S27E21: Cosmic Chicken or Egg: Did Black Holes Birth Galaxies?

[00:00:00] This is "SpaceTime" series 27 episode 21 for broadcast on the 16th of February 2024. Coming up on "SpaceTime", we finally have an answer to the question which came first - Black holes or galaxies. Plans for a new, bigger, better super collider for CERN. And Japan's loom the land awakes up, but then goes back to sleep again. All that and more coming up on "SpaceTime".

[00:00:26] Welcome to "SpaceTime" with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:30] Well, it's been a question for decades, which came first - super messy, Black holes, or the galaxies they're in the centre of.

[00:00:53] Now, our new data from the web space telescope has finally shown that super massive Black holes not only existed at the dawn of time, they'd birth new stars and super judge galaxy formation.

[00:01:05] The findings reported in the Astrophysical Journal letters completely shakes up what astronomers know about galaxy formation.

[00:01:13] The insights up in theories of how Black hole shaped the cosmos, challenging classical understanding that they formed after the first stars and galaxies emerged.

[00:01:23] Instead, it seems Black holes might have dramatically accelerated the birth of new stars during the first 50 million years of the universe,

[00:01:30] a fleeting period, whether it's 13.8 billion year history.

[00:01:34] The State's lead author Joseph Silk from Johns Hopkins University says we know these monster Black holes exist at the centres of most, if not all, galaxies.

[00:01:43] But the big surprise is that they were present at the beginning of the universe, and were almost like building blocks, or seeds for early galaxy formation.

[00:01:51] He says they really boosted everything like gigantic amplifiers of star formation,

[00:01:56] which is a major turnaround from what scientists thought was possible before.

[00:02:01] So much so that this could completely shake up scientists understanding of how galaxies form.

[00:02:07] Silk says distant galaxies from the very early universe observe through web appear much brighter than scientists had predicted,

[00:02:14] and they reveal unusually high numbers of young stars and supermassive Black holes.

[00:02:20] Conventional wisdom holds that the first Black holes might have formed from the collapse of supermassive stars,

[00:02:26] and that galaxies formed after the first stars lit up the dark early universe.

[00:02:31] But the new analysis by Silk's team shows that supermassive Black holes and galaxies co-existed and they influenced each other's fate during the first 100 million years of existence.

[00:02:41] The authors say Black hole outflows crush gas clouds, turning them to stars, and greatly accelerating the rate of star formation.

[00:02:49] Otherwise, it'd be very hard to understand where these bright galaxies came from because they're typically smaller in the early universe.

[00:02:56] Black holes are regions of space where gravity's so strong, nothing not even light can escape their pull, hence the name.

[00:03:04] Because of this force, they generate powerful magnetic fields just beyond their event horizon,

[00:03:10] the point of no return beyond which matter falls forever into the singularity.

[00:03:15] These magnetic fields act like powerful particle accelerators, shooting material which hasn't yet reached the event horizon far out into space, often to cosmic distances.

[00:03:25] This process is likely why webs detectors have spotted more of these Black holes and bright galaxies that anticipated.

[00:03:32] These enormous jets coming from Black holes, often referred to as quesars and blazars, or simply active galactic nuclei,

[00:03:39] can crush nearby gas clouds, causing them to collapse on themselves and turn into stars.

[00:03:45] And that's the missing link that explains why these first galaxies appear so much brighter than what was expected.

[00:03:52] Silk's team now predicts the universe when it was young probably had two phases.

[00:03:57] During its first phase, high-speed outflows from Black holes accelerated star formation and then in the second phase, the outflows slowed down.

[00:04:06] A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, gas clouds collapsed because of the supermassive Black holes' magnetic storms.

[00:04:12] And the new stars were born at rates of fire exceeding that observed billions of years later in our nearby galaxies.

[00:04:19] The creation of the stars slowed down because these powerful outflows transitioned into states of energy conservation,

[00:04:26] reducing the gas available to form stars and galaxies.

[00:04:29] Previously, the idea was that in the beginning, galaxies formed when a giant gas cloud collapsed.

[00:04:35] The big surprise is that there was a seed in the middle of that cloud, a big black hole,

[00:04:40] and that helped rapidly turn the inner part of the gas cloud into stars at a rate much greater than scientists had ever expected.

[00:04:47] And so, the first galaxies shone incredibly brightly. This is spacetime.

[00:04:54] Still to come, a bigger, better supercollider for certain, and tiny, nascent cameras will picture the interaction between a lunar lander and the moon's surface.

[00:05:03] All that and more still to come on spacetime.

[00:05:07] A new feasibility study has supported a plan to build a new 17 billion US dollar particle accelerator,

[00:05:29] which will be far bigger and vastly more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider!

[00:05:34] Currently, the world's biggest atom smasher.

[00:05:36] The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, is proposing a new 91 kilometer supercollider,

[00:05:42] currently called the Future Circular Collider or FCC, which will be constructed in the tunnel deep beneath the frankos with sporter.

[00:05:50] The existing 27 kilometer Large Hadron Collider or LHC discovered a long sawed-after Higgs boson in 2012.

[00:05:58] The Higgs is a force particle that gives mass to other elementary particles through an all-pervasive Higgs field.

[00:06:04] But unlike all other bosons, the Higgs has no integer spin.

[00:06:08] The Future Circular Collider would be three times as big as the LHC.

[00:06:13] It would generate collisions with significantly more energy output than previous circular colliders,

[00:06:17] such as the super proton synchrotron, the Tevatron and of course the Large Hadron Collider.

[00:06:22] Right now, the project is considering three possible scenarios for collision types.

[00:06:26] Hadron Hadron collisions, including proton-proton heavy ion collisions, electron-positron collisions

[00:06:32] and electron-hadron collisions.

[00:06:34] In Hadron Hadron collisions, each beam would have a total energy of 500 mega joules with a center of mass collision energy of 100 terra-electron volts.

[00:06:44] That compares to 14 terra-electron volts at the LHC.

[00:06:48] The total energy output increases to 16.7 giga joules, nearly a factor of 30 above the LHC.

[00:06:55] It's unclear what new types of physics the Future Circular Collider might find.

[00:07:01] Theory gives no clear idea of what might be discovered at such high energies.

[00:07:06] But we do know the standard model of particle physics, the foundation stone of science's understanding of the universe,

[00:07:12] still contains many mysteries, including the true nature of gravity, as well as what dark energy and dark matter are,

[00:07:19] which is important as they make up 96% of the total matter energy budget of the universe.

[00:07:25] This is spacetime.

[00:07:27] Still to come, tiny NASA cameras to picture the interaction between a lunar lander in the moon's surface

[00:07:32] and Japan's lunar land awakes up and then goes back to sleep again.

[00:07:37] All that and more still to come on spacetime.

[00:07:40] [Music]

[00:07:56] Okay, let's take a break from our show for a word from our sponsor NordVPN.

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[00:09:17] Security and Freedom. That URL again, NordVPN.com/stuartGary. NordVPN, explore the digital universe safely.

[00:09:27] And of course there are links in the show notes and on our website. And now it's back to our show.

[00:09:33] You're listening to "SpaceTime with Stuart Gary".

[00:09:43] When the intuitive machines "I am One" mission novasee Odysseus Lander descends down to the lunar

[00:09:48] surface later this month, four tiny NASA cameras aboard the spacecraft will capture every thrilling

[00:09:55] moment of the descent. Odysseus will attempt to become the first ever private spacecraft to

[00:10:01] successfully land on the lunar surface. The mission is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services

[00:10:06] Initiative designed to bring down the cost of science investigations and technology demonstrations

[00:10:11] going to the moon. As the Novacy Lander descends towards the moon, the four tiny NASA cameras will

[00:10:17] be trained on the lunar surface. They'll be collecting imagery of how the surface changes as a result

[00:10:23] of interactions with the spacecraft's engine plume. Devolved by NASA's Langley Research Center in

[00:10:29] Hampton, Virginia, the stereo cameras for the lunar plume's surface studies mission are an array of

[00:10:34] four cameras placed around the base of the lunar lander to collect as much imagery as possible

[00:10:38] during and after descent. See, as excursions to the moon increase and the number of payloads

[00:10:44] touching down near one another grows, scientists and engineers need to be able to accurately predict

[00:10:49] the effects of all these landings. How much will it change the lunar surface? For example,

[00:10:54] as the lander comes down, what happens to the lunar solar rigler that it ejects? With very limited

[00:11:00] data collected during descent and landing so far, the project will be the first dedicated instrument

[00:11:05] to measure plume surface interaction on the moon. The project's principal investigator Michelle

[00:11:10] Monk from NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate says if humans are placing things,

[00:11:14] landers, habitats and so on near each other, they could wind up sandblasting equipment.

[00:11:19] And so that's driving requirements on protecting those and other assets on the lunar surface,

[00:11:24] which could add mass, and that mass will ripple through the architecture.

[00:11:28] The cameras will be focused on how the lander alters the surface of the moon during touchdown.

[00:11:33] It'll begin capturing imagery before the time the lunar lander's plume begins to interact with

[00:11:38] the surface until after the landing phase is complete. The final images will be gathered on a small

[00:11:43] onboard data storage unit before being sent to the lander for a downlink back to earth.

[00:11:48] My name's Olivia Tierrell. I'm a member of the photogrammetry team for the stereo cameras

[00:11:53] for lunar plume surface studies or scalps for short. Scalps is an array of small cameras that

[00:11:57] will be placed around the base of a lunar lander and collect imagery during the descent and landing

[00:12:02] of the vehicle. Using a technique called stereo photogrammetry, we can use those images to

[00:12:06] reconstruct a 3D shape of the ground as the lander comes down as hot engine plumes will

[00:12:11] interact with the surface. Our cameras will begin acquiring images from before this interaction

[00:12:16] begins until after the vehicle has landed on the surface. The scalps cameras will specifically

[00:12:21] be looking at the overall crater formation and erosion of the ground due to the rocket plumes.

[00:12:27] The final stereo images which will be stored on a small onboard data storage unit will be

[00:12:31] transferred to the lander and then downlinked to earth where we can use them to reconstruct

[00:12:36] the overall erosion volume and shape of the ground. So this information is important because as we

[00:12:41] send larger heavier payloads to the moon and eventually onto Mars we need to be able to accurately

[00:12:46] predict the effects of these landings. With the Artemis program we plan to establish a sustained

[00:12:51] lunar exploration and try to land multiple payloads in close proximity to one another.

[00:12:56] Scalps data will be a critical part of understanding these phenomena and improving our computational

[00:13:01] models to inform these future landings. This is space time. Still to come,

[00:13:06] Japan's lunar land awakes up but then goes back to sleep again and later in the science report,

[00:13:11] a new study finally answers the question why are there always clouds of insects buzzing around

[00:13:16] your porch lights at night. All that and more still to come on space time.

[00:13:31] Well it seems Japan's lunar land has gone back to sleep after briefly awakening when sunlight

[00:13:41] finally reached its solar panels. The spacecraft landed on the moon two weeks ago but a fully

[00:13:47] propulsion system caused it to go out of balance during its final descent and it ended up landing

[00:13:52] nose down. That prevented sunlight directly reaching its solar array which it used to charge

[00:13:58] the probes on board batteries. Text the moon roughly a month to orbit the earth so after two

[00:14:03] weeks of waiting sunlight finally hit the solar panels allowing them to charge the spacecraft's

[00:14:09] batteries. But the charge wasn't enough to keep the spacecraft awake for long. During a brief

[00:14:15] two-day awakening the spacecraft successfully obtained first light from its multi-band spectroscopy

[00:14:20] camera. Mission managers prioritized what they could target during the short operational window

[00:14:25] downloading as much scientific data as possible. One of the mission's aims was to try and study

[00:14:31] an exposed area of the moon's mantle the inner layer of the moon usually deep beneath its crust.

[00:14:37] But as the battery power ran out the probe went back into a dormancy period. The Japan Aerospace

[00:14:43] Exploration Agency JAXA says its lander officially known as the smart lander for investigating the

[00:14:48] moon or slim was never designed to survive the long freezing lunar nights. So while mission

[00:14:54] managers are hoping the spacecraft has another chance to soak up some rays in two weeks time

[00:14:59] there remains a huge question mark as to whether it can survive another fortnight long lunar night.

[00:15:05] The mission's other priority was achieving a more accurate landing rather than simply

[00:15:09] targeting a landing zone several kilometers across. And JAXA says slim landed just 55 meters from

[00:15:16] its target meaning a far more precise touchdown than has ever previously been possible. The Japanese

[00:15:23] success of sorts follows last month's failure of US firm AstroBotics Periguend lunar lander which

[00:15:28] began leaking fuel shortly after separating from its Faka 9 upper stage. And a short time later

[00:15:34] some sort of explosive event possibly related to the propellant loss also occurred on board

[00:15:39] dreaming the mission which swung around the moon instead of landing on the lunar surface

[00:15:44] and then burnt up as it re-entered its atmosphere above the South Pacific Ocean. This is "Space Time."

[00:16:03] And time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this

[00:16:07] week with the science report. A new study is found that by replacing a half of your animal

[00:16:13] consumption with alternative protein sources over the next 25 years would free up heaps of

[00:16:18] farming land for renewable energy generation and carbon removal. A report in the journal OneEarth

[00:16:24] looked at the viability of a carbon dioxide removal method called bioenergy with carbon

[00:16:29] capture and storage which involves cultivating fast-growing crops to capture and store carbon

[00:16:34] and also using biomass as a feedstock for renewable energy but to do this successfully will require

[00:16:40] lots of land. And so researchers estimated how much land could be freed up by simply switching

[00:16:46] out of different percentages of animal consumption.

[00:16:49] with protein alternatives. And they found that simply replacing 50% of animal products

[00:16:54] would free up enough land to generate renewable energy equivalent to today's total coal-generated

[00:16:59] power. However, more work still needs to be done on the specifics of which protein alternatives

[00:17:04] could be used to reduce meat consumption. A new study claims men who eat kimchi up to

[00:17:11] three times a day could lower their risk of obesity. The study reported in the British

[00:17:16] Medical Journal, analyzed the self-reported diets of over 100,000 middle-aged Koreans,

[00:17:21] and compared them with their body mass index, looking specifically at the amount of kimchi

[00:17:26] a Korean fermented vegetable dish was eaten. The authors claim that for men between one

[00:17:31] and three servings per day of any type of kimchi was associated with a lower risk of

[00:17:36] obesity. And they say that a higher intake of kakuduchi, a radish type of kimchi, was

[00:17:41] associated with a lower risk of abdominal obesity in both men and women. However, they

[00:17:46] warned that too much kimchi, likely over five servings a day, was still associated with

[00:17:51] a higher risk of obesity, and that could be the result of higher salt content or simply

[00:17:55] the result of eating too much food. It's also important to point out that this study

[00:17:59] was funded by the Korean government-backed World Institute of Kimchi.

[00:18:05] Scientists have finally shed light, while there's always a cloud of insects buzzing

[00:18:08] around your porch lights at night. It's been a mystery since Roman times. They used to

[00:18:13] set up lights to trap the insects. Now, a report of the journal Nature Communications

[00:18:18] claims artificial lights makes it hard for flying insects to orient themselves to the

[00:18:22] horizon. Scientists reached their conclusions after using high-speed infrared cameras to

[00:18:28] track insects' flight in three dimensions, both in the wild and in the lab. They found

[00:18:33] that insects tend to correct their course so that their backs are facing towards a light

[00:18:37] source. When that light source is the sun, this allows them to hold a steady flight path

[00:18:41] oriented towards the horizon. But artificial light means they're constantly and erratically

[00:18:47] correcting their flight paths, causing vertigo and making it appear that artificial lights

[00:18:51] are attracting them. You can therefore improve the lives of insects by simply keeping your

[00:18:56] artificial outdoor lighting at night to a minimum.

[00:19:01] It seems a lot of household paranormal activity has far more to do with your home's electrical

[00:19:06] system than what it does with supernatural visitations. Tim Enum from Strange Skeptics

[00:19:11] says there's a whole bunch of common everyday problems, which are often put down to ghostly

[00:19:16] visitations rather than home maintenance.

[00:19:18] Yeah, you might be surprised that a skeptic would think they might be other explanation.

[00:19:22] Aaron Hovle, phenomenon. But there's a suggestion that the number of phenomenon other people

[00:19:26] persist that with paranormal activity in your home. Green goo, flickering lights, unexplained

[00:19:32] windmill. Green goo is what might be coming out. Of a PowerPoint or a light feeling or

[00:19:37] something like that. It sort of sweeps out and people say, "Oh my..."

[00:19:40] It's exoplasm.

[00:19:41] My favorite exoplasm could be there and it could be sort of seeping out. But one suggestion

[00:19:47] was, "No, it's not exoplasm. It's copper wiring that might be going off" copper wire

[00:19:51] there. That's been there for a long, long time. It's actually sort of putting out this

[00:19:54] copper oxide, isn't it? And putting out this green goo that is coming out and sort of

[00:19:58] it might look not very pleasant, but it might be a pretty ordinary thing.

[00:20:01] Learning lights is something that people always sort of associate with. Yes, sort of ghost

[00:20:05] films and stuff. Yeah, as soon as they're lightning strikes and that sort of stuff

[00:20:08] of a light flicker on them off, you think, "Oh my gosh, ghost activity, well, that could

[00:20:11] be bad wiring as well." You've got some loose connection somewhere, so maybe you should

[00:20:15] go and look at that rather than instantly assume that you're getting a ghost in the

[00:20:20] house. First one is unexplained smells, which...

[00:20:23] I always blame the dog.

[00:20:24] I do have a dog. I blame me. Because they're the mind.

[00:20:27] Yeah, the wife blames you. Everybody blames me. But if you look at the conjuring film,

[00:20:32] there's a guy Ed Warren there who's the main sort of ghostbuster in those films that

[00:20:37] are always assumed there was a demon. When he had a bad smell, it was a demon. Instantly,

[00:20:40] they asked the demon. It was a very handy for him because he could actually go on there

[00:20:44] or exercise the house and get rid of the demon. Unexplains smells could be for a number of

[00:20:48] reasons say you've left food out somewhere, or your fridge has gone off. It doesn't matter

[00:20:51] how much food is rotting in the fridge or anything. It was the bad smell of the demon.

[00:20:55] Interesting concept, rotting food in the fridge. I've never had food in the fridge long enough

[00:21:00] for that to happen.

[00:21:02] Oh, things at the back. You've forgotten about.

[00:21:05] No problem.

[00:21:06] Interesting thing, the suggestions are what these paranormal things might really be and

[00:21:09] how to solve them all come from an electrician who is perhaps working up the business

[00:21:14] frame. So if you get a green goo, you get a flickering light, you get an unexplained

[00:21:18] smell, you need an electrician. It's a very down to where it's sort of solution to it.

[00:21:22] Well, you were getting an electrical shot. That would give a burnt smell through the

[00:21:26] house as well. Yeah, no, you probably get a totally spot on.

[00:21:30] So, yeah, an electrician solution might be the best thing to go for. There are other

[00:21:35] things, of course, other phenomena that you might have associated visions and things like

[00:21:38] that, especially when people are half asleep. That's been discussed a lot of times. If

[00:21:42] you sleep paralysis, I think we're half asleep, you can't move. You can be panicky. You can't

[00:21:46] move your arms and legs. You feel you being pressed upon by a ghost and things. That's

[00:21:50] not that uncommon and it's associated with the Wake Sleep Sleep.

[00:21:53] I thought there were expensive aliens that were transported here.

[00:21:56] Yeah, Elliot, you'd be incubi or sucked by in the old days. They were even coming and

[00:22:00] sitting and doing terrible things to you. This is a thing with paranormal activity,

[00:22:04] isn't it? It depends what's trendy at the time that the experience is based on.

[00:22:09] Very much. I mean, we mentioned Green Goo and that sounds like ectoplasm, which was the

[00:22:13] stuff that the old spiritualists used to exude from their nose or the ear or whatever. And

[00:22:17] it's like a chewing gum. That's not funny. It looks like chewing gum. But that's disappeared.

[00:22:22] The ectoplasm symptoms have been very un-disappeared from the scene. I don't know why. But never mind.

[00:22:27] But one thing someone did do with an experiment suggesting that pole ceilings, dark lighting

[00:22:32] and cold are a good way to encourage belief. We feel like the half is haunted or there's

[00:22:36] paranormal things going on. To the extent that someone in an experiment, so they built

[00:22:40] a room with pole ceilings, dark lighting and cold air coming in. And to see what the

[00:22:45] reaction people got in those things. Within 40-50 minutes, people started feeling uneasy

[00:22:49] and that there were strange things going on. And, of course, as usual, were they signed

[00:22:52] to the experiments, these reactions happen even if there was nothing happening. It was

[00:22:57] just the room. They could even do it with virtual reality by looking at a picture of

[00:23:01] a tall ceiling, dark lighting. You would get the spooky feeling. So it's nothing to do

[00:23:05] with actually being in the room or anything like that. There's a lot of things that would

[00:23:08] encourage people to have paranormal beliefs, and most of them have pretty prosaic explanations,

[00:23:13] especially if during television. That's Tim Lindam from Australia in Skeptics.

[00:23:20] And that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday

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