Latest / Made of Stars / Incredible and Historic Aurora Show

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Incredible and Historic Aurora Show · Made of Stars

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Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics, and
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space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been known to learn about astronomical
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phenomenon the scientific method, and expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and
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uranus. Listen, that's your own risk. Go ahead. When made of
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stars, made them stars, madies. When made of stars, you could
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be from high they would New Mexicomus. Where a stars? When we are
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made of stars. I'm Wes Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
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Cruising from Columbus Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center. Hey Sean, Hey Wes,
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good morning could be here. So let's talk about northern lights or not
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so northern lights. And I have a little bone to pick with some people,
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now, anybody that regularly listens to this show. They had a bit
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of a heads up about the possibility of Aurora borealis showing up in parts of
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the US. You and I talked about it on the show a week ago,
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but realistically we weren't expecting it to become what it actually became last week
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after the show, which was you know, northern lights in Puerto Rico and
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I mean, that's not a normal thing. It's extremely rare. But when
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I got online over the next couple of days and people were like, how
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do we not know about this? And I think, well, if only
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there was a place where you could learn about these things, maybe a weekly
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show that talked about the possibility of some of these things, then maybe,
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just maybe you could be informed on such incredible and rare phenomena. And you
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know, they just missed out. They did not know because they weren't in
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the know. So just welcome. If you're new, if this is your
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first week that you're listening for the first time, like you maybe you caught
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last week's show after I tried to point it out on social media, Hey
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we could have told you, and we did. But if this is your
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first week listening, you know on Thursday, welcome, We're glad to have
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you. We can talk a little bit about what did happen, and then
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I guess we'll also talk a little bit about how we really dodged a pretty
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significant bullet as a planet, because there was a lot to take in.
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I mean, this was an amazing thing to witness, but and I'll just
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say this, I mean it was one of those deals where I went outside
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and I was in my front yard and I went, what there it is.
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There we go, this is what we were talking about. I didn't
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know this was going to happen this far south, but it's pretty remarkable.
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And then you and I started swapping texts and you know, you were doing
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a great job with your photography where you live. And then of course it
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just grew and grew and grew, and then it was over. And then
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it was you know, we had to get back to regular living as far
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as Aurora Borealis because we don't typically get those I was also able to tell
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my family in Australia, Hey, by the way, in a short amount
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of time, you know, you guys are going to have the possibility because
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we've got I've got family in the Melbourne area. They got some great photos.
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So it was really cool that, you know, we all got to
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see it. But this is a big deal, not just that we got
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to see it, but it's a big deal because of what was actually happening
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in our atmosphere in the sky. Yeah. So, as Wes has pointed
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out, it is a rather rare thing that at the latitude where we live
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and record this show, which is about thirty two point five degrees in other
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words, just about one third of the distance from the equator up to the
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poles. You're only about thirty three percent of the distance from the equator up
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to the pole. So we're a long way from the North pole. And
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when we talk about northern lights, we're talking about particles streaming into the Sun
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because the Sun has had some kind of major explosion. They're streaming out through
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the Solar system. If they happen to be coming our way, our magnetic
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field around the Earth, which is a shield for us and protects us,
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it tends to grab these charged particles that are moving at a high rate of
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speed and cause them to spiral in over the poles of the Earth, the
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North Pole and the South Pole. When those particles encounter the app they trigger
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a fluorescence effect and they cause the air to glow. And depending what exact
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combinations of elements or compounds are being excited to fluoresce, you get different colors.
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So yes, auroras can be green, they can be blue, they
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can be white, they can be pink, they can be purple. All
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of these colors come from the different chemistry being affected. In our atmosphere.
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Now, is that similar to the chemistry that goes into making fireworks. I've
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always heard these stories about, oh, well, depending on you know,
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which particular element is in each firework that's going to make the different color fireworks.
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Is it kind of the same principle, It's it's a similar principle.
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It's a related principle. And that's that different elements and compounds that we find
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on the periodic table or that we match up and form things when they when
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they encounter energy, they respond in a unique manner. So that's where the
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similarity is. Right. One of those processes is a chemical process, that's
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combustion. The other process is it's taking place with the charged particles that make
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up those compounds themselves, and that's where we have fluorescence or some other kind
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of electromagnetic emission. But in the sense that because those chemicals or compounds have
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a unique structure, they also respond uniquely to energy, then it is similar.
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So you have all of this stuff taking place where we have all of
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these energetic particles coming in from the sun. They're captured by the magnetic field,
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they're pulled in over the poles due to the shape of the magnetic field
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lines, and that the particles are spiraling around those magnetic field lines due to
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just physics anyway. So then they come in and contact the Earth's atmosphere and
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they cause the air to glow. Now on typical aurora phenomenon, and Aurora
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just means light by the way, So on typical aurora phenomenon, you have
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waves of particles that are mostly encountering the air over the North pole and the
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South Pole, which is why we call them northern lights and southern lights.
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If you want to take it to the Latin, we call them Aurora borealis.
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That means northern lights or Aurora australis and that means southern lights all right.
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So typically people have to travel to places exotic places like Greenland or Iceland,
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or Canada or Alaska or Finland or Sweden or one of these places that
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has fairly northern latitudes up around the Arctic Circle in order to be able to
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see these northern light phenomena in the northern hemisphere. Having said that, Wes
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and I and a good number of other people got to share in an incredible
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phenomenon last Friday night when what we call the auroral oval or in other words,
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the ring of atmosphere that's actually being energized by these solar particles captured by
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the magnetic field. That ring, that oval stretched all the way down to
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Columbus, Georgia and allowed for us to be able to see it at latitude
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thirty two and a half. And that would be rare enough. Now I've
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seen northern lights here in Columbus two other times, so it's rare, but
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it's not off the charts rare. But this particular storm didn't stop there.
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Know that glowing air actually stretched all the way down into really exotic places for
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northern lights, like Puerto Rico, Mexico, the Caribbean. I know,
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the Pero Rico's in the Caribbean, by the way, so other places in
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the Caribbean. How about that, So the Florida Keys saw northern lights.
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That means that the Aurora oval all stretched all the way down to latitude eighteen.
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So that's you know, eighty percent of the top of the Earth glowing
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because the Sun threw so much deadly radiation at the Earth, and by the
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way the magnetic fields were oriented appropriately, that's an important part. There was
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an anti alignment among those charged particles, which is kind of just statistics,
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but it happened to be that. So those two effects together, the magnitude
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of radiation ejected by the Sun the fact that it had an anti alignment to
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our own Earth's magnetic field, positioned us to have one of the greatest auroral
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displays in the past five hundred years, so says spaceweather dot com friends,
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not just Sean, it's actually the experts who are professional a monitoring solar activity.
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And by the way, you can read about a lot of the stuff
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on spaceweather dot com. If you decide to do that after the podcast you
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want to hear some more, make sure you pull up their archived pages from
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May eleventh and May twelfth. Those are the days after that northern light display
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occurred on May tenth, where they really were kind of summarizing all of the
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crazy things that happened. So at one point the following day after, you
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know, and a lot of people were still talking about it. I was
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showing photos that I had taken, photos that you had taken, some of
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the other photos of people that I know that had taken, and we were
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talking about it, and Luke asks, so what is the rarity of this
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in comparison to some of the eclipses that we've experienced. And I try to
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think, and I thought, well, I would, I mean, you
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would think that, you know, they it can come down this far,
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it has come down this far before. And then realizing, oh, wait
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a minute, it got as far down south as it did. And then
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soon after we're having this conversation, you sent me the message about the greatest
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aurora display of the past five hundred years, and this is from the guy
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from the Astronomical Society of the Caribbean, Eddie Irizari maybe, And you sent
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that to me and I was like, yeah, this is much more rare
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then. I mean, if we're talking about a once in a five hundred
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year experience, then yeah, that's a lot more rare than some of the
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eclipses that we've had. Yeah, so to categorize it strictly, they ranked
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it among the greatest auroral displays in the past five hundred years. But they
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also said that northern lights have not been seen in Puerto Rico since nineteen twenty
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one and before that eighteen fifty nine. Now we have to just pause and
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remind our listeners if you're regular listeners, you've heard this before. But if
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you're new to the show and don't know this, there was a really,
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really gigantic flare that took place straight and directed at the Earth back in the
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year eighteen fifty nine that was known as the Carrington Event. And the Carrington
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Event was so violent in terms of the interaction between charged particles from the Sun
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and the Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere that enough radiation actually got through to the ground
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that it set telegraph stations on fire and electrocuted telegraph operators. Now, if
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that event was to happen today, according to the National Academy of Sciences,
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it could take out our our internet and also our power grids for up to
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six months. So that is totally no joke, right. So, really,
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if you look at the cadence of how often they've seen northern lights that
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far south down in Puerto Rico, it's about every hundred years, So we
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really witnessed kind of a one hundred year storm. Now, the eighteen fifty
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nine flare itself was far more rare than one hundred year storm for a variety
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of factors. So if you but if you're in with three events, and
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one of them is the goat the greatest flare of all time eighteen fifty nine.
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Then yeah, that's a pretty darn rare event, right, So yes
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it is. You know, a good way to tell people is it's roughly
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a one hundred year event, a century event that we got to witness,
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an encounter and interact with last Friday night. Okay, So putting it in
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these terms, and you say, you know, the once in one hundred
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year event. So here we are. We're, you know, a little
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over one hundred years from the nineteen twenty one event, which obviously wasn't quite
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as bad as the eighteen fifty nine event. I mean looking at that from
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that perspective and talking about the potential for what happened in eighteen fifty nine and
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what it would mean to us today. Now, obviously then telegraph wires that
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was a big deal. Losing power on a major scale would be crippling,
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especially for six months, crippling in ways that I don't even know that we're
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able to comprehend, not on a mass level. And I've heard a number
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of people start to ask the question, or are we even kind of ready
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for that? And ultimately the answer that seems to keep coming up is no,
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not only only Quebec. It was only a couple of years ago,
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friends, that the great state of Texas experienced a very severe winter storm.
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And because of that severe winter storm, which does not happen in Texas very
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often, it was an ice storm, it took down many of their power
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grid transmission lines, let's put it that way anyway, it was a power
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event, right, and they were only without power for you know, a
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few days that floods and floods of trucks came in from all over the United
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States pouring into Texas to help them re establish their power grid and get everybody
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back up and running. And if you remember the kinds of chaos that occurred
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for those poor folks in Texas, where the fact that power went down meant
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their heat went out, and the fact that their heat went out, it
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was cold enough to freeze their pipes, which are not as well insulated in
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Texas because they don't have these kinds of storms very often, and it flooded
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people's homes and it caused mass destruction all over the state. That's without power
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for you know, something less than two weeks. You know, I'm old
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enough to remember Hurricane Katrina pretty well. Don't know if all of our listeners
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are, but I am, and you know that was an unpleasant situation for
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the folks that lost power for an extended period of time because of that natural
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disaster. Because once your food supply is challenged and once you can't get clean
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water, which both largely depend on a functioning power grid, life gets unpleasant.
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And again I'm going to quote the National Academy of Sciences who did a
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one hundred and fifty year review of the Great Solar Flare of eighteen fifty nine
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and the Carrington event to try to figure out, hey, if this happened
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again today, one hundred and fifty years after Carrington was two thousand and nine,
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what kind of chaos would it happen? Well, even back in two
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thousand and nine, there was a lot of very unpleasant sort of implication because
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of how technology heavy we were in two thousand and nine. I promise we
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have not improved that situation coming up to twenty twenty four. In fact,
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if anything, we've gone the other way. We're even more dependent on electronics,
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electricity, the Internet, the Internet of Things, all of these things
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that are potentially vulnerable to a really gigantic surge from the sun, which as
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big as the one we experienced on Friday, wasn't the Carrington event by any
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means. But this is a good transition to our next story, because that
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sunspot group that caused the series of flares which led to these beautiful auroral displays
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on Friday May tenth, all the way down to the Caribbean. The sunspot
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group itself was actually as large as the Carrington event sunspot group, so in
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other words, it was just as bad of a storm. But not all
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storms produced the big tornadoes right on Earth. If you imagine, you have
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some really big thunderstorms, but not every one of those produces an F five
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tornado or an EF five tornado. So not every gigantic sunspot group produces a
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really huge earth directed solar flare. However, this big giant sunspot group that
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was the same size as the Carrington sunspot group, when it kind of got
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around the corner a little bit just a few days later, it did explode
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in an eight point seven and x eight point seven category solar flare, which
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is not as big as Carrington, but it's really really big, and a
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lot bigger than the things that got shot at Earth that caused the aurora on
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Friday night, May tenth, So friends, that surge is still coming into
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the Earth. Although the initial surge of electromagnetic radiation caused blackouts due to the
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ionization of Earth's upper atmosphere caused radio blackouts, shortwave and otherwise over the Americas
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and over other places, So there are implications to these things. It's worthwhile
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understanding all of these effects that are taking place on the Sun and West just
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kind of casually mentioned a little while ago the Quebec area and how they are
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ready for some kind of infringement on their power grid due to a solar activity.
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Well, it's because that particular region lost their power grid due to a
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solar flare in nineteen eighty nine. So at that time, when they had
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to rebuild certain components of their power grid, they said, hey, how
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about we go ahead and harden these things so they're not vulnerable to yet another
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solar flare, so we don't have this happen again, which is losing power
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in the middle of winter time in Quebec, Canada, which is bad.
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So you mentioned this newest flare, this really strong one that had an impact
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on some communications. I saw ham radio operators had disruptions, and then you
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know folks out at sea, folks in the air. I mean, that's
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still pretty bad already. If you think about as a pilot, you don't
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need that. But so this particular sunspot has been still directing things at us,
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and now I guess that attention is shifting and Mars will now be taking
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the brunt of it. Or is it just different potential flares that will be
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heading towards Mars. This is a multiplanetary attack, my friend. You know,
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mother's son is not happy with her solar system children, right, and
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she's sending out some swats. That's what's happening. Everybody's lining up for some
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swats with Earth got their swat. Now Mars is targeted. So what's happening,
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friends, is that that sunspot group I was just talking about. Because
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of the rotation of the Sun, it's now pointing in a different direction.
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Well, the direction it's pointing is now at the planet Mars, and so
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it's still a Carrington class sunspot group. It's in other words, the sunspot
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group, the storm that's causing all the flares. It's still big, it's
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still very active. It just happens to be facing in a different direction.
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Now, by the way that there's a name for it, it's a catalog
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name. Active Region number thirty six sixty four will go down in history as
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producing some of the most powerful aurora in the last five hundred years. Is
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now facing Mars. And we have electronics on Mars, so we have to
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think about these things. We have the Mars Perseverance Rover, we have the
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Curiosity Rover, we have the Maven spacecraft, we have the Mars Global Surveyor.
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We have lots of other pieces of equipment up in either the in orbit
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around Mars or on the surface of Mars. And so yeah, they're all
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kind of preparing. They're getting ready for in case that Sunspot group ejects another
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massive flare at them. Now, the eight point six flare that I was
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just talking about, it's the strongest solar flare of this solar cycle. I
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said. It just gave us a glancing blow, caused a few radio blackouts
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here, but it's directly shot at Mars. And so we're as we speak
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as we record this podcast, a waiting for the arrival of that shockwave at
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the planet Mars. To see number one, if it has any effect on
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any of these electronic devices that we've sent up to the Red planet. And
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number two, if any of the cameras from any of those space vehicles are
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able to capture northern lights powerful aurora displays in Mars atmosphere, which would be
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very interesting. And so there are a variety of instruments now pointing at the
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sky on Mars waiting for darkness to fall, basically to see if they can
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detect aurora phenomenon in the atmosphere of the Red planet, which would be very
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very special. If they're able to do that, this would certainly be one
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of the first times for the Red Planet that we've ever detected strong aurora.
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We have seen aurora phenomenon in both the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, because
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that's partially because they're much larger and have much stronger magnetic fields. So we're
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gonna wait and see. We may have a story yet again next week about
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aurora phenomenon on Mars. Come back and here next week's podcast, and we'll
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see if that aurora actually occurred. A couple of just thoughts on this one.
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I know we need to be prepared for something that could knock out power
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for us for a long period of time. Yes, that would be a
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major focus. But another thing that you could start doing now just to prepare
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for it in case it happens, it would be to just tell your kids,
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hey, go outside and play, because if this happens, they're going
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to have to do a lot of going outside to play because you know,
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nobody's gonna want to be in a hot house. There's not going to be
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any video games, there's no screens to stare at, So you might want
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to start exercising those muscles of having them go outside to play. I mean
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that would take us literally back to the nineteen seventies, it would. It
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would take us way back. No video games, no cable, no internet.
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Man, what is this nineteen seventy eight? These kids would have to
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learn about the whole you know, gen X real fast. They'd have to
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quickly understand what folks from MI group have been trying to express for so long.
25:03
And you know, so just start exercising those muscles just a little bit
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for the kids and tell them just go outside, even if it's you know,
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for a half an hour, just go outside and start you know,
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you have to build up a little bit of resistance to it. It's like
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conditioning. You have to just ten minutes, give me ten minutes outside without
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any screens, leave everything inside, charge it up while you can. You
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never know when the power is gonna go. Charge it up and go outside
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for you know, fifteen minutes. Let's let's start stretching it out just a
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little bit more each time. It's like interval training for you know, the
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solar apocalypse. That's what that is. Where we have to go back to
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when you know, the cars in Boston were on the charts. Yeah,
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there's nothing wrong with that. Let the good times roll, That's what I'm
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saying, not the other one. But the cars went. The other one's
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fine too, all right, So more potential flares for us here on Earth.
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I mean this, we're not done with this obviously, with basically more
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of these waves of this. I mean, what are we expecting here now
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other than the fact that I mean, you and I were watching this very
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closely last weekend and we're texting back and forth, and we're like, what's
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gonna Maybe we're gonna get something Saturday and maybe not. All right, it's
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not quite over yet, obviously, We can probably start to lower our expectations
26:26
to more realistic ones as far as anything we might see here. But the
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planet is not done yet, right, The solar cycle for sure is not
26:33
done. So and yeah, my friends who are texting me and saying Dr
26:37
Cruisin, when's this gonna happen again? Like as if you know, like
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I want to be ready for the next time this happens, is that like
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next Saturday? Are we scheduling these on Saturday? Now? You know,
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it's like it would be nicee hundred year event. So you know, I
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don't know, hang around a while, but you know, as with all
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statistics, it's just that just means sometime in next the next roughly one hundred
27:04
years, right, which could be tomorrow. I mean, I don't know.
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I'm not gonna say no. And so the story that West was just
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referring to, as we have yet another solar producing, solar flare producing sunspot
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group coming around the other edge of the Sun which is rotating into our path.
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We know this because within the last twenty four hours, almost exactly twenty
27:26
four hours ago, a very large X three class explosion occurred around the southeastern
27:34
limb of the Sun. If you don't know what that means. That's in
27:37
the direction where it's rotating toward us, and so we were able to see
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the explosion. With the X ray detectors that NASA has on various spacecraft,
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we could detect the intensity of this storm, but it's not yet facing us.
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Even that, even though this storm shot off in a different direction,
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it still produced enough ultra violet radiation that it once again ionized the top part
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of Earth's atmosphere and caused a short radio wave blackout in the last few hours
28:07
as we're recording the show. So so yeah, that we are approaching solar
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maximum. Solar maximum is a time where we have more solar flares, more
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explosions, more sunspot groups, all of this activity taking place. Keep an
28:23
eye on spaceweather dot com, my friends, that's the website I would send
28:27
you to that you most want to enjoy the drama and theater of the emerging
28:34
solar cycle and all of its incarnations like these big storms and flares. Check
28:40
out space weather keep an eye on that. They'll keep you updated and you
28:42
can even sign up for text messages to get notified when the next giant storm
28:48
is going to be sending particles your way, and that is with space Weather's
28:52
text service, So check all that out spaceweather dot com. Coming up after
28:57
a quick break, we'll give an update on Starliner. Another delay. We'll
29:03
talk about that plus black holes right after this. So our most recent discussion
29:26
about Boeing's Starliner launch was that it would happen no sooner than tomorrow, which
29:34
is the seventeenth as we record this seventeenth day of May. That has now
29:41
been pushed back again. We can probably assume that until they feel like they've
29:47
got everything just right, that could happen again, which is fair. I
29:49
mean, they want to launch people into space, so that's an extra layer
29:56
of let's be careful. It's a little different than the way SpaceX does things,
30:02
especially when SpaceX is just launching you know, really big rockets with no
30:04
people on them. Right, It's just a little different when there's people on
30:08
it, and it should be. So, yes, what's the latest for
30:14
star Liner and when might it now go up? Before we give the updates,
30:19
let's just say this, it's hard to take people to space. It's
30:26
very complicated, and you know, there's maybe a temptation to be critical of
30:33
Boeing and star Liners since they're behind SpaceX and they received twice the money from
30:37
NASA. However, we don't want to do that. We just want to
30:41
give them a fair shake. So they just want to be saved. Friends.
30:45
And the reason they had the last delay, which would have made the
30:49
launch no earlier than tomorrow as we're recording the show, is because one of
30:53
their rocket fuel valves wasn't working properly. Well, yeah, you want to
30:57
go ahead and sort that out before you light the fires and kick the tires,
31:02
right, So go ahead, Yeah, let's get that valve working correctly
31:06
so that we could regulate the flow of fuel to the rocket engines. Yeah,
31:08
let's do that. That's important. Well, now, in the process
31:12
of examining the rocket as they're getting ready to make it available for launch,
31:18
they've detected a helium leak on the actual Starliner spacecraft itself in the service module
31:25
component, and so they have to fix that. Well, okay, it's
31:30
necessary to have that helium on there so that when you decompress the fuel tanks
31:36
that help you maneuver the rockets, you can fill those tanks with an inert
31:40
gas that preserves the pressure within those tanks so that bad things don't happen to
31:45
the tanks. So that sounds kind of important too. Yeah, we want
31:49
that working, so let's figure out where that helium leak is and go ahead
31:53
and get that fixed. So, yes, it's pushing it off a few
31:56
more days. And yes, snarky podcast hosts like myself might have a tendency
32:01
to overly criticize Boeing and a star Liner, but let's not do that.
32:07
There's two people that are gonna fly on board this Sunny Williams, who's a
32:14
very famous NASA astronaut, and Bush Wilmore, who's famous in his own right
32:19
as a NASA space flyer. We want these folks to be safe when they
32:23
make what is called the crew test flight mission for testing out star Liner's first
32:29
trip up to the International Space Station. So we're perfectly okay with them getting
32:32
all of the mechanical bugs figured out before they fly. So right now,
32:38
the no earlier than date is now May twenty first, So as we're recording
32:44
the show, it's next week. Just it's okay. We'll keep you updated
32:49
here or check out great websites like space dot com and you can figure out
32:53
the schedule as they at as it evolves, but right now they're not going
32:57
to launch earlier than May twenty first, so they can make sure that they
33:00
have these valve and leak issues solved before they have that rocket standing on the
33:07
launchpad with human beings on board. Let's talk about James Webspace Telescope, another
33:13
big win, a historic discovery too, black holes merging and the farthest away
33:19
that they've ever seen one. Yeah, pretty cool stuff. So the most
33:22
important thing to know about James Web is that no human beings are on board.
33:27
There's nobody out there. It's just a drone. It's just a robot
33:30
out there doing its job getting some commands from the ground and it's taking pictures
33:35
of things in space. That's what it's doing. And James Webb, in
33:38
spite of the naming, he is not on board James Webb, nor are
33:44
any of his family. Nobody from the Web family is on board the James
33:47
Webspace Telescope. It just got just got named after that former director of NASA.
33:53
So if it were to blow up, you know, it's not nearly
33:55
as big a deal as Starliner. So let's not have either of those blow
34:00
up, by the way, or if it were, or if it were
34:02
dropped before it was launched up, it's not it's not quite as big of
34:06
a deal when there's no people on it. You don't want to drop the
34:08
star Liner either. I don't think you want to drop spacecraft really. No,
34:13
as you're getting them ready to fly, you really don't want to drop
34:15
them. No, you don't want to drop to drop my phone, right,
34:19
and just got an otter case, you know, or some kind of
34:22
hard case on it. Anyway, So we don't want to drop those things.
34:24
We really don't want to drop James Webspace telescopes on. Oh they did
34:28
that? Didn't that? I forgot? Well, but they got it all
34:30
fixed up and it's it's it's hey, it's working West. Think of the
34:34
think of the pictures. Can we forget the drop issue? I don't know
34:36
if it ca So I'm never going to forget it because it was the end
34:39
of that long saga of getting the thing in the air, uh and in
34:44
place beyond the air. I just think of, man, what what kind
34:47
of images could we be getting from this thing if they hadn't dropped it?
34:52
You think they're sharp now? Man? If they had not dropped it,
34:55
right, before they launched it. Maybe even Sharper. I don't know.
35:00
I maybe it had an outer box on it. It's possible that it had
35:04
an otter box. These things are great. I got a little chip on
35:07
my box, but not on my phone. Man not on my phone,
35:12
So that could have been what was responsible for the quick repair and turnaround of
35:15
James Webspace telescope after the drop. Is it was in an otter case,
35:19
could be you never, I don't know. I can either confirm nor deny
35:22
that it was not in an otter case. Could you put a black hole
35:25
in an otter case and another black hole? Would they merge or would they
35:29
just bounce off of each other? How would that work? You know?
35:31
Certainly we have observed massive black holes or even super massive black holes colliding with
35:37
one another in both the early universe and otherwise. I think if they'd had
35:43
otter cases, maybe they wouldn't have collided. Perhaps they would have just bounced
35:47
off and gone on their merry way. I don't know. I haven't done
35:52
that research. I can't I can't attest to whether or not an otter case
35:55
could actually stop merging black holes. It doesn't mean that the person who dropped
36:00
the black hole, wouldn't go ah right before it bounced off of one another,
36:05
because that's what I always say. And then it bounces, and then
36:07
I go, whow best thirty bucks I ever spent. One time, I
36:13
dropped my phone so perfectly that it just flat smacked screened down on my driveway.
36:20
Uh huh. And I imagine that sound is pretty much what it sounds
36:23
like when two black holes. Probably it's the sound of disappointment and oh no,
36:29
I've got to go buy another phone. Yes, and so segue this
36:35
story from the European Space Agency about the James Webspace Telescope. Yes, let's
36:38
do that. So the James Webspace Telescope has detected the most distant black hole
36:45
merger to date. These are two super massive black holes at the center of
36:52
two galaxies that existed a mirror seven hundred and forty million years after the universe
37:01
started. Now you might think, hey, wait, what was that number
37:06
again? Seven forty million, that's a big old number. Not when it
37:09
comes to years of the age of the universe. That's actually a really small
37:15
normer. It's not even one billion. The universe itself is thought to be
37:19
around thirteen and a half billion, so this is less than one billion,
37:22
which means this friends the Big Bang would have to occur, dissipate all the
37:29
heat. Matter would have to actually what we call condense out of the radiation
37:37
medium. Things would have to cool down enough for that matter to then start
37:40
sticking together to form molecules, and those molecules that have to stick together enough
37:47
to form things that made out of matter that are bigger than molecules, and
37:52
then eventually to form stars, and to eventually form things bigger than stars or
37:58
at least more massive than stars, like supermassive black holes. So that's a
38:01
process. And the fact that we went from Big Bang to merging black holes
38:09
in only seven hundred and forty million years is a bit of a surprise to
38:15
astrophysicists whose models say, well, that shouldn't really be able to happen.
38:21
That's a little bit too fast. The universe at that point would still be
38:24
a little bit too hot. We shouldn't have really large scale structures like galaxies
38:30
with supermassive black holes in the middle that are now merging. But yet the
38:37
James Web Space telescope Yes once dropped in the northern part of South America before
38:44
flying to space. Yes, it was dropped, but it was in an
38:45
otter case, so that James Webspace Telescope was able to detect colliding black holes
38:53
at the burgeoning youth of our universe seven hundred and forty million years after the
39:00
Big Bang. This is also extraordinarily distant. So this is also the most
39:07
distant set of merging black holes ever detected by humanity. You see, when
39:13
you look back in time, you're also looking far away, or maybe it's
39:16
the other way. When you look really, really really far away, you
39:21
also have to go further back in time because those objects that were merging seven
39:25
hundred and forty million years after the Big Bang are a really long ways away,
39:31
and they had to take the rest of the lifetime of the universe for
39:36
that information from that merger to travel here to Little Old Earth to be captured
39:42
by our our friend the JWST. So when we look into the distant parts
39:50
of the universe, we are also looking back into the infancy of the universe.
39:53
We're looking back in time as well. Pretty remarkable finding for James Webb
40:00
and just another and a long string of winds for this thing after it was
40:04
dropped still continue to have all these amazing discoveries and images that we've been able
40:10
to get from James Webb. Yeah, it's really cool. It's a great
40:15
story. It's a great one. More great success for this telescope that yes
40:20
was delayed a little bit like Starliner. Maybe some snarky podcast hosts made some
40:25
comments somewhere along the way. I don't know about the JWST. Maybe they
40:31
did, maybe they didn't. I'm not really sure. You have to go
40:34
back to the archive and listen. But JWST has more than proven itself.
40:38
And we have a couple of great quotes from a scientist named Hannah Ubler who
40:45
is from Cambridge University of the United Kingdom, but she was the lead author
40:49
on this James Webb study about the merging black holes. She says this,
40:52
we have found evidence for very dense gas with fast motions in the vicinity of
40:58
the black holes, as well as a as well as a hot, highly
41:01
ionized gas illuminated by the energetic radiation typically produced by the black holes. So
41:07
she's telling you this is how they know what they're seeing, right, They're
41:12
seeing this evidence from the gases around these objects. She further goes on to
41:15
say, quote. Thanks to the unprecedented sharpness of its imaging capabilities, Web
41:22
also allowed our team to spatially separate the two black holes unquote. So I
41:28
guess that drop didn't hurt it so bad. That's not her quote, that's
41:31
ours. So she goes on to say, though, quote. Our findings
41:36
suggests that the merging. That merging is an important route through which black holes
41:39
can rapidly grow, even at the cosmic dawn. And together with other Web
41:45
findings of active massive black holes in the very distant universe, our results also
41:51
show that massive black holes have been shaping the evolution of galaxies from the very
41:57
beginning unquote means from the very beginning of time. Friends, So a really
42:04
cool, important discovery helps those of us who have done modeling on the formation
42:09
of galaxies and the formation of structures in the early universe. It helps us
42:15
understand just a little bit better that things got going a little quicker than we
42:19
once thought. Way to go. James Webspace, Telescope and the team that
42:23
led this study Columbus State University just had their graduations. I was glad to
42:30
be a part of it again. Some memorable moments and memorable names called and
42:37
a lot of the local school districts wrapping things up in the next couple of
42:40
days into early next week. Some maybe through the end of next week.
42:45
But basically, you guys are in that summertime transition mode for the Cocola Space
42:50
Science Center. We are we're moving our programming into a different kind of mode.
42:54
As we suggests when all the schools get out, we don't have as
42:58
many school groups come here to visit us, not as many field trip type
43:02
activities, So we move into our season where we begin to offer our summer
43:07
academy in robotics and in space robotics specifically. We also have a variety of
43:13
activities taking place in the summertime, like our collaboration with Callaway Gardens, which
43:19
is a nearby outdoor park and recreation area. It's a commercial recreation area.
43:22
We have a collaboration with their education department where we set up our telescopes in
43:27
their park once a week after the gardens closes down, people can get in
43:32
for free, come out and enjoy an evening of astronomy under a nice dark
43:37
sky out away from city lights. Callaway Gardens check out our website for information
43:44
on both of those programs as well as all the great shows we're running in
43:47
are newly upgraded Omnisphere Theater here on site at the Coca Cola Space Science Center.
43:53
The website for all that information is CCSSC dot org, Charlie Charlie SamSam
44:01
Charlie dot org, www dot cc SSC dot org, or just follow us
44:07
on that thing called Facebook. Sean and I thank you for listening, and
44:12
we will do this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all
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