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Electricity from Space?! · Made of Stars

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Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
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Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
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Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
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Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar, asterism and uranus. Listen,
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Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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Speaker 2: Go ahead. When made of stars, made them stars, made sizes?
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Speaker 2: When made us stars, you could be from high they
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Speaker 2: would New Mexicomus. Where are stars?
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Speaker 3: When we are made of stars? I'm West Carol, joined
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Speaker 3: by my good friend doctor Sean Cruising from Column State
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Speaker 3: University's Coca Cola Space Signed Center. Morning Shawn, good morning.
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Speaker 2: We's good to be here.
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Speaker 3: Something kind of cool is going to be taking place
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Speaker 3: in Iceland, And I would think, depending on how this goes,
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Speaker 3: this could be a pretty major development moving forward. When
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Speaker 3: it comes to energy on Earth, how we get energy,
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Speaker 3: and I guess I'm also kind of thinking about how
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Speaker 3: we would maybe get energy on another world should we
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Speaker 3: decide to colonize. Whether we're talking about the Moon, whether
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Speaker 3: we're talking about Mars, I'm assuming we're probably really talking
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Speaker 3: about both, but getting energy electricity from a satellite in
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Speaker 3: space coming soon to Iceland.
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Speaker 2: Well, so before we jump specifically into Reikievic and the
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Speaker 2: Icelandic story, let's talk about space based solar power just
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Speaker 2: in a general term kind of way with the concepts,
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Speaker 2: and also say that this is an idea that's been floating,
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Speaker 2: no pun intended, been floating out there for a while.
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Speaker 2: I've known people at Georgia Tech who have been advocating
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Speaker 2: for space based solar power for a number of years
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Speaker 2: through my work with the Georgia Space Grant Consortium and
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Speaker 2: other entities. So the idea is this, what's one of
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Speaker 2: the biggest problems with solar energy. Well, we put up
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Speaker 2: all these photovoltaics. They gather energy from the sun in
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Speaker 2: terms of sunlight, and the photovoltaic material turns that into
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Speaker 2: an electric current. Okay, great, But then what if a
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Speaker 2: cloud moves in front of the sun. Suddenly you don't
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Speaker 2: have electricity. Well, that's okay, because all we have to
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Speaker 2: do is store that electricity somehow. Well, how do we
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Speaker 2: store electricity? Well, then you need batteries, and so really,
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Speaker 2: batteries and power storage systems is one of the major
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Speaker 2: hurdles to overcome for any kind of use of solar energy. Well, imagine, friends,
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Speaker 2: if you had a satellite in space that was collecting
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Speaker 2: light from the Sun, which is copious. There's all kinds
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Speaker 2: of light out there right, no clouds from the sun.
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Speaker 2: It's a huge supply of energy. But then the satellite
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Speaker 2: actually turns that into some kind of a power that
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Speaker 2: can be beamed down to the ground through the clouds,
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Speaker 2: like microwave energy. And now you're gathering solar visible light
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Speaker 2: energy in space with a giant dish mirror on a satellite,
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Speaker 2: converting that to microwaves, beaming the microwaves through the clouds
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Speaker 2: down to a ground based collection point. Then it doesn't
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Speaker 2: matter if it's it doesn't matter if it's a rainy day,
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Speaker 2: cloudy day, any of those kinds of things, because that
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Speaker 2: microwave beam is going to penetrate that atmosphere and come
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Speaker 2: down to that collection point. Well, then you can immediately
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Speaker 2: turn that into an uninterruptible supply of electricity that you
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Speaker 2: can immediately provide to customers and you no longer have
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Speaker 2: to store it. You can just deliver it. And if
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Speaker 2: you had, say, oh, I don't know, half a dozen
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Speaker 2: of these satellites, then one of those satellites is going
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Speaker 2: to be in the correct position to beam down that
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Speaker 2: microwave power to your collection point twenty four hours a day.
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Speaker 2: Now you have a twenty four hour, twenty four hour
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Speaker 2: a day, three hundred and sixty five day a year,
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Speaker 2: uninterruptible supply of power from a space based solar collection
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Speaker 2: platform that you can distribute to houses. Wouldn't that be cool? Okay?
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Speaker 2: So that's the idea. Well what Iceland is doing and
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Speaker 2: working with a international group of collaborators, but Iceland is
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Speaker 2: actually taking action on this. They are working with a
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Speaker 2: team to become the first place anywhere in the world
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Speaker 2: to actually put this into effect to gather solar energy
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Speaker 2: from space via a satellite have it being down to
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Speaker 2: Earth as much as thirty megawatts of energy. By the way,
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Speaker 2: from the satellite, that's enough to power anywhere from fifteen
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Speaker 2: hundred to three thousand homes. So in a small island
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Speaker 2: country like Iceland, that's not insignificant, right, That's a reasonable
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Speaker 2: fraction of their population anyway. So all right, So the
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Speaker 2: project is a partnership between Reikievic Energy, the Icelandic sustainability
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Speaker 2: group called Transition Lab, and a British startup called Space Solar.
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Speaker 2: So these three entities working together are working to generate
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Speaker 2: the money to produce the satellite actually launch it into space,
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Speaker 2: and they're working on plans to have this massive seventy
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Speaker 2: ton three hundred sorry oney, three hundred and twelve foot
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Speaker 2: wide satellite in space where it can collect sunlight and
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Speaker 2: beam that back down to the Earth. Now, if that's
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Speaker 2: all working, shall we say hunky dory or something, it's
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Speaker 2: just succeeding, then the same group plans a joint venture
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Speaker 2: to have six of these satellites total in space by
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Speaker 2: twenty thirty six. That's enough to collect and deliver fifteen
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Speaker 2: gigawatts of continuous energy, and that energy could be delivered
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Speaker 2: not just to Iceland, but to multiple countries. So now
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Speaker 2: you have basically a very substantial power grid worthy supply
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Speaker 2: of energy coming from satellites in space. I read just
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Speaker 2: another story just this week. We didn't put it in
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Speaker 2: the list, but there are astronomers right now who are
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Speaker 2: petitioning the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission here in the
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Speaker 2: United States, to ban satellite constellations, giant clusters of satellites
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Speaker 2: that beam Oh, I don't know, Internet, let's say down
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Speaker 2: to the Earth. Does this enter the fray of that discussion,
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Speaker 2: are we polluting the skies with man made objects? Certainly, yes,
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Speaker 2: certainly there are points to be made on the other
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Speaker 2: side of this. But one could imagine that if you
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Speaker 2: are solving many of what are considered to be major
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Speaker 2: problems here on Earth, like the production of carbon due
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Speaker 2: to fossil fuels, for instance, because you're placing satellites in orbit,
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Speaker 2: yes you might be contributing to cluttering up the night
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Speaker 2: sky for astronomers. And I am an astronomer, so I'm
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Speaker 2: not unsympathetic to this argument. However, one must always come
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Speaker 2: up with a cost benefit analysis on these kinds of things,
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Speaker 2: and to provide a clean, sustainable source of energy that
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Speaker 2: is literally off world seems like an incredibly smart thing
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Speaker 2: to do. And I hope that this group out of
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Speaker 2: Iceland has all the success in demonstrating the viability of
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Speaker 2: space based power collection.
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Speaker 3: And the implications again moving forward for you know, ultimately colonizing.
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Speaker 3: It's not like they're going to be, you know, burning
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Speaker 3: coal on Mars. You know, they're not going to be
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Speaker 3: building a nuclear factory on the Moon or anything like that.
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Speaker 3: This is its own way of getting nuclear energy from
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Speaker 3: the sun, right.
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Speaker 2: All right, that's exactly right. That's that's one thing to
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Speaker 2: remember is that the Sun is a nuclear power plant.
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Speaker 2: That's right, I mean ultimate Also fuels are stored solar energy. Yes,
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Speaker 2: they're just the batteries we've been using all this time
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Speaker 2: to store solar energy. So this is just another way
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Speaker 2: to get energy from that thermal nuclear reactor running ninety
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Speaker 2: three million miles from the Earth and to the service
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Speaker 2: of worlds, as you say, not just Earth, but is
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Speaker 2: exactly a demonstration concept for both the Moon and Mars
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Speaker 2: of how electricity can be provided in large enough quantities
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Speaker 2: to supply space bases, let's say, on the surfaces of
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Speaker 2: those other worlds.
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Speaker 3: All right, We've had this story now for a little
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Speaker 3: over a week. I wanted to talk about it because
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Speaker 3: we talked a couple of weeks ago about Titan and
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Speaker 3: some of the implications of some of the discoveries on
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Speaker 3: Titan stuttering studying data there to be able to say,
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Speaker 3: you know, possibility of life something, the things being lined
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Speaker 3: up correctly for that. And then now we have and
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Speaker 3: you know, I'm gonna have fun with a story that
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Speaker 3: involves the words Uranus and moon. But Uranus's moon, Miranda
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Speaker 3: and I know you're gonna say urinus because that's what
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Speaker 3: you science people say, but I'm sorry it's Uranus. Uranus
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Speaker 3: is also giggle worthy if you're twelve and you know
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Speaker 3: part of me is still of you know, laughs at
10:01
Speaker 3: either one of those words. Anyway, where we're talking specifically
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Speaker 3: about its moon, Miranda and I guess this study that says, hey,
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Speaker 3: there could be an ocean under the surface on Uranus Urinus. Sorry,
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Speaker 3: I'm just looking at you going, I know you want
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Speaker 3: to say urinus. You just want to correct me, but
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Speaker 3: I can't help myself. But as we've discussed many many times,
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Speaker 3: anytime there's a possibility, it certainly makes people perk up
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Speaker 3: a little bit and go, uh life question Mark.
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Speaker 2: Wes, I'm as you know, I'm always happy to come
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Speaker 2: on the podcast and talk about the planet Uranus.
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Speaker 3: Now see that one, there's no giggle. You've ruined the giggle.
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Speaker 3: You have to find some path to you know, present.
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Speaker 2: There's very little difference between a class of middle school
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Speaker 2: students and a class of college freshmen. There's just very
10:55
Speaker 2: little difference in the threshold of humor. So so yeah,
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Speaker 2: I've had to find ways over the year, over the
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Speaker 2: years to say the name of that planet without but
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Speaker 2: you know even that is like, oh well, you just
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Speaker 2: don't want to say Uranus.
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Speaker 3: I'm glad that you did. I appreciate rus. I appreciate
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Speaker 3: you doing it though, thank you for doing that just
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Speaker 3: for me.
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Speaker 2: I grew up calling it Uranus as well. Right, so
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Speaker 2: you know, I'm not immune to these things. But but
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Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about Uranus. And it's moon Miranda. And
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Speaker 2: so this moon Miranda, which could be called, you know,
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Speaker 2: a natural satellite, the natural satellite Miranda around the planet Uranus.
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Speaker 3: You're just taking it, sucking all the fun out of it.
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Speaker 2: You're just just for me, all right, Miranda, who moons Uranus?
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Speaker 2: There you go, there you go. All right. So, so
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Speaker 2: it looks like a new study and this story is
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Speaker 2: on space dot com. You can probably still find it
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Speaker 2: out there. There's a new study suggesting that this crazy
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Speaker 2: moon Miranda. Now, if you've looked at pictures of the Miranda,
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Speaker 2: Miranda looks like chaos on this surface. And when the
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Speaker 2: Voyager spacecraft first photograph this thing was Voyager two scientists
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Speaker 2: were simply blown away. They had no explanation for the
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Speaker 2: contorted and twisted fractures in the surface of this moon
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Speaker 2: called Miranda when they saw the images back in nineteen
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Speaker 2: eighty six. And mind you, we still only see the
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Speaker 2: southern hemisphere of Miranda because all we have are even
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Speaker 2: to this day, are those Voyager two fly by images
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Speaker 2: that took a few snapshots, and so we don't have
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Speaker 2: new data from the moon Miranda around the planet Uranus, Uranus, Uranus,
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Speaker 2: you pick it. But what has been done as a
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Speaker 2: new team of scientists has gone back and they've analyzed
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Speaker 2: those old Voyager two images which show all kinds of
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Speaker 2: cross bedding and fractures and things at ninety degree angles
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Speaker 2: from one another in patterns that simply were very, very
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Speaker 2: hard for any kind of geological geophysical explanation. But now
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Speaker 2: this group of scientists that's led by a grad student
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Speaker 2: from the University of North Dakota named Caleb Strom, and
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Speaker 2: he worked with a couple of professional scientists, Tom Nordheim
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Speaker 2: of Johns Hopkins University and Alex Patoff of the Planetary
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Speaker 2: Sciences Institute in Arizona. They revisited these old Voyager two
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Speaker 2: images and they set about seeing if they could use
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Speaker 2: computer modeling to match up what we know about the
13:41
Speaker 2: interiors of planets and moons and how they work. Is
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Speaker 2: there any kind of computer simulation that they could run
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Speaker 2: that would yield these kinds of crazy mixed up surface
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Speaker 2: features without an explanation like well, that was struck by
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Speaker 2: a giant asteroid and shattered and recombined something like that.
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Speaker 2: Could there be an on world solution, something that's just
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Speaker 2: native to that one moon and the gravitational processes that
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Speaker 2: it goes through being in orbit around Uranus. Could it
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Speaker 2: be any kind of an explanation that could just be
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Speaker 2: mashed up with the known structural patterns of geology. Could
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Speaker 2: they explain it that way? Well, So, after having run many,
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Speaker 2: many different simulations of moon interiors, I almost said the
14:33
Speaker 2: word planetary interiors, because it's basically the same process. You're
14:37
Speaker 2: modeling a sphere, You're putting different conditions on that sphere,
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Speaker 2: and you're seeing if you can reproduce the results. What
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Speaker 2: the team found out is they could actually come up
14:45
Speaker 2: with a set of conditions that could create features very
14:50
Speaker 2: similar to what appeared in the Voyager two images. It's
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Speaker 2: just that required something very strange. It required the computer
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Speaker 2: simulation and to project the existence of a vast ocean
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Speaker 2: beneath Miranda's icy service sometime around one hundred to five
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Speaker 2: hundred million years ago, and this subsurface ocean would have
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Speaker 2: to be very very deep, sixty two miles deep, which
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Speaker 2: that would be deep even if it was on Earth,
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Speaker 2: but this is on a tiny moon around a gas
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Speaker 2: giant planet. And then it also had to account for
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Speaker 2: about a nineteen mile thick ice crust. So a nineteen
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Speaker 2: mile thick ice crust on the outside of the Moon
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Speaker 2: covering up a sixty two mile deep ocean anywhere between
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Speaker 2: one hundred and five hundred million years ago in the
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Speaker 2: history of the Solar System could potentially explain what we
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Speaker 2: saw in nineteen eighty six when we flew the Voyager spacecraft.
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Speaker 2: By now, all right, so do we have data saying
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Speaker 2: there's definitely an ocean below Miranda's crust? No, we don't.
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Speaker 2: What we have is a very compelling model that gives
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Speaker 2: us something very similar to the surface features that we
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Speaker 2: see on Miranda today. But the interesting thing is the
16:15
Speaker 2: presence or potential presence of that ocean in this computer
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Speaker 2: simulation leads us to wonder if Miranda is another very
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Speaker 2: compelling place to look for life here in our own
16:29
Speaker 2: Solar System. We spend a lot of time and energy
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Speaker 2: thinking about life in our galaxy, life in our universe,
16:38
Speaker 2: trying to think about how we could possibly find evidence
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Speaker 2: for life in these places. Well, we may have life
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Speaker 2: right on a couple of moons in our own Solar system.
16:46
Speaker 2: And you referenced our story about Titan from a couple
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Speaker 2: of weeks ago, and it's methane oceans under a very
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Speaker 2: thick methane crust. And now this new simulation that gives
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Speaker 2: us very strong evidence of the possible of a liquid
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Speaker 2: ocean on yet another Solar System moon, this time Miranda,
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Speaker 2: around the planet Uranus in the outer part of our
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Speaker 2: Solar System. So what I'm here, where we find liquid water,
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Speaker 2: we think we have the possibility for finding life. So
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Speaker 2: that makes us a very compelling place to go look
17:18
Speaker 2: for that.
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Speaker 3: So what I'm hearing from you is that there's little
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Speaker 3: green men swimming around on Miranda. That's what I'm hearing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to buy the franchise rights for a
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Speaker 2: Captain D's because I'm going to get that seafood out
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Speaker 2: of Miranda, and we're going to set up a Captain
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Speaker 2: D's drive through for future Solar System travelers.
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Speaker 3: Coming up after a quick break, astronomers have detected some
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Speaker 3: very ancient, very lonely quasars. We'll get to that after this.
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Speaker 3: So in our show intro and props we haven't given
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Speaker 3: props lately to our friends Joey Williams, who, by the way,
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Speaker 3: he does the opening, not really narration, but just the
18:23
Speaker 3: intro for the show, the disclaimer, if you will, and
18:27
Speaker 3: then our friend Graham Hobson, who did our theme song
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Speaker 3: for us back when we first started the show. But
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Speaker 3: Joey in that disclaimer mentions like three things terms that
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Speaker 3: you may hear in the show. Uranus is one of them.
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Speaker 3: Quasars is the other one. We're gonna talk all quaysers.
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Speaker 3: The other one is asterism. And because we didn't specifically
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Speaker 3: mention asterism and hit the trifecta on this episode, would
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Speaker 3: it be safe to say that from our first story,
18:56
Speaker 3: when we start talking about this cluster of satellites and
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Speaker 3: space causing a bit of a problem, would it be
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Speaker 3: safe to say that, maybe you know, if you're if
19:05
Speaker 3: you're an astronomer, you're a stargazer and you're looking up
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Speaker 3: and you're seeing six satellites that are beaming down energy,
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Speaker 3: or you know, Internet or whatever. Could that maybe be
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Speaker 3: grouped together and be seen as sort of a very
19:18
Speaker 3: close by asterism.
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Speaker 2: Yes, all right, that's all I needed.
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Speaker 3: I just wanted to get that one in there.
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Speaker 2: And you might even be looking in the direction of
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Speaker 2: the Big Dipper when you do this, which is also
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Speaker 2: an asterism.
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Speaker 3: You know, but still, I was just trying to make
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Speaker 3: sure it was incorporated into something that was part of
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Speaker 3: the actual show.
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Speaker 2: We might as well teach our listeners right now, it's
19:43
Speaker 2: a teachable moment, that's true. So your asterism is a
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Speaker 2: group of stars or potentially artificial stars like satellites, A
19:50
Speaker 2: group of stars in the sky that's not a constellation.
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Speaker 2: So the asterism is the Big Dipper. The constellation is
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Speaker 2: ursa Major, the Great, a shape of stars that you
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Speaker 2: see in the sky that's not necessarily one of the
20:05
Speaker 2: eighty eight recognized constellations, is in fact an asterism. Could
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Speaker 2: it be made out of artificial satellites? I guess so.
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Speaker 3: I mean it would kind of be its own little
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Speaker 3: artificial asterism.
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Speaker 2: You know. I've heard of those. I think they're painful.
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Speaker 3: It sounds like something that would require surgery, and I mean,
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Speaker 3: nobody really wants that that's not what we need. Let's
20:29
Speaker 3: talk about quasars, because so we've signed astronomers have discovered
20:35
Speaker 3: like ancient quasars and they've just been just hanging out.
20:41
Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of one of those deals where
20:42
Speaker 3: they've been around like thirteen billion years just kind of going.
20:45
Speaker 3: So we just wait here then.
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Speaker 2: So, if you're gonna have a quasar, don't have an
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Speaker 2: artificial one. I wouldn't recommend an artificial asterism either. Get
20:56
Speaker 2: the real thing. Yeah, if you're gonna get the if
20:58
Speaker 2: you're gonna get one at all. So quasars, what are they? Well,
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Speaker 2: the quasar was actually discovered by a scientist by the
21:07
Speaker 2: name of Martin Schmidt. And when I say he discovered him,
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Speaker 2: he didn't really discover them. He figured out what they were.
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Speaker 2: There were these things called quasi stellar objects, quasi stellar
21:18
Speaker 2: radio sources. There were something very very very bright, and
21:22
Speaker 2: then when they looked at the light of these objects,
21:24
Speaker 2: they saw the spectral lines in there. They were the
21:27
Speaker 2: pattern of spectral lines which we use here on Earth
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Speaker 2: to identify various elements in the periodic table because they
21:33
Speaker 2: have their own spectral fingerprints. But nobody could recognize the
21:37
Speaker 2: spectral patterns, and they thought, what are we seeing? These
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Speaker 2: things are so weird. Well, it turns out that these
21:43
Speaker 2: objects were so red shifted because they're so far away
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Speaker 2: and they're participating in the expansion of the universe, that
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Speaker 2: the spectral lines were simply not in the wavelength regions
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Speaker 2: of light that we recognized them normally. Scientists who first
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Speaker 2: figured that out Martin Schmidt at Caltech Schmidt. Why is
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Speaker 2: Martin Schmidt important? Well, Martin Schmidt had a graduate student
22:10
Speaker 2: by the name of Donna Wistrop, and then Donal Weistrop
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Speaker 2: had a graduate student by the name of Sean Cruisen.
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Speaker 2: So there we go. It's two steps to Martin Schmidt.
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Speaker 3: I mean, you're practically a quasar.
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Speaker 2: I'm like a I'm like a grand pupil. You're an
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Speaker 2: artificial Martin Schmidt.
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Speaker 3: You're an artificial quasar.
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Speaker 2: I am an artificial quasar in Martin Schmidt's asterisms. That's
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Speaker 2: the way this goes. So anyway, I feel kind of
22:41
Speaker 2: an academic family connection to the quasar. You're actually study
22:46
Speaker 2: them as part of my research as well.
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Speaker 3: You're off the tree. You know, they talk about the
22:49
Speaker 3: coaching tree, and you know the breakdown, and you know
22:52
Speaker 3: It kind of all goes back to Bill Parcells, doesn't it,
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Speaker 3: And in your case does it goes back to old Schmidty.
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Speaker 2: I'm connected to Schmidty. I'm connected to Caltech in a
23:04
Speaker 2: very tenuous way. Uh, he never knew my name, but
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Speaker 2: that's okay. So all right, So quasars, Well, they're black holes, friends.
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Speaker 2: They are super massive black holes in the centers of
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Speaker 2: galaxies that are so far away that their spectral patterns
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Speaker 2: are distorted by the red shift to where we couldn't
23:20
Speaker 2: even recognize them until the genius of Martin Schmidt figured
23:23
Speaker 2: that out and said, oh, hey, we're just looking at
23:26
Speaker 2: you know, part of the infrared spect or I'm sorry,
23:29
Speaker 2: part of the ultra violet spectrum that shifted into the
23:31
Speaker 2: visible wavelength because of red shift, and that's why we
23:34
Speaker 2: don't recognize any spectral lines. Okay. So once that happened,
23:37
Speaker 2: we realized we were looking at very very weird objects,
23:41
Speaker 2: massive super massive black holes at the centers of galaxies
23:45
Speaker 2: that were born in just a very blinket of an
23:48
Speaker 2: eye short time after the moment of creating the Big
23:52
Speaker 2: Bang itself. So that's what we're talking about, friends. Well,
23:57
Speaker 2: it turns out that a team from the Massachusetts Institute
24:02
Speaker 2: of Technology have been examining some of these quasars, and
24:05
Speaker 2: they've been looking around in the cosmic neighborhoods to see
24:09
Speaker 2: what else is around some of the most distant known quasars,
24:13
Speaker 2: and what they're finding is that they are surprisingly alone
24:17
Speaker 2: in the early universe. These quasars formed in regions with
24:22
Speaker 2: almost nothing else around them, which is strange to think about,
24:27
Speaker 2: because how did they get enough material to not only
24:30
Speaker 2: form the super massive black hole, but then to be
24:33
Speaker 2: feeding on mass to cause it to be bright enough
24:37
Speaker 2: to be a quasar. If you want to know how
24:39
Speaker 2: a black hole can be bright, it's because the material
24:42
Speaker 2: that's falling into the black hole is glowing really, really
24:45
Speaker 2: really bright. And that's why we can see them across
24:47
Speaker 2: the universe like that Beatles song. All right, So these
24:51
Speaker 2: things are billions of times more massive than our sun
24:54
Speaker 2: and more than a trillion times brighter than our sun
24:58
Speaker 2: because of this feeding process. Well, this team from MIT says, hey,
25:01
Speaker 2: we're using James Webspace telescope and the newly available super
25:07
Speaker 2: sensitive detectors to look at the environments around these ancient quasars,
25:11
Speaker 2: and there's nothing for them to eat. They should be quiet.
25:17
Speaker 2: They shouldn't haven't even been able to form. So, friends,
25:22
Speaker 2: this is one of those lines where we say this
25:24
Speaker 2: is baffling to astronomers. Astronomers are baffled. I love those
25:29
Speaker 2: kind of headlines. New discovery baffles astronomers. Well, they're baffled
25:34
Speaker 2: right now. They have certainly found a mystery. And the
25:36
Speaker 2: mystery is that sometime like only six or seven hundred
25:41
Speaker 2: million years after the Big Bang, which is a blink
25:43
Speaker 2: of an eye in cosmic time, that not only were
25:47
Speaker 2: giant galaxies already formed, but super massive black holes were
25:51
Speaker 2: already formed in the middle of them. And more importantly,
25:55
Speaker 2: these super massive black holes were feeding in such a
25:58
Speaker 2: powerful way to form quasars. So the story is Science
26:03
Speaker 2: Daily dot com. Check out the story about ancient astronomers
26:06
Speaker 2: detecting I'm sorry, not ancient astronomers, astronomers detecting. Some of
26:11
Speaker 2: those astronomers might be old, I don't. Astronomers detecting ancient
26:16
Speaker 2: lonely quasars of Burki origins. That's the that's the headline,
26:20
Speaker 2: So all right, check it out on Space Daily dot com.
26:23
Speaker 3: We got another supermassive black holes story from Sky and
26:27
Speaker 3: Telescope dot Com.
26:30
Speaker 2: Another team, another discovery. But guess what. The reason we
26:34
Speaker 2: put these stories back to back is because they're related.
26:38
Speaker 2: I just left you with a cliffhanger in the last
26:40
Speaker 2: story from the James Webb Space Telescope and a team
26:44
Speaker 2: of astronomers using it to study ancient quasars. Well, guess
26:47
Speaker 2: what now with the story from Sky and Telescope dot Com.
26:50
Speaker 2: I'm going to use a different story to address a
26:53
Speaker 2: possible cause for the last mystery. How are these quasars
26:57
Speaker 2: feeding in the very very early universe? Well, a team
27:01
Speaker 2: from Noir Lab Air labir film. Noir means Darric right black,
27:06
Speaker 2: so it's a black hole. It's a group of stormers
27:09
Speaker 2: with a strained acronym who are studying black holes together.
27:11
Speaker 2: But they're funded by the US National Science Foundation anyway.
27:15
Speaker 2: The team is from NASA and from Change's Webspace Telescope,
27:18
Speaker 2: and from chand Or X ray Observatory. They're using data
27:21
Speaker 2: from all of those space based systems. They're looking at
27:24
Speaker 2: distant super massive black holes again, quasars at the edge
27:29
Speaker 2: of the visible universe, looking back as far into time
27:33
Speaker 2: as we possibly can, and they're finding that some of
27:37
Speaker 2: these black holes that are causing these quasars are devouring
27:41
Speaker 2: material far more fast, far more quickly than physics would
27:47
Speaker 2: ever lead us to believe before. They're devouring material, maybe
27:50
Speaker 2: as much as forty times faster than what we thought
27:54
Speaker 2: was a speed limit for how fast a black hole
27:57
Speaker 2: could feed on material. So how does that process work? Again?
28:02
Speaker 2: While the black hole has gravity, material near the black
28:06
Speaker 2: hole is pulled in by the black hole's gravity. Before
28:10
Speaker 2: the material falls in, like soap going down a drain,
28:12
Speaker 2: it starts spinning around the black hole very fast. In
28:15
Speaker 2: that process, it heats up and it glows like crazy
28:18
Speaker 2: before it crosses the black hole's event horizon, the threshold
28:22
Speaker 2: at which light can no longer escape. And as it's
28:25
Speaker 2: doing this, it's putting off a whole lot of light
28:27
Speaker 2: that can be seen across the universe as equasar. Okay,
28:30
Speaker 2: so that's kind of a continuation from the last story.
28:33
Speaker 2: But now we're finding according to the data from this
28:37
Speaker 2: new team, the Noir Lab of astronomers, they're suggesting that
28:40
Speaker 2: these black holes feed forty times faster than physics would allow.
28:44
Speaker 2: It's almost like these supermassive black holes are being force fed.
28:50
Speaker 2: What mechanism could possibly exist to force feed material into
28:57
Speaker 2: a supermassive black hole faster than they can their own
29:00
Speaker 2: tremendous gravity. Well, the possible explanation was scientists have estimated
29:08
Speaker 2: that these things could be being fed by filaments of
29:12
Speaker 2: dark matter, so the dark matter itself could actually form
29:18
Speaker 2: something that they equate to a gravitational road, where it's
29:22
Speaker 2: not just the mass of the black hole pulling this
29:26
Speaker 2: material in, but actually dust and gas traveling along tendrils
29:32
Speaker 2: of dark matter, and the dark matter gravitational forces are
29:36
Speaker 2: accelerating that into the heart of the black hole, where
29:41
Speaker 2: it's feeding faster than it could possibly feed on its own.
29:46
Speaker 2: This is a really really interesting story because it tells
29:50
Speaker 2: us something about the structures of the early universe that
29:55
Speaker 2: we could see in no other way. So one of
29:58
Speaker 2: the co authors from the story person's name is Elijah Pizzati,
30:04
Speaker 2: graduate student at Leiden University, has this quote. The cosmic
30:08
Speaker 2: web of dark matter is a solid prediction of our
30:11
Speaker 2: cosmological model of the universe, and it can be described
30:14
Speaker 2: in detail using numerical simulations. By comparing our observations to
30:20
Speaker 2: these simulations, we can determine where in the cosmic web
30:25
Speaker 2: quasars are located end of the quote. But then more importantly,
30:30
Speaker 2: how these quasars are getting their food supply that's being
30:34
Speaker 2: delivered faster than their own gravity could pull in. This
30:38
Speaker 2: is a really intricate, interesting result that is telling us
30:43
Speaker 2: something brand new about the earliest moments or earliest years
30:49
Speaker 2: of our universe as we look back across the chasms
30:52
Speaker 2: of time.
30:54
Speaker 3: Coming up this weekend, November sixteenth, Astronomy Night at Providence
31:01
Speaker 3: Canyon with doctor Rose Williams, you can look at all
31:03
Speaker 3: the asterisms and constellations you want to look at.
31:08
Speaker 2: Yep, make sure the sky is clear. But if it's clear,
31:13
Speaker 2: drive on out there and join us at Providence Canyon.
31:15
Speaker 2: Our team of astronomy students and faculty are going to
31:18
Speaker 2: show you the nighttime sky with some of the amazing
31:20
Speaker 2: telescopes that we have here at the Coca Cola Space
31:22
Speaker 2: Science Center. And in fact, we do this all throughout
31:25
Speaker 2: the year. We have what we call home games and
31:28
Speaker 2: road games. This is a road game out at Providence Canyon,
31:31
Speaker 2: but we also do these home games at right here
31:34
Speaker 2: at Coca Cola Space Science Center. You can check out
31:36
Speaker 2: the entire schedule for our Astronomy nights throughout the year.
31:39
Speaker 2: These programs are free except for the park entrance fee.
31:44
Speaker 2: We don't charge for these programs, and so you might
31:47
Speaker 2: have to pay the park entrance fee, or if you
31:49
Speaker 2: come to the Space Science Center, we just don't charge
31:51
Speaker 2: you anything at all. We want your family to be
31:54
Speaker 2: able to engage with our astronomy team and see the
31:56
Speaker 2: nighttime sky for yourselves at the cheapest part Hospel rate,
32:01
Speaker 2: and we want to do that in a way that
32:02
Speaker 2: encourages the next generation of scientists, engineers, and space explorers.
32:07
Speaker 2: Bring the family out to Providence Canyon or one of
32:09
Speaker 2: our other Stormy Knights. Find out all the dates and information.
32:12
Speaker 2: Visit our website www dot cc s SC dot org.
32:17
Speaker 2: Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org.
32:20
Speaker 3: Sean and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
32:22
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