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This is Spacetime Series twenty nine, Episode ninety nine were broadcast on the nineteenth of August twenty twenty six. Coming up on Space Time, discovery of black hole stars at the Cosmic Dawn, claims that red planet Mars might have had liquid water less than a billion years ago, and a new mission to extend the life of satellites in orbit. All that and more coming up on space Time Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary. Astronomers now think mysterious objects from the dawn of time known as little red dots may represent an entirely new type of cosmic phenomenon, which they're calling black hole stars. Little red dots weren't even a thing until the Web Space Telescope began providing us with observations of the early universe. As soon as astronomers saw them immediately started scratching their heads because they had no idea what these things could be. The best hypothesis suggests their early, rapidly growing black holes wrapped in dense clouds of gas. Now, a new study reported in the journal Nature suggests these mysterious objects may help explain a monstrous billion solar mass black holes could have formed so soon after the Big Bang. Super massive black holes with masses millions to billions of times that of our Sun look at the centers of most galaxies, but it takes time for them to grow, and so how really humongous ones could have formed during the very earliest period of the universe's existence is a real mystery. Beyond being cosmic points of no return, black holes also play a crucial role in determining the ultimate fate of galaxies, influencing their growth, evolution, and appearance. When they're actively accreting material, some of these levithans turn into extraordinarily bright quasars, able to be seen across the other side of the universe, but their origins remained difficult to explain until now. Astronomers have known very little about how these super massive black holes could have formed. Also, it seems some quasars found in the early universe seem far too massive to exist. That's problematic as well, the studies lead author Rowan Nadu from the University of Hawaii. This is Explaining how billion solar mass quasars form when the universe was so young has been challenging scientists for decades now. Astronomers have never lacked imagination. Since the discovery of quasars, there's been no shortage of hypotheses to try and explain how these black holes grew so massive so quickly. Clearly something spectacular. It must have happened in the other universe. Now with NASA's web Space telescope they're doing, colleagues can directly observe this epoch of the evolution of the universe. They can see which of the many scenarios speculated about actually occur. And they've now discovered a unique object from the cosmic dawn of the thirteen billion years ago that's offering them a clue about the formation of these unusually big, super massive black holes. The light which is reaching us now was emitted by this object when the universe was just six hundred and sixty million years old. They do says the specter of light detected by web appears to be a clerk of gas feeding an early forming black hole. In addition to the characteristic features of a super massive black hole, this object, which has been cataloged as Mombight Star minus one, exhibits properties normally associated with stars. These include a spectral jump called a Barmer break that's an abrupt drop in a star or galaxy spectrum of light at the Barma limit wavelength of approximately three hundred and sixty four point five nanometers. It happens when high energy photons ionize hydrogen atoms from the second energy level, causing heavy absorption at shorter wavelengths. Now, in the case of Mombight star minus road there's one, the spectral jump is exceptionally strong, stronger even than those seen in star forming galaxies, dust free stellar populations, or the mysterious Little Red Dance. Now. So far, the main challenge in understanding Little Red Dots has been to separate the emission from the central object from that of the galaxy in which it resides, and MOMBH Star minus one resolves this issue for the first time by providing an unabstracted view of its core. Unlike other Little Red Dots, mom BH star minus one appears to account for nearly all of the observed light, leaving little room for light from the host galaxy. So, instead of being redden by dust as was previously thought for Little Red Darts when they were first discovered, this object, which they're now calling out black hole star, is enshrodded by gas, which shifts its light emission towards the red end of the spectrum without blocking the view, similar to the Raleigh scattering of light we see an Earth's atmosphere as sunsets turn red they do in colleagues. Monitored momb H Star minus one as a miniature super massive black hole in the earliest phase of its evolution, enshrouded by extremely dense turbulent gas, forming a dust free envelope around it. Now, theoretical models have already predicted that early black holes embedded in these gas clouds can grow rapidly through what's known as super Eddington accretion. Mombh Star minus one lies close to a brighter galaxy, and models suggest these two objects will eventually merge maybe one hundred million years from now. By superimposing spectra from both cosmic objects, the authors found that the combined spectrum would closely resemble that of Little Red Dots. If embedded in similar hearst galaxies. Black hole stars like Mombh Star minus one might well serve as the central engines of baby quasars. Considering the black hole star as a template for the black hole component of Little Red Dots helps clarify many of the uncertainties about them now. Back in March twenty twenty five, the discovery of mol O mbH star minus one was reported on the pre press physics website archive dot org, alongside what's probably another black hole star named the Cliff, a similar looking source but roughly two to three billion years after the Big Bang. The simultaneous discovery of two such objects supports the hypothesis that these really are a new class of objects, which astronomers are calling black hole stars, and now that scientists have identified black hole stars, their spectra can serve as templates to guide new searchers, and a new report in the Astrophysical journal Letters has now identified a potential third black hole star candidate, but this one from a much later time period, and that suggests that these curious objects could also be found in much later cosmic times, though they are likely to be far less common then. This is space time still to come. Claims Mars could have had liquid water on its surface less than a billion years ago, and the launch of a new mission to extend the life of satellites in orbit. All that and more was still the calm on space time. A new study claims the red planet Mars might have had liquid water flowing across its surface as recently as seven hundred and fifty seven million years ago. Now that's far more recent than the several billion years previously thought. The findings were reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, based on a new analysis of mineral data gathered by China's Urrong Mars rover. Until now, astronomers have assumed that Mars lost most of its water billions of years ago as the planet's core solidified and its protective magnetic field, which shielded the Martian atmosphere from the eroding effects of the solar wind, began to shut down. As the atmosphere degased into space, the pressures and temperatures required to keep surface water liquid changed, results in water ice sublimating directly into a gas rather than turning liquid first, and so a once warm, wet world capable of supporting life was transformed into the freeze dried desert we see today. Any liquid water would either have been locked away deep underground or lost into space. Our previous estimates suggest this probably happened around three to four billion years ago. However, new research led by Xai cheng Lu from the University of Hong Kong has discovered evidence of mineral crystals that could have formed in standing water on a patch of Martian ground far younger than expected. The findings are based on data samples collected by Xirong on the vast plains of Utopia Plelesia in the Martian Northern Hemisphere lowlands. Jirong's cameras imaged bright, flat rocks perking up through the sand, and later analysis suggests these rocks are rich in water bearing minerals. Lewin colleagues examined the shapes of tiny crystals visible just beneath the rock's surface, some curling like cabbage leaves and others branching like Christmas trees. Using the rover's laser and infrared spectrometer, they determined that these shapes were produced by selenite, a large crystal form of gypsum that can only grow by crystallizing directly out of concentrated salty water. Now, based on the thickness of this mineral layer, the authors suggest that it would have had been formed in a body of liquid water somewhere between six point two five and twenty five meters deep, which pulled on the surface for a significant period of time and Based on the number of nearby impact craters, the authors were able to estimate the age of the ground to be somewhere around seven hundred and fifty seven million years old. Melancholagues think the water probably came from underground brine melted and then upwelled towards the surface by volcanic heat. It was then on the surface and concentrated as it froze from the top down. Now, if these measurements are accurate, it suggests surface water could have persisted on Mars hundreds of millions to beans of years later, most models suggest, and since selenite crystals conceal tiny pockets of liquid they form in, they could potentially preserve a chemical snapshot of this ancient Martian environment. This is space time still to come a new mission to extend the life of satellites in orbit, and you think they would have learned their lesson from COVID, But scientists are now using artificial intelligence to design and build functioning viruses. All that and more still to come on space time. Northrop Brummins's latest mission to extend the life of orbiting spacecraft has successfully reached GEIR stationary transfer orbit and is closing in on its first target telecommunication satellite, launched a board a SpaceX falcon iine Rocket Space Launch Complex forty of the Canaveral Space Force Space in Florida. The payload includes a Mission Robotic Vehicle or MRV spacecraft and three so called mission extension pods or maps now. The mission Robotic vehicle is designed to intersept rendezvoult and grapple a target spacecraft using two three meter long robotic arms, and then attach one of the mission extension pods to it. The MRV uses electric propulsion thrusters to maneuver in space, and it's equipped with advanced autonomous artificial intelligence systems that learn and evolve with each new mission. The mission extension pods are sort of I guess you call them jetpacks, propulsion devices equipped with electric propulsion engines designed to provide up to an additional eight years of operational life for a typical two thousand kilogram spacecraft by replacing the satellite's own depleted fuel and propulsion systems. Once the pods are attached the satellites, operators then take control through a self contained c ORKU band telemetry and command system. The mission robotic vehicle and Its remaining mission extension pods then detached from the satellite and move to their next target spacecraft and repeat the procedure. Now, once each of these three pods are installed on a satellite, the mission robotic vehicle will remain in geostationary transfer orbit, waiting for new pods to be flown up to it, which you can then use to service more satellites in an ongoing operation. Northrop Grumman says its mission robotic vehicles can also relocate, inspect, repair, and upgrade spacecraft in orbit, and it includes a passive refueling module, the first in orbit refueling interface standard approved by the US Space Force. Now, all this isn't really that new. Northrop Grumman conducted to previous mission extension flights using an earlier generation of the mrvs, which it called THEMEV or Mission Extension Vehicle. However, thesemevs were more expensive spacecraft because they combine the role of the mission robotic vehicle and the mission extension pods. The first mission extension vehicle flight was THEMEV one back in twenty nineteen, which successfully run avert with the intel set is nine to zero one spacecraft and remained ducked to the vehicle for five years, for finally detaching and moving on to another satellite in May last year. It was then followed by the MeV two in twenty twenty, which doctor the intel set is tenor two spacecraft and is still attached today. This report Crumnelthrup Grummin. High above Earth. There are thousands of satellites that circle the planet. But once satellites are launched, if something goes wrong, how are they repaired? What if they're running low on fuel for decades? Otherwise, healthy satellites were retired to the depths. Of space. Until now. The next generation of robotics in space is here. This revolutionary system will change the satellite industry forever. Building on our pioneering Mission Extension vehicle, the Mission Robotic Vehicle represents a groundbreaking advancement. A spacecraft capable of pairing, relocating, and even building in Earth's orbit using the smaller mission extension pods. This technology acts as a jetpack, adding years of life to vital satellites. The spacecraft start their journey to their first rescue mission twenty two thousand miles above the Earth. The MRV and MEP rendezvous accurate to the centimeter. The fully articulating robotic arms autonomously secure and stow the extension pod. After traveling thousands of miles, it approaches the satellite that has run low on fuel. Moving thousands of miles per hour, the spacecraft is now within just inches of finishing its mission, extending its arm and attaching the extension pod perfectly to the satellite, adding six more years of life to a dying satellite. The MRV fires its thrusters, ready for its next mission. Thousands of miles above the Earth, a customer satellite with a partially deployed solar array needs help. As we approach the satellite, the mission robotic vehicle inspects the issue and operators on Earth assess the situation using its robotic arm. It carefully dislodges the array, using its onboard camera to inspect for any damage. After another successful mission, we travel on to support even more satellites for years to come. This latest mission uses the new or more flexible mission robotic Vehicles or mvs, together with three mission extension pods. It'll see two of the pods hied out to Intel set for two more of its telecommunication satellites well. The third will be attached to the Optus D three satellite as part of the Sintole Company's Project Aurora. This mission is an extremely rare bit of good news for Optus. The embattled telecommunications company faces major controversies which have severely trashed its brand reputation, including poor customer services with phone help, wedding times of over an hour, federal court legal action over a fatal emergency call outage, massive consumer penalties for predatory sales tactics targeting vulnerable people, and a history of data breaches. Australia's Telecommunications Industry Mbudsman highlighted how Optus repeatedly failed to address customer complaints efficiently. Instead of dealing with problems, Optus kept customers trapped in endless bureaucratic loops trying to seek service fixes or financial compensation for major outages. Right now, the Australian Communications and Media Authority AKMA is suing Optus in the Federal court over the infamous September twenty twenty five network outage, which caused hundreds of emergency calls to fail, alleging over one thousand breaches of legal obligations. The fourteen hour Optus outage left seventy five percent of emergency triple zero calls unsuccessful, with six hundred and five failed attempts, and those failures have been linked to at least to deaths. And none of this is new. AKMA previously fined Optus twelve million dollars over a separate November twenty twenty three outage that blocked emergency access for over twenty one hundred customers, and previously the federal court ordered Optis to pay a one hundred million dollar penalty following an h it will see investigation into appalling sales misconduct. Between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty three, OPTAs staff at systematically pressured hundreds of financially vulnerable customers esioners, people with disabilities, and individuals with limited English proficiency to buying expensive phone plans that could neither afford nor use even in areas lacking Optus network coverage. Let's face it, that's simply theft. Then there was the massive cyber attack in September twenty twenty two, which compromised the personal identification details including passports, drivers, licenses, and medicare numbers for millions of current and former customers. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has initiated civil penalty proceedings against Optus regards the severe security and privacy failure. This is Space Time and Time Out of Tech. Another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a Science report. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States, with two hundred and twenty nine four hundred and ten new cases and nearly one hundred and twenty five thousand deaths projected for this year alone. Now, researchers at Tel Aviv University may have found a faster and more inexpensive way to detect cancer a simple sixty dollars blood test by reading the chimbor's unique chemical fingerprint using light, no DNA sequencing required. In a study of one hundred and three participants, a test achieved ninety three point one percent accuracy among stage two to four patients. Nearly half of all US lung cancer cases are diagnosed only after the cancer has already spread, so a sixty dollars test that could catch it early could save thousands of lives every year. A new study has found that having European ancestry is linked to a greater risk of developing cholorectal cancer, although differences in health behavior and family history also have a big impact on risk. The study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at data from over three hundred thousand people. The authors also found that having American and mixed Latino and East Asian ancestry was linked to earlier diagnosis and higher age related risk. As if China's genetically engineered COVID nineteen virus escape from the Wuhan Institute of Rology wasn't a big enough warning, scientists have now used artificial intelligence to design and build bacteria phasis functioning viruses that infect bacteria. The findings reported in the journal Science are raising in important you biosecurity and biosafety concerns. The researchers were able to design viruses to kill two strands of bacteria that were resistant to other similar viruses, suggesting this could be a way to design antibacterial therapies, but they admit the ability to design and create functional AI generator genomes introduces important biosafety and biosecurity concerns and underscores the need for expert oversight and robust safeguards throughout the design process. The World Health Organization says more than seven point one million people have been killed by the COVID nineteen coronavirus since it was first detected among three scientists working at China's War Institute of Virology back in September twenty nineteen. Between seventeen thousy, two one hundred and twenty two thousand deaths were caused by the COVID nineteen virus in Australia, although broader excess mortality modeling, which accounts for indorex systematic strains and unrecorded infections, estimates the total pandemic related death toll is more likely to be around thirty one thousand, and the Lancet Medical Journal estimates the true global death toll is likely the somewhere around eighteen million, with over three quarters of a billion people confirmed to have caught the disease at some stage. A new study has shown that school kids who start using social media earlier in adolescents often end up performing worse in standardized tests later. The findings were reported of the journal Nature Human Behavior based on the survey of five two hundred and twenty seven Italian school kids about their social media use, and then compared this with test scores in Italian, English, and maths at ages thirteen to sixteen. The authors found that kids who delayed opening social media accounts until they were fourteen to fifteen years old consistently scored the highest in Italian and maths tests, followed by those who started on socials aged thirteen and fourteen, then those aged twelve and thirteen, and then those aged eleven and twelve. The authors say the gap between children who started on social media aged eleven and twelve those who delayed their use until fourteen and fifteen is roughly equivalent to six months of schooling. Well, even starting at age thirteen and fourteen could leave the gap equivalent to roughly three months of school Google's new Pixel eleven smartphones just been released. With the details that we're joined by technology editor Alex saharov Royd from Tech Advice Start Life. Google is launching its new suite of phones in twenty twenty six phones. This includes its sold which is basically the phone that tends to meaning tablet, and also a new watch. So what we have here is major camera upgrades, promising enhanced durability and sophisticated designs that it will pretty cool. It's got the Google tends to G six chip. Now, this chip has never been as fast as the chips from Colcom or Apple, but Google is saying it's the fastest, most powerful chip to date, and it runs the Gemini Nanomodel, which is the smallest version of on board AI, and onboard AI is of course something that we're going to take a lot more seriously in the years to come because we'd love to have today's level of AI but running offline, and that's still to come. But offline models do work and they're pretty good. And this is of course is designed for Gemini Intelligence to deliver what they call time saving personal help. And that's where you have the magic queue that you're ringing your airline and it pops up the information about the ticket and the pace you're going, or you're bringing a restaurant if it gives your booking details. Now, the prow eleven fold, they're saying it is a thinner and lighter design, but it's still thicker than Samsung's design, which of course when you shut it, it does feel like a single phone. I mean this is ten point one millimeters where Samsung is unfolded, it's four something millimeters but it's about eight milimeters, so there's a little bit of difference. It's a big backpack on the rear where the camera is, don't you well. Yeah, that's the camera bar that putting in upgraded cameras and also faster charging speeds on the fold which is good. And with the watch that is the Pizel Watch five. It's a three thousand knit display, so nice and bright in the summer. It's a domed actual three sixty display, which is their way of describing how good the screen is. What eleven new glance ofple complication styles two you watch face up to thirty hours of life. They're also talking about industry leading repairable architecture. This is something that normally these small devices are not so easy to repair. But one of the things that the new pixels have is a light on the back called highlight. So this is a little light. It looks like it could be the flash, but it's not. It glows in different styles if an important call needs your attention. For example, Android phones used to have little notification lights that glowed with different colors to you know there was a message with somebody calling, but This is on the back so you can put the phone down. It's a hardware and software notification tool and it's only on the Pixel eleven Pro line. So it's little led indicator glows in specific colors when the phone is placed face down. Then you identify incoming calls from favorite contacts or see active prompts like Gemini. And it's just a way of letting you glance at your phone, especially if you put the phone down, so you're not being otherwise bombarded by notifications or attracted to the phone lighting up, and it can just tell you these little things that lets you know someone important is calling. You're going to sign different cultus for different people, for example. So that's a little quality of life feature that resurrect the notification light that a lot of phones used to have. At the Samsung you're on price, I mean, the Pixel eleven can be up to what twenty seven twenty eight hundred bucks. Well, it obviously depends which model that you get. Now they're starting. The Pixel eleven starts at fourteen ninety nine, that Pixel eleven Pro starts at eighteen forty nine, and the pro XL eleven Pro Excel is twenty ninety nine. So the age of cheap phones when you're talking flagship is gone yet. Now all three of the majors, you know, Apple, Samsung and Google do have upper mid range phones available under the thousand dollars marc. You don't have to have the absolute latest flagships for the very fastest processes to enjoy email, surfing, social media gaming. You know, all the camera capabilities and all the hour capabilities you want obviously if you're a young person or a fashion person or an influence, so yeah, you want to have the latest and greatest, not twenty of people. They just get these phones on a plan. They're not so expensive. I mean even a phone that is three thousand, six hundred dollars. For example, if you get the top of the line Samsung Fold or the upcoming iPhone Fold, I mean it's probably going to be in the Australian dollars three thousand, six hundred bucks. But if you go on a thirty six month plan, that's one hundred dollars a month. Yes, you still need to have a phone plan to go on top of that, which will be usually at least fifty bucks, So that's like one hundred and fifty bucks a month. But in the modern world that's not unachievable or unaffordable. It allows you to break that larger purchase down. That's Alex oharov Royd from Take Advice, Start Life, and this is Spacetime, and that's the show for now. Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through at fytes dot com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from space Time with Stuart Gary dot com. Space Time is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science owe 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 burnus audio content which doesn't go to air, 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 Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.