S26E109: Have they finally found Planet X?

This is Spacetime Series twenty six, Episode one hundred and nine, for broadcast on the eleventh of September twenty twenty three. Coming up on Spacetime, Have they finally found Planet X? Japan's Chrism space telescope launches into orbit and discovery of our own local baryonic acoustic oscillation. All that and more coming up on Spacetime Welcome to Spacetime with Stewart Garry. Astronomers in Japan have found possible evidence of an earthlike planet orbiting in the Kaiper Belt. The findings are reported in the Astronomical Journal and on the pre Press physics website archive dot org. Are based on the discovery event usual orbits for several Carper Belt objects, and suggest a large Earth size planet orbiting around five hundred astronomical units out from the Sun. An astronomical unit is the average distance between the Sun and the Earth, roughly one hundred and fifty million kilometers or eight point three light minutes. The Kiper Belt is a ring of comets, icy worlds, and frozen debris circling the Sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune, which orbits some thirty astronomical units out from the Sun. The dwarf planets Pluto and Sharon are probably the best known Carper Belt objects. The new statis authors Patrick's to Fear like Kakwa from Kindai University and Takashi Eater from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, describe the orbital properties of trans Neptunian objects, which appear to be consistent with gravitational perturbations that would have been caused by a planet not much bigger than the Earth orbiting Among them, They also found a significant number of Carper built objects at inclination orbits. Intrigued by their findings, follow up computer simulations designed to explain their observations showed that the most likely explanation was a relatively large carbo built object, such as a planet. The simulations also showed that such a planet, if it exists, would have a mass of between one and a half and three times that of the Earth, an inclination of approximately thirty degrees to the ecliptic that is the plane where the planets roughly orbit the Sun, and an orbit that would take the planet between two hundred and fifty and five hundred astronomical units out from the Sun. The new findings are just the latest effort in an ongoing search for a so called planet nine, sometimes referred to as planet X. But what makes this new effort so interesting is that the suspected planets orbiting much closer and than what previous studies have suggested. The first solid hints of a possible planet X or planet nine came to light over a decade ago when astronomers were looking for objects which could pose a threat to the New Horizon spacecraft, which at that time was on a mission to study Pluto on the Kuiper Belt. As they undertook their surveys, astronomers noticed some unusual gravitational perturbations in the orbit of thirteen Kiper Belt objects, thought to have been caused by interactions with a yet to be discovered massive planet sized body. Then, careful calculations of the orbit of a Kuiper Belt object twenty twelve VP one thirteen by planet hunters in twenty fourteen led to the detection of similarities in the orbits of several other distant Kuiper Belt objects, and it resulted in the new hypothesis postulating the possible existence of an unknown planet X or planet nine, now based on the earlier observations, the undiscovered world would be up to four times the size of the Earth and around nine times Earth's mass. Now that's a lot bigger what's being proposed now. Also, the orbit was very different too. It was on a highly elongated orbit around the Sun, estimated to last at least fifteen thousand earth years. If it exists, the mysterious planet X could be an interstellar rogue planet captured by the Sun's gravitational pool, or it could be a planet that was stolen by the Sun's gravity from a neighboring star system early in the history of the Solar System, when the Sun was just leaving it still a nursery. Another option is that there are several models of planets in migration within the Solar System, which suggests that as Jupiter and Satin migrated out to their current orbital positions, their gravitational perturbations caused Neptune and Uranus to also move outwards in the process, swapping their orbital positions and flinging a third ice giant, which was part of the group, out into the Kiper Belt or possibly even beyond into interstellar space as a rogue planet. Oh And as for the indecision between planet X and Planet nine. Well, the first ideas of a planet X in the Kiper Belt came at a time when Plutter was still considered a fully fledged planet before it was demoted to dwarf planet status, and so Skyper Belt World would have been a tenth planet a planet X. This is space time still to come. Japan's CHRISM space telescope launches into orbit and discovery of our own local barryonic acoustic oscillation all that them or still to come on spacetime. A powerful new Japanese X ray telescope is just blasted into orbit. The X ray Imaging in Spectroscopy mission CHRISM was launched aboard an H two a rocket from the Tankashima Space Center in southern Japan's just a gossip. We have a liftoff of the H Dwey launch peak or number of forty seven from jack Start and the Gustimos based center at age forty two and level seconds am on September stables depounced unt of time. The H Dewey is now flying about the amount of an ocean duley least led by Jackson, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and collaboration with NASA and the European Space Agency, the two thousand, three hundred kilograms spacecraft was placed into a five hundred and fifty kilometer high orbit. Jackson had been forced to scrub three earlier launch attempts hit bad weather. The new orbiting observatory will spend the next month checking systems and calibrating instruments before beginning a three year scientific mission. Once operational, CHRISM will study some of the hardest objects in the universe, such as neutron stars, black holes as they're feeding, and massive galaxy clusters. CHRISMS Principal investigator Richard Kelly from NASA's Gottat Space Flight Center in green Belt, Maryland, says the spacecraft will also examine the aftermath of stellar explosions, and it will examine these speed of light particle jets being launched from supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. CHRISM will detect X rays with energies ranging from four hundred to twelve thousand electron vaults. Now by comparison, the energy of visible light is around two to three electron vaults. The electron vault range selected by scientists will provide astro physicists with new information about some of the universe's hottest regions, some of its largest structures, and objects with the strongest gravity. The mission has two principal instruments, Resolve and EXTEND. Resolve as a microcalorometer spectrometer, developed in collaboration between NASA and JACKSA. When an X ray photon hits resolves six by six pixel detector, its energy will cause a slight increase in temperature. By measuring each individual X rays energy, the instrument provides information about its source, such as its composition, it's and its physical state. But to detect these tiny temperature changes, Resolve needs to operate as just a fraction of degree above absolute zero minus two hundred and seventy three point one five degrees celsius. To get that cold, Resolves equipped with a multi stage mechanical cooling processor mounted inside a refrigerator size container of liquid helium. Chrism's second instrument, Extend, is an image that developed by Jackson to give the spacecraft one of the largest fields of view of any X ray imaging satellite ever flown. It will be able to observe an area about sixty percent larger than the average apparent size of the Moon, and the images that collects will complement the data being collected by Resolve. Each instrument is mounted at the focus of its own X ray mirror assembly, designed and developed by Godard. See The thing is, X ray wavelengths are so short they pass straight between the atoms of dis shape mirrors used to capture visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light become these issues. X ray astronomers use nested, curved mirrors turn on their sides. When X ray photons hit these mirrors, they'll skip off the surfaces and into the detectors, just like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond. Each of chrism's two mirrors houses hundreds of concentric, precisely shaped aluminum shells, builting quadrants and assembled into a circle. In all, there are over thirty two hundred individual mirror segments in the two mirror assemblies. Also aboard the h to A rocket for the launch was Jackson's Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM Spacecraft. SLIM is designed to demonstrate new accurate pinpoint lunar landing techniques. NASA provided the laser retroreflector array used by SLIM as. Both agencies cooperate in international effort to further explore the Moon and ultimately human exploration of Mars. This report from NASS TV SO X rays really shows us that's the universe is very argentina. We find X rays in jets erupting from the centers of active galaxies. We use them to measure the spin of black holes or supernova explosions. It takes a powerful event to produce cosmic X rays. Sometimes people also called the hot universe because you know when you have this gas in galaxy clusters or also around galaxies that you can see only in X rays. This gas is about ten million to one hundred million of degrees, which is so hot. That's this gas does not radiating in opticals, does not radiating in fright, but it only radiate an X rays. To further understand these hottest regions, we need the next generation X ray telescope. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or XA, is partnering with NASA and the European Space Agency to launch the next generation X ray space telescope. The telescope, called CHRISM, weighs over five thousand pounds, stands over thirty feet tall and will orbit approximately three hundred and forty miles above Earth. We're familiar with the medical uses of X rays. X ray light is energetic enough to pass through our skin. Our calcium dense bones absorb that light, blocking it from reaching the detector and creating a shadow. Luckily for US, X rays from space don't make it through our atmosphere. But what that does mean is that we have to send X ray hunting missions into orbit to detect this high energy light. CHRISM also needs special kinds of mirrors, which are built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The type of mirror is called a nested mirror. It looks like like a cross section of the audience. X rays are so energetic they fly right through typical mirrors. For the visible light, we typically placed the mirror like for that light just bounce back, but for the X rays this doesn't work, So that we put the mirror like so that X rays just graze saurface of the shell. When they strike mirrors. At very shallow angles, X rays two can bounce and then so we made it that like a corny call shell. Then X ray can be directed. CHRISM has two instruments, each with their own mirror assembly, one for imaging called Extend, the other for spectroscopy called Resolve. Jack's a built Extend to provide chrism with a wide field of view. It can observe an area about sixty percent larger than the average apparent size of the full moon. NASA's Resolve instrument is a spectrometer that splits X ray light like a prism so scientists can detect specific elements present in the sources they're studying. It uses a small six by six pixel detector called a micro calorimeter, nestled in a refrigerator sized container of liquid helium. Resolve will measure the small temperature changes caused when X rays hit one of those pixels. To track such small temperature changes, resolves detectors must be kept extremely cold. That liquid helium cryocooler will keep the instrument at point zero five degrees kelvin. It's so cold it is a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Heat is simply a product of moving atoms. Keeping resolves detector that cold means that the atoms barely move, so there's very little thermal noise in the system. It's what keeps these accurate measurements possible. Each X ray detected will help scientists pursue many questions about the hottest regions of the cosmos. What's happening in the extreme gravitational fields around black holes? Can we discover what is inside a neutron star? How did some of the universe's largest structures, like galaxy clusters evolve optical telescope you will just see in galaxies everywhere if you if you look at this same cluster of galaxies and X rays, you will see actually a lot of gas and the gas it constitutes actually most of the matter the cluster of the galaxies, which is something extreme important to understand because it means that most of the matter in the universe is not in the form of planets or stars, but it's really in the form and of these gas. So, but CHRISM really has this capability of decomposing this extraelites in a way that's much much more accurate than what has ever been done before. And in that report from Nassay TV, we heard from NASSA Chrism mission lestro physicist Francis Maria at the Cashier Okajima this space time still to come discovery of the local barry on a acoustic or oolation, and later in the Science report Australia on course for increasingly hot and dry conditions. All that are more still the calm on space time. Astronomers have discovered an immense bubble eight hundred twenty million light years from Earth that's believed to be a fossil like remnant of the birth of the universe. The bubble is thought to be the remains of a baryonic acoustic oscillation, a pressure wave of fluctuation in the density of visible baryonic that is, normal matter caused by acoustic density waves in the primordial plasma of the early universe. In the same way that type one a supernova provide a standard candle for astronomical distance. Baryonic acoustic oscillations are over dense cities of matter, such as galaxies and galaxy clusters, and they're at set distances, just like standard candles or standard rulers at this time on the scale of cosmology. The length of this standard ruler is given by the maximum distance acoustic waves could travel in the primordial plasma before the plasma cool to a point where it became neutral. Atoms that's the time of the epoch of recombination, which stopped the expansion of the plasma density waves, freezing them at a place. The length of this standard ruler is about four hundred ninety million light years in today's universe, and it can be measured by looking at the large scale structure of matter using astronomical surveys. Current Big Bang theory tells us that during the first three hundred eighty thousand years of existence since the universe came into being thirteen point eight billion years ago, it was a cauldron of harkwark gluon plasma, and within this plasma, electrons were separated from atomic nuclei. Now, during this period, regions with slightly higher densities began to collapse under gravity, even as the intense bath of radiation was still attempting to push matter apart. This struggle between gravity and radiation made the plasma oscillate or ripple, and spread outwards. The very largest ripples in the other universe depend on the distance a sound wave could travel, set by the speed of sound and the plasma. This distance was the four hundred ninety million light years we mentioned earlier, and it became fixed in place once the universe cooled and stopped being a plasma, leaving vast three dimensional ripples in its wake. Then, throughout the eons of the Universe's existence, galaxies and galaxy clusters formed at the density peaks of these enormous bubble like structures. The remnants of this plasma, now cooled down at just two point seven degrees above absolute zero, can still be seen across the universe as the cosmic microwave background radiation. You probably know it best as the faint white noise hiss you get between stations on old analog radio and TV sets. The new structure, reported in the Astrophysical Journal, has been named Holilana, a term drawn from an Hawaiian creation chant involving the origins of structure. The studies lead author Brent Tully from the University of Hawaii says he unexpectedly found the bubble while studying a web of galaxies. He says his team weren't looking for it, but it was so huge that it's spilled into the edges of the sector of the scar that they were analyzing, and that piqued their interest as an enhancement in the density of galaxies. Turns out this bubbles a much stronger feature than expected. The very large diameter of a billion light years is beyond theoretical expectations. If its formation and evolution are in accordance with theory, then this baryonic acoustic oscillation is closer than anticipated. That implies a higher value for the expansion rate of the universe. Astronomer's low the bubble using data from the Cosmic Flows For experiment, which is to date the largest compilation of precise distances to galaxies. Tally Co published a catalog last year, and this may be the first time astronomers have identified an individual structure associated with a baryonic acoustic oscillation. The discovery could help scientists bolster their knowledge on the effects of galaxy evolution. The same team of researchers also identified the Lanier Kya galaxy supercluster back in twenty fourteen. That structure, which includes their own Milky Way galaxy on its outskirts, is small in comparison, stretching at a diameter of about five hundred million light years. Laniar Key extends to the near edge of this much larger bubble. Tully's team discovered that Ali Lana had already been noted in the twenty sixteen research paper as the most prominent of several shell like structures seen in the Sloan Digital All Sky survey. However, the earlier work did not reveal the extent of the structure, and that team didn't conclude that they had found was the baryonic acoustic oscillation. Using the Cosmic Flows full catalog, the authors were able to see a full spherical shell of galaxies, identify its center and show that there really is a statistical enhancement in the density of galaxies in all directions from that center. Lellana encovers as many well known structures previously found by astronomers, such as the Harvard Smithsonian Great Wall containing the Coma cluster, the Hercules cluster, and the Slowing Great Wall, the Boeties supercluster resides at its center. Computer simulations have demonstrated that the shell structure identified as or Orlelana as less than a one percent probability of being a statistical accident. Alilana has all the properties of a theoretically anticipated baryonic acoustic oscillation, including the prominence of a rich supercluster at its center. However, it does stand out stronger than expect. Also, a Elana is slightly larger than anticipated based on the theory of the Standard Model of cosmology, but the size isn't accord with observations of the local expansion rate of the universe and of galaxy flows on large scales. That also hinted subtle problems with the Standard Model. This space time and Time that to take a brief look at some of the other stories making us in science this week with the Science Report. A new study has found a worrying change in the Indian Ocean surface temperatures, which are putting Southeast Australia on course for what it expected to be increasingly hot and dry conditions. The Indian Ocean dipole was found to be a major contributor to the severe drought and record hot temperatures seen across Australia last year. The event, known as a positive Indian Ocean dipole, cut off one of the major sources for Southern Australia's winter and spring rains. It also set up the extremely hot and dry conditions which promoted the Black Summer bush fires of twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. The new research are reported in the journal Nature Reveals that these historically rare events have become far more frequent and intense over the past century, and the situation is expected to continue to worsen if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. To reach their conclusions, scientists used coral records from the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean to reconstruct Indian Ocean dipole variability over the last millennium with unprecedented precision, and the authors found that historically strong events like last year were incredibly rare. In fact, since the year twelve forty, scientists could identify only ten of these extreme events, but four of those ten took place in the last sixty years. The research also showed that a persistent tight coupling has existed between the variability of the Indian Ocean dipole and the Elnino southern oscillation in the Pacific Ocean during the last millennium. While the Indian Ocean dipole and El Nino events can occur independently, periods of large year to year swings in the Indian oation variability also heightened Elno's southern oscillation variability across in the Pacific. Scientists have shown how the Black Death made the human immune system what it is today. Infectious diseases are one of the strongest drivers of human evolution, and a pandemic can cause the genes involved in immune responses to evolve rapidly. The study, reported in the journal Nature, analyzed ancient DNA samples from five hundred and sixteen individuals, all of whom died about the time of the Black Death in the fourteenth century. They identified two hundred and forty five genetic variants. They are all very different when comparing pre and post Black Death samples. The variance associated with protection from Black Death bacterium overlap with genes associated with increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. The authors say this highlights the contribution of a natural selection of present day susceptibility towards chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The Black Death is considered the deadliest plague to be recorded in human history, causing the deaths of somewhere between seventy five million and two hundred million people. The pestilence was a bubonic plague pandemic which infected western Eurasia countries as well as northern Africa between thirteen forty six and thirteen fifty three. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between thirty and sixty percent of the European population, as well as a third of the population of the Middle East. It's caused by the bacterium Yeshinia pests, which is spread by fleas, but it can also take a secondary form, or it's spread through a person to person contact by aerosols, causing neneumonic plagues. The plague created religious, social, and economic upheavals with profound effects on the course of European history. The pandemics thought of originated either from Central or Eastern Asia, but its first definitive appearance was in the Crimea in thirteen forty seven. From Crimea, it was most likely carried by fleas living on black rats. These traveled on Genoese trading ships, spreading throughout the Mediterranean Basin and reaching North Africa, Western Asia, and the rest of Europe through Constantinople, Sicily and the Italian Peninsula. There's evidence that once it came ashore, black death quickly spread person to person as inneumonic plague, and of course it wasn't just a single event. There were further outbreaks throughout the later Middle Ages, even continuing right through to the early nineteenth century. Sist of the black death include fever, headaches, painful aching joints, nausea with vomiting, a general feeling of malaise, and the appearance of buboes in the groin, neck, and armpits which use pass and blood when opened. Left untreated, eighty percent of those who contracted bubonic plague would die within eight days. Siters have found that baling whales around the coast of California are estimated to ingest up to ten million pieces of microplastics every day. The findings were reported in the journal Nature Communications. Combine microplastic data from the California Current with high resolution foraging behavior measurements from one hundred and ninety one TAGG baling whales, including blue fin and humpback whales. They found that baling whales mainly fit at depths of fifty to two hundred and fifty meters and that just happens to be where most microplastics are found now. Based on their measurements, the authors estimate that blue wales could consume up to ten million microplastic pieces every day, while humpback whales will still be consuming around four million pieces daily. The findings suggests that baaliing whales may consume the most plastic of any organisms, and that microplastics could pose a far greater risk to these whales than previously thought. There's growing concern in the international community about the honesty and trustworthiness of the World Health Organization, the world's most powerful health authority, recently celebrated at seventy fifth birthday. The WHO was originally set up by the United Nations to fight global diseases and provide medical treatments to underdeveloped in Third world countries, but according to the medical Fraternity, the WHO appears to have lost its way. In recent years. It's been pushing dangerous pseudo scientific treatments, including alternative medicine practices such as nature apathy, traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, and a uvetic treatments. The situation grew worse after t Dross, a former guerrilla in Ethiopius socialist Tigray People's Liberation Front, became WHO Director General with the backing of the Chinese government. Then, in twenty seventeen, t Dross appointed Zimbabwe's asked that socialist President Robert mcgabe to serve as a WHO goodwill Ambassador mcgabe, a self described Marxist Leninist, had by this stage been accused by the European Union, the Innited Nations Security Council, the Human Rights Watch and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches of being a dictator and responsible for economic mismanagement and widespread corruption, as well as human rights abuses, including anti white racism and crimes against humanity. It was also on the ted Dross in twenty twenty that the WHO ignored warnings from front line doctors about a fast spreading new pandemic in China, which later became known as COVID nineteen. This failure to respond gave the deadly virus the time it needed to quickly spread globally, killing an estimated eighteen million people so far. To amend them from a strange skeptics says, now, instead of focusing on the provision of medical care to those who need it, the WHO is again promoting dangerous pseudo scientific treatments. In most cases, we's done a great job. It's been so instrumental in treating sort of diseases around the world, especially in the world countries of vaccimation and that sort of thing. So it's a very important body, so to see it going in certain directions is a worry. And over the last decade or so there have been signs, and they've sort of started off with the promotion of traditional Chinese medicine, saying that this is a valid part of medicine and should be regarded as part of normal treatments, et cetera. So it's given the intromater of the who there's so much in traditional Chinese medicine which is frankly which doctor stuff here is it's just magical thinking pretending to be ancient medicine or something. But most of it's just sort of something You take some of the stuff that's in there and you develop it and l like you do with any sort of actual product, and you find the actual working product. But most of traditional medicine is based on very ready uncientific theories. Okay, that's one aspect. At the same time, it's been pushing naturopathy, which is definitely magical thinking about the spirit of the body helping you cure, et cetera, and that promotes the whole range of pseudo sciences as well, and homeopathy. Will think the homeopathy is jumps another way of saying it. It can't work, it doesn't work, it shouldn't work, and it doesn't work. So I mean the WHO to be pushing that. Now, there's a lot of conspiracy theories about it, the reasons why the person who was running WHO for a while he was pushing Chinese medicine, and other suggestions that China is a big thunder of the WHO, so they're trying to plaque eate a Chinese approach to medicine. We've certainly seen Chinese involvement in administration of the WHO of lateran the WH refused to acknowledge the problems of COVID nineteen until very late. It was one of its great feelings and that was brought about by pressure by the Chinese government. Yeah so yeah, we can probably say there's the pressure from the Chinese government on a whole range of areas of medicine. I've spoken to a number of people in Australia who are concerned about influence on research activities, funding and control and sort of pushing certain areas before you're in for I had a Nobel Prize with her who said that to me, it's a concern and the concern of where the WHO is heading by trying to be a bit too inclusive. Now the reasons for that was up to everybody to figure out, but certainly the very factor of actually endorsing and saying that these things are valid when they're not, and coming from such an august body is a real worry and it's an ongoing worrying. We have been sort of mentioning it ourselves, but so is the world basically that is really concerned about this. That's temendum from Australian skeptics, and that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, bytes dot Com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcasts, download Provider, and from Spacetime with Stewart Gary dot com. Spacetimes also broadcast through the National Science Foundation, on Science Zone 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 versions 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 Spacetime with Stewart Gary dot com for full details and if you want more Spacetime please check out our blog where you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the show, as well as heaps of images, news stories, loads of videos and things on the whereby find interesting or amusing. Just go to Spacetime with Stewart Gary dot Tumbler dot com. That's all one word, and that's Tumbler without the E. You can also follow us through at Stewart Gary on Twitter, at Spacetime with Stewart Garry on Instagram, through our Spacetime YouTube channel, and on Facebook. Just go to Facebook dot com, forward slash Spacetime with Stewart Gary and Spacetime is brought to you in collaboration with Australian Sky and Telescope Magazine. Your window on the universe. You've been listening to Spacetime with Stewart Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bites dot com.