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This is Space Time, Series 27, Episode 40, for broadcast on the
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1st of April, 2024. Coming up on Space Time, the discovery of
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strong magnetic fields at the edge of the Milky Way's
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supermassive black hole. New studies show how blue
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supergiants can be formed through the merger of smaller
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stars and peering into the tendrils of a distant galaxy.
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All that and more coming up on Space Time.
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Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
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Thank you A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope's
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uncovered strong organised magnetic fields that are
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spinning around the edge of Sagittarius A Star, the
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supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.
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The new observations reported in the astrophysical Journal
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letters are seen in polarized light for the first time. The
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data shows that these magnetic fields in the monster lurking in
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the heart of the Milky Way galaxy are strikingly similar in
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structure to those found in the supermassive black hole at the
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center of the galaxy M87.
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And that suggests that strong magnetic fields may be common to
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all black holes. History was made in 2022 when astronomers
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unveiled the first ever direct image of the supermassive black
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hole Sagittarius A Star at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy.
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Until then, we knew it existed, but we never actually saw it.
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Sagittarius A Star has a mass roughly 4.3 million times that
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of our Sun.
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It's located 27 light-years away, and it's the pivot point
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around which our entire galaxy, including the Sun and Solar
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System, revolves. Yet despite its huge size, Sagittarius A
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Star is still more than a thousand times smaller and less
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massive than the supermassive black hole in M87, which was the
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first ever supermassive black hole imaged directly.
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The new observations show that with the exception of the size
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difference, the two look remarkably similar. And that
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made scientists wonder whether the two shared other common
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traits beyond their simple appearance. To find out, the
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authors decided to study Sagittarius A Star using
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polarised light.
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Previous studies of light around M87's supermassive black hole
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revealed that the magnetic fields around it allowed the
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black hole to launch powerful jets of material back into
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space. Depending on the angle you're viewing them, they're
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called quasars, blazars or active galactic nuclei. Now
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building on this work, the new images suggest that the same may
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be true for Sagittarius A-Star.
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One of the study's lead authors, Sarah Izoan from the
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Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics, says that as well
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as Sagittarius A-Star having a strikingly similar polarization
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structure to that seen in the much larger and more powerful
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M87, astronomers have learned that strong and ordered magnetic
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fields are critical to how black holes interact with the gas and
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matter around them.
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Black holes are basically gravity wells. Anything that
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gets too close winds up being ripped apart and consumed by the
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black hole. But it doesn't happen all at once. Firstly, the
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material is torn apart by powerful gravitational forces,
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forming an accretion disk around the black hole just beyond a
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point of no return, called an event horizon.
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The material in the secretion disk is being further heated and
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ripped apart at the subatomic level, releasing huge amounts of
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energy in the form of X-rays. Most of this material will
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eventually pass beyond the event horizon, a point of no return,
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beyond which it falls forever towards the black hole's
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singularity.
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But a small fraction of material gets caught up in the black hole
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's magnetic fields, the very ones that have now been imaged.
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And these shoot that material out perpendicular to the event
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horizon, firing it deep into space, often at superluminal
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speeds. And these can be so bright, we see them on the other
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side of the universe, more than 13 billion light years away.
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Now, the reason the scientists in this study used polarised
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light is because of some of its unique properties. You see,
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light isn't oscillating or moving an electromagnetic wave.
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Sometimes the light oscillates in a preferred direction. We
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call that polarised. You'll get the same effect when you look at
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a plasma screen using sunglasses which have polarisation in them.
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Turn your head one way and the picture seems to disappear.
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That's because the light coming from the plasma screen is
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polarised. Now, you don't see the polarization without the
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sunglasses on because the human eyes aren't able to distinguish
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it from normal light. But in the plasma around these supermassive
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black holes, particles whirling around the magnetic field like
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lines impart a polarization pattern which is perpendicular
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to the field.
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And this allows astronomers to see in increasingly vivid
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details what's actually happening in the black holes
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regions, and that allows them to map the magnetic field lines. By
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imaging polarized light from hot glowing gas near the black hole,
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they're able to directly infer the structure and strength of
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the magnetic field lines which are threading through the flow
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of gas and matter that the black hole's feeding on and ejecting.
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Polarized light teaches science a lot about astrophysics,
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including the properties of gas and the mechanisms taking place
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as the black hole feeds. But imaging black holes in polarized
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light isn't as easy as simply putting on a pair of polarized
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sunglasses. And this has been especially true for Sagittarius
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A-Star, which is changing so fast, it simply doesn't sit
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still for pictures.
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Imaging Sagittarius A-Star required sophisticated tools
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above and well beyond those previously used for capturing
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M87, which was a much steadier target. To observe Sagittarius
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A-Star, the authors linked eight telescopes around the world, in
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the process creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope, which
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they've called the Event Horizon Telescope. This report from the
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Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.
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Just over 100 years ago, Einstein showed how gravity
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could be imagined as a distortion of space-time. His
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equations revealed that an object small enough and massive
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enough could hide behind an event horizon, a point where
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gravity is so strong that not even light could escape.
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Astronomers now believe that these objects, known as black
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holes, exist. They inhabit the centers of almost all galaxies,
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where they can grow to be millions or billions of times
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the mass of our Sun. The Event Horizon Telescope, or EHT, is
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the first experiment designed to capture a black hole's image.
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In doing so, the EHT will test Einstein's theory of gravity at
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one of the most extreme places in the universe, the event
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horizon. The best chance we have of taking a picture of an event
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horizon is the supermassive black hole at the center of our
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own Milky Way.
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Though it is 4 million times as massive as our Sun, it is so far
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away that mapping its event horizon is equivalent to
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standing in New York and counting the individual dimples
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on a golf ball in Los Angeles.
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Gas falling towards this black hole heats up to billions of
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degrees, causing the event horizon to appear as a
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silhouette whose size and shape are predicted by Einstein's
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theory.
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It is best to observe this silhouette in light with a
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wavelength of about 1, where the gas glows most brightly and
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light can travel unimpeded from the center of the galaxy to
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telescopes on Earth.
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Close to the black hole, the light waves appear circular,
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like ripples in a pond. But by the time they reach Earth, they
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are essentially plane waves.
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Imaging a black hole at this wavelength requires a telescope
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as big as our planet. The EHT uses a global network of dishes
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to simulate a telescope of this size. Each dish collects and
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records radio waves coming from near the black hole. The data
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are then combined to create the image of the event horizon.
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This will only work, however, if the dishes are completely
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synchronized. To understand this, let's use the analogy of a
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mirror, such as in optical telescopes used for stargazing.
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Imagine the EHT formed from all the different array sites as one
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big parabolic mirror.
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The mirror is curved so that when a line of waves comes into
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the dish, they bounce off at specific angles and arrive at
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the focus at the same time. When the EHT sites are synchronized,
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their recordings can later be perfectly aligned in the same
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way that the mirror aligns the optical light.
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If the surface of the mirror is not stable, if it is vibrating
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for example, the reflected light rays will not combine properly
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at the focus.
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For the EHT, an unstable mirror surface is analogous to an
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unstable recording.
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To ensure stability, the EHT uses atomic clocks that would
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lose only one second every 100 million years.
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The amount of data recorded during observations is so large
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that it could never be transferred over the internet.
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Instead, the recordings are stored on hard disks and shipped
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back to a central facility for processing. There, a
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supercomputer combines the data from all the sites, staggering
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them during playback to account for the time difference between
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waves getting to each telescope.
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The resulting data can then be used to make images with extreme
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magnifying power. As more dishes join the EHT, and the more
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widely spaced they are, the sharper our image of the event
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horizon will be. In April 2017, the EHT coordinated observations
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of the Milky Way's central black hole using a global network of
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telescopes. The results transform our understanding of
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black holes, gravity, and even the universe.
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Because Sagittarius A-Star moved around while astronomers were
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trying to image it, it was difficult to construct even an
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unpolarised image. In fact, the first images were really an
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average of multiple images owing to Sagittarius A-Star's constant
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movement. The authors were relieved to find out that
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polarised imaging was even possible. Some models were far
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too scrambled and turbulent to construct a polarised image.
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But now, having achieved that, astronomers have a sample of two
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supermassive black holes, with very different masses and from
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very different host galaxies. Since both are pointing
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scientists towards strong magnetic fields, it suggests
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that this may be a universal and perhaps fundamental feature of
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these kinds of systems. And one of the similarities between
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these two specific supermassive black holes might be a jet.
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But while the team have imaged a very obvious jet in M87 Star,
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they're yet to find one in Sagittarius A Star. And the
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Event Horizon Telescope is slated to observe Sagittarius A
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Star again later this month. This is Space Time. Still to
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come, new studies show that blue supergiant stars can be formed
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through stellar mergers. And we peer into the tendrils of a
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distant galaxy. All that and more still to come on Space
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Time.
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A new study has found that some of the brightest, hottest and
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most luminous stars in the universe, spectral type B blue
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supergiants, can be created by the mergers of two less massive
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stars. These giants of the cosmos are at least 10 times
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more luminous and up to 5 times hotter than our Sun.
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And they have masses of between 16 and 40 times that of the Sun.
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Current astrophysics tells us that these are created during a
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very rapid phase of stellar evolution, and so they should be
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fairly rare. Yet when astronomers peer into the
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heavens, they see lots of them.
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Well, a new study reported in the Astrophysical Journal
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Letters claims that an important clue to their origin lies in the
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fact that most blue supergiants are actually observed as single
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stars, that is, they have no gravitationally bound
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companions. And the problem with that is, most stars in our
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galaxy are born in binary or multiple star systems.
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Our Sun is a rare exception to that rule. But that's another
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story. So why a blue supergiant single? Well, the answer,
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according to this new study, is that massive binary stellar
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systems merge to produce blue supergiants.
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The study's lead author, Athira Menon from the Institute Of
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Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, says the findings are
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based on computer model simulations combined with actual
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observational studies looking at 59 early spectral type E blue
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supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite
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galaxy orbiting our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
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By simulating the mergers of evolved giant stars with their
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smaller stellar companions over a wide range of parameters,
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taking into account the interaction and mixing of the
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two stars during the merger, they found the newly born stars
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live as blue supergiants during the second longest phase of a
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star's life. This is after it's left the main sequence and is
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burning helium in its core.
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The authors found that the stars born from such mergers have
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greater success in reproducing the surface composition,
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especially the nitrogen and helium enhancement, of a large
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fraction of observed sample stars compared to conventional
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stellar models. And this indicates that mergers may well
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be the dominant way to produce blue supergiants.
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The findings appear to provide a significant step forward in
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solving an old problem of how blue supergiants form, and
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indicates the important role of stellar mergers in the
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morphology of galaxies and their stellar populations.
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The next part of the study will attempt to explore how these
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blue supergiants explode into supernovae and contribute to the
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black hole and neutron star landscape of the universe. This
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is Space Time. Still to come, peering into the tendrils of a
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distant galaxy, and Moscow sends a new crew to the International
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Space Station. All that and more still to come on Space Time.
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NASA's WEBB Space Telescope has provided astronomers with a new
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view of a spectacular star-forming region called NGC
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604, which is located deep inside M33, the Triangulum
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Galaxy. Located some 2.73 million light-years away, the
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Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a diameter of
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roughly 61 light-years.
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That makes it the third largest galaxy in our local galactic
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group behind the Andromeda galaxy M31 and our own galaxy
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the Milky Way. The Triangulum is thought to be a satellite galaxy
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of Andromeda, or possibly on its rebound into M31 due to their
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gravitational interactions, velocities and proximity to one
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another in the sky. It's also the smallest spiral galaxy in
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our local galactic group.
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Although both large and small Magellanic clouds were also once
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spiral galaxies, before becoming distorted by their encounters
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with the Milky Way. The new James WEBB observations of M33
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have revealed the structure known as NGC 604 to be a hotbed
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of star formation. The formation of new stars and the chaotic
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environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied but
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also mystery-shrouded areas of cosmic investigation.
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Two new web images, using the observatory's near-infrared
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camera and mid-infrared instrument, are showing
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cavernous bubbles and stretched-out filaments of gas
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deep inside the nebula. It's providing a far more detailed
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and complete tapestry of star birth than previously seen.
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Sheltering among NGC 604'S dusty envelopes are more than 200 of
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the hottest, most massive stars known.
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These are spectral type O and B blue stars, some with masses
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over 100 times that of the Sun. It's actually quite rare to find
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such a huge concentration of these types of stars in the
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nearby universe. In fact, there 's no similar region that we've
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identified within our own galaxy.
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So, this concentration of massive stars, combined with
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their relatively close distance, means NGC 604 is giving
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astronomers a unique opportunity to study these objects at a
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fascinating time early in their life cycles. Based on the new
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observations, NGC 604 is estimated to be about half a
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million years old. Just a baby in astronomical terms. The
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massive cloud of glowing gases and dust is some 1 light
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years crossed.
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WEBB's also detected bright orange-colored streaks in the
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near-infrared image, signifying the presence of carbon-based
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molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. And this
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material plays an important role in the interstellar medium and
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in the formation both of stars and planets. But the origins of
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this molecule are still a mystery.
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This report from NASA TV.
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NASA's James WEBB Space Telescope. Has taken two new
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images of the star-forming region NGC 604, located in the
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Triangulum Galaxy, 2.7 million light-years away from Earth.
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Sheltered among these dusty envelopes of gas are more than
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200 of the hottest, most massive kinds of stars, all in the early
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stages of their lives. The largest of these stars can have
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more than 100 times the mass of our own Sun. Using WEBB's
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powerful near-infrared camera, called NIRCam, the most
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noticeable features are tendrils and clumps of bright red
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emission.
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Extending out from areas that look like clearings or large
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bubbles in the nebula. Stellar winds from the brightest and
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hottest young stars have carved out these cavities, while
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ultraviolet radiation ionizes the surrounding gas. This
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ionized hydrogen appears as a white and blue ghostly glow.
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As you travel further from the immediate clearings of dust, the
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deeper red signifies molecular hydrogen. This cooler molecular
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gas may be the fuel for future generations of stars that are
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forming.
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WEBB's Midenfred instrument, called MIRI, lets us see a new
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window into the diverse and dynamic activity of this region.
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In the MIRI view of NGC 604, there are noticeably fewer
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stars. This is because hot stars are much fainter at these
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wavelengths of light, while the large clouds of cooler gas and
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dust glow brightly.
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Some of the stars seen in this image from the surrounding
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galaxy are red supergiants, stars with low surface
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temperatures that are very large, hundreds of times the
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diameter of our Sun.
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How stars are born and how they interact with their environments
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are two big questions in astronomy today that are
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actively being studied with the WEBB Telescope. WEBB is showing
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us parts of the story of star formation that we could never
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see before, revealing more about the universe and our place in
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it.
00:19:48
And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from WEBB Senior
00:19:51
Project Scientist Jane Rigby. This is Space Time. Still to
00:19:56
come, Moscow sends a new crew to the International Space Station,
00:20:00
and later in the Science Report, it's true, the music of today
00:20:04
really isn't as good as what it was 20, 30 or even 40 years ago.
00:20:09
I knew it. All that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:20:29
Three new crew members have arrived aboard the International
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Space Station. Their Soyuz MS-25 capsule launched two days
00:20:35
earlier aboard a Soyuz-21A rocket from the Baikonur
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Cosmodrome in the Central Asian Republic Of Kazakhstan. The
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flight had been delayed by several days after mission
00:20:45
managers detected a voltage drop in a chemical power supply just
00:20:49
20 seconds before the initially planned liftoff, triggering a
00:20:52
launch abort.
00:20:53
Launch pad 6, site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
00:20:56
Kazakhstan, where that Soyuz 2.1A booster stands fully fueled
00:21:01
once again, ready for launch to send an American astronaut, a
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Roscosmos cosmonaut, and a spaceflight participant from
00:21:07
Belarus into orbit, this time on a two-day journey to reach their
00:21:11
destination, the International Space Station. ...National Space
00:21:13
Station.
00:21:13
The initial attempt to launch Soyuz MS-25 on Thursday was
00:21:17
scrubbed at the T-minus 22nd Mark when the automatic launch
00:21:21
sequencer cut off the countdown. The crew was never in any danger
00:21:24
as the Soyuz booster was safed, enabling the crew to be
00:21:27
extracted from the Soyuz within an hour. Engineers in Baikonur
00:21:31
determined that the cause of the scrub was a low voltage rating
00:21:34
in the booster's first stage electrical system.
00:21:37
Batteries were changed and retested Friday morning, setting
00:21:40
the stage for today's... Launch attempt. Three crew members
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escorted to the stairs, the stairwell at the base of the
00:21:49
Soyuz 2.1A booster. They climbed a few stairs, waved goodbye to
00:21:54
well-wishers, and entered the elevator there for the ride to
00:21:58
the top of the Soyuz rocket to board their spacecraft, which
00:22:01
they've now been aboard for about two hours or so.
00:22:05
Auto sequence initiated.
00:22:07
Launch.
00:22:08
Second umbilical now retracting. Ignition. This initiates engine
00:22:12
start.
00:22:15
We now have engine ignition. Preliminary. Turbo pumps and
00:22:18
engines up to flight speed. Now at full throttle.
00:22:23
Engines at maximum thrust.
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We have liftoff.
00:22:27
Dyson, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya finally underway on
00:22:30
a two-day journey to the International Space Station.
00:22:34
Thank I don't know.
00:22:45
And we have third stage shutdown and third stage separation.
00:22:52
The command now will be given to deploy the Soyuz solar arrays.
00:22:58
That now underway.
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And the solar arrays and navigational antennas have all
00:23:04
been deployed. Perfect ride to orbit for Tracy Dyson, Oleg
00:23:08
Novitskiy, and Marina Vasilevskaya. The two-day chase.
00:23:11
To catch up to the International Space Station now underway.
00:23:14
The International Space Station remains one of few areas of
00:23:17
cooperation between Moscow and the West in the wake of the
00:23:20
Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.
00:23:22
Russia had previously threatened to quit the orbiting outpost,
00:23:25
but ongoing delays in developing a new core module for their own
00:23:29
independent Russian space station has seen the Russian
00:23:32
federal space agency Roscosmos agree to remain part of the
00:23:35
International Space Station project until at least 2028.
00:23:39
Meanwhile, NASA and its other partners hope to continue
00:23:42
operating the ISS until at least 2030. This is Space Time.
00:24:03
And time now to take a brief look at some of the other
00:24:05
stories making use in science this week with the Science
00:24:08
Report.
00:24:09
A new study has confirmed that spending less time sitting could
00:24:13
help reduce blood pressure in people aged over 60. The
00:24:17
findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical
00:24:19
Association looked at some 280 patients with hypertension,
00:24:23
splitting them into two groups.
00:24:25
One group was given interventions to help them
00:24:27
reduce the time they spent sitting down, including health
00:24:30
coaching, a standing desk and a fitness tracker, while the
00:24:34
second group only received health coaching.
00:24:36
The study found that those in the sitting intervention group
00:24:39
spent about 30 minutes less a day sitting and also had a
00:24:43
reduction in their blood pressure of around 3.48 mmHg.
00:24:48
The authors say that reducing the amount of time sitting could
00:24:51
be a simple but promising approach to improve the health
00:24:54
of older adults.
00:24:57
A major step forward has been taken in Sugarcane research with
00:25:00
a mapping of its complete genome, which as it turns out is
00:25:04
three times the size of the human genome. Sugarcane
00:25:08
contributes some $2.2 billion to the Australian economy and
00:25:12
accounts for up to 80% of global sugar supplies.
00:25:16
The new study, reported in the Journal Nature, says the mapping
00:25:19
of its genetic blueprint opens opportunities for new tools to
00:25:22
enhance breeding programs for this valuable food crop and
00:25:25
bioenergy source.
00:25:28
Well, it's true, today's music really isn't as good as what it
00:25:32
was back in the olden days. A new study by Austrian and German
00:25:36
researchers has found that the lyrics of English language songs
00:25:40
have become more repetitive and simpler over the last 40 years.
00:25:44
The research published in the Journal Scientific Reports
00:25:47
analyzed the lyrics of some 12 songs across genres
00:25:51
spanning from rap, country, pop, R&B and rock, all of which were
00:25:55
released between 1980 and 2020. They say that while the number
00:25:59
of different words used in songs have decreased over that period
00:26:03
of time, the songs have tended to use longer words, but the
00:26:06
repetition made them more simple overall.
00:26:09
Additionally, the lyrics appear to have become more emotional
00:26:12
over time. The use of emotionally positive and
00:26:15
negative words increased in rap songs, whereas R&B, pop and
00:26:19
country music songs increased their emotionally negative
00:26:22
lyrics.
00:26:23
Now, for the record, I have to point out that I was a radio
00:26:26
music DJ long before I became a journalist. And so I speak with
00:26:30
a modicum of authority when I say that you just can't beat the
00:26:33
rock music of the 70s, the new romantics of the 80s, or the
00:26:37
grunge of the 90s. And anyone who says otherwise must be
00:26:41
wrong.
00:26:42
And now for something completely different.
00:26:44
We all know that astrology is not a science, and it has no
00:26:48
scientific validation. Yet newspapers and websites continue
00:26:52
to publish horoscopes, and people still ask each other what
00:26:55
their star sign is, in a futile hope that it will provide some
00:26:58
sort of clue about their personality.
00:27:01
Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says the reasons behind
00:27:04
this ongoing belief in astrology are multifaceted, encompassing
00:27:08
elements of psychology, personality traits, societal
00:27:12
influence and personal preference.
00:27:14
He says this new study, reported in the Journal Personality and
00:27:17
Individual Differences, explored the surge in astrology beliefs,
00:27:21
finding narcissism linked to a higher belief, while
00:27:24
intelligence showed a negative correlation.
00:27:27
Astrology has been around for how long? ...a couple thousand
00:27:30
years. Why do you believe, therefore, that these signs,
00:27:32
which correspond to parts of the year, will influence what you do
00:27:35
or say something about what you are?
00:27:37
The whole philosophical concept, to me, falls apart totally. One,
00:27:41
why a star sign at your birth should be influential on you is
00:27:45
unknown. Why not at conception rather than at birth? Because,
00:27:48
you know, your birth could be induced or late or whatever.
00:27:51
Premature anything so why should that have an influence on you
00:27:53
two how does it have an influence on you your listeners
00:27:56
will know about you know gravity and the inverse square law and
00:27:59
blah blah blah all that sort of stuff and the fact that
00:28:01
obviously the constellations are not all in one plane they're all
00:28:04
over the place they're like a 3d image so that if you turn around
00:28:06
from a different direction and they look totally different and
00:28:08
there are 13 of them not 12 that 's right i'm even suggesting 14
00:28:12
actually should be nasty 13 at least Yes, Ophiuchus normally
00:28:15
gets left out of the zodiac.
00:28:16
And then, of course, the length of the time that they're
00:28:20
important varies from the actual time that they're in that guy,
00:28:23
because some of them are actually only around for about
00:28:25
seven days and others around for the 35, high 30s, but we tend to
00:28:29
even them out just to make life easier for the astrologers.
00:28:31
But why do people believe in them? That's a $64 question
00:28:35
because obviously there's no reason to. There's no
00:28:37
explanation for what should be influential, whether it's even
00:28:39
character or whether it's foretelling the future or
00:28:41
whatever. A lot of astrologers say they no longer look.
00:28:44
At the planets, even though planets form a major part of
00:28:47
astrological character assessment, et cetera, your
00:28:49
birth chart, some of them say they no longer look at the
00:28:51
constellations because they know they're an artificial concept.
00:28:54
And so you start wondering, well, what are they looking at?
00:28:56
Some people suggested that it sounds like a science-y, it's an
00:28:59
ology word, like geology and anthropology and things like
00:29:02
that. So which we know that ology just means a study. And it
00:29:05
's from the Greek word logos, spinning word. They also learn
00:29:08
it and... That's... ...studying that sort of thing, so there's
00:29:10
nothing necessarily scientific.
00:29:12
You could be studying teddy bears if you want, teddy
00:29:14
bearology. Astronomy doesn't have an ology to it, but that's
00:29:17
the other thing, because it's astro, astro, astronomy,
00:29:19
astrology, people think it's scientific, but that's a pretty
00:29:22
superficial way of looking at it and of looking at people for why
00:29:24
they believe.
00:29:25
Some are suggesting that, like a lot of beliefs... And at other
00:29:28
times we've discussed the leaf in psychics and crystal balls
00:29:32
and all sorts of things like that, that it provides a coping
00:29:35
mechanism dealing with traumatic events. It's something to hang
00:29:38
on to in an uncertain world or in a stressful world, and that's
00:29:42
been put forward a lot of times.
00:29:43
Most people know their star sign, which, as we know, it's a
00:29:47
Sun sign, as it's called. It has no bearing whatsoever. It's
00:29:50
totally ridiculous. It's the state 1 in 12th of the
00:29:52
population will have. This future and another 12th will
00:29:55
have a different future even.
00:29:56
Well, thanks to the Milankovitch cycles, which we know are real,
00:29:59
the star signs don't really match up with your date of birth
00:30:02
anymore.
00:30:03
Well, they'd be precepts of the equinox. Yes. Which means that
00:30:06
the Earth, because it's on a tilt, as we know, and because
00:30:09
there's a little vibration in that tilt, it's like a top that
00:30:12
's leaning over and having a little shake at the same time,
00:30:14
means that we're actually changing the positioning of the
00:30:17
stars against... The background, or the foreground of the Sun.
00:30:21
The signs that are behind the Sun at a certain time of the
00:30:23
year are changing over a period of about 2 years. We change
00:30:26
through one star sign. So it's about 25 years roughly,
00:30:29
whatever, you can take an even of that, and we'll go through
00:30:32
the entire zodiac. Now, most star charts in the newspaper
00:30:36
will start with Aries, which, of course, was the spring in
00:30:40
Babylonian times, right?
00:30:41
The start of a new year, a new planting year, etc. And... That
00:30:46
's the only reason why there's no Aries. It's because of the
00:30:48
Babylonian thing when they have plants. That's spring. But
00:30:51
gradually, that spring is actually going into Aquarius
00:30:53
now, not Aries, which is why this is the dawning of the age
00:30:56
of Aquarius for those who remember the 60s musicals.
00:30:59
I certainly do. And that's what it means. And no one's exactly
00:31:02
quite sure where the changeover spot is. It's obviously a period
00:31:05
of long time. But yeah, we're probably now in the age of
00:31:08
Aquarius where those news columns should start with
00:31:10
Aquarius rather than Aries. Really talking about starting
00:31:13
with spring. So for those people who think they're Aquarians,
00:31:16
they're probably not.
00:31:17
They're probably, well, the Capricornians, they were the one
00:31:21
who's... And so therefore you are a different star sign saying
00:31:23
a totally different character from what you've been told that
00:31:25
you are. Your personality is not what you think it is. You can
00:31:28
blame the appreciation of the equinox. That's Tim Mendham from
00:31:52
Australian Skeptics.
00:32:09
That's the show for now. SpaceTime is available every
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