WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:04.879 Imagine looking at a photograph of this seemingly empty ancient 2 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:06.759 barren desert. 3 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:07.839 Right, like totally desolate. 4 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:08.640 Yeah, exactly. 5 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.320 You're expecting to see what you'd always expect from a wasteland, 6 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:14.679 you know, yeah, rolling sand dunes, maybe some weathered bedrock, 7 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.480 just the sheer emptiness of a landscape that hasn't seen 8 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:20.600 civilization in like ten. 9 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:22.440 Thousand years, Just endless sand. 10 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:22.920 Right. 11 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.519 But then you take a magnifying glass to the image, 12 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:27.879 you zoom in, and right there, right in the middle 13 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:32.600 of this ancient nothingness is a fully constructed, gleaming, hyper 14 00:00:32.600 --> 00:00:34.799 modern skyscraper with the lights on. 15 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:36.920 Which is just, I mean completely impossible. 16 00:00:37.039 --> 00:00:39.520 It makes absolutely no sense. It defies the history of 17 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:43.159 the landscape, the materials available, the timeline of human engineering, 18 00:00:43.479 --> 00:00:46.719 just everything. Yeah, welcome to Thrilling Threads, where we take 19 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:48.799 a stack of your sources and weave them into the 20 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:52.640 most fascinating tapestry of knowledge. Today we are staring at 21 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:55.039 the cosmic equivalent of that skyscraper. 22 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:55.719 We really are. 23 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:59.799 We are exploring this massive compendium of recent discoveries from 24 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:03.560 the James Webspace Telescope, the JWST, and I want to 25 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.000 be perfectly clear with you, the listener. I am not 26 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:09.120 exaggerating when I tell you that these findings are quite 27 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:11.280 literally breaking cosmology as we know it. 28 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:13.000 Breaking it why, Okay. 29 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:16.200 Sureously, we're talking about planets disintegrating into comet tales right 30 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.519 before our eyes, mysterious radio signals screaming out of the 31 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:24.439 pitch black, and the very real possibility that we are 32 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:28.120 witnessing the unraveling of the fundamental laws of physics. Okay, 33 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:28.920 let's unpack this. 34 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:32.319 It is truly a profound moment in the history of astrophysics, 35 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.079 and honestly a deeply humbling one. I mean, we spent 36 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:39.480 decades and ten billion dollars building this magnificent instrument, right yea, 37 00:01:39.799 --> 00:01:42.000 launching it a million miles from Earth out to that 38 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:44.640 L two orbit, specifically to look back at the dawn 39 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.920 of time. And the explicit goal was to confirm our 40 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:51.519 theoretical models of the universe, to dot the eyes and 41 00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:54.760 cross the t's of the standard cosmological. 42 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.840 Model, just to prove what we already thought. 43 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:59.879 We knew exactly. But instead of validating our assumptions, JWST 44 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:03.680 is violently upending them. It's forcing the whole scientific community 45 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:07.480 to question our most basic understanding of space, time, gravity, 46 00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:10.960 our entire place in this vowed architecture. 47 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:12.639 Which is terrifying but also kind of amazing. 48 00:02:12.879 --> 00:02:15.719 Oh, the thrill here isn't just in cataloging new stars. 49 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:20.199 It's the realization that the universe is far stranger, far 50 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.719 more aggressive, and far more dynamic than our greatest minds 51 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:24.639 ever modeled. 52 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:26.680 And we are taking you right to the bleeding edge 53 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:29.719 of that weirdness today. This is the frontier because to 54 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:32.520 understand why astronomers are losing sleep, we have to start 55 00:02:32.520 --> 00:02:36.120 with the most fundamental crisis. JWST is triggered, which is 56 00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:39.639 the timeline of the early universe. Right before James web launche, 57 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:43.280 we had this very neat, tidy, almost comforting story about 58 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:46.439 the early days. The Big Bang happens, things cool down. 59 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:49.159 Over millions of years, you get this dark age of 60 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:50.599 thick hydrogen fog. 61 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:54.599 And slowly, very very slowly, tiny clumps of gas pulled 62 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:57.840 together to make small, messy baby galaxies. That was the 63 00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:02.199 textbook progression. Because of the standard cosmological model dictated that 64 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:06.759 galaxy formation is strictly a bottom up process. It's this slow, 65 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:08.560 agonizingly long accretion. 66 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:09.960 Gravity takes its time. 67 00:03:10.120 --> 00:03:13.400 Gravity is a relatively weak force. Yeah, so it should 68 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:16.639 take billions of years for those tiny chaotic clumps of 69 00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:21.280 primordial gas to merge, organize, and build the kind of massive, structured, 70 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:24.919 spiraling galaxies we see today, like our Milky Way. We 71 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.560 expected the early universe to look like a construction site, 72 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:31.400 scattered with raw materials and just a few half finished foundations. 73 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:33.599 I mean, I'm looking at the data from Joel Lajia, 74 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:37.439 an astronomian astrophysics professor at Penn State, and his team's 75 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:41.960 analysis of the JWST deep field images completely nukes that 76 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:43.240 construction site analogy. 77 00:03:43.319 --> 00:03:43.800 It really does. 78 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:46.759 JWST peered back to when the universe was just five 79 00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:49.280 hundred to seven hundred million years old. Now to a 80 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.919 lay person, five hundred million year sounds incredibly ancient, but 81 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:54.960 Lata points out that this is when the universe was 82 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.520 only three percent of its current age. Just three percent. 83 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:01.360 It's a toddler, the literal, infant and cosmic, right, And 84 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:05.000 what did we find not small messy clumps. We found 85 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:07.960 ten to one hundred times more galaxies than anyone expected, 86 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.599 and they aren't babies. We are seeing galaxies fifty times 87 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:15.080 more massive than anticipated, rivaling the mass of our modern 88 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:15.960 day Milky. 89 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:18.720 Way, which is the core of the crisis. To return 90 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:21.399 to your opening metaphor, we are finding the skyscraper in 91 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:24.199 the ancient desert. Finding a galaxy with the mass of 92 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:27.000 the Milky Way fully formed, existing just a few hundred 93 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.920 million years after the Big Bang, well, it flat out 94 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:31.480 defies the physics of accretion. 95 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:32.680 It just shouldn't be there. 96 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:35.160 No, because according to our current laws of physics, there 97 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:37.439 simply has not been enough time for that much matter 98 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:41.079 to gather, condense, and ignite into stars. The gravitational math 99 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:45.079 just doesn't work. We expected to find small, young, hot 100 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:49.240 blue stars. Finding massive populations of mature stars means our 101 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:53.240 entire timeline of how matter organizes itself is fundamentally flawed. 102 00:04:53.360 --> 00:04:55.000 And this finding, this is the one that made me 103 00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:58.040 reread the source material three times just to make sure 104 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:01.120 I wasn't misunderstanding the physics. Out of a sample of 105 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:06.319 thirty six of these massive early galaxies, researchers single out 106 00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:08.959 three that they're calling red monsters. 107 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:10.079 Such a great name. 108 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:10.680 They've earned it. 109 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:14.439 Our Milky Way is pretty conservative, right. It turns a 110 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:17.639 tiny fraction of its available gas into stars every year. 111 00:05:17.879 --> 00:05:22.360 It's efficient, but slow, these red monsters are converting nearly 112 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:24.680 fifty percent of their available material into stars. 113 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:25.519 It's absurd. 114 00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:28.040 That is five hundred times faster than the Milky Way. 115 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:30.000 But I have to push back on this though. How 116 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:33.199 is that physically possible? Wouldn't the sheer kinetic energy of 117 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:36.240 all those stars igniting at once just blow the rest 118 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:38.839 of the gas away and shut down the galaxy entirely. 119 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:43.120 That is the exact paradox astronomers are wrestling with. In astrophysics, 120 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:44.680 this concept is called feedback. 121 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:45.160 Okay. 122 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.240 Usually, when a massive burst of stars forms, they emit 123 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:52.360 intense stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation, and when the 124 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:55.399 most massive of those new stars die quickly in supernovas, 125 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:58.959 the shockwaves blast the remaining cold gas out of the galaxy, 126 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:00.959 so it basically blows away its own food supply. 127 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:04.319 Exactly, it starves the galaxy of fuel, creating a self 128 00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:07.279 regulating limit on how fast a galaxy can grow. It's 129 00:06:07.319 --> 00:06:09.040 an elegant natural brick pedal. 130 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:11.759 So it's like a fire getting so hot and expanding 131 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:14.199 so fast that it consumes all the oxygen in a 132 00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:15.639 room and chokes itself. 133 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:18.199 Out a perfect way to visualize it. But these red 134 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:21.839 monsters are somehow bypassing that natural brick pedal, they are 135 00:06:21.879 --> 00:06:26.079 pulling off a fifty percent conversion efficiency without blowing themselves apart. 136 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:29.160 Cow Well. There are a few radical theories emerging to 137 00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:33.519 explain this. One is that massive cosmic filaments, these vast 138 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:37.199 intergalactic highways of dark matter and gas that stretch across 139 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:40.600 the universe, might be force feeding these galaxies a force 140 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:43.120 feeding them. Yeah, they could be delivering cold gas so 141 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.800 efficiently and so densely that the stellar winds simply can't 142 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:50.959 blow it away. The incoming pressure overpowers the outward explosion. 143 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:51.639 Wow. 144 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:55.360 Another theory is that early hyperactive supermassive black holes might 145 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.959 be compressing the gas in their immediate dicinity, actually triggering 146 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:02.160 star formation at exit accelerated rates before they eventually consume 147 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:02.800 the material. 148 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:06.439 Force fed galaxies the universe just shoving material down their 149 00:07:06.439 --> 00:07:10.040 throats faster than they can explode. That is an incredible 150 00:07:10.199 --> 00:07:12.519 and somewhat terrifying image, it really is. 151 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:14.000 And speaking of. 152 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.920 Things forming in ways that shouldn't be possible, the sources 153 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.279 highlight a specific galaxy studied by researchers at the University 154 00:07:20.279 --> 00:07:23.360 of Cambridge. It's got like a telephone number for a 155 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:26.240 name jdsgs plus five three one. 156 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.199 Eight three four to three. A catchy, super catchy. 157 00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:32.639 But they call it the inside out galaxy because normally 158 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:35.319 galaxies form from the outside end, don't they. A massive 159 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:38.279 cloud collapses, gets dense in the middle, and draws in 160 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:38.800 the edges. 161 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.480 The standard model suggests exactly that gas clouds collapse under 162 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:45.480 their own gravity, forming a dense core of stars, and then, 163 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:49.920 over billions of years, the outer regions slowly organize, cool 164 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:53.519 and populate with stars. It's an outside in compaction process. 165 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:55.680 But the Cambridge team says this galaxy is doing the 166 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.680 exact opposite. It's forming in reverse. It started with a 167 00:07:58.759 --> 00:08:01.920 super dense core already fully in place, and now it's 168 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:05.439 growing its outer regions at an unbelievably fast paced The 169 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:08.680 researchers actually said, observing this was like finally being able 170 00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:11.040 to check your homework against theoretical models. 171 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:13.959 And unfortunately for the standard model, that homework is coming 172 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.560 back covered in red ink big red f right because 173 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:20.000 the inside out formation suggests that the core of this 174 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:24.879 galaxy didn't slowly accreed at all. It likely collapsed directly 175 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:29.160 and violently from a massive primorial gas cloud locking in 176 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:31.399 its central mass almost. 177 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:33.159 Instantaneously, just boom, it's there. 178 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:35.679 Yes, and now we are watching it sweep up the 179 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:39.639 surrounding environment to build its suburbs. It's a completely different 180 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:43.720 evolutionary pathway than what built our local neighborhood. It implies 181 00:08:43.720 --> 00:08:47.120 that gravity operated differently, or at least much more aggressively, 182 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:49.440 in the dense conditions of the early universe. 183 00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:52.919 Okay, if galaxy is forming backward is weird. This next 184 00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:54.799 finding is the one that really trips me up. 185 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:56.799 The dust, Oh, the carbon dust. 186 00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:01.159 Yes, JWST found massive amounts of car carbon dust in 187 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:04.039 ten different galaxies that are only ten million years old. 188 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:07.000 Let me frame this for you. The listener ten million 189 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:09.960 years in cosmic terms, is a blink. It is practically 190 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:13.399 brand new. If carbon is essentially the smoke left over 191 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.679 from a stellar fire, the JWST is telling us we're 192 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:19.399 finding a room full of thick smoke before the first 193 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:22.000 match was even struck. How do we have carbon in 194 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:23.840 a ten million year old galaxy? 195 00:09:23.960 --> 00:09:27.320 Your analogy of smoke before the fire highlights the absolute 196 00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:31.360 crisis this presents for stellar physics. Let's break down nuclear synthesis. 197 00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:34.039 Let's do it in the standard model, the Big Bang 198 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:38.080 only produced hydrogen, helium, and a tiny, almost negligible trace 199 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.039 of lithium. That's it. No carbon, no oxygen, no iron, 200 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:44.720 no gold. In astrophysics, we call everything heavier than helium 201 00:09:44.759 --> 00:09:45.200 a metal. 202 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:45.759 Okay. 203 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:47.960 Now, The only place in the universe where a heavy 204 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.200 element like carbon can be manufactured is inside the crushing 205 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:53.919 nuclear furnace at the core of a star, because. 206 00:09:53.679 --> 00:09:56.399 You need the insane heat and pressure to force lighter 207 00:09:56.440 --> 00:09:58.360 atoms to fuse together into heavier one. 208 00:09:58.360 --> 00:10:03.399 All right, Precisely, a star must form from primordial hydrogen, 209 00:10:04.159 --> 00:10:07.200 burn through that hydrogen for millions of years, start fusing 210 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:11.120 the leftover helium into carbon, and then eventually die, usually 211 00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:15.039 in a massive supernova explosion or by violently shedding its 212 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:17.679 outer layers. To distribute that carbon dust out into the 213 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:18.679 interstellar medium. 214 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:20.480 It takes time, a lot of time. 215 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:25.639 This process of enriching a galaxy, requiring generations of stars living, fusing, 216 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:28.759 and dying, is supposed to take hundreds of millions, if 217 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:32.440 not billions of years. To find substantial carbon dust in 218 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.519 a galaxy that is only ten million years old, means 219 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.919 that entire life cycle birth, nuclear fusion, death, and spatial 220 00:10:38.919 --> 00:10:41.559 distribution happened at a speed that defies our understanding of 221 00:10:41.559 --> 00:10:43.399 stellar physics. 222 00:10:42.679 --> 00:10:44.519 Like watching a time lapse on fast forward. 223 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:48.519 Exactly, there must be a mechanism for hyperfast massive star 224 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:52.200 formation and immediate catastrophic death that we simply haven't accounted 225 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:53.399 for in our models. 226 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:56.919 Which naturally pivots us from the early Universe's heavy elements 227 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.039 to its heaviest gravitational anomalies. 228 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:00.240 Because if the. 229 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:03.480 Galaxies in the early Universe are acting weird, the monsters 230 00:11:03.559 --> 00:11:06.919 lurking at their centers are even weirder. We spend so 231 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.320 much time looking at the light of the stars, but 232 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:12.879 JWST is revealing that the dark spaces between them hold 233 00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:13.639 the real power. 234 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:17.200 It is becoming increasingly apparent that the monsters we thought 235 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:20.279 were just inhabiting the dark might actually be the architects 236 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:20.519 of it. 237 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:23.480 Let's talk about the supermassive black holes at the center 238 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:27.360 of these galaxies. For the longest time, astrophysics had this 239 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.960 ultimate chicken or the egg scenario. Did the galaxy form 240 00:11:31.080 --> 00:11:33.080 first creating a gravity well. 241 00:11:32.840 --> 00:11:34.480 Where a black hole slowly grew in. 242 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:37.159 The middle from eating stars, or did the black hole 243 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:39.960 form first acting as a gravitational anchor that pulled the 244 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:41.399 galaey together around it. 245 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.639 Historically, the assumption was the former. The timeline went like this. 246 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:48.279 A massive early star dies, its core collapses, and it 247 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:51.600 forms a stellar mass black hole. This is a relatively 248 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:54.480 small object, maybe ten to fifty times the mass of 249 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:54.840 our Sun. 250 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:57.080 Still big, but not galaxy. 251 00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:59.919 Sized right, and over billions of years, the small seed 252 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:04.039 slowly merges with other black holes and continuously consumes surrounding 253 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:07.519 gas to eventually scale up and become a supermassive black 254 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:10.960 hole millions billions of times our Sun's mass. It was 255 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:13.200 a story of slow incremental growth. 256 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:17.559 Entered JWST and a galaxy called UHZ one. This galaxy 257 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:21.399 is thirteen point two billion light years away, meaning we're 258 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.559 seeing it as it existed just four hundred and seventy 259 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:25.799 million years after. 260 00:12:25.559 --> 00:12:26.039 The Big Bang. 261 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:27.120 Extremely early. 262 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:27.600 Yeah. 263 00:12:27.639 --> 00:12:30.279 Combining data from NASA's Chandra X ray observatory in the 264 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.679 James Web, astronomers found a black hole in this baby galaxy. 265 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:36.279 But it is absolutely not a baby black hole. It 266 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:38.200 is a mass of ten to one hundred million times 267 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:40.639 our Sun. And here is the kicker, the part that 268 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:43.679 shatters the slow growth model. The black hole is roughly 269 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:45.960 the same mass as its entire host galaxy. 270 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:48.720 The ratio is what is truly staggering. Here. Let's look 271 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:51.279 at a modern galaxy like our Milky Way for context, 272 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:55.159 our central supermassive black hole Sagittarius. A star is a 273 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:58.039 tiny fraction of a percent of the galaxy's total mass. 274 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:00.960 The stars out maass it by orders of magnitude to 275 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.559 find a black hole in uhz one that equals the 276 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:05.879 mass of all the stars in its galaxy combined so 277 00:13:06.039 --> 00:13:09.919 incredibly early in the universe effectively kills the slow growth 278 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:13.519 theory for these specific objects. A stellar mass black hole 279 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:15.840 couldn't eat fast enough to reach one hundred million solar 280 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:18.879 masses in just four hundred million years without blowing all 281 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:22.519 its food away with radiation. This strongly supports the heavy 282 00:13:22.519 --> 00:13:24.600 seed or direct collapse scenario. 283 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:27.240 Welk us through that mechanism, How does a black hole 284 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:29.440 just bypass the starphase entirely? 285 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.919 It requires conditions that only existed in the very early universe. 286 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:36.639 Imagine a primordial cloud of pristine hydrogen gas that is 287 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:39.840 unfathomably massive and incredibly. 288 00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:40.679 Dense, Okay, picturing it. 289 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:43.879 Instead of fragmenting into thousands of smaller clumps that ignite 290 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:47.840 into individual stars. The sheer overwhelming gravity of the entire 291 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:51.320 cloud causes it to instantly and catastrophically collapse in on. 292 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:53.879 Itself without ever sparking fusion exactly. 293 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:57.440 It bypasses nuclear fusion entirely. It goes straight from a 294 00:13:57.480 --> 00:14:00.480 gas cloud to a massive black hole tens of thousands 295 00:14:00.519 --> 00:14:02.679 of times the mass of our Sun right from the start. 296 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:06.840 This heavy seed then acts as the ultimate gravitational anchor, 297 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:10.200 pulling in more gas to rapidly form the galaxy around it. 298 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:14.960 Uahz one suggests the monster was there from the very beginning, 299 00:14:15.039 --> 00:14:17.320 essentially building the house around itself. 300 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:19.840 Building the house around itself. I love that visual, but 301 00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:23.039 the source text makes it clear that sometimes these black 302 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:27.960 holes are terrible housemates. Researchers from Stanford observed a phenomenon 303 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:30.279 they're calling the black hole blow torch. 304 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:31.720 Oh, this one is fascinating. 305 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:35.039 It's terrifying. They looked at a supermassive black hole six 306 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:37.480 point five billion times the mass of our Sun that 307 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:40.480 is shooting a jet of high energy plasma stretching three 308 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:43.879 thousand light years long, and this jet is literally causing 309 00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:47.480 nearby star systems to explode. Walking past that blow torch 310 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:49.519 would be like walking past a running jet engine and 311 00:14:49.559 --> 00:14:50.840 having your atom scrambled. 312 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.799 It is a phenomenal display of active galactic nucleus or 313 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:59.279 agn feedback. We typically think of black holes as cosmic 314 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:03.759 vacuums that consume matter, but the environment just outside the 315 00:15:03.759 --> 00:15:07.519 event horizon is arguably the most violent place in the universe. 316 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:08.559 Because everything is moving so fast. 317 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:13.120 Right yes, As gas and dust spiral inward, they form 318 00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:16.039 an accretion disc that gets heated to millions of degrees. 319 00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:19.799 The magnetic fields in this plasma get twisted and tightly 320 00:15:19.879 --> 00:15:23.000 coiled by the rotation of the black hole. These twisted 321 00:15:23.039 --> 00:15:27.039 magnetic fields act like a cosmic particle accelerator, launching a 322 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:30.200 fraction of that infalling material outwards at nearly the speed 323 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:31.759 of light from the black hole's poles. 324 00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:33.879 So it's not the black hole throwing it out, it's 325 00:15:33.879 --> 00:15:37.279 the magnetic field around it acting like a slingshot before 326 00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:39.639 the material crosses the point of no return. 327 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:43.440 Exactly, and these relativistic jets can extend far beyond the 328 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:47.120 host galaxy itself. What the Stanford team noted, which is 329 00:15:47.159 --> 00:15:50.360 truly terrifying, is the specific effect this jet has on 330 00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:52.440 the galaxy it's piercing through Yeah. 331 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:53.600 What does it actually do to the stars. 332 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:56.840 Well, the jet isn't just empty radiation. It is a 333 00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:03.480 stream of highly energetic particles generating intense synchrotron radiation. As 334 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:07.559 this blowtorch slams into cold gas clouds and nearby star systems, 335 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.840 it compresses the gas, suddenly altering the pressure dynamics. This 336 00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:15.720 violent compression seems to be triggering runaway supernova events in 337 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:19.799 those nearby stars. Oh, it is, for all intents and purposes, 338 00:16:19.879 --> 00:16:23.559 a cosmic sterilization beam sweeping through the galaxy. 339 00:16:23.679 --> 00:16:27.240 A sterilization beam just wiping out any chance for a 340 00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:30.120 stable solar system in its path. And if a localized 341 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:34.399 blowtorch isn't terrifying enough. The GWST data also helped to 342 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:35.480 confirm the existence of. 343 00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:36.399 Rogue black holes. 344 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:37.240 Oh yes, we. 345 00:16:37.200 --> 00:16:39.519 Always picture black holes sitting in the center of galaxies 346 00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:43.279 or securely orbiting companion stars. But astronomers found a free, 347 00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:46.679 floating rogue black hole drifting through the Milky Way completely alone, 348 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:49.240 moving at twenty eight meters per second. It's about five 349 00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:50.200 thousand light years away. 350 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:52.200 But wait, I have a fundamental question about this. Sure, 351 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:54.919 how do we even see something that is, by definition invisible, 352 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:57.960 emitting absolutely no light, and wandering alone in the dark. 353 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:01.240 It relies on one of Albert einstein Most brilliant and 354 00:17:01.279 --> 00:17:06.759 initially controversial predictions from his theory of general relativity, gravitational microlensing. 355 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:07.640 Micro lensing. 356 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:12.000 Yes, because a black hole has immense mass, it literally 357 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:15.039 warps the fabric of space time around it, creating a 358 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:18.960 deep gravitational well. If a rogue black hole happens to 359 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:22.599 drift exactly between our telescope here on Earth and a distant, 360 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:26.519 luminous background star, the black hole's gravity acts like a 361 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:30.119 magnifying glass. As the light from the distant star passes 362 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.799 through the warped space time around the black hole, the 363 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.079 light path is bend and focused toward us. 364 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:37.599 It's like looking at a distant street lamp through the 365 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:40.640 bottom of a moving wineglass. You don't actually see the 366 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:43.000 glass in the dark, but you see the street lamp's 367 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:46.400 light distort, stretch, and suddenly brighten as the glass passes 368 00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:46.799 over it. 369 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:50.160 That is a brilliant analogy, and by carefully measuring exactly 370 00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:52.720 how much that starlight bends, how bright it gets, and 371 00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:56.759 how long the magnification lasts, astronomers can calculate the mass 372 00:17:56.799 --> 00:17:59.079 and the speed of the invisible object passing in front 373 00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:01.359 of it. We can't see the rogue black hole, but 374 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:03.440 we can see the dent it makes in the universe. 375 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:06.839 And the sources suggest there could be millions of these 376 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:12.119 row black holes just wandering our galaxy, millions of invisible 377 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:15.599 gravitational traps drifting through the dark. It is deeply unsettling. 378 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:17.480 It gives you a new perspective on the night's sky, 379 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:17.920 doesn't it. 380 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:22.160 Absolutely, But remarkably it pales in comparison to this next 381 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:24.599 concept from the source material dark stars. 382 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:27.319 Ah. This is where the physics leaves the realm of 383 00:18:27.319 --> 00:18:29.559 the unsettling and enters the truly exotic. 384 00:18:29.880 --> 00:18:33.000 In twenty twenty three, a report came out suggesting that 385 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:37.319 some of the objects Joust identified as early massive galaxies 386 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:40.920 might not be galaxies at all. They might be dark stars. 387 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:43.599 And the irony is they aren't dark. They're super bright, 388 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.359 bright enough to compete with the light output of an 389 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.039 entire galaxy of normal stars. 390 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:49.519 Yes, but they are powered by dark matter. 391 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:51.759 Yeah. I need to pause here because my understanding of 392 00:18:51.799 --> 00:18:55.000 dark matter was that it's just the invisible gravitational glue 393 00:18:55.079 --> 00:18:58.200 holding spinning galaxies together so they don't fly apart. Yeah, 394 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:01.119 how on Earth is an invisible gravitation glue power as star. 395 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.559 To understand dark stars, we have to rethink what a 396 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.240 star fundamentally is. A normal star like our sun, is 397 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:10.880 essentially a delicate balance of terror. You have the crushing 398 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:14.119 force of gravity trying to collapse the star inward, and 399 00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:17.000 you have the immense outward pressure of nuclear fusion in 400 00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:20.359 the core pushing outward. When those two forces are equal, 401 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:23.839