S27E12: The oldest black hole ever observed

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 12 for broadcast on the 26th of January 2024. Coming up on SpaceTime, the oldest black hole ever observed, a new satellite to study Earth's cryosphere and Boeing's Starliner moves a step closer to launch with a successful

[00:00:19] upgraded parachute test. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime. Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Astronomers have discovered what they're describing as the earliest and oldest black hole ever observed, a monster dating back more than 13 billion years to a time very near the

[00:00:57] dawn of the universe. The findings reported in the journal Nature show the black hole was already actively feeding just 400 million years after the Big Bang, eating its host galaxy to death. The observations were made using NASA's Webb Space Telescope.

[00:01:13] The study's lead author, Professor Roberto Mejolito from the University of Cambridge, says the very fact that such a surprisingly massive black hole, several million times the mass of our Sun, already existed so early in the universe challenges our assumptions about how black

[00:01:29] holes form and grow. See, astronomers believe that supermassive black holes, which are found at the centres of most if not all galaxies, including the one at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to their current size over billions of years. But the massive

[00:01:44] size of this newly discovered black hole suggests they may well have formed in other ways, such as being born big through the direct collapse of massive gas clouds. Alternatively, it could simply be that they've consumed a lot of matter in a very fast rate, at least five times

[00:02:00] faster than was previously thought possible. Now according to this hypothesis, supermassive black holes are formed out of the remnants of dead stars which collapse to form stellar mass black holes and then gradually merge over time. But growing by this method would take at least a

[00:02:17] billion years to reach the current size observed. And that's where the problem arises. See, the universe was only 400 million years old when this black hole was detected. Mejolito says early

[00:02:29] galaxies were extremely gas rich, and so it would have been like a buffet for a black hole. And that supported by the fact that this particular black hole is devouring material from its host galaxy at

[00:02:40] a ferocious rate. In fact, the author's calculations suggest that it's gobbling up matter much more vigorously than its siblings at later epochs. The young host galaxy called GNZ11 is glowing from the enormous energetic output of the black hole at its centre. Now of course black holes can't

[00:02:59] be observed directly. Escape velocity from a black hole is greater than the speed of light, hence their name. But they give away their location by their actions on surrounding space. In this case,

[00:03:10] a feeding black hole would have heaps of swirling material orbiting around it in an accretion disk. That material is being constantly torn and ripped apart at the subatomic level, releasing huge amounts of energy before eventually disappearing beyond the black hole's event horizon, its point

[00:03:28] of no return, beyond which matter falls forever into the singularity. The gas on the accretion disk becomes extremely hot and it glows, radiating out energy in X-rays and ultraviolet. And it's this strong glow which is how astronomers are able to detect black holes. GNZ11 is a compact galaxy,

[00:03:49] about 100 times smaller than our own galaxy the Milky Way. And the black hole at its centre is likely harming its development. See, as black holes consume material, some of the material is forced

[00:04:02] away in powerful jets known as quasars, sort of like an ultra-fast moving wind. This wind can stop the process of star formation, thereby slowly killing the surrounding galaxy and eventually cutting off the black hole's fuel supply. This is space-time. Still to come a new satellite to study

[00:04:22] Earth's changing cryosphere, and Boeing's Starliner now slated to launch its first astronauts to the International Space Station in April. All that and more still to come on Space Time. The countdown is now underway for this year's launch of the joint American-Indian-NASA spacecraft

[00:04:56] which will study how climate change is affecting the planet's ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice. Short for NASA-ISRO, that's the Indian Space Research Organisation, Synthetic Aperture Radar, the NISA spacecraft will use radar to monitor changes on Earth's

[00:05:11] land and sea surfaces, including the ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland, as well as on mountain glaciers, the breakup of ice shelves, the health of wetlands and even ground deformation caused by volcanoes. Its high-resolution radar data will provide the most comprehensive picture

[00:05:28] so far of motion and deformation of frozen surfaces in Earth's ice and snow-covered environments, collectively known as the cryosphere. Glaciologist Alex Gardner from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California says the planet's thermostat is set on high and Earth's ice

[00:05:45] is responding by speeding up its motion and melting faster. Gardner says we need to better understand the processes at play and NISA will provide us with the measurements to do that. Set to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation from southern India,

[00:06:01] NISA will observe nearly all the planet's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. The satellite's unique insights into Earth's cryosphere will come from the combination of two separate radar units. There's an L-band system with a 25 centimetre wavelength and an S-band

[00:06:18] system operating on a 10 centimetre wavelength. The L-band is designed to see through snow, helping scientists better track the motion of ice underneath, while the S-band is more sensitive to snow moisture, which indicates melting. Both signals penetrate clouds and darkness, thereby enabling

[00:06:35] observations during months-long polar winter nights. And NISA's orientation in orbit is also important. It'll enable a spacecraft to collect data from Antarctica's far interior, close to the South Pole. That's something other large radar imaging satellites don't do. They're usually on

[00:06:53] orbits which more extensively cover the Arctic. But it's the Antarctic's ice sheets which hold the planet's largest reserve of frozen fresh water. And the rate at which it may lose ice represents the greatest uncertainty when it comes to sea level rise projections.

[00:07:08] So NISA's increased coverage of the Antarctic will be crucial for studying the motion of ice flowing down from the central Antarctic highlands down towards the sea. And the measurements will also enable scientists to closely study what happens where the ice and oceans meet.

[00:07:24] For example, when parts of an ice sheet sit on ground that's below sea level, salt water can seep under the ice, increasing melting and instability. Both Antarctica and Greenland have ice shelves, masses of ice that extend from land and float out

[00:07:39] on the ocean. And these are thinning and crumbling as icebergs break off. Ice shelves are important because they help keep glacial ice on land from slipping into the ocean. If they diminish, glaciers can flow and calve faster. And the problem is, ice losses on both Antarctica and Greenland

[00:07:57] have been accelerating since the 1990s, and so there's uncertainty about how quickly each will continue to recede. NISA will monitor the movement and extent of sea level ice in both hemispheres. Sea level ice is important because it insulates the ocean from the air, thereby reducing evaporation

[00:08:15] and heat loss to the atmosphere. It also reflects sunlight, thereby keeping the planet cooler through the albedo effect. We know that Arctic sea ice has been diminishing for decades now, as rising water and air temperatures have increased melting. With more of its surface

[00:08:30] exposed to sunlight, the Arctic Ocean gains and holds more heat in summer. It therefore takes longer to cool. This means that less ice formation happens in winter, and faster melting happens next summer. With greater coverage of the Southern Ocean than any other mission to date, NISA will

[00:08:47] open new insights around Antarctica, where sea ice has been thought to be mostly stable until the past few years. Of course that's all changed recently, with the latest reading showing it's reached a record low in 2023. But it's not just the polar regions. The satellite will also track changes

[00:09:04] in Earth's mountain glaciers. You see, the melting of the glaciers has already contributed about a third of the sea level rise that's been seen since the 1960s. And climate-driven changes to freezing and thawing patterns affect water supplies to downstream populations. And this is important

[00:09:22] for India, because in the Himalayas NISA's all-weather capabilities will help researchers monitor how much water is stored in glacial lakes, and that's essential for assessing the risks of future catastrophic floods. This report from NASA TV. With NISAR we're tracking the changes of

[00:09:40] the solid Earth and how it's moving, ecosystems, ice cover, and any other thing that's changing at the scale of a centimeter on the Earth in a way that we've never been able to see before.

[00:09:53] Because of these very subtle motions we can measure, we're able to understand what's happening below the surface of the Earth at great precision. We can see subsidence and that allows us then to manage resources of what's happening below the Earth. Scientists want to study the movements

[00:10:11] of the Earth's surface to understand the processes that could trigger earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. And that allows us then to understand risks associated with natural hazards, which in turn can help in mitigation measures and early response. Other changes over the Earth's surface

[00:10:30] include melting of glaciers and ice sheets, changes in forest biomass, soil moisture, and shoreline changes. It's based on radar, so it has two different frequency radars and it basically looks through clouds and sees the surface of the Earth. These beams coming down from the antenna

[00:10:46] and coming back, then that's where it collects the data and when it combines them all together you get what we need for the science. We can see day and night through clouds and we're covering all of

[00:10:56] the land and all of the ice-covered surfaces of Earth every week. NISAR is quite unique in that it has two radars, one provided by NASA, one provided by ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization.

[00:11:12] NASA and ISRO have collaborated in this mission. Till last year we were there at JPL NASA where the radars got integrated and tested and were shipped back to India. Now the spacecraft is getting integrated with the instruments and they are being tested together. NISAR is going to be

[00:11:33] launched from Sriharikota, which is an ISRO launch pad and it is going to be launched by GSLV Mark 2. So we are just looking forward for the launch of NISAR in the forthcoming year. NISAR is measuring the changes on the Earth's surface which are either factors or indicators of

[00:11:52] climate change. The society will also immensely benefit due to its contribution towards disaster management and providing food and water security. These things are global problems that the global community needs to come together to resolve. Now it looks like we are no more belonging to two

[00:12:12] different worlds and we all belong to the space community, that's it. There's the excitement about what we are going to learn that we didn't even anticipate we were going to learn. And in that

[00:12:20] report from NASA TV, we heard from NISAR Project Scientist Paul Rosen from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NISAR Science Co-Lead Deepak Putravi from the Indian Space Research Organization, NISAR Deputy Project Manager Wendy Edelston also from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

[00:12:36] and NISAR Deputy Project Manager Chhatra Rao also from the Indian Space Research Organization. This is Space Time. Still to come, Starliner passes an important parachute test thereby helping clear the way for its first manned flight to the International Space Station later this year,

[00:12:53] and later in the Science Report, a new study looks at the microbes responsible for the lovely flavors cheese has. All that and more coming up on Space Time. Okay, let's take a break

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[00:15:13] Engineers have tested a modified new parachute system for Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft in the skies above Arizona. The preliminary data analysis from the parachute deployment and soft landing test suggests the primary test objectives were all met. Now many years behind schedule,

[00:15:30] CST-100 Starliner is slated to undertake its first manned test flight to the International Space Station sometime around mid-April, what will be a 10-day mission. The drop test used the new Starliner parachute system attached to a dart-shaped sled about the same mass as the

[00:15:46] Starliner capsule. It was designed to confirm the functioning of a redesigned and strengthened soft link joint that's part of a network of lines connecting the parachutes to the spacecraft. The test involved dropping the test article out the rear of a C-130 Hercules transport from

[00:16:03] NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. Starliner has already undertaken two unmanned orbital test flights to the International Space Station, the second of which successfully docked with the orbiting outpost in May 2022. However, the first orbital test flight back in December 2019

[00:16:21] was a complete failure. Firstly, there was a faulty mission clock which caused orbital insertion engines to fire too early. That resulted in Starliner achieving orbit too low to reach the space station. Mission managers then discovered two faulty computer programs,

[00:16:36] one of which would have prevented the planned docking with the space station anyway, and the other would have caused Starliner to collide with its service module after it was jettisoned prior to atmospheric re-entry. That would have destroyed the spacecraft completely. NASA conducted a major

[00:16:51] review of Boeing's Starliner program and they identified no less than 80 corrective actions which Boeing needed to take before Starliner could return to flight. Right now, the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station is either aboard SpaceX's Dragon capsules or the

[00:17:08] Russian Soyuz system, which has its own problems. This is Space Time. And time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report. Researchers have identified a 288 million year old fragment of ancient fossilized skin.

[00:17:42] The ancient epidermis, described in the journal Current Biology, is at least 130 million years older than any previously described skin fossils. The skin, which belonged to an early species of Paleozoic reptile, was discovered in the Richard Spurr Limestone Cave system in Oklahoma. The

[00:17:59] preserved fragments are tiny, smaller than a fingernail. But they still contain features which are shared with lots of ancient and extinct reptiles, such as the pebbled surface similar to crocodile skin and hinged regions between epidermal scales that resemble the skin structures

[00:18:15] of snakes and worm lizards. The find is amazing because skin and other soft tissues rarely fossilize. The authors think this skin was preserved because of the cave conditions in which it was found. The cave system included fine clay sediments that would have slowed decomposition.

[00:18:32] Also, there was oil seepage, which would have acted as a preservative, and it was all in an oxygen-free cave environment. The tatters of fossilized skin, as well as various skin impressions also found in the cave, come from the earliest known amniotes, lizard-like animals that were

[00:18:47] among the first creatures to live their entire lives on dry land, away from the water's edge. Scientists have created what is the largest ever catalogue of marine microbes, based on scanning environmental DNA in thousands of water samples from the world's oceans. The findings, reported

[00:19:05] in the Journal Frontiers of Science, links the microbes with their biological function, location and habitat type, and is available for use by scientists around the world. The authors say the work was possible thanks to major advances in DNA sequencing computing

[00:19:21] technology, which identified some 317.5 million groups of genes in sample types. As well as aiding in ocean conservation, the authors hope it will enable scientists to scan for genes which could be used in future for drug development, energy production and agriculture.

[00:19:39] European researchers say a combination of teeny tiny bugs are responsible for the lovely flavours found in the cheddar cheese on your toast. Their findings, reported in the Journal Nature Communications, follows a year of research doing what most of us dream about, making and

[00:19:55] then eating specially made cheese. They added different combinations of certain starter bacteria to their cheese, and found which ones created cheddar's buttery, nutty, fluffy and creamy flavours. Well in case you had any doubt, let me state categorically that your favourite

[00:20:13] colour does not provide a definitive statement about your personality. It's becoming increasingly trendy among some employers who really don't know what they're talking about to use a person's favourite colour as a determining factor in whether or not to give the prospective employee a job.

[00:20:30] But while it's an unreliable gauge of a potential employee's personality, asking the question probably tells you all you really need to know about the pseudoscientific gullibility of the employer. Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says there's simply no scientific evidence that

[00:20:45] favourite colour based personality tests can offer any sort of profound insight into your character. Story here with colour is one of those sort of personality assessment tricks I should say. There are so many of these things around to test your personality based on one criterion, and this one

[00:21:00] is based on what's your favourite colour. Most people say that you choose blue because you're happy and red because you're dynamic or aggressive or something like that. The problem with this is it's designed to help people decide who to actually employ based on what's their favourite colour.

[00:21:14] It's crazy. There are so many of these things around personality. For a start, graphology has been around for a long time to sort of test people's handwriting and therefore get a character

[00:21:22] assessment on that. Yeah, we know that doesn't work, right? That's just not at all. Not at all. It's not the same as comparing handwriting to see if it's the same person. That's a different thing.

[00:21:30] That's different, yeah. That's legit, but this is about sort of testing your personality based on your handwriting. This is even worse actually. This is basically a complete character assessment based on a colour. There's the more complicated personality assessment things like with the

[00:21:43] Meyer-Briggs, whatever it's called. That one's pretty shonky too actually. It's a bit more complicated but it's pretty much sort of summing up people based on a couple of criteria is probably

[00:21:51] not a good idea. It certainly doesn't work. Someone once told me that, you see the room I'm in right now is basically purple in colour. It's called Hyacinth but it's a purple colour and someone

[00:22:00] told me that means you're frustrated. Really? Yes, apparently. There you go. But anyway, personality tests, there's a lot of them around. Some of them do better than others. A lot of them though are

[00:22:10] always based on let's look at one criterion and apply that to everything else about your personality. This one about colour is just, I don't know where someone sort of wants to make this up.

[00:22:18] I did know once we used to work with a graphic designer who had his little colour chart worked out for every emotion, every tiny tonal difference between 35 versions of blue had a different

[00:22:29] emotional reaction. I don't know how placebo-based it was but when I first started out in radio, I would bring a coloured light into the studio with me and depending on the colour, that would

[00:22:41] change the way that I performed the program on that particular day. It was really interesting. If I had the thing on red, then it would be more dynamic and blue was more laid back.

[00:22:51] I think that's the sort of thing you would say is a suggestibility test. You put it on blue and then you are. It's going around the wrong way almost and sort of correlation, causation thing.

[00:23:00] You putting on blue means you want to have a sublime day or something. You put it on red, more dynamic. So you are reacting to the light that you put in, reacting emotionally rather than physically. That's Tim Indam from Australian Skeptics. And that's the show for now.

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