September 4, 2025 • 25 mins
Astronomers are using the JWST to determine if the morning star us even a star. Blue Origin is set to launch their 2nd New Glenn rocket as soon as the end of the month. New research from JWST says that the oldest known black hole is more than 13.3 billion years old. Plus the most massive black hole ever found is 36 billion times the mass of our sun.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/made-of-stars--4746260/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/made-of-stars--4746260/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Made sizes. When made of stars, you could be from
high they would New Mexicomus, where all stars.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
When we are made of stars.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
Cruisin from Columba State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Morning Sean, good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
That's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
All right.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
We have had a number of discoveries and great science
and things that have come since the launch of the
James Webspace Telescope. And we talked for years, I mean
years about this slow burn that was getting the James
Webspace Telescope into space where it can do things. We
(01:25):
had the now famous thing we like to talk about
when they dropped it right before they were going to
launch it and had to make sure that it was
still working properly and all those fun things, and it was,
and it's been put in place, and it is doing
amazing science and giving us great, incredible images from all
throughout the universe. And then sometimes it gives us this
(01:48):
really great discovery, like what we now have about our
morning star, and here we go, maybe it's not a
star at all.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, our most sacred star, the star of Erindio. Well,
if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you know
what I'm talking about. If you're not, you're just like,
stop annoying me, why are you talking that way? So,
so it's actually not exactly the same spelling as the
Tolkien version, but an old English phrase for morning star
(02:20):
is Erendell e r E N D E L. Differs
from the Lord of the Rings version by one letter anyway.
So the Erndel is the name given to an object
that was first discovered back in twenty twenty two by
the Hubble Space Telescope. And at the time of its
discovery they tried to figure out just how far away
(02:42):
it was and through a few different techniques, this is
a star, by the way, in another galaxy, far far away.
And with those techniques they realized that this star likely
formed merely nine hundred million years after the Big Bang.
And if for those of you who think nine hundred
million is a big number, welcome to astrophysics. It gets dwarfed.
(03:03):
It's a really tiny number compared to the age of
the universe, the estimated age since the Big Bang, which
is thirteen point eight billion years. So this is a
mere nine hundred million out of thirteen point eight billion,
which means the universe was not very old when this
particular star is thought to have formed only about seven
(03:25):
percent of its current age. Okay, So that was the
story from back in twenty twenty two, and Erindio was
located and what's called the Sunrise Arc Galaxy, which is
about two twelve point nine billion light years from US. Okay,
So this object, this galaxy actually was discovered through a
(03:45):
process known as gravitational lensing, and we're going to talk
more about that in today's show. Gravitational lensing is when
something so massive is located between you, the observer here
on Earth, and some really distant object in the farthest
reaches of our universe. Something in between is so massive
(04:06):
that it actually can warp space time. That's according to
the laws of general relativity. And if you don't like
those blame that fuzzy haired guy, Einstein, because he and
George lamiter A pretty much the two guys that came
up with that whole system. Anyway, No, they made some
incredible discoveries. They found out that mass can actually bend
(04:27):
the space time continuum, and that's what a gravitational arc is. Well,
when you bend the space time continuum, then space itself
can act like a lens on a telescope and it
can image objects that are even much farther away, such
as the Sun Sunrise Arc galaxy. So that's how we
(04:48):
see it. There's something very massive in between us and
this distant galaxy called the Sunrise Arc at a distance
of twelve point nine billion light years away, and that
thing in the middle is acting like a lens and
allowing us to be able to see that distant galaxy. Okay,
so it's through that cosmic lens and the lens of
the Hubble Space telescope that the star Erndeal, our most
(05:13):
sacred star, was discovered and thought to be the most
distant star ever discovered. Well wait a minute, friends, wait
just a minute, because in this year, a new study
published on July thirty first in the Astrophysical Journal. See,
we got a new telescope some astronomers from the James
(05:34):
web Space Telescope. They took a new look at Erndeal,
and a Rendeal based on the new data, might not
actually be a single star. It might be an ultra
compact star cluster or possibly a very large binary star
system in this distant galaxy. See, it's a little bit
(05:55):
hard to use your telescope in conjunction with one of
those cosmic gravitational lensing lenses to get a really good
look at things, and so you really need to take
a lot of data in different wavelength regimes like visible
light and infrared and radio and X ray and any
other wavelength that you can pick up and combine all
(06:17):
of those new data points to really see what you're
looking at. With the addition of this infrared data from
the James Webspace Telescope, there is now a question as
to whether Erndeal is a single star or a compact
star cluster. Stay tuned for more. We're going to be
watching this mystery as it unfolds and new data is
taken for Erndeal, the most distant star maybe ever discovered.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
All right, let's jump ahead to the end of this month.
At some point this month, possibly it's scheduled for I
guess a no earlier than launch Blue Origins second New
Glen Rocket launch.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So we talked a lot about James Webspace Telescope and
Hubble Space Telescope, taking data of the adding to our
ever increasing knowledge of the universe. And see what happens
is when a new instrument goes to space, then we
get new looks at old objects, right, and we can
find out new things well. On the twenty ninth of September,
(07:18):
Blue Origins New Glen Rocket will have its second ever
launch at least no earlier than September twenty ninth, So
on or about September twenty ninth, Blue Origin will be
launching New Glen and New Glenn has a very interesting payload.
It's called the Escapade mission. And yes, Escapade is an acronym.
(07:40):
We like to talk about acronyms occasionally on the show.
The acronym for Escapade is Escape and Plasma Acceleration and
Dynamic Explorers. There you go, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration
and Dynamic Explorers probes. There's a couple of them have
been awaiting their turn to fly to space aboard the
(08:01):
New Glen rocket. It was originally slated to carry the
satellites on its maiden journey back in January, but then
they didn't want to do that after all. There was
some delays and things, and eventually they pulled those payloads.
So but now New Glen is going to launch those
missions up there for NASA, and so we will get
new missions in space, which gives us new looks at
(08:23):
the universe and a better understanding. And then we will
also have one more test and evaluation for this massive
new rocket built by Jeff Bezos company called Blue Origin,
which is going to be a competitor for the SpaceX,
Falcon Heavy and Starship systems. So this is kind of
(08:44):
an exciting time in just the development of rocket payloads
as well as space exploration missions, and so it's an
interesting thing. Blue Origin says. There are some quote unquote
exciting things unquote buzzing around the New Glenn launchpad down
(09:04):
at Launch Complex thirty six, located not at the Kennedy
Space Center, on the other side of the street at
the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. So we'll
be keeping an eye down there in Florida to see
the launch of the Twin Escapade mission, the probes that
are actually going to be helping to study Mars, and
the payload capacity and lift off capabilities of a brand
(09:25):
new mega rocket Blue Origins New Glen rocket.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Coming up after a quick break. Another discovery from James
Webb and or some research that comes from James web
about a black hole. We'll talk about that next. Hey,
(10:00):
James Webb's giving us some more food to chew on,
some more stuff to chew on and talk about this
morning as it could. Is this now the oldest known
black hole?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, so we started the program with the oldest known star,
our most distant star. We're now going to talk about
the oldest known black hole or most distant black hole
ever measured. Now, friends, you know, when we're talking about this,
we have to say this just a quick little detour
into astrophysics, which is to say, this, the farther away
(10:31):
from Earth that we see objects, the further back in
time we're looking. So distance and time are correlated as
we look out into the universe. That's because light has
a finite travel speed, and so it takes longer to
get here from objects that are further away. So the
light that's arriving today from nearby objects, those objects are
(10:56):
much more recent in their emission of that light than
objects that are coming the light that's coming from the
objects that are at the most distant reaches of our universe.
And so when we look out into space the farther away,
we're looking the further back in time. Okay, So just
as that reminder, James Weod's Space Telescope has now indicated
(11:17):
that there is a black hole that formed at thirteen
point three billion years ago, which means it is almost
at our edge of the visible universe. This thirteen point
three billion years ago was when the universe itself was
a mere five hundred million years old. When we talked
about the most distant star, we said that was about
(11:38):
nine hundred million years old. Well, this thing's only five
hundred million years old. And this thing is thought to
be a super massive black hole. It's a giant black
hole at the center of a galaxy. Now here's what happened.
When the James Webb Space Telescope first fired up back
in the mid twenty twenty twos. It began to look
(11:59):
at the universe in infrared light, but from space where
it's outside the Earth's atmosphere, and with the most sensitive
instruments ever to do so in human history. So it
began to record a lot of really mysterious objects that
we've simply never seen before. That's why you build a
new telescope. So in the case of this JWST data,
(12:20):
there started to be these really compact, very very red
in color objects, little dots, little point sources that appeared
to be out there in the most distant parts of
the universe. Now, how do we know that. We know
that because we see the emission lines from elements like
(12:44):
hydrogen in the spectrum of those distant objects. But we
don't see them where they're supposed to be in terms
of their colors, in terms of their location in the
electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, we don't even see those lines,
which are typically in the visible spectrum we can see
them with our eye. We don't see them there at all.
We see them way down in the infrared spectrum, which
is a much longer region of wavelengths that we can't
(13:06):
even detect with our eye. What happened, Well, there's this
process called red shift, and red shift occurs when objects
are moving away from the Earth at high speeds. It
turns out that those very high speed objects, because of
any cosmological red shift, are only the most distant objects,
(13:28):
and they're moving away because of the actual expansion of
space itself. So when you know all that, and you
see the hydrogen lines in very very red wavelengths all
the way down in the infrared, you know that the
source of that hydrogen has to be out there at
the visible limits of the universe at that kind of
(13:49):
distance to achieve that sort of a red shift. And
so we call that a cosmological redshift. Its source is
the Doppler effect, and it's something called Hubble's law that
correlates how far red shifted those lines are with how
fast that object's moving away, and that speed then is
correlated with its distance. And therefore you can calculate just
(14:12):
how old that object is or how far away that
light had to travel in order to reach Earth. And
for this particular object called Capers LRD Z nine, Capers
a catalog lrd catalog code Z nine the number of
the object. Okay, so the Capers LRDZ nine, this red dot,
(14:35):
which they didn't know what the heck it is. They're
figuring out that it has to be a super massive
black hole at the center of a very very distant galaxy.
It's also a very large, super massive black hole. So
the size the mass of this thing. They're estimating the
mass of the black hole at the center of this
(14:56):
very distant galaxy at thirty eight milli million times the
mass of our Sun. Now, just for a comparison, the
mass of the supermassive black hole in our own galaxy
the Milky Way. Some people call this object Sagittarius A.
The mass of Sagittarius A is about four hundred million suns,
(15:18):
which is not small. That's a gigantic number of suns,
four hundred million, But this isn't even close to the
mass of the super massive black hole inside Kper's lrd
z nine thirty eight million suns. For that mass thirty
eight million times the mass of our own sun contained
(15:42):
in this super massive black hole in this ultra distant galaxy.
It's causing the gases that are whirling around that black
hole before they fall into the event horizon, the kind
of the last look at objects before they fall into
the black hole. They're whirling around at thousands of miles
an out per second, thousands of miles per second as
(16:04):
they zip around the central mass of that gravitational will
caused by this giant black hole. So okay, that's a
weird object, right, and that's why we have to tell
you the story about it. So there is the story
of Caper's lrd Z nine, the to date most distant
super massive black hole ever discovered. Thank you to the
(16:27):
people at James Webspace Telescope for giving us a great
instrument where we can find these brand new discoveries in
the universe.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Another big science win for James web All right, let's
jump from one black hole to another black hole. I
mean when we start talking size, and when we start
you were talking about years earlier about how nine hundred
million doesn't really mean much. When you start thinking about
how sizes for things, it starts to become hard to
(16:57):
even come I don't think we can really comprehend the
size of our sun, Like the star in our solar
system doesn't make sense when you start trying to equate
it and you put the planets next to it and
you say, well, this is how big it is.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
But just trying to.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Get an understanding of that, I think is beyond what
we can do then over most people, and then for
to find that there is a black hole of this size. Yeah,
I'm gonna let you do the numbers and try to
make sense out of this, because I can't comprehend something
that is thirty six billion times the mass of our sun.
(17:34):
So first of all, I'd just like to go ahead
and say on that last story about the oldest black
hole or the furthest black hole that came from sciencenews
dot org is a great story there.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Check that out on sciencenews dot org. This story comes
from ScienceDaily dot com. And so it's about the biggest
black hole, potentially the largest black hole ever discovered. And
you might say, now, wait a minute, you're using the
wrong language. Yes, we kind of are, because it's not
the size of the black hole, because a black hole
(18:06):
is by definition a point, it's a singularity. What we're
really talking about is the mass of that black hole. Right,
So it's the largest mass black hole ever discovered. Okay,
In the last stories, we were talking about Caper's lrd
Z nine it had a mass of thirty eight million suns,
which I just made a reference to our own black
(18:30):
hole in our own middle of our Milky Way at
four million sons. It's much bigger than that. But wait,
we're gonna pause and we're gonna raise you one because
the mass of this newly discovered well it's not newly discovered.
The object is newly measured black hole in the center
of an object called the cosmic horseshoe galaxy is a
whopping thirty six billion times the mass of our Sun.
(18:57):
Thirty six billion times. So whereas the mass of Capers
lrdz nine is just a little bit more than twelve
times the mass of the super massive black hole in
the Milky Way, this is ten thousand times the mass
of the Milky Way supermassive black hole. And yeah, I
(19:17):
get it. I'm compounding numbers that are already really big
and hard to imagine. But we have a super massive
black hole, which is a monster sitting inside the Milky Way,
and the supermassive black hole in this new galaxy, the
cosmic horseshoe galaxy, is ten thousand times more massive, which
(19:39):
is quite frankly unimaginable. It is a monster of unimaginable proportions.
So reported in the Royal Astronomical Society astronomers have uncovered
what maybe the most massive black hole ever found. Again,
it's hidden inside the cosmic horseshoe galaxy. We talked about
gravitational lensing the previous story. The reason that there's a
(20:02):
galaxy that looks like a horseshoe is because it itself
is gravitationally lensing a more distant galaxy.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It gives it this kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Horseshoe shaped halo around the galaxy. And again it takes
a really really concentrated, ultra high density mass to be
able to do this kind of gravitational lensing. The galaxy
itself was only located at a mere five billion light
years away, which you know, I mean, what's five billion
(20:30):
light years among friends, It's just not that far compared
to once again, the galaxy in the previous story, which
is at the edge of the visible universe something like
thirteen billion light years away, So this is relatively close
compared to that. A quote from Professor Thomas Collette at
the University of Portsmouth, one of the researchers that discovered
this object quote, this is among the top ten most
(20:53):
massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive.
It is likely that all of the super massive black
holes that were originally in the companion galaxies to this source,
have also now merged to form this ultra massive black
hole that we've detected. So we're seeing the end state
(21:14):
of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation. Unquote,
thank you, Professor Colette. What he's telling you is this
black hole is so massive it can't come from a
single galaxy. You can't just have one super massive black
hole like the one in the Milky Way. It's like
the Milky Way ate up its five closest friends, consumed
(21:35):
all of their black holes, added them all together, and
now you have what they're referring to as an ultra massive,
central super massive black hole at the center of this
distant galaxy. Crazy stuff interesting to think about and read about.
ScienceDaily dot com is the source, and just trying to
comprehend what any of those numbers mean. I mean, I
(21:58):
can't imagine thirty six billion times anything. And then you
start going into the mass of our son. It's it's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
All right.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Let's talk about Columbus State University's co Cola Space Science
Center as we now get into the month of September.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I would tell you that there are a lot fewer
zeros in the Coca Cola Space Science Center than in
these thirty six billion times four million solar masses.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Anyway, Yeah, if you want to know more about the
programming at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center,
check out our website friends, www dot cc SSC dot org.
It's time to begin thinking about the Music under the
Dome concert series and you can pick up your tickets now.
Check out the links on our website for that entire
concert series. Once again, Coca Cola Space Science Center offers
(22:46):
a concert called Music under the Dome. It's where the
Schwob School of Music faculty and students here at Columbus
State University coming in and perform inside our Omosphere Theater planetarium.
The first of those shows for the twenty twenty five
to twenty six season is October seventh, so not that
far away, just a little bit more than a month away.
And so come and check out all of the dates
(23:07):
for those concerts and how to get tickets for that
concert at www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie
SamSam Charlie dot org.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Shann and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered, residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(23:40):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
six three five eight forty five hundred O DC Columbus
dot com. Get ready for DRAGONCN twenty twenty five Labor
Day Week in downtown Atlanta with the dragon Con Pregame
(24:03):
Show coming August twenty third and twenty fourth to a
radio station near you if you live in the state
of Georgia or one of the states near enough to
the State of Georgia to pick up a radio signal
coming from the network of stations in the State of
Georgia that'll be carrying the show, and there are many
in Alabama and Tennessee and the Carolinas that'll have a
(24:24):
chance to hear it even down into Florida, or simply
listen to it on the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast
wherever you listen to your podcast, Yes, where you're listening
to this podcast. You can also find past editions of
the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast with interviews with William Shatner,
other stars from Star Trek, The Walking Dead, the Marvel
(24:48):
Cinematic Universe, many animated stars, some of your favorite Disney stars.
Chances to hear interviews with them, and this year's dragon
Con Pregame Show will drop to the pop on August
twenty third, and you can hear this year's interviews. It's
sponsored by Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center,
(25:10):
where doctor Sean Cruisin and I often like to discuss
the science behind the science fiction and the connections between
where science fiction sometimes leads to science science sometimes leads
to science fiction. It's just a weird connection that's already there.
It's built into it. And I say it's weird, but
it's really not. It makes perfect sense. The two go
(25:31):
together very well. Learn more about the Coca Cola Space
Science Center at CCSSC dot org. Learn more about this
year's dragon Con the website, which is DragonCon dot org
Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
that's your own risk.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
When made of stars, made them stars.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Made sizes. When made of stars, you could be from
high they would New Mexicomus, where all stars.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
When we are made of stars.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
I'm West Carol, joined by my good friend doctor Sean
Cruisin from Columba State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center.
Morning Sean, good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
That's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
All right.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
We have had a number of discoveries and great science
and things that have come since the launch of the
James Webspace Telescope. And we talked for years, I mean
years about this slow burn that was getting the James
Webspace Telescope into space where it can do things. We
(01:25):
had the now famous thing we like to talk about
when they dropped it right before they were going to
launch it and had to make sure that it was
still working properly and all those fun things, and it was,
and it's been put in place, and it is doing
amazing science and giving us great, incredible images from all
throughout the universe. And then sometimes it gives us this
(01:48):
really great discovery, like what we now have about our
morning star, and here we go, maybe it's not a
star at all.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, our most sacred star, the star of Erindio. Well,
if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you know
what I'm talking about. If you're not, you're just like,
stop annoying me, why are you talking that way? So,
so it's actually not exactly the same spelling as the
Tolkien version, but an old English phrase for morning star
(02:20):
is Erendell e r E N D E L. Differs
from the Lord of the Rings version by one letter anyway.
So the Erndel is the name given to an object
that was first discovered back in twenty twenty two by
the Hubble Space Telescope. And at the time of its
discovery they tried to figure out just how far away
(02:42):
it was and through a few different techniques, this is
a star, by the way, in another galaxy, far far away.
And with those techniques they realized that this star likely
formed merely nine hundred million years after the Big Bang.
And if for those of you who think nine hundred
million is a big number, welcome to astrophysics. It gets dwarfed.
(03:03):
It's a really tiny number compared to the age of
the universe, the estimated age since the Big Bang, which
is thirteen point eight billion years. So this is a
mere nine hundred million out of thirteen point eight billion,
which means the universe was not very old when this
particular star is thought to have formed only about seven
(03:25):
percent of its current age. Okay, So that was the
story from back in twenty twenty two, and Erindio was
located and what's called the Sunrise Arc Galaxy, which is
about two twelve point nine billion light years from US. Okay,
So this object, this galaxy actually was discovered through a
(03:45):
process known as gravitational lensing, and we're going to talk
more about that in today's show. Gravitational lensing is when
something so massive is located between you, the observer here
on Earth, and some really distant object in the farthest
reaches of our universe. Something in between is so massive
(04:06):
that it actually can warp space time. That's according to
the laws of general relativity. And if you don't like
those blame that fuzzy haired guy, Einstein, because he and
George lamiter A pretty much the two guys that came
up with that whole system. Anyway, No, they made some
incredible discoveries. They found out that mass can actually bend
(04:27):
the space time continuum, and that's what a gravitational arc is. Well,
when you bend the space time continuum, then space itself
can act like a lens on a telescope and it
can image objects that are even much farther away, such
as the Sun Sunrise Arc galaxy. So that's how we
(04:48):
see it. There's something very massive in between us and
this distant galaxy called the Sunrise Arc at a distance
of twelve point nine billion light years away, and that
thing in the middle is acting like a lens and
allowing us to be able to see that distant galaxy. Okay,
so it's through that cosmic lens and the lens of
the Hubble Space telescope that the star Erndeal, our most
(05:13):
sacred star, was discovered and thought to be the most
distant star ever discovered. Well wait a minute, friends, wait
just a minute, because in this year, a new study
published on July thirty first in the Astrophysical Journal. See,
we got a new telescope some astronomers from the James
(05:34):
web Space Telescope. They took a new look at Erndeal,
and a Rendeal based on the new data, might not
actually be a single star. It might be an ultra
compact star cluster or possibly a very large binary star
system in this distant galaxy. See, it's a little bit
(05:55):
hard to use your telescope in conjunction with one of
those cosmic gravitational lensing lenses to get a really good
look at things, and so you really need to take
a lot of data in different wavelength regimes like visible
light and infrared and radio and X ray and any
other wavelength that you can pick up and combine all
(06:17):
of those new data points to really see what you're
looking at. With the addition of this infrared data from
the James Webspace Telescope, there is now a question as
to whether Erndeal is a single star or a compact
star cluster. Stay tuned for more. We're going to be
watching this mystery as it unfolds and new data is
taken for Erndeal, the most distant star maybe ever discovered.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
All right, let's jump ahead to the end of this month.
At some point this month, possibly it's scheduled for I
guess a no earlier than launch Blue Origins second New
Glen Rocket launch.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So we talked a lot about James Webspace Telescope and
Hubble Space Telescope, taking data of the adding to our
ever increasing knowledge of the universe. And see what happens
is when a new instrument goes to space, then we
get new looks at old objects, right, and we can
find out new things well. On the twenty ninth of September,
(07:18):
Blue Origins New Glen Rocket will have its second ever
launch at least no earlier than September twenty ninth, So
on or about September twenty ninth, Blue Origin will be
launching New Glen and New Glenn has a very interesting payload.
It's called the Escapade mission. And yes, Escapade is an acronym.
(07:40):
We like to talk about acronyms occasionally on the show.
The acronym for Escapade is Escape and Plasma Acceleration and
Dynamic Explorers. There you go, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration
and Dynamic Explorers probes. There's a couple of them have
been awaiting their turn to fly to space aboard the
(08:01):
New Glen rocket. It was originally slated to carry the
satellites on its maiden journey back in January, but then
they didn't want to do that after all. There was
some delays and things, and eventually they pulled those payloads.
So but now New Glen is going to launch those
missions up there for NASA, and so we will get
new missions in space, which gives us new looks at
(08:23):
the universe and a better understanding. And then we will
also have one more test and evaluation for this massive
new rocket built by Jeff Bezos company called Blue Origin,
which is going to be a competitor for the SpaceX,
Falcon Heavy and Starship systems. So this is kind of
(08:44):
an exciting time in just the development of rocket payloads
as well as space exploration missions, and so it's an
interesting thing. Blue Origin says. There are some quote unquote
exciting things unquote buzzing around the New Glenn launchpad down
(09:04):
at Launch Complex thirty six, located not at the Kennedy
Space Center, on the other side of the street at
the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. So we'll
be keeping an eye down there in Florida to see
the launch of the Twin Escapade mission, the probes that
are actually going to be helping to study Mars, and
the payload capacity and lift off capabilities of a brand
(09:25):
new mega rocket Blue Origins New Glen rocket.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Coming up after a quick break. Another discovery from James
Webb and or some research that comes from James web
about a black hole. We'll talk about that next. Hey,
(10:00):
James Webb's giving us some more food to chew on,
some more stuff to chew on and talk about this
morning as it could. Is this now the oldest known
black hole?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, so we started the program with the oldest known star,
our most distant star. We're now going to talk about
the oldest known black hole or most distant black hole
ever measured. Now, friends, you know, when we're talking about this,
we have to say this just a quick little detour
into astrophysics, which is to say, this, the farther away
(10:31):
from Earth that we see objects, the further back in
time we're looking. So distance and time are correlated as
we look out into the universe. That's because light has
a finite travel speed, and so it takes longer to
get here from objects that are further away. So the
light that's arriving today from nearby objects, those objects are
(10:56):
much more recent in their emission of that light than
objects that are coming the light that's coming from the
objects that are at the most distant reaches of our universe.
And so when we look out into space the farther away,
we're looking the further back in time. Okay, So just
as that reminder, James Weod's Space Telescope has now indicated
(11:17):
that there is a black hole that formed at thirteen
point three billion years ago, which means it is almost
at our edge of the visible universe. This thirteen point
three billion years ago was when the universe itself was
a mere five hundred million years old. When we talked
about the most distant star, we said that was about
(11:38):
nine hundred million years old. Well, this thing's only five
hundred million years old. And this thing is thought to
be a super massive black hole. It's a giant black
hole at the center of a galaxy. Now here's what happened.
When the James Webb Space Telescope first fired up back
in the mid twenty twenty twos. It began to look
(11:59):
at the universe in infrared light, but from space where
it's outside the Earth's atmosphere, and with the most sensitive
instruments ever to do so in human history. So it
began to record a lot of really mysterious objects that
we've simply never seen before. That's why you build a
new telescope. So in the case of this JWST data,
(12:20):
there started to be these really compact, very very red
in color objects, little dots, little point sources that appeared
to be out there in the most distant parts of
the universe. Now, how do we know that. We know
that because we see the emission lines from elements like
(12:44):
hydrogen in the spectrum of those distant objects. But we
don't see them where they're supposed to be in terms
of their colors, in terms of their location in the
electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, we don't even see those lines,
which are typically in the visible spectrum we can see
them with our eye. We don't see them there at all.
We see them way down in the infrared spectrum, which
is a much longer region of wavelengths that we can't
(13:06):
even detect with our eye. What happened, Well, there's this
process called red shift, and red shift occurs when objects
are moving away from the Earth at high speeds. It
turns out that those very high speed objects, because of
any cosmological red shift, are only the most distant objects,
(13:28):
and they're moving away because of the actual expansion of
space itself. So when you know all that, and you
see the hydrogen lines in very very red wavelengths all
the way down in the infrared, you know that the
source of that hydrogen has to be out there at
the visible limits of the universe at that kind of
(13:49):
distance to achieve that sort of a red shift. And
so we call that a cosmological redshift. Its source is
the Doppler effect, and it's something called Hubble's law that
correlates how far red shifted those lines are with how
fast that object's moving away, and that speed then is
correlated with its distance. And therefore you can calculate just
(14:12):
how old that object is or how far away that
light had to travel in order to reach Earth. And
for this particular object called Capers LRD Z nine, Capers
a catalog lrd catalog code Z nine the number of
the object. Okay, so the Capers LRDZ nine, this red dot,
(14:35):
which they didn't know what the heck it is. They're
figuring out that it has to be a super massive
black hole at the center of a very very distant galaxy.
It's also a very large, super massive black hole. So
the size the mass of this thing. They're estimating the
mass of the black hole at the center of this
(14:56):
very distant galaxy at thirty eight milli million times the
mass of our Sun. Now, just for a comparison, the
mass of the supermassive black hole in our own galaxy
the Milky Way. Some people call this object Sagittarius A.
The mass of Sagittarius A is about four hundred million suns,
(15:18):
which is not small. That's a gigantic number of suns,
four hundred million, But this isn't even close to the
mass of the super massive black hole inside Kper's lrd
z nine thirty eight million suns. For that mass thirty
eight million times the mass of our own sun contained
(15:42):
in this super massive black hole in this ultra distant galaxy.
It's causing the gases that are whirling around that black
hole before they fall into the event horizon, the kind
of the last look at objects before they fall into
the black hole. They're whirling around at thousands of miles
an out per second, thousands of miles per second as
(16:04):
they zip around the central mass of that gravitational will
caused by this giant black hole. So okay, that's a
weird object, right, and that's why we have to tell
you the story about it. So there is the story
of Caper's lrd Z nine, the to date most distant
super massive black hole ever discovered. Thank you to the
(16:27):
people at James Webspace Telescope for giving us a great
instrument where we can find these brand new discoveries in
the universe.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Another big science win for James web All right, let's
jump from one black hole to another black hole. I
mean when we start talking size, and when we start
you were talking about years earlier about how nine hundred
million doesn't really mean much. When you start thinking about
how sizes for things, it starts to become hard to
(16:57):
even come I don't think we can really comprehend the
size of our sun, Like the star in our solar
system doesn't make sense when you start trying to equate
it and you put the planets next to it and
you say, well, this is how big it is.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
But just trying to.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Get an understanding of that, I think is beyond what
we can do then over most people, and then for
to find that there is a black hole of this size. Yeah,
I'm gonna let you do the numbers and try to
make sense out of this, because I can't comprehend something
that is thirty six billion times the mass of our sun.
(17:34):
So first of all, I'd just like to go ahead
and say on that last story about the oldest black
hole or the furthest black hole that came from sciencenews
dot org is a great story there.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Check that out on sciencenews dot org. This story comes
from ScienceDaily dot com. And so it's about the biggest
black hole, potentially the largest black hole ever discovered. And
you might say, now, wait a minute, you're using the
wrong language. Yes, we kind of are, because it's not
the size of the black hole, because a black hole
(18:06):
is by definition a point, it's a singularity. What we're
really talking about is the mass of that black hole. Right,
So it's the largest mass black hole ever discovered. Okay,
In the last stories, we were talking about Caper's lrd
Z nine it had a mass of thirty eight million suns,
which I just made a reference to our own black
(18:30):
hole in our own middle of our Milky Way at
four million sons. It's much bigger than that. But wait,
we're gonna pause and we're gonna raise you one because
the mass of this newly discovered well it's not newly discovered.
The object is newly measured black hole in the center
of an object called the cosmic horseshoe galaxy is a
whopping thirty six billion times the mass of our Sun.
(18:57):
Thirty six billion times. So whereas the mass of Capers
lrdz nine is just a little bit more than twelve
times the mass of the super massive black hole in
the Milky Way, this is ten thousand times the mass
of the Milky Way supermassive black hole. And yeah, I
(19:17):
get it. I'm compounding numbers that are already really big
and hard to imagine. But we have a super massive
black hole, which is a monster sitting inside the Milky Way,
and the supermassive black hole in this new galaxy, the
cosmic horseshoe galaxy, is ten thousand times more massive, which
(19:39):
is quite frankly unimaginable. It is a monster of unimaginable proportions.
So reported in the Royal Astronomical Society astronomers have uncovered
what maybe the most massive black hole ever found. Again,
it's hidden inside the cosmic horseshoe galaxy. We talked about
gravitational lensing the previous story. The reason that there's a
(20:02):
galaxy that looks like a horseshoe is because it itself
is gravitationally lensing a more distant galaxy.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It gives it this kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Horseshoe shaped halo around the galaxy. And again it takes
a really really concentrated, ultra high density mass to be
able to do this kind of gravitational lensing. The galaxy
itself was only located at a mere five billion light
years away, which you know, I mean, what's five billion
(20:30):
light years among friends, It's just not that far compared
to once again, the galaxy in the previous story, which
is at the edge of the visible universe something like
thirteen billion light years away, So this is relatively close
compared to that. A quote from Professor Thomas Collette at
the University of Portsmouth, one of the researchers that discovered
this object quote, this is among the top ten most
(20:53):
massive black holes ever discovered, and quite possibly the most massive.
It is likely that all of the super massive black
holes that were originally in the companion galaxies to this source,
have also now merged to form this ultra massive black
hole that we've detected. So we're seeing the end state
(21:14):
of galaxy formation and the end state of black hole formation. Unquote,
thank you, Professor Colette. What he's telling you is this
black hole is so massive it can't come from a
single galaxy. You can't just have one super massive black
hole like the one in the Milky Way. It's like
the Milky Way ate up its five closest friends, consumed
(21:35):
all of their black holes, added them all together, and
now you have what they're referring to as an ultra massive,
central super massive black hole at the center of this
distant galaxy. Crazy stuff interesting to think about and read about.
ScienceDaily dot com is the source, and just trying to
comprehend what any of those numbers mean. I mean, I
(21:58):
can't imagine thirty six billion times anything. And then you
start going into the mass of our son. It's it's insane.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
All right.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Let's talk about Columbus State University's co Cola Space Science
Center as we now get into the month of September.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I would tell you that there are a lot fewer
zeros in the Coca Cola Space Science Center than in
these thirty six billion times four million solar masses.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Anyway, Yeah, if you want to know more about the
programming at Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center,
check out our website friends, www dot cc SSC dot org.
It's time to begin thinking about the Music under the
Dome concert series and you can pick up your tickets now.
Check out the links on our website for that entire
concert series. Once again, Coca Cola Space Science Center offers
(22:46):
a concert called Music under the Dome. It's where the
Schwob School of Music faculty and students here at Columbus
State University coming in and perform inside our Omosphere Theater planetarium.
The first of those shows for the twenty twenty five
to twenty six season is October seventh, so not that
far away, just a little bit more than a month away.
And so come and check out all of the dates
(23:07):
for those concerts and how to get tickets for that
concert at www dot cc SSC dot org. Charlie Charlie
SamSam Charlie dot org.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Shann and I thank you for listening, and we'll do
this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
all of your garage door needs covered, residential and commercial
service and repairs. If you need a new garage door,
you're just looking to upgrade or repair your current door,
(23:40):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've
got your emergency repairs or service covered as well. Seven
oh six three five eight forty five hundred seven oh
six three five eight forty five hundred O DC Columbus
dot com. Get ready for DRAGONCN twenty twenty five Labor
Day Week in downtown Atlanta with the dragon Con Pregame
(24:03):
Show coming August twenty third and twenty fourth to a
radio station near you if you live in the state
of Georgia or one of the states near enough to
the State of Georgia to pick up a radio signal
coming from the network of stations in the State of
Georgia that'll be carrying the show, and there are many
in Alabama and Tennessee and the Carolinas that'll have a
(24:24):
chance to hear it even down into Florida, or simply
listen to it on the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast
wherever you listen to your podcast, Yes, where you're listening
to this podcast. You can also find past editions of
the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast with interviews with William Shatner,
other stars from Star Trek, The Walking Dead, the Marvel
(24:48):
Cinematic Universe, many animated stars, some of your favorite Disney stars.
Chances to hear interviews with them, and this year's dragon
Con Pregame Show will drop to the pop on August
twenty third, and you can hear this year's interviews. It's
sponsored by Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space Science Center,
(25:10):
where doctor Sean Cruisin and I often like to discuss
the science behind the science fiction and the connections between
where science fiction sometimes leads to science science sometimes leads
to science fiction. It's just a weird connection that's already there.
It's built into it. And I say it's weird, but
it's really not. It makes perfect sense. The two go
(25:31):
together very well. Learn more about the Coca Cola Space
Science Center at CCSSC dot org. Learn more about this
year's dragon Con the website, which is DragonCon dot org
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com