The Birth of a Black Hole and Mars' New Navigation

This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, episode twenty four, for broadcast on the twenty fifth of February twenty twenty six. Coming up on space Time, the clearest view yet of the birth of a black hole, a new Martian navigation system for use on the Red Planet, and NASA's SpaceX Crew twelve arrives aboard the International Space Station as the agency approves a sixth private mission to the orbiting outpost. All that and more coming up on space Time. Astronomers have discovered a star collapsing down to former black hole without the expected blinding blast of a supernova explosion. Back in twenty fourteen, and that's a telescope observed infrared emissions coming from a massive star in the Andromeda Galaxy thirty one, which gradually grew brighter. The star glowed more intensely with the infrared light for around three years before finally fading dramatically and disappearing, leaving behind a shell of dust. Now astronomers have determined what they witnessed was a star collapsing and giving birth to a stellar mass black hole. The studies lead author Kishale d from Columbia University says this is an event astronomers had anticipated for decades, but have had limited convincing observational evidence for until now. The findings, reported in the journal Science show a star undergoing direct collapse turning into a black hole without first exploding and becoming a supernova, long believed to be a common method for high mass stars to become black holes. The progenitor star was a huge hydrogen depleted super giant named M thirty one twenty fourteen dis one, located some two and a half million light years away. When newly formed, the start was around thirteen times the mass of our Sun, but at the time of its death, it would have been closer to five solar masses, having shed most of its mass through powerful stellar winds during its life. D says the dramatic and sustained fading of the star was very unusual and suggests a supernova failed to occur, leading to the collapse of the stars called directly into a black hole. Now, stars with this sort of mass have long been assumed to always explode a supernovae. The fact that it didn't suggest that stars with this sort of mass range may or may not successfully explode, possibly due to how gravity, gas pressure, and powerful shock waves interacting chaotic ways with each other inside the dying star. The manner in which the star turned into a black hole suggests that at the end of its life, it's inner call wasn't pushed out in a normal supernova explosion, instead undergoing a complete inward collapse. Now, this process of direct collapse to form a black hole may have been seen at least once before, back in twenty ten in the galaxy NGC sixty nine forty six, which is about ten times further away than this star, but the exact nature of that event was unclear and hotly debated in astronomical circles because it was one hundred times fainter and there wasn't enough high quality data available about it. Now, astronomers have long known that stellar mass black holes are caused by the death of massive stars. Black holes were first theorized more than fifty years ago, and today we know of dozens in our own galaxy and hundreds of others detected from gravitational wave observations across the distant universe. However, scientists still have no clear consensus on which stars turned into black holes and how that process plays out. This discovery provides the clearest insights yet into this and indicates that this kind of still collapse may happen more often than scientists had previously thought. The authors discovered the star by analyzing archival data from Massa's Neoweis mission. They used a prediction from the nineteen seventies. Theorized that when a star underwent direct collapse, it would leave behind a faint infrared glow caused by the dying gasp of the star shedding its outer layers and becoming enshrouded in dust. So they conducted the largest study of variable infrared sources ever carried out, tracking every star in the Milky Way and other local galaxies to try and search out for these events, and eventually they came across M thirty one twenty fourteen S one. Further analysis showed that the star fitted their predictions perfectly. D says, Unlike finding a supernerva, which is easy because supernervae outshined the galaxies therein for weeks at a time, finding individual stars that disappear without producing an explosion is incredibly difficult. So it comes as a shark that a massive star basically disappeared without an explosion and nobody noticed it for more than five years. It impacts science's entire understanding of the inventory of massive stellar deaths in the universe, and it says there are things that may be quietly happening out there that are easily going unnoticed. This is space Time. Still to come, NASA trials a new Martian navigation system on the Red Planet, and a new crew arrives aboard the International Space Station, as NASA approves a sixth private mission to the orbiting our Post. All that and more still to come on Space Time. This podcast is brought to you by square Space. 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So why not try it for free at squarespace dot com slash space time and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code space time to save ten percent of your first purchase of a website or domain that square space dot com slash space time and remember you'll find the links in our show notes squarespace dot com slash space time and the promo code space time. NASA has developed a new Martian navigation system allowing its Mars Perseverance Rover to pinpoint its location within twenty five centimeters. Imagine you're all alone, driving along a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and nothing more than a single phone call once a day for some one far away telling you where you are. Well, that's what the Cassized six Will Perseverance Rover has been experiencing ever since landing on the Red planet almost exactly five years ago this month. Although it carries time tested tools for determining its general location, the Rovers always needed mission managers back on Earth to tell it precisely where it is until now. A new technology developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in passing into California will now allow Perseverance to figure out its whereabouts without needing to phone home for help. Called MARS Global Localization, the technology features an algorithm that rapidly compares panoramic images from the rovers navigation cameras with on board orbital terrain maps running on a powerful processor a Perseverance originally used to communicate with the Ingenuity Mass helicopter. The algorithm takes about two minutes to pinpoint the Rovers' location within twenty five centimeters. Mission managers first use the MARS Global Localization technology and successfulness operations on February the second, then again on February the sixteenth. Jpo's chief engineer of Robotics Operations, Vandy Weurmer, says it's kind of like giving the rover GPS. It means Perseverance will be able to drive for much longer distances autonomously, thereby allowing more of the planet to be explored and more science to be gathered. The upgrades areespecially valuable given how well Perseverance's auto navigation self driving systems been working. Auto nav enables the rover to read planet's path around obstacles along its way in order to reach its pre established destination. It's already proven so capable that the distance Perseverance can drive without instructions from Earth is largely now only limited by the rovers uncertainty about its exact location. The implementation of Mars global localization comes on the hills of another innovation from Perseverance mission managers. That is the first use of generative artificial intelligence to help planet drive route by selecting waypoints for the rover, which are normally chosen by human rover operators. Unlike on Earth, there are no GPS satellites in deep space to locate spacecraft unplanetary surfaces, so missions with a robotic or mand need to come up with other ways to determine their location. Now, as with NASA's previous Mars rovers, Perseverance tracks its position using what's called visual oordomitory, analyzing geological features and camera images take in every few meters while accounting four wheel slippage. But as tiny errors in this process add up over the course of each drive, the rover becomes increasingly unsure about its exact location. Now in long drives, that means the rover's sense of its position could be out by as much as thirty five meters, believing it may be too close to hazardous terrain. Perseverance then prematurely may end its drive and wait for fresh instructions from Earth. Verma says, under those circumstances, people have to tell it, you're not lost, You're safe, keep going. Scientists knew that if they could address this problem, the rover could travel much further. Every day, After each drive comes to a halt, the Rovers sends a threehundred and sixty degree panorameter Earth, where mapping experts match the imagery with shots of the Martian's surface taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbit of spacecraft. Mission managers then send the rover its location and instructions what to do next. Now that process can take a day or more, but with the new Mars Global Localization technology, the Rovers now able to compare images itself, determine its exact location, and roll ahead on its pre planned route. Key to Mars Global Localization is the Rovers helicopter base station, which Perseverance used to communicate with the now retired Ingenuity Mars helicopter Equipped with an off the shelf commercial processor of the type fitted to mid twenty ten era smartphones, the technology can run over one hundred times faster than the rovers two main computers, which were specially developed to survive the radiation heavy Martian environment and are based on hardware introduced back in nineteen ninety seven. As the technology demonstration designed to test case capabilities, the Ingenuity emission was able to risk employing more powerful commercial chips in the helicopter base station and on the rotocopter itself, even though they hadn't been proven in the space environment. It was a gamble, but it paid off, with Ingenuity undertaking seventy two flights compared to the five test flights it was originally planned to undertake. Now, apart from the Mass Perseverance rover, this new technology could also fight its way onto the Moon, where lighting conditions and long, cold lunar nights make knowing exactly where spacecraft's located all the more crucial. This report from That's a TV. Using a new technology called Mars Global Localization, the rover can now pinpoint its location without asking humans for help. Here's how it works. Perseverance takes panoramic images and turns it into a bird's eye view. Then an onboard algorithm rapidly compares those images to terrain maps from an orbiting spacecraft and determines the rover's precise location. The key to this quick computing is a process of Perseverance, originally used to communicate with the Internuity Mars helicopter. Now it's helping Perseverance keep moving confidentially, and global localization isn't the only recent innovation. The team has started to use generative AI to help plan the rovers driving path but creating waypoints for Mars. By leveraging decades of Mars knowledge and the latest advancements in technology, the roofer will be able to drive for much longer distances autonomously, so we'll explore more of the planet and get more science. This is space time still to come. NASA's SpaceX Crew twelve arrives above the International Space Station as the agency approves a new private mission, the sixth, to the orbiting outpost, and later in the science report, a new study warns that overfishing may be one of the key reasons for reef manching, Crown of Thorne staffish outbreaks on the Great Barrier reef. All that and more still to come on space time. NASA's SpaceX Crew twelve Dragon capsule as successfully docked with the International Space Station, returning the orbiting outpost complement back up to its usual seven crew members. The crew of two Americans, a Russian, and a Frenchman blasted off a day earlier aboard a fac and Iron rocket from Space Launch Complex forty at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Space in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft freedom docked autonomously with a space facing Zenith port of the station's Harmony Module. Crew twelve will now form part of the expedition's seventy four to seventy five crew, undertaking some two hundred and fifty scientific experiments in orbit. These will include studying pneumonia causing bacteria to improve cardiovascular treatments on demanned intravenous fluid generation for future space missions, and research into how physical characteristics may affect blood flow during long ration spaceflight. Other experiments include automated plant health monitoring and investigating plant and nitrogen fixing microbe interactions to enhance food production in space. The International Space Station has been undermanned for about a month following the early return to Earth of NASA's SpaceX Crew eleven mission due to a medical emergency involving one of the astronauts. Meanwhile, NASA has just approved a new private astronaut mission to the International Space Station slated for later next year. The fourteen day mission for the company VAST, will undertake research designed to gain new insights into the infrastructure and processes that will be needed to support vast's own human spaceflight missions, which include building their own space station in low Earth orbit called Haven in twenty twenty seven. Plants suggest Haven will be about the size of a truck, with additional modules added in future years, with the uppersts becoming permanently manned by twenty thirty. VASS looking at research proposals on biology, biotechnology, physical sciences, human research, and techne argy demonstrations Fast use SpaceX to launch the small Haven demo spacecraft into orbit last year. Yeah, the big private company that's been flying people into space and to the International Space Station is Axiom, which has undertaken four missions to the orbiting outpost, as well as developing NASA's Atomis space suits. Axiom Space is also developing their own commercial space station. Its initial modules will be attached to the existing International Space Station before becoming an independent, free flying platform. When the International space stations are retired in twenty thirty, Axiom plan to use their space station to undertake microgravity research, various commercial endeavors, and space tourism. This space time and time out of take another briefly look at some of the other stories making us in science this week, where the Science report a new study warns that people who are exposed to more air pollution are also far more likely to face a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The findings were reported in the journal Plus Medicine. Looked at how much air pollution some twenty seven point eight million people aged sixty five and over were exposed to over an eighteen year period. They found that people who had a greater exposure to air pollution were also far more likely to develop Alzheimer's than those who avoided air pollution, and the authors found the link was also stronger for people who experienced to stroke. However, they found no additional effect in people with high blood pressure or with depression. Arene biologists awarding that overfishing may be the primary cause of reef munching chronethorne starfish outbreaks. The findings reported in the General Current Biology found a reduction in the number of predatory fish due to overfishing is causing a population explosion in the carnevorous starfish. The authors compared various areas of the Great Barrier reef that have either bandfishing, have limited it, or have no restrictions on it. They found in areas that banfishing, there was a two point eight to three point six times higher chance of crown of thorns being eaten by predatory fish. The authors say the elevated risk of the spiny critters and no fishing reserves is directly attributable to a single species of snapper known as the spangled emperor, which has some six point three times greater bio mass in no fishing areas versus those areas where fishing is allowed. Saying to say, glass could be the future of long term data storage for human knowledge and record keeping. Current data preservation techniques such as tapes and hard drives tended to grade within a few years or decades and are therefore unreliable for long term storage. However, by using lasers to encode data onto glass, data could withstand moisture, temperature changes, and electromagnetic interference for centuries. A report of the General Nature claims the system can store four point eight terabytes of data in a twelve x twelve centi metic glass sheet, with a shelf life of up to ten thousand years, even they've stored at high temperatures. Google have finally launched a new Pixel ten A smartphone, which I must admit is strikingly similar to the earlier Pixel nine A. With the details were joined by technology editor alex Ara Royd from tech Advice Start Life. Yeah, this is a Pixel ten A. So this is the lower cost version of Google's Pixel phones. They normally have the regular Pixel ten and the ten pro and also the ten pro XL which is a larger version, and then around about this time every year they launched the A version, which is their more affordable versions of This one is eight hundred and forty nine dollars Australian, obviously less in US dollars, but it competes against all those phones that are five hundred dollars or less, which generally are not terribly great phones. I mean they look they'll do what you want them to do. They'll do maps, they'll do messaging, they'll do various things. But if you try and push them with games or just try and I don't know, if you look video editing or whatever, it might be the clearly not going to be as performant as the major devices. And that's where the Pixel ten A and also the iPhone six NA and the forcecoming seventeen E which will talk about the moment, come in as almost flagship phones under one thousand dollars. Now, the one thing that is interesting this year is that whilst the ten and ten pro have the Tensor G five chip, the TENA this year does not. It has the G four, which is a bit unusual because normally, you know, you would be putting the lastship. But clearly in an era where memory storage and even the space to make processes or more expensive processes on production lines is heavily impacted by all of the GPUs and the AI in data centers, most of which actually hasn't been milk yet. It's sort of been pre ordered to fulfill demand that it's theoretically supposed to be there. It's finally a date for the Apple premiere. Yes, so this is March fourth in New York. They'll also beholding events in Singapore and London. This is where we're meant to hear about iPhones seventeen e, which in theory will have the same chip that is in the iPhone seventeen range. Normally there's one core less for some reason. It's like bin the chip, one of the graphics calles one of the causes not there. So it enables Apple to use these chips, which still have great power, but in their cheapest device. Nine nine nine in Australia is what the sixteen is as sells for. I expect the price will be the same, but more importantly, we are expecting to also see the new MacBook supposedly twelve inch screen so small I mean, I've heard people say thirteen inch, but effectively this will sell presumably in the US for about five nine nine. We yet to find out. Supposedly it only has eight gig for RAM instead of sixteen, which you'd think is not as enough as you would have on the sixteen gig devices that can better own Apple intelligence. Although we're still waiting for the next generational series, but this will be low cost MAAC running an iPhone chip with iPhone chips very powerful. I mean, the latest chips are as good as the or better than the M one from five years ago, and that's still a great computer. I have an M one with eight giga RAM and a five two GIGSSD and it's running everything that my M two with twenty four te gigabytes SERAM and one terror but SSD can run. So if Apple does that, it will mean greater competition for the school dollar where you've got chromebooks and you've got bipads and tablets. But it will also give people a cheaper map to go for and then like once they start using it, they can aspire to better. But it will be certainly better than any Windows PC that is in the five hundreds of thousand dollars market. It will just be a vastly better device. And with all the advantages of. The max price of hard drives are going up, the cost of these. Things are going up. In Western Digital has reported, or it's been reported online that it is sold its entire twenty twenty six allocation of discs to data centers. I mean, I presume this still obviously discs in the channel for consumers, but it's sold its entire twenty twenty six contingent and apparently it's sold part of its twenty twenty seven and twenty twenty eight contingent as well. So the need for hardware and electricity to power it is paramount. If anything's going to slow down the revolution, it's going to be not having enough of these drives and memory and other GPUs components. But I guess the companies buying them up in such volume are making sure all of it. The data center guys will be tabor as consumers and businesses that will suffer with higher prices. That's Alex Saharavrut from Takeadvice dot life, and this is Spacetime, and that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through at bytes dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Own Radio and on both iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free version of the show, as well as lots of burnus audio content which doesn't go to wear, access to our exclusive Facebook group, and other rewards. Just go to space Time with Stewart Gary dot com for full details. You've been listening to space Time with Stuart Garry. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.