope has one more proton than does
00:15:31
oxygen 28 but it has the same number of neutrons. Scientists
00:15:36
next smashed the fluorine 29 isotope with a thick barrier of
00:15:41
liquid hydrogen that knocked a proton out of the nucleus. And
00:15:45
the result was the production of oxygen 28.
00:15:50
Well, as Chat GPT becomes more and more lifelike. The level of
00:15:54
anthropomorphizing humans attribute to these artificial
00:15:57
intelligence programs keeps increasing. That's now starting
00:16:01
to raise some serious questions among Lehman about the
00:16:04
consciousness of these programs.
00:16:06
And for that matter, what consciousness itself really is
00:16:10
after all, exactly how are human thinking processes and for that
00:16:14
matter sentence in any high level animal, any different from
00:16:17
a sophisticated A I program short of introducing non
00:16:22
scientific terms like spirit or soul.
00:16:24
The definition starts to become more and more blurry and as A I
00:16:29
gets smarter, some people are starting to question others
00:16:33
claim that it can even read minds.
00:16:36
But to get us back onto a level playing field is Tim Mendham
00:16:39
from Australian skeptics who points out that the opening
00:16:42
premise is wrong in the first place. That's because there is
00:16:46
no scientific evidence that supports the idea of telepathy.
00:16:49
It's a.
00:16:49
Machine, it's a machine in the metaphorical sense. But it's
00:16:53
computer programs, collecting data and using certain
00:16:56
algorithms to give you the response that is the most likely
00:17:00
based on a lot of experience of how people react. Now, this is
00:17:04
actually something that will be for the development of AI.
00:17:07
And just as one example, magicians have been doing
00:17:09
centuries, you know, when you ask someone to think of a number
00:17:12
between one and 10, the numbers they crop up at most often are
00:17:15
seven and eight. That's just the way people think. And if you bet
00:17:18
on seven and eight, you're going to get your money back. Ok.
00:17:19
So people think in certain ways and therefore there are
00:17:22
algorithms to pick up on this, which sounds impressive when
00:17:26
someone says I'm thinking of a number between one and 10 and
00:17:29
the AI tells you probably with the number you chose if you're
00:17:32
an ordinary person and you go, wow, you must know a lot a it
00:17:35
doesn't, it's just sort of following certain algorithms and
00:17:38
things, the suggestion that it goes beyond that and it has
00:17:41
thinking abilities and reasonable abilities and now
00:17:44
telepathic abilities, which is sort of weird, but let's face
00:17:47
it.
00:17:48
Well, yeah, the examples of someone who's sort of influenced
00:17:52
by AI is not telepathic, that's just the core version with a
00:17:57
psychopathology issue who sort of has obviously issues that the
00:18:00
computer is just innocently playing on in a way. Although it
00:18:04
's using the algorithms to tell you what you want to see, which
00:18:06
is the same way that every online shop uses these
00:18:09
algorithms to offer you things you might want to buy.
00:18:13
That's exactly what's happening. I mean, I keep, my computer
00:18:15
keeps getting the same ads popping up because the things
00:18:17
I'm interested in. So this was, I think someone who's just an AI
00:18:20
expert who was toying around with the idea, he has an
00:18:22
interest in parapsychology as well.
00:18:24
He understands that most psychology is unfortunately, the
00:18:28
results they put up are junk because they've got so many
00:18:30
issues with how they carry out their investigations of
00:18:33
telepathy. They're thinking that a machine can do. It is even a
00:18:35
long way away from that. People can't even do it.
00:18:37
Certainly not under the scientific conditions and
00:18:39
therefore a digital program. It is. I mean, that's what people
00:18:43
are seeing it and that's what you hear about people referring
00:18:45
to AI as if it exists by itself.
00:18:48
It is a thing out there, you know, creating havoc or doing
00:18:52
you a service, like a little sort of valet ask jeeves in a
00:18:55
way. But it's not, it's purely based on search results, you
00:19:00
know, standard sort of programming sophisticated
00:19:02
obviously, but its algorithms and things that it understands
00:19:06
what people react to and what they have done.
00:19:07
In the past doesn't really love me.
00:19:09
Hello? What can I help you with.
00:19:12
I, I don't have Siri. I have Google with Google, which I like
00:19:16
to have arguments with her. I know she works for the baby but
00:19:21
you can sort of swear at and she goes, oh, wonderful.
00:19:25
That's Tim Ende from Australian Skeptics.
00:19:44
And that's the show for now. SpaceTime is available every
00:19:48
Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, itunes,
00:19:51
Stitcher, Google Podcast. Pocket casts, Spotify a Cast Amazon
00:19:57
music bites dot com, Soundcloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast
00:20:01
download provider and from space time with Stewart Gary dot com.
00:20:05
SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science
00:20:08
Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both iheart Radio And
00:20:12
Tune in radio.
00:20:14
And you can help to support our show by visiting the SpaceTime
00:20:17
store for a range of promotional merchandizing goodies or by
00:20:21
becoming a SpaceTime patron, which gives you access to triple
00:20:24
episode commercial free versions of the show as well as lots of
00:20:27
bonus audio content which doesn't go to air access to our
00:20:30
exclusive Facebook group and other rewards.
00:20:34
Just go to space time with Stewart Garry dot com for full
00:20:37
details. And if you want more space time, please check out our
00:20:40
blog where you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the
00:20:42
show as well as heaps of images, news stories, loads of videos
00:20:47
and things on the web.
00:20:48
I find interesting or amusing. Just go to Space time with
00:20:51
Stewart Gary dot com dot com.
00:20:54
That's all one word and that's Tumblr without the E you can
00:20:57
also follow us through at Stuart Garry on Twitter at Space time
00:21:01
with Stewart Garry on Instagram through our space time YouTube
00:21:05
channel and on Facebook, just go to Facebook dot com forward
00:21:08
slash space time with Stewart Gary and SpaceTime is brought to
00:21:12
you in collaboration with Australian Sky and Telescope
00:21:15
Magazine, your Window on the Universe.
00:21:18
You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Garry. This has
00:21:21
been another quality podcast production from bites dot com.