Celestial Revelations: Betelgeuse's Hidden Companion and the Most Powerful Black Hole Event Ever Recorded

This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, Episode six, for broadcast on the fourteenth of January twenty twenty six. Coming up on Spacetime, Bettlegirls is elusive companion star finally confirmed. Astronomers witness a black hole destroying a star what that describes the most powerful of Vanevt's kind ever seen, and the Beppy Columbus spacecraft approaching Mercury orbit insertion. All that and more coming up on space Time. Welcome to space Time with Stuart Gary. Astronomers have confirmed that the red super giant star Bettlegirls does have a small companion star. Using new observations from that Is Hubble Space Telescope together with ground based observatories, astronomer must trace the influence of the companion star named Sawara as it plowed through the gas around Bettlegirls. Bettle Girls is the brightest star at the constellation of a Ryan the Hunter, marking Orion's shoulder. It's what's described as a semi regular variable red super giant, located between five hundred and thirty and seven hundred and twenty light years away. It's the ninth brightest star in the night sky and one of the largest and most luminous stars visible with the unaided eye. If you've never heard of bettle Girls, it's because these days it's commonly called beetlejuice, but its name before centuries of tortured mispronunciations, started out as ipdal Yaoza, meaning the hand of the big Man in Arabic, the big man being a Ryan the hunter. Bettle Ghirls began its life about ten million years ago as a spectral type ob bluestar. Calculations of Bettlegirls as mass ranged from slightly under ten to a little more than twenty times the mass of our Sun, and it has some one hundred thousand times the Sun's brightness and around eleven hundred times its diameter. In fact, if Bettle Girls were at the location of the Sun in the center of our Solar system, its surface would extend out to the orbit of Jupiter, engulfing the planet's mercury Venus, Earth, Mars, as well as the main asteroid belt. Today, Bettlegurs is a bloated old semi regular variable red supergiant. Red supergiants are the largest stars in the universe in terms of volume, although they're not the most massive luminous see After spending billions of years fusing hydrogen to healium in their core, a star's core hydrogen supply eventually runs out, and that balancing act between nuclear fusion pushing out gravity pulling in stops and gravity winds. The huge mass of the star crashing down on its core causes a dramatic increase in core temperature and pressure that triggers what's known as a helium flash, which causes the core helium to start fusing into carbon and oxygen. At the same time, the hydrogen rich region around the stellar core has moved down into the region. Temperatures and pressures are high enough hydrogen fusion into helium to commence an a shell around the core. Meanwhile, the increasing core temperature results in an increasing luminosity, and the resulting radiation pressure from the shell burning causes the outer diffuse gasous envelope of the star to expand to hundreds of times its previous radius, and as the now bloated star's chromosphere visible surfaces further away from the core, it cools down, turning redder. Hence the star has become a red giant. Sun Like stars eventually lose their outer envelopes which continue expanding outwards as planetary nebula. This ultimately exposes the star's white hot stellar core as a white dwarf. However, stars with masses more than say, eight times that of our Sun experience a very different fate. Unlike the Sun, their fusion cycle doesn't end with helium fusing into carbon and oxygen. See, they have enough mass to fuse the carbon and oxygen in their core into progressively heavier and heavier elements through a different process, while shell burning around the core also fuses progressively heavier and heavier elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, nickel, and eventually iron. These stars become super giants. Eventually they'll explode as core collapse supernovae, ending up either as neutron stars or even stranger objects called black holes singularities of infinite density in zero volume places, with the laws of physics as we understand them no longer applies. Bettle Girls is expected to explode as a core collapse or type two super and ova any day now, which in astronomical terms could mean a million years from now, or it could be tomorrow. When it does explode, Bettle Girls will temporarily outshine all the other stars in our galaxy and will be clearly visible from Earth in the daytime sky. The last star seen by humans to go soup and over in our galaxy was Tacho Star back in fifteen seventy two, and that was before the invention of the tele. This new research. Reveals a trail of dense gas swirling around Bettlegers's vast extended envelope, and it sheds new light on why this giant stars brighten as an atmosphere have changed in strange and unusual ways. The results of the study, reported in the Astrophysical Journal, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix, Arizona. The authors detected Sawara's wake by carefully tracking changes in Bettelegerz's light over nearly eight years. These changes show the effects of the previously unconfirmed companion as it plows through the outer atmosphere of Bettlegirls. The discovery resolves one of the biggest mysteries about the giant star, helping scientists explain how it behaves and evolves well at the same time opening new doors on the understanding of other massive stars reaching the end of their lives. Using Nasa'shubble Space Telescope as well as ground based observatories, the authors saw a pattern of changes in Bettlegirls which provided clear evidence of a long suspected companion star and its impact on the red super giants autter atmosphere. Those include changes in the star's spectra, specific colors of light given off by different elements, and the speed and direction of gases in the outer atmosphere due to a trail of denser material. This trail awake appears just after the companion crosses in front of Bettle Girls every six earth years. The studies lead author, Andrew dupri from the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says, it's all a bit like a boat moving through water. The companion start creates a wake or ripple effect in Bettlegirls's atmosphere we can see in the data, confirming that Bettlegirls really does have a hidden companion shaping its appearance and behavior. For decades, astronomers have been tracking changes in Bettlegirls's brightness and surface features in hopes of figuring out why the star behaves the way it does. That curiosity intensified after the giant star became unexpectedly faint in twenty twenty, going from the ninth brightest star in a night sky down to around twenty two. Distinct periods of variation in the star were especially puzzling for scientists. A short four hundred day cycle recently attributed to pulsations within the star itself and along a two thy one hundred days secondary period. Until now, scientists are considered everything from large convection cells and clouds of dust to magnetic activity, but the possibility of a hidden companion star was also there. Recent studies concluded that the long secondary period was best explained by the presence of a low mass companion orbiting deep within Bettlegirls's atmosphere, and scientists have reported a possible detection, but until now, astronomers lack the evidence to prove what they believed was happening. So now, for the first time, they have firm evidence that a companion star is disrupting the atmosphere of the super giant. Prey says. The idea that Bettlegirls had an undetected companion had been gaining popularity over several years now, but without direct evidence it was nothing more more than an unproven hypothesis. Finding the wake of its companion means astronomers can now understand how stars like this evolve, how they shed material, and eventually how they explode. A supernovae with bettlegirls now eclipsing its companion from our point of view, astronomers are planning new observations for the next emergence, but that won't be until twenty twenty seven. Needless to say, we'll keep you informed. This is space time still to come. A black hole destroy is a star and the most powerful event of it's kind ever seen, and the Joint European Space Agency Jack's a Bebby Columbo mission is now nearing Mercury orbit arrival following its seven year journey. All that and more still to come on Space Time. This episode of Space Time It is brought to you by squarespace, the platform that makes building an incredible online presence not just possible but effortless. Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to create a professional website, claim your perfect domain, promote your brand, and even get paid, all in one easy to use place. Whether you're showing off your portfolio, selling products or booking clients, Squarespace has you covered if you're in the business of offering services, whether it's one on one consulting, workshops, or unique experiences, Squarespace streamlines everything from presentation right through to payment. 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That's squarespace dot com, slash space time promo code space time, and of course we have a link in our show notes. This is space Time with Stuart Garry. Astronomers have witnessed a black hole shredding and devaring a massive star on a scale never seen before. The discovery, reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and at the Annual Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix, Arizona, is known as a gravitational title disruption event. It's thought to have been caused by a stellar mass black hole ripping apart a large companion star in a binary system. Black Holes are gravitational worlds of infinite energy in zero volume and as singularities. As the happless star is torn to shreds by the black hole's gravity, its remains form an accretion disc around the black hole before eventually passing a point of no return called the event horizon, beyond which it falls forever into the black hole's singularity. The studies lead author Daniel Purley from John Moll's University says it's a rare or inspiring phenomenon. The resulting explosion is one of the most powerful cosmic events in history, and the amount of energy being released briefly reached four hundred billion times that of the Sun and exceeded even the most powerful known supernovae. Now black holes have been observed to vouring stars before, but never on this scale. The spectacular event, cataloged as at twenty twenty four WPP and nicknamed the Whippet, was detected using this vicky transient facility at the Palomar Observatory in California. Early and colleagues realized the event might be a luminous fast blue optical transient, a rare and poorly understood type of visual event associated with the destruction of stars. Within a day, the authors obtained observations from the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands and from Massa Swift Space telescope in Earth orbit, confirming that this object did indeed have the expected properties of aluminous fast blue optical transient. It was very blue, and it was producing X rays. The phenomena was then confirmed when astronomers provided a distance measurement to show that it was emitting far more energy than a normal supernova. Purley says this was many times more energetic than any similar event and more than any known explosion powered by the collapse of a star. Not only do these events help astronomers identify black holes, they provide a new way to identify where black holes occur, how they form and grow, and they of how this happens. Further investigations of eighty to twenty twenty four WPP revealed that it also produced a powerful shark wave that propagated outwards at one fifth speed of light into dense surrounding gas before suddenly fizzing out about half a. Light year away. As material the accretion disc spirals towards the center, it heats up to extreme temperatures, releasing both X ray radiation and a powerful wind of gas and particles, which crashes into material that were shared by the star before its final demise, producing the luminous, blue, optical and ultraviolet data seen in the first few days, as well as all the radio and millimeters data that's also been detected. The shock thistles out once it reaches the edge of the bubble left by the gas previously shed from the doom Star. However, one mystery remains. Observations by the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, as well as the Magillan Observatory and the Very Large telescope in Chile, revealed that why the event was devoid of recognizable chemical signatures in the first month of the initial explosion, Weak signatures of hydrogen and helium gas emerged later on as the event was fading away. Unexpectedly, the helium was moving along the line of sight at more than six thousand kilometres per second. That suggests a densely bound structure had somehow survived the blast and was now moving rapidly towards us. The authors speculate this could originate from the stream of material released by the core of the star as it was being torn apart by the immense gravitational forces of the black hole. More speculatively, it could even be a third member of the system, which may have been blasted out by the fast wind of particles and X ray radiation from the creating black hole. This is space time still to calm the peppy Columbus spacecraft nearing mercury or but arrival after its seven year journey, and later in the Science report, a new study warns a flood of microplastics entering our oceans and now diminishing the seas ability to absorb carbon dioxide. All that and more still to come on space time. The BEPY Columbus spacecraft has now entered the final year of its seven year journey to study the mysterious world of Neptune, the closest planet to the Sun. The probes on track to achieve Mercury orbit insertion in November. The multi spacecraft mission has already completed one fly by the Earth to a venus and six of Mercury, collecting solar activity and magnetos feed data along the way. Beby Columbu was launched aboard an Arian five rocket back in October twenty eighteen from the European Space Agency's spaceport in French Guiana. The mission will study mercury surface and structure, its magnetic field, the surrounding near space environment, as well as Mercury's interaction with a near solar environment and with the solar wind. The spacecraft can its four modules or sections. These will detach its specific points along the mission's journey. The two primary modules are the European Space Agency's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Japanese aerospace exploration Agencies, Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, each of which will eventually circle the planet at different altitudes. The Mercury Planetary Orbiter is designed to analyze the planet's surface as well as its composition, while the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter will explore its magnetosphere. A third section, the Mercury Transfer Module, is located at the base of the stack and supplies propulsion parent support systems for the two orbiters during the cruise phase of the mission. It also protects them from the extreme temperatures of the space environment as they get closer to Mercury and the Sun. There's also a magnetospheric orbitter, sun shield and interface structure. This module sits between the two orbiters and it will further protect the Mercury and magnetospheric orbitter before it enters the planet's orbit. During its cruise phase. The missions already measured planetarre magnet environments. It's monitored the Sun's influence on radio signals, and its studied Mercury's changing magnetic bubble bab Columbo produced its first magnetic measurements from low over mercury southern hemisphere, and it's reconstructed the planet's magnetic field map. These were compared with earlier data from an Earth flyby back in twenty twenty and a Venus fly by in twenty twenty one. The spacecraft also sent back recordings that capture its passage pass the planets, including gravitational and temperature effects and component movements. Cameras aboard the Mercury Transfer module have been documenting the journey so far, snapping hundreds of high resolution images revealing views of the Earth, Venus, and Mercury surface features. Once at Mercury, the stack spacecraft will separate. Viece's Mercury Planetary Orbital will closely scan the surface in multiple wavelengths, measuring topography in composition, while Jax's Mercury Magnetospheric orbiter will orbit at a greater distance, specializing in magnetic and particle environment studies. The un one stacking event will allow all scientific instruments aboard the spacecraft to operate at their full capacities. Scientists are expecting new high resolution surface scans, analysis of polar craters, and enhanced studies of magnetic fields dust the exospheric sodium. The mission will begin science operations early in the New Year, with both orbitters collecting data during nominal one year missions that may be extended by another eighteen months. This report on the bepiclimber emission from ACERTV. Within hours of launching from the European Spaceport in French Guiana, the spacecraft had unfold its antennas and two fifteen meter solar arrays. Monitoring cameras even took some selfies showing one of the solar panels and two antennas. A few days later, the spacecraft deployed a three meter boom containing sensors to record magnetic fields. Images from the NASA Messenger mission are the best we have of Mercury. It has highlands and lowlands, like other planets, but unlike Earth, Mercury rotates on an axis perpendicular to its orbit. Due to the fact that Mercury is not tilted. There are some craters on the poles where the sun never shines into it, and inside these craters Messenger found water ice. It was detected even earlier in the eighties from grounds that there were rather bright spots and there were some hints that it might be water ice. But now from Messenger, we are pretty sure that we have water ice in craters, and that's pretty much surprising. Think about if you have a planet on the surface four hundred and fifty degrees and then you have water ice at the poles. It's kind of unbelievable. Fortunately, there's an instrument on board called Myrtis, which can measure the surface temperature directly to see if it's cold enough for water ice. Knowing the makeup of the planet's dark surface is also important. A team at DLR, the Germans Space Agency, have built a special chamber to heat up samples to examine how they behave at high temperatures. These can then be compared with what will be found on the planet. Planetary scientists are unsure how it formed. It could have originated beyond Mars with an impact pushing it closer to the Sun, or it could have formed at lower temperatures in its current position. If so, current theoretical models will need a rethink. And one of the things why I like working on Mercury is we need to understand mercury in or to understand how planets form. If we have a model that forms all planets but not Mercury, that model is basically useless because you need to get that one as well. Nurses Met Singer mission did a great job. But Beby Colombo consists of two orbiters using complementary orbits with more combined instruments. Plus, unlike Messenger, it will obtain high resolution images of the entire planet. The planet is also shrinking in size, possibly due to cooling, Plus there may be active volcanoes, so there is much more to learn. Mercury has a very mysterious planet. Every time we've went there we found new surprising results and that is the reason why we do Bepy Columbo, and we hope with Beppy Columbo, on one hand, we are able to answer many of this new question. But I'm pretty sure we've found a lot of new surprising results which raise new and as a question which we then need to follow up. And in their report from TV we heard from ASA Bepy Columbo project scientist Johanna Sperkhoff and DLR planetary scientist j're and Heilbert this is space time. And time that attack. Another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a Science report, A new study is shown that the flood of microplastics entering the oceans are now diminishing the sea's ability to absorb common dioxide. The findings are reported in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. Plastics as shown that while their current effects may appear minimal, the study warns that their long term impact will significantly intensify ocean warming and acidification. The authors say microplastics presence in maritime environments has now become ubiquitous. The wards ocean's ability to absorb CO two is regarded as an essential process to help break the Earth's temperature. A new study shows that more people are experiencing sleep apnea during heat waves. The findings were reported in the European Respiratory Journal. Analyzed data from sixty seven, five hundred and fifty eight people across seventeen European countries who had a sensor placed under their mattress monitoring their sleep patterns. Comparing signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea with weather patterns across the countries, the authors found that at the peak of a heat wave, the risk of experiencing sleep apnea increased by thirteen percent. Every one degree celsius rise in temperature was linked to a one point one percent increased prevalence of sleep apnea. The authors say this means sleep apnea could be added to an increasing list of chronic health problems likely to get worse under climate change. A new study has shown that seafaring hunter gatherers were accessing remote Mediterranean islands like Malta thousands of years before the arrival of the first farmers. Are reporting the journal Nature found had to Gather Is were crossing at least one hundred kilometers of open seas to reach Malta at least eight five hundred years ago. That's around one thousand years before the arrival of the first agricultural practices. CEES. The world's largest consumer electronics show has been wowing technology fans in Las Vegas, and it's a case of alex in Wonderland. For our technology editor Alex Aharov wrote Tech Advice Start Life is reporting from the Lenovo Tech World Big Sphere. This is how at the sphere, which is the giant ball, is in the middle of Las Vegas like a giant marble amongst the hotels, and that has the world's largest screen wrapped around the outside of the ball, and inside the ball is the world's second largest screen sixteen K resolution. So we're talking some serious technology. In fact, the technology is being run by Lenovo Technology inside and it's the only sphere in the world. There's other places that talk about wanted to get one, but so far see and we had the presentation last night. I've got a link to it on the it wire dot com website. You can get a feel for just how the humanous the space in started to give a studying presentation and afterwards Gwen Stefani gave a concert and the visuals in the background they look real. I mean, it's really quite stunning how momentous and magical this venue is. But there's nobody themselves launched new aipcs and no AID data center factories that had Jensen Weighing, the head of Nvidia there. They had doctor Lisa su the head of AMD there. I mean, it was a very impressive presentation. But on the consumer side of things, they're launching a new folding phone looking very much like the Samsung Galaxy fold seven, very thin, but unlike the Samsung, the Motorola comes with and uses an active stylust with pressures assivity. Samsung took it away. Motorola and other companies like Honor are bringing the stylist back. They also had a World Cup fefer edition of the Razor flip phone, but also a very slim Motorola signature boner. This one has got four fifty megapixel cameras thround the back, one on the front. It's got stylus capability. It's noticeably thin and light, and it is murder Roller's answer to the Samsung S twenty five what will be this year the S twenty six Ultra, And it's a move by murder Roller, which is part of Lenova to go into a higher end space while still having phones that are you know, starting at one, nine nine or two nine. I got a press release today from motor Roller about the G fifty seven. Looks very similar to the murder rolla signature. It's the same sort of styling, same sort of look that obviously blower amounts of RAM and process. But one of the cool things that they displayed was two new versions of its laptops that have a rolling screen that rolls vertically or a different one rolls out horizontally to create a bigger space. So at last year see yes, perhaps the one that before that, they had a screen that could extend from the normal sixteen x nine fourteen inch fives, but it could rise upwards and give you a larger, more square looking screen. Well, what they're done this year is that flipped the screen around in the sense that when the screen, the screen doesn't roll out from the bottom, it now rolls out from the top, so the top third or the back of the screen, after it's risen upwards, it can display information. It can show people the presentation, It can show people a translation of what you've said in the language. You can share files as the fold of windows explore that you're looking in particularly fast. And it's a second screen that you otherwise wouldn't have on the back because when the screen goes up, some of it goes instead of going disappearing into the bottom of the screen. I mean, there's just more screen to display. But the one that really was very cool, and this is only a concept, but the in theory it should come out in neck ye or two. But it was a laptop that was normally six then by nine. It could stretch. Outside of way to twenty one by nine aspect ratio, and then stretch out even more to twenty four by nine, so you could display movies in their animal and a morphic format, and you could play games or look at spreadsheets or you know, have multiple windows open on this why the screen much wider than the body of the laptop, so it was really quite impressive, much wider than the keyboard on the bottom of the laptop. The screen just rolls out. You push a button, you can go to a less wide screen. You push the button again, it goes back into a standard display. And the third very cool laptop was one that when you double tapped on it, it opened up by itself, and then as you were giving you a presentation, the screen could bring around, move around following you, so that the screen was always in your line of sight. Now I'm not sure if there was a concept as well, but the screen could turn around completely the other way, so you could then use it as like a canvas for us. But it just was very cool, and I've never seen any other device to do that except for the Amazon Home unit that is on a swiveling base. And when you give the Amazon Alexa Home unit instructions or gasted questions, the screen turns around to face you. But that's got a big base and it's not meant to be portable. Each other one can slip into your briefcase. And I mean it's just incredible stuff. So look, this comesable. We'll talk about more of it next week. I mean there's all sorts of robots and lots of AI devices and more. I haven't yet had a chance to see very keen to see it all and talk to you about it next week. That's Alexaharravroid from Take Advice, Start Life, and this space. Time, 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 space Time Store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of bonnus audio content which doesn't go towar, access to our exclusive Facebook group, and other rewards. Just go to space Time with Stuart Gary dot com for full details you've. Been listening to Spacetime with Stuart Gas. 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