WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos

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<v Speaker 1>with our soothing Bedtime Astronomy podcast. Each episode offers a

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<v Speaker 1>gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for

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<v Speaker 1>unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries

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<v Speaker 1>of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful

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<v Speaker 1>slumber under the night sky.

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<v Speaker 2>I want you to imagine just for a second, the

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<v Speaker 2>ultimate fate of our own solar system, right, because you know,

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<v Speaker 2>we always think of the Sun as this permanent fixture,

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<v Speaker 2>but in about five to eight billion years, it's going

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<v Speaker 2>to run out of fuel. It's going to shed its

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<v Speaker 2>outer layers and shrink down into this incredibly dense earth

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<v Speaker 2>sized stellar graveyard, a white.

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<v Speaker 3>Dwarf, exactly a cooling ember in the dark.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it's a very quiet, solitary end, or at

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<v Speaker 2>least that's the picture you get in standard textbook astronomy.

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<v Speaker 2>A peaceful, dead star are just floating in absolute silence.

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<v Speaker 2>But this is where it gets interesting. Imagine pointing a

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<v Speaker 2>highly sensitive X ray telescope at one of those supposedly dead,

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<v Speaker 2>silent patches of space.

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<v Speaker 3>Where standard physics says there should just be absolutely.

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<v Speaker 2>Nothing, right, nothing, But instead you were just blinded by

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<v Speaker 2>an X ray screen so intense, so furious that it

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<v Speaker 2>completely shatters that peaceful image. You're suddenly looking at an

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<v Speaker 2>impossible engine running with zero fuel.

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<v Speaker 3>It is entirely paradoxical, and that exact paradox has been

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<v Speaker 3>keeping a very specific subset of the actrophysics community awake

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<v Speaker 3>at night for a while. Now. I can imagine, because,

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<v Speaker 3>like you said, we had this peaceful picture, but over

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<v Speaker 3>the last fifteen years or so, observational astronomy has completely

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<v Speaker 3>shattered that image. We've realized the universe is vastly more chaotic,

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<v Speaker 3>and binary or multi star systems are actually incredibly.

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<v Speaker 2>Common, right there are the norm, not the exception.

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<v Speaker 3>A solitary star like our sun is actually sort of

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<v Speaker 3>an anomaly. Most stars out there have a dance.

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<v Speaker 2>Partner, and when one of those partners reaches the end

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<v Speaker 2>of its life and becomes a white dwarf, things get

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<v Speaker 2>They get really violent.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh. Violently is definitely the operative word here, because you

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<v Speaker 3>have to remember what a white dwarf is. It has

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<v Speaker 3>this extreme mass, like the mass of a whole sun,

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<v Speaker 3>but it's compacted down into a tiny volume roughly the

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<v Speaker 3>size of the Earth.

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<v Speaker 2>That density is just it's hard to even wrap your

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<v Speaker 2>head around it is.

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<v Speaker 3>And because of that density, its gravitational pull is immense.

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<v Speaker 3>So if it happens to be in a close binary

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<v Speaker 3>system with a companion star, it doesn't just sit there.

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<v Speaker 3>It starts exerting these extreme tidal forces on.

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<v Speaker 2>Its neighbor, actively pulling on it.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, it literally snatches away or accretes the outer gaseous

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<v Speaker 3>envelope right off that companion star. And this material doesn't

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<v Speaker 3>just fall straight down onto the white dwarf because of

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<v Speaker 3>the conservation of angular momentum.

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<v Speaker 2>It spirals inward like water going down a drain.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, and it forms what we call an accretion disk.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's unpack this for second, because that accretion disc

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<v Speaker 2>is the key to that traditional X ray signal we

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<v Speaker 2>were talking about, right, Yes, absolutely, we aren't just talking

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<v Speaker 2>about a gentle swirl of gas here. We're talking about

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<v Speaker 2>material moving at relativistic speeds, just grinding against itself.

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<v Speaker 3>Precisely, the friction inside that accretion disc is just incomprehensible.

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<v Speaker 3>As the material spirals closer and closer to the white

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<v Speaker 3>dwarf surface, it gets superheated to millions of degrees.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, millions.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and when plasma hits those kinds of temperatures, it

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<v Speaker 3>naturally emits high energy X rays. So for observational astronomers,

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<v Speaker 3>this created a really solid, reliable diagnostic rule, A signature, right,

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<v Speaker 3>a signature for half a century. If your telescope picked

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<v Speaker 3>up this brilliant, sustained X ray signature coming from a

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<v Speaker 3>white dwarf, you knew with absolute certainty what you were

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<v Speaker 3>looking at.

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<v Speaker 2>You were watching an accretion events exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>You were watching a dead star cannibalize its neighbor. It

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<v Speaker 3>was brutal, it was simple, and we understood the mechanics perfectly.

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<v Speaker 2>Which brings us back to the mystery the impossible engine,

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<v Speaker 2>Because what happens when you look through that same telescope

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<v Speaker 2>and you see that exact same definitive X ray signature

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<v Speaker 2>tearing through the void, but there's no companion, right, You

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<v Speaker 2>look for the neighbor and there's absolutely nothing there. It's

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<v Speaker 2>just a solitary, hyperdense remnant screaming X rays into the void,

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<v Speaker 2>no accretion disc, no neighbor to feed on, just alone.

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<v Speaker 3>It breaks the model completely.

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<v Speaker 2>How does a white dwarf generate that kind of friction

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<v Speaker 2>and heat entirely on its own.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, that question is the focal point of this massive

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<v Speaker 3>paradigm shift we're currently seeing unfold. It's all stemming from

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<v Speaker 3>some groundbreaking discovery work by researchers at the Institute of

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<v Speaker 3>Science and Technology Austria or EASTA.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, led by Assistant Professor Alariat Kayaso and her PhD

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<v Speaker 2>students Andre Cristea and a Eustaci exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>And they haven't just found some weird glitch in the

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<v Speaker 3>telescope data. They've identified too, deeply bizarre, totally isolated cosmic

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<v Speaker 3>op objects that defy all the established rules of the

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<v Speaker 3>standard accretion model.

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<v Speaker 2>Two of them, two of them, And.

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<v Speaker 3>Over the course of our conversation today, we're really going

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<v Speaker 3>to dig into the violent cosmic collisions that birth these

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<v Speaker 3>solitary remnants and how their existence has essentially forced astronomers

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<v Speaker 3>to officially define an entirely new class of star remnants.

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<v Speaker 2>Let's start with the first anomaly, because it has honestly

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<v Speaker 2>one of the best nicknames in astrophysics.

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<v Speaker 3>It really does. Gandolf, Yes, Gandalf, the rule breaker it.

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<v Speaker 2>Laura Kayato actually spotted this one during her post doctoral research. Right. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>and then the incredibly detailed follow up was recently published

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<v Speaker 2>in Astronomy and.

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<v Speaker 3>Astrophysics, right, led by Andre Christia.

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<v Speaker 2>So when astronomers first got to read on Gandalf, my

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<v Speaker 2>understanding is it actually looked like a standard binary system

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<v Speaker 2>at first glance, like they detected materials swirling around it.

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<v Speaker 2>So the initial thought was, Okay, we have an accretion disc.

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<v Speaker 2>There must be a companion hidden in the glare.

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<v Speaker 3>That was the immediate assumption. Yeah, because seeing material around

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<v Speaker 3>an X ray source is classic binary behavior. But that

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<v Speaker 3>theory fell apart almost the second they measured how fast

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<v Speaker 3>Gandolf was spinning.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's unpack this spin rate because it's fast, right.

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<v Speaker 3>It's absurdly fast. Gandolf is rotating on its axis once

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<v Speaker 3>every six.

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<v Speaker 2>Minutes, six minutes for an object the mass of the sun.

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<v Speaker 3>Right. And to understand why that completely destroys the binary

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<v Speaker 3>companion theory, we have to talk about orbital synchronization. When

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<v Speaker 3>you have two massive bodies orbiting really close to each

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<v Speaker 3>other in a binary system, especially if one of them

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<v Speaker 3>is the highly magnetic White dwarf, the tidal and magnetic

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<v Speaker 3>forces between them create this immense.

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<v Speaker 2>Drag kind of like the moon in the Earth.

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<v Speaker 3>Very similar.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>Over time, those forces compel the rotation of the white

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<v Speaker 3>dwarf to synchronize with the orbital period of its companion.

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<v Speaker 3>They get locked together in a rhythm.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, So if Gandolf is spinning every six minutes and

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<v Speaker 2>it supposedly had a companion locked in that rhysm.

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<v Speaker 3>That companion would have to be whipping around the white

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<v Speaker 3>dwarf in a six minute orbit.

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<v Speaker 2>Is that even physically possible? I mean, wouldn't the stars

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<v Speaker 2>just tear each other to shreds at those speeds?

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<v Speaker 3>It is physically impossible. The centrifugal forces alone would just

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<v Speaker 3>completely shred a companion star long before it ever reached

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<v Speaker 3>an orbit that type. For some context, the absolute fastest

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<v Speaker 3>known orbit for a binary system of this specific type

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<v Speaker 3>is around eighty minutes.

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<v Speaker 2>Eighty minutes versus six minutes. That's a huge difference.

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<v Speaker 3>It's the cosmic speed limit. Anything faster and the structural

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<v Speaker 3>integrity of the companion star just completely fails. So the

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<v Speaker 3>math gives us a hard stop. You cannot have a

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<v Speaker 3>binary system orbiting every six minutes.

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<v Speaker 2>Therefore, Gandalf cannot have a companion exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>It is mathematically unequivocally alone.

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<v Speaker 2>So if it's completely alone, what on Earth is that

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<v Speaker 2>material swirling around it? Because that initial observation wasn't wrong,

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<v Speaker 2>there is gas there. How do astronomers actually figure out

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<v Speaker 2>the shape of gas around a star that's, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>thousands of light years away.

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<v Speaker 3>That's where we rely on optical emission spectra. We basically

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<v Speaker 3>look at the light. Astronomers take the light coming from

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<v Speaker 3>the immediate space around Gandolf and pass it through a spectrograph.

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<v Speaker 3>It separates the light out into different wavelengths. And when

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<v Speaker 3>a gas like hydrogen is heated and ionized, the electrons

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<v Speaker 3>in its atoms jump to higher energy states.

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<v Speaker 2>And when they drop back down they release light.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, They emit photons at very specific predictable wavelengths. We

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<v Speaker 3>know exactly where those hydrogen emission lines should be on

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<v Speaker 3>the spectrum.

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<v Speaker 2>But the hydrogen signature around Gandolf wasn't a normal line.

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<v Speaker 3>No, it was deeply strange.

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<v Speaker 2>From what I saw in the data. It didn't show

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<v Speaker 2>a steady emission line at all. It showed a signal

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<v Speaker 2>that constantly alternated between two distinct peaks, and it was

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<v Speaker 2>perfectly synchronized with Gandal's six minute rotation.

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<v Speaker 3>That's exactly right.

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<v Speaker 2>The researchers literally describe the shape on the readout as

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<v Speaker 2>looking like cat eers.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, the cat ear spectra.

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<v Speaker 2>So what does a cat ear shape and a light

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<v Speaker 2>spectrum actually tell us about the physical space like the

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<v Speaker 2>geometry around the star.

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<v Speaker 3>What's fascinating here is how we use the Doppler effect

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<v Speaker 3>to translate variations in light into physical geometry.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, Doppler effect like an ambulance driving by.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly like that. We all know how sound waves compress

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<v Speaker 3>as an ambulance moves toward you, making a higher pitch,

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<v Speaker 3>and stretch as it moves away, making a lower pitch.

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<v Speaker 3>The exact same kinematic principles apply to light. If glowing

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<v Speaker 3>hydrogen gas is moving toward our telescope, the light waves

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<v Speaker 3>get compressed. That shifts the emission line to a slightly

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<v Speaker 3>higher frequency, which we call.

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<v Speaker 2>A blue shift, And if it's moving away.

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<v Speaker 3>The waves stretch out, shifting the light to a lower

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<v Speaker 3>frequency a red shift.

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<v Speaker 2>Got it. So if you have a uniform ring of

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<v Speaker 2>gas like think of Saturn's rings made of hot plasmas

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<v Speaker 2>spinning around a star, you would constantly be seeing both

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<v Speaker 2>shifts at the exact.

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<v Speaker 3>Same time, right, because one side of the ring is

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<v Speaker 3>always coming towards you and the other side is always

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<v Speaker 3>rotating away from you.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, so that would just look like a wide, stable

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<v Speaker 2>line on the graph.

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<v Speaker 3>Precisely, a continuous uniform disc of material produces a stable,

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<v Speaker 3>groddened emission line with two constant peaks.

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<v Speaker 2>But that's not what the caddiers look like.

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<v Speaker 3>No, it wasn't. The Caddier's signature wasn't constant at all.

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<v Speaker 3>Those blue shift and red shift peaks alternated. They faded

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<v Speaker 3>in and out over that exact six minute rotational period.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow.

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<v Speaker 3>And if you run the math and model the kinematics

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<v Speaker 3>required to produce that highly specific alternating light signature, there's

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<v Speaker 3>only one geometric solution.

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<v Speaker 2>And what is it.

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<v Speaker 3>You aren't looking at a continuous disk of material. You

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<v Speaker 3>were looking at a broken, asymmetrical half ring of ionized

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<v Speaker 3>hydrogen plasma, a half ring just suspended in space orbiting

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<v Speaker 3>the star.

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<v Speaker 2>That just, I mean, logically, that sounds fundamentally wrong. Gravity

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<v Speaker 2>is a central force. It pulls equally in all directions

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<v Speaker 2>towards the center of mass. It does if you put

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<v Speaker 2>a clump of debris in orbit around something that massive

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<v Speaker 2>orbital mechanics dictates that over time, it's going to shear,

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<v Speaker 2>part spread out, and eventually form a continuous uniform disc.

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<v Speaker 2>Gravity abhors an asymmetrical half ring.

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<v Speaker 3>Gravity absolutely abhors it. If gravity were the sole force

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<v Speaker 3>governing the architecture of that system, that half ring of

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<v Speaker 3>plasma would destabilize and smear out into a uniform disc

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<v Speaker 3>in a matter of hours, maybe even minutes.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, really that fast.

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<v Speaker 3>Absolutely, the extreme gravitational shear near a white dwarf makes

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<v Speaker 3>it physically impossible to maintain a clumped structure like that.

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<v Speaker 3>So physics demands the presence of a second force, an

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<v Speaker 3>overpowering force acting as a containment vessel.

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<v Speaker 2>And since we're dealing with ionized gas, essentially a soup

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<v Speaker 2>of charged particles, the only force out there strong enough

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<v Speaker 2>to grapple with charged particles against that much gravity is

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<v Speaker 2>a magnetic field.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly magnetism. But it cannot just be a standard dipole

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<v Speaker 3>magnetic field.

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<v Speaker 2>Like the Earth magnetic field with a north and south pole.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, it can't be like ours to trap plasma asymmetrically

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<v Speaker 3>and hold it rigidly suspended in a half ring on

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<v Speaker 3>just one side of the star. The white dwarf has

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<v Speaker 3>to possess a phenomenally strong, violently asymmetrical magnetic field. Violently asymmetrical,

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<v Speaker 3>the magnetic flux lines have to be severely lopsided. They

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<v Speaker 3>have to project much further and much stronger out into

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<v Speaker 3>space on one side of the hemisphere than the other.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's basically acting like an invisible magnetic claw.

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<v Speaker 3>That's a great way to picture it, an invisible claw

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<v Speaker 3>gripping this plasma and whipping it around the star every

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<v Speaker 3>six minutes.

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<v Speaker 2>The idea of a lopsided magnetic claw holding a chunk

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<v Speaker 2>of plasma is wild enough on its own, but it

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<v Speaker 2>gets even weirder when you look at standard stellar evolution.

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<v Speaker 2>It really does because white dwarfs, say Gandalf stage of

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<v Speaker 2>life under normal circumstances, shouldn't really have massive magnetic fields

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<v Speaker 2>at all, let alone a highly lopsided one.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, The magnetic dynamos of typical stars tend to decay,

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<v Speaker 3>or at least become highly uniform as they collapse and

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<v Speaker 3>cool into a white dwarf.

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<v Speaker 2>I how did Gandalf get this claw?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, that is the crux of the riddle. High field

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<v Speaker 3>magnetic white dwarfs are already exceptionally rare. But an isolated

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<v Speaker 3>ultra massive white dwarf with a profoundly asymmetric magnetic field

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<v Speaker 3>that completely defies normal cooling model.

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<v Speaker 2>It needs a different origin story.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, it requires an entirely different genesis. Gandalf did not

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<v Speaker 3>evolve peacefully from a single dying star. It is what

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<v Speaker 3>we call a merger remnant.

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<v Speaker 2>Meaning it's the aftermath of a cosmic car.

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<v Speaker 3>Cress, a cataclysmic one. Our best models indicate that about

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<v Speaker 3>sixty to seventy million years ago, there were two separate

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<v Speaker 3>white dwarfs locked in a decaying binary orbit.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, so two dead stars spiraling toward each.

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<v Speaker 3>Other as they lost orbital energy, likely through the emission

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<v Speaker 3>of gravitational waves. They spiraled inward until they finally violently

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<v Speaker 3>collided and merged into one body.

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<v Speaker 2>The violence of two Earth sized sun mass objects slamming

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<v Speaker 2>into each other, it's almost unimaginable. It's beyond human comprehension, really,

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<v Speaker 2>and I'd imagine that collision is exactly what kicked at

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<v Speaker 2>spin rate up to six minutes, just all that orbital

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<v Speaker 2>momentum from the two stars getting crushed into a single body.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, yes, exactly. The rotational energy from that decaying orbit

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<v Speaker 3>is conserved in the newly merged body that results in

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<v Speaker 3>that frantic six minute spin.

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<v Speaker 2>But what about the magnetic field.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, the sheer physical trauma of the impact, the turbulent

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<v Speaker 3>mixing of the two stellar cores during the merger that

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<v Speaker 3>generated a chaotic, incredibly powerful magnetic dynamo. That collision is

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<v Speaker 3>what forged the lopsided magnetic field we see today.

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<v Speaker 2>So we have a star born from a violent collision

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<v Speaker 2>between two dead stars. It's spinning frantically every six minutes,

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<v Speaker 2>It's holding onto a half ring of plasma with a twisted,

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00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:39.039
<v Speaker 2>lopsided magnetic field, and somehow it's blasting out X rays

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<v Speaker 2>without any companion to feed on.

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<v Speaker 3>It really is a list of impossibility.

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<v Speaker 2>It totally earns its name because Andrei Christea actually named

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<v Speaker 2>it Gandolf because, much like the wizard in Tolkien's universe,

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<v Speaker 2>it likes to speak in riddles.

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<v Speaker 3>It's the perfect moniker. Every single time they point an

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<v Speaker 3>instrument at it, the data just provides a clue that

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<v Speaker 3>leads to a deeper, more frustrating physics problem.

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00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:02.039
<v Speaker 2>But if you find one incredibly strange rule breaking object

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00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.879
<v Speaker 2>out in the vastness of space. The immediate question is

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00:15:04.919 --> 00:15:07.320
<v Speaker 2>always is this a complete fluke?

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<v Speaker 3>Right? The inherent challenge with observational astronomy is always the

305
00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:14.919
<v Speaker 3>sample size. The scientific method demands skepticism.

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00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.679
<v Speaker 2>Did we just stumble upon the single strangest accident in

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<v Speaker 2>the Milky Way? Or is this part of a pattern?

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00:15:20.399 --> 00:15:24.320
<v Speaker 3>Is Gandalf the Rosetta stone for an entirely unmapped branch

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00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:26.039
<v Speaker 3>of stellar physics exactly?

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<v Speaker 2>A sample size of one is just an anomaly. But

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<v Speaker 2>a sample size of two that's a pattern. And that

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00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:34.960
<v Speaker 2>pattern actually emerged when the team started digging into historical data.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, back in twenty twenty one, Ilaria Kayazo had cataloged

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<v Speaker 3>another highly unusual object, and.

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00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:44.039
<v Speaker 2>Recently a twenty twenty five paper led by Ayusht Sai

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00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:47.200
<v Speaker 2>took a much closer look at this second object using

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00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:50.320
<v Speaker 2>advanced UV and X ray data, and the second remnant

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00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:52.639
<v Speaker 2>has a much more literal name. It is simply called

319
00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:53.360
<v Speaker 2>moon sized.

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00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:56.080
<v Speaker 3>It is a literal name, but the implications of its

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00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:58.279
<v Speaker 3>physical dimensions are just staggering.

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00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:00.799
<v Speaker 2>Here's where it gets really interesting, because calling it moon

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00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:03.840
<v Speaker 2>sized almost under sells the horror of its physics. It

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00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:06.440
<v Speaker 2>does when we say moon sized. We're talking about an

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00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:09.399
<v Speaker 2>object that contains the entire mass of our Sun, a

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<v Speaker 2>star so massive you could fit one million earths inside

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<v Speaker 2>of it, and now take all of that mass and

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00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:17.960
<v Speaker 2>crush it down into a sphere with a radius roughly

329
00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:23.159
<v Speaker 2>equivalent to our tiny moon. The density is borderline incomprehensible.

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00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.919
<v Speaker 2>You're talking about crushing a million earths into a space

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00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:28.320
<v Speaker 2>smaller than Asia.

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<v Speaker 3>To put some hard physics behind that density, we actually

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00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:33.120
<v Speaker 3>have to talk about the structural limits of matter.

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00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:33.960
<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's hear it.

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00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:37.519
<v Speaker 3>In a normal star like our Sun, the inward crush

336
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:40.440
<v Speaker 3>of gravity is constantly balanced by the outward pressure of

337
00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:42.519
<v Speaker 3>nuclear fusion happening in the core.

338
00:16:42.440 --> 00:16:45.519
<v Speaker 2>Right an ongoing explosion pushing outward exactly.

339
00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:49.799
<v Speaker 3>But when the fusion stops, gravity winds and the star collapses.

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00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:52.720
<v Speaker 3>For a white dwarf to stabilize at the size of

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00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:55.320
<v Speaker 3>the moon while holding the mass of a sun, it

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00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:59.120
<v Speaker 3>relies entirely on a quantum mechanical phenomenon.

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00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:01.960
<v Speaker 2>Electron degeneracy pressure. Yes, I've read about this, but the

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00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:05.680
<v Speaker 2>mechanics of it are deeply counterintuitive. It's not physical matter

345
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:08.880
<v Speaker 2>pushing back against gravity. It's actually a rule of quantum physics.

346
00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.720
<v Speaker 3>Right, that's right. It stems directly from the poly exclusion principle,

347
00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:12.720
<v Speaker 3>which states.

348
00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:15.480
<v Speaker 2>That no two electrons can occupy the identical quantum state

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00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:16.240
<v Speaker 2>at the same time.

350
00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:19.319
<v Speaker 3>Exactly. Think of it like a very strict set of

351
00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:22.920
<v Speaker 3>assigned seats in a theater. As gravity crushes the matter

352
00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:26.079
<v Speaker 3>of the star denser and denser, the electrons are stripped

353
00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:29.200
<v Speaker 3>from their nuclei and forced into a smaller and smaller.

354
00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:30.960
<v Speaker 2>Volume, so the seats are filling up right.

355
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:34.519
<v Speaker 3>Eventually, all the lowest energy states the front row seats

356
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:38.839
<v Speaker 3>are completely filled. If gravity tries to compress the matter

357
00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:42.960
<v Speaker 3>even further, the electrons literally have to occupy higher and

358
00:17:43.079 --> 00:17:46.839
<v Speaker 3>higher momentum states simply because there's no room left for

359
00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:48.240
<v Speaker 3>them in the lower states.

360
00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:49.480
<v Speaker 2>They refuse to share a seat.

361
00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.400
<v Speaker 3>Exactly. This quantum resistance to being squeezed into the same

362
00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:57.640
<v Speaker 3>state creates an immense outward pressure. That quantum resistance is

363
00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:01.839
<v Speaker 3>literally the only thing preventing moons from collapsing entirely into

364
00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:03.960
<v Speaker 3>a neutron star or even a black hole.

365
00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:06.839
<v Speaker 2>It's existing right on the razor's edge of physical collapse.

366
00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:10.319
<v Speaker 3>It is pushing the absolute limits of what matter can endure.

367
00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:13.880
<v Speaker 2>So we have this incredibly dense, volatile object, and the

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00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:17.960
<v Speaker 2>iSER researchers quickly realize that Moon size is essentially Gandalf's twin,

369
00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:20.440
<v Speaker 2>just at a very different point in its life cycle.

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00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:25.440
<v Speaker 3>Precisely, they are fundamentally the exact same type of object.

371
00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:31.359
<v Speaker 3>Both are isolated, ultra massive, highly magnetic merger remnants.

372
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.000
<v Speaker 2>But the timeline is the key differentiator here.

373
00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:37.440
<v Speaker 3>Yes, we estimate that the violent collision that berth Gandalf

374
00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:40.119
<v Speaker 3>happened roughly sixty to seventy million years ago.

375
00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.880
<v Speaker 2>Which in galactic terms is basically yesterday.

376
00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:46.519
<v Speaker 3>It is incredibly recent. Gandalf is essentially a fresh wound,

377
00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:49.640
<v Speaker 3>but Moon sized, on the other hand, is an ancient scar.

378
00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.400
<v Speaker 3>Its merger event is estimated to have occurred roughly five

379
00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:54.519
<v Speaker 3>hundred million.

380
00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:57.559
<v Speaker 2>Years ago, half a billion years of evolution between the two. Right,

381
00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:00.519
<v Speaker 2>that age gap has to account for some major differences

382
00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:01.759
<v Speaker 2>in how they look and behave today.

383
00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:05.079
<v Speaker 3>Right, it accounts for almost all of the observational differences.

384
00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:08.359
<v Speaker 3>Because Moon size has had five hundred million years to

385
00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:12.160
<v Speaker 3>cool down, subtle, and interact with its surrounding environment, it

386
00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.440
<v Speaker 3>lacks all the chaotic debris we see around Gandalf.

387
00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:17.119
<v Speaker 2>So there's no half ring of plasma.

388
00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:20.519
<v Speaker 3>No halfering. There are no cadiers in its optical spectrum.

389
00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:23.839
<v Speaker 3>Whatever shrapnel or material was suspended around it in the

390
00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:28.279
<v Speaker 3>millions of years right after its merger, it's gone. It's

391
00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:31.960
<v Speaker 3>either been fully consumed ejected out into deep space, or

392
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:33.480
<v Speaker 3>it's cooled into invisibility.

393
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:36.799
<v Speaker 2>But it's still emitting X rays even after half a

394
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:38.400
<v Speaker 2>billion year. Is completely alone.

395
00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:42.160
<v Speaker 3>It is, and that is the defining link between the two. However,

396
00:19:42.359 --> 00:19:45.559
<v Speaker 3>the X ray emissions from Moon sized are significantly weaker,

397
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:48.440
<v Speaker 3>how much weaker, about one hundred times dimmer than the

398
00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:51.039
<v Speaker 3>blinding X ray flux we see coming from Gandalf.

399
00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:52.759
<v Speaker 2>Wow. Okay, so it's fading.

400
00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.920
<v Speaker 3>It heavily implies a process of decay. Yes, when astronomers

401
00:19:56.960 --> 00:19:59.720
<v Speaker 3>analyze Moon size, they are basically looking at a temporal mirror,

402
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:03.359
<v Speaker 3>looking at the future of Gandalf. Right, whatever mysterious engine

403
00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:06.440
<v Speaker 3>is actually powering the X rays in these solitary remnants,

404
00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:09.319
<v Speaker 3>it slowly runs out of fuel or it loses momentum

405
00:20:09.359 --> 00:20:12.000
<v Speaker 3>over a timescale of hundreds of millions of years.

406
00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:16.200
<v Speaker 2>So we now have two incredibly strange objects. They're separated

407
00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.799
<v Speaker 2>by vast distances and hundreds of millions of years of

408
00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:22.079
<v Speaker 2>evolutionary time, but they share an incredibly specific set of

409
00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:23.519
<v Speaker 2>highly unusual traits.

410
00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:27.680
<v Speaker 3>They completely break the standard accretion model for X ray generation.

411
00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:30.599
<v Speaker 2>And they don't behave like standard isolated white dwarfs either.

412
00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:36.000
<v Speaker 2>So how does the astrophysical community actually deal with objects

413
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:39.079
<v Speaker 2>that just refuse to fit into any of the established boxes.

414
00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:41.640
<v Speaker 3>Well, you have to draw a new box. You have

415
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:45.079
<v Speaker 3>to redraw the techxonomy. As we discussed, a single anomaly

416
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:48.519
<v Speaker 3>is just a curiosity. But when you have two distinct

417
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:53.519
<v Speaker 3>objects at different evolutionary stages exhibiting the exact same set

418
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:59.240
<v Speaker 3>of overlapping, previously unexplainable phenomena, it crosses a critical threshold

419
00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:02.559
<v Speaker 3>in science than the confidence to say this is real exactly,

420
00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:05.799
<v Speaker 3>it gives researchers the empirical confidence to state that they

421
00:21:05.839 --> 00:21:08.759
<v Speaker 3>haven't just found a weird star, They've actually discovered an

422
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.160
<v Speaker 3>entirely new branch of stellar evolution.

423
00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:14.720
<v Speaker 2>And the ISIO team basically planted a flag here. They

424
00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:19.880
<v Speaker 2>established five core pillars, five absolute criteria that officially define

425
00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:21.960
<v Speaker 2>this brand new class of cosmic objects.

426
00:21:22.039 --> 00:21:23.160
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the five metrics.

427
00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:25.640
<v Speaker 2>Let's break down the architecture this new class. If an

428
00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:28.359
<v Speaker 2>anomaly hits all five of these. It belongs in the

429
00:21:28.359 --> 00:21:32.400
<v Speaker 2>category okay. First pillar, they must be ultramassive.

430
00:21:31.799 --> 00:21:36.480
<v Speaker 3>Right pushing the absolute limits of electron degeneracy pressure, which

431
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:40.240
<v Speaker 3>strongly indicates they're the result of a violent merger rather

432
00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:42.160
<v Speaker 3>than a single star's natural collapse.

433
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:45.880
<v Speaker 2>Second pillar. They must be highly magnetic.

434
00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:50.000
<v Speaker 3>Possessing field strengths millions of times more powerful than Earth's,

435
00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:53.400
<v Speaker 3>which is generated by the turbulent dynamo effect of that

436
00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:55.599
<v Speaker 3>initial cataclysmic collision.

437
00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.920
<v Speaker 2>Third pillar. They must be rapidly rotating.

438
00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:01.559
<v Speaker 3>Spinning on the order of minute, it's not days or hours,

439
00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:05.839
<v Speaker 3>conserving all the angular momentum of the destroyed binary system

440
00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:06.599
<v Speaker 3>that birthed them.

441
00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:12.519
<v Speaker 2>Fourth pillar. They must be completely unequivocally companionless, meaning.

442
00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:15.319
<v Speaker 3>Any energy they project, any X rays they emit cannot

443
00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:19.119
<v Speaker 3>be explained away by the standard comfortable physics of cannibalizing

444
00:22:19.160 --> 00:22:19.960
<v Speaker 3>a neighboring star.

445
00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:22.559
<v Speaker 2>And the fifth pillar, the anchor of the whole mystery.

446
00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:24.680
<v Speaker 2>They must be X ray emitting.

447
00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:27.400
<v Speaker 3>And both Gendolf and moon size. Check every single one

448
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:28.960
<v Speaker 3>of those five boxes perfectly.

449
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:31.839
<v Speaker 2>So what does this all mean? If you're listening to

450
00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:33.920
<v Speaker 2>this and you're just a casual observer, you might look

451
00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:36.039
<v Speaker 2>at this and say, okay, astronomers made a new folder

452
00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:38.079
<v Speaker 2>on their computer for a couple of dead stars. Why

453
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:38.720
<v Speaker 2>should I care?

454
00:22:39.079 --> 00:22:39.240
<v Speaker 1>Right?

455
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:40.079
<v Speaker 3>Why does it matter?

456
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.680
<v Speaker 2>It matters because every time a new class like this

457
00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.880
<v Speaker 2>is codified, it proves that our understanding of thermodynamics, of

458
00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:51.960
<v Speaker 2>gravity and of energy generation is fundamentally incomplete.

459
00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:54.319
<v Speaker 3>It forces a rewrite of the textbooks.

460
00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:58.759
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, the universe is actively generating vast amounts of high

461
00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:02.599
<v Speaker 2>energy X rays using a mechanism that literally doesn't exist

462
00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:05.799
<v Speaker 2>in our textbooks. We are witnessing physics that we do

463
00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:06.880
<v Speaker 2>not yet comprehend.

464
00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:09.400
<v Speaker 3>That is the perfect way to frame it. Because the

465
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:14.039
<v Speaker 3>first law thermodynamics is absolute energy cannot be created from nothing.

466
00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:17.799
<v Speaker 3>The X ray luminosity coming from Gandolf and moon sized

467
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:22.000
<v Speaker 3>requires a colossal expenditure of energy. If there is no

468
00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:25.759
<v Speaker 3>accretion disk feeding material into a gravity, well, what is

469
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:29.119
<v Speaker 3>the engine? How are these isolated cooling embers generating the

470
00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:31.440
<v Speaker 3>millions of degrees required to emit X rays in the

471
00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:32.039
<v Speaker 3>first place?

472
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.880
<v Speaker 2>That is the massive riddle Gandolf leads us. With the

473
00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:37.759
<v Speaker 2>new classes defined, the pillars are set, but the engine

474
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:38.960
<v Speaker 2>driving the whole thing remains a.

475
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:40.000
<v Speaker 3>Ghost, total ghost.

476
00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:43.200
<v Speaker 2>And to try and capture that ghost. The ISA team

477
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:47.680
<v Speaker 2>had to build a theoretical framework. They laid out three distinct,

478
00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:51.400
<v Speaker 2>physically plausible scenarios to try and explain where these X

479
00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.920
<v Speaker 2>rays are coming from, and then they began the brutal

480
00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:58.680
<v Speaker 2>process of attempting to disprove their own ideas.

481
00:23:58.279 --> 00:24:01.559
<v Speaker 3>Which is the scientific method in its purest form. You

482
00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:05.640
<v Speaker 3>formulate hypotheses, apply the observational data, and see which models

483
00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:09.720
<v Speaker 3>break under the pressure. The three scenarios they propose fundamentally

484
00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:12.440
<v Speaker 3>alter how we view isolated stellar bodies.

485
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:15.799
<v Speaker 2>Let's dive into scenario one. This is the outflow scenario,

486
00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:18.440
<v Speaker 2>and from reading their research, it seems to be the

487
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:21.359
<v Speaker 2>personal favorite of Ayush Desi. It is yeah because this

488
00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:24.720
<v Speaker 2>scenario completely abandons the idea of material falling onto the

489
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:27.599
<v Speaker 2>star and instead loose at material being violently ejected from

490
00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:27.920
<v Speaker 2>the star.

491
00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:32.039
<v Speaker 3>Correct the outflow scenario relies entirely on the internal inherent

492
00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:34.599
<v Speaker 3>physics of the remnant itself. We have to look at

493
00:24:34.599 --> 00:24:36.759
<v Speaker 3>the combined effects of the second and third pillars of

494
00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:41.000
<v Speaker 3>our new class, extreme magnetism and extreme rotation. When you

495
00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:44.119
<v Speaker 3>take a highly conductive body like a white dwarf, give

496
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:47.759
<v Speaker 3>it a profoundly strong magnetic field and then spin it

497
00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:52.480
<v Speaker 3>at phenomenal speeds like gandalf six minute rotation. You effectively

498
00:24:52.519 --> 00:24:56.920
<v Speaker 3>turn the entire star into a gargantuan unipolar inductor.

499
00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.440
<v Speaker 2>A unipolar inducta that sounds like you're generating an electric

500
00:24:59.480 --> 00:25:01.000
<v Speaker 2>current by spinning a magnet.

501
00:25:01.319 --> 00:25:03.519
<v Speaker 3>That is exactly what is happening, but on a massive

502
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:07.359
<v Speaker 3>cosmic scale. The rotation of the magnetic field through the

503
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:12.519
<v Speaker 3>vacuum of space generates an electromotive force of unimaginable magnitude

504
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:14.119
<v Speaker 3>across the surface of the star.

505
00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:14.680
<v Speaker 2>Wow.

506
00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:18.680
<v Speaker 3>The hypothesis here is that this induced electric field is

507
00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:22.440
<v Speaker 3>so powerful, so violent, that it overcomes the star's own

508
00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:27.359
<v Speaker 3>massive gravity. It literally rips electrons and charged particles directly

509
00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:30.119
<v Speaker 3>off the surface of the white dwarf and accelerates them

510
00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:32.319
<v Speaker 3>out into space along the magnetic field lines.

511
00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:35.079
<v Speaker 2>So the star is basically acting like a cosmic centrifuge,

512
00:25:35.160 --> 00:25:38.519
<v Speaker 2>spinning so fast and with such magnetic violence that it's

513
00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:42.160
<v Speaker 2>literally flaying its own surface. It's extracting its own plasma. Yes,

514
00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:45.640
<v Speaker 2>and as that plasma gets accelerated outward along those magnetic lines,

515
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.440
<v Speaker 2>the friction and the energy release blast out.

516
00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:52.440
<v Speaker 3>X rays Precisely the acceleration of those charged particles to

517
00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:56.440
<v Speaker 3>near relativistic speeds would produce the exact high energy emissions

518
00:25:56.440 --> 00:25:59.720
<v Speaker 3>we observe. The reason Desai and others favor this model

519
00:25:59.799 --> 00:26:01.480
<v Speaker 3>is its theoretical.

520
00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:03.319
<v Speaker 2>Elegance because it's entirely self contained.

521
00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:06.640
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, it doesn't require a companion, it doesn't require a

522
00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:10.920
<v Speaker 3>leftover debris, and it doesn't rely on complex orbital mechanics.

523
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:14.519
<v Speaker 3>The star provides its own fuel and its own engine.

524
00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:17.200
<v Speaker 2>But there's a catch with this elegance, isn't there. We've

525
00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:20.319
<v Speaker 2>seen this unipolar inductor mechanism before in space, but never

526
00:26:20.359 --> 00:26:21.160
<v Speaker 2>in a white dwarf.

527
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.319
<v Speaker 3>We haven't This specific mechanism of magnetic outflow is the

528
00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:29.759
<v Speaker 3>exact engine that powers pulsarsabal pulsars, but pulsars are rapidly

529
00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.119
<v Speaker 3>rotating neutron stars. They are vastly more dense and possess

530
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:35.880
<v Speaker 3>magnetic fields magnitude stronger than even GANDOLF.

531
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:38.480
<v Speaker 2>So if the outflow scenario is.

532
00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:41.680
<v Speaker 3>Correct, it means we have to rewrite stellar physics to

533
00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:45.200
<v Speaker 3>acknowledge that white dwarfs are capable of pulsar like behavior.

534
00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:48.759
<v Speaker 3>We have never successfully modeled or observed this in a

535
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:51.839
<v Speaker 3>white dwarf. Before. It's a massive radical leap in our

536
00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:53.960
<v Speaker 3>understanding of electromagnetic dynamics.

537
00:26:54.119 --> 00:26:56.640
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so that's the outflow model, the star ripping itself

538
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.640
<v Speaker 2>apart from the inside out Scenario two, who takes the

539
00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:04.880
<v Speaker 2>complete opposite approach. This is an inflow scenario, specifically focusing

540
00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:08.119
<v Speaker 2>on leftover shrapnel, and this model goes back to the

541
00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:10.640
<v Speaker 2>incredibly violent origin story of these remnants.

542
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:13.559
<v Speaker 3>It does. The merger of two white dwarfs is not

543
00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:17.720
<v Speaker 3>a clean surgical process. When two sun mass objects collide,

544
00:27:18.079 --> 00:27:22.039
<v Speaker 3>an enormous amount of matter, superheated gas plasma heavy elements

545
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:24.119
<v Speaker 3>is violently ejected.

546
00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:25.799
<v Speaker 2>From the system. It's a cosmic explode.

547
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:29.119
<v Speaker 3>A massive explosion. The hypothesis in scenario two suggests that

548
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:33.680
<v Speaker 3>a significant portion of this blash shrapnel didn't reach escape velocity. Instead,

549
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:37.200
<v Speaker 3>it was thrown into highly eccentric elongated orbits.

550
00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:40.119
<v Speaker 2>Meaning the debris was blafted incredibly far away from the

551
00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:42.920
<v Speaker 2>new star way out into the deep freeze of the

552
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.920
<v Speaker 2>surrounding system. It slows down at the furthest point of

553
00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:48.519
<v Speaker 2>its orbit before gravity finally hooks it and pulls it

554
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:51.319
<v Speaker 2>back in for a long screening fall toward the surface.

555
00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:55.400
<v Speaker 3>Exactly and because those orbits are so eccentric and chaotic,

556
00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:58.319
<v Speaker 3>the material doesn't fall back all at once. It trickles

557
00:27:58.359 --> 00:28:02.839
<v Speaker 3>back over massive timescale. As this ancient shrapnel finally plunges

558
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:05.440
<v Speaker 3>back down the gravity well and smashes into the surface

559
00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:08.480
<v Speaker 3>of the white dwarf, the kinetic energy of the impact

560
00:28:08.599 --> 00:28:10.519
<v Speaker 3>is converted into thermal energy, and.

561
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.319
<v Speaker 2>That generates the X rays exact. I have to be honest.

562
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:15.359
<v Speaker 2>I struggle heavily with the physics of this timeline.

563
00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:16.440
<v Speaker 3>It is the main sticking point.

564
00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:20.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can buy this for gandalff. Gandalf's merger happened

565
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:24.759
<v Speaker 2>sixty to seventy million years ago. Sure, maybe you have

566
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:27.559
<v Speaker 2>eccentricorbus that take tens of millions of years to complete

567
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:32.160
<v Speaker 2>a single revolution. But moon sized is half a billion

568
00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:35.720
<v Speaker 2>years old, five hundred million years. How can you have

569
00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:38.240
<v Speaker 2>an orbit so perfectly eccentric that it takes half a

570
00:28:38.279 --> 00:28:41.200
<v Speaker 2>billion years for debris to finally rain back down. Would

571
00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:44.759
<v Speaker 2>an orbital decay, perturbations, or just the solar wind have

572
00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:48.119
<v Speaker 2>cleaned out that debris field millions of years ago. It

573
00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:51.480
<v Speaker 2>feels like relying on an incredibly lucky, sustained rizzle of

574
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:53.880
<v Speaker 2>shrapnel for an impossible amount of time.

575
00:28:54.119 --> 00:28:58.039
<v Speaker 3>Your skepticism is entirely justified, and it targets the fundamental

576
00:28:58.039 --> 00:29:02.920
<v Speaker 3>weakness of the shrapnel hypothesis. Maintaining a consistent, measurable flow

577
00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:07.000
<v Speaker 3>of material from a single discrete explosive event over half

578
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:10.960
<v Speaker 3>a billion years stretches the limits of orbital dynamics to

579
00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:12.480
<v Speaker 3>their absolute breaking point.

580
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:14.599
<v Speaker 2>It just doesn't seem mathematically sound.

581
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.119
<v Speaker 3>The mathematics of orbital decay suggests that the vast majority

582
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:21.440
<v Speaker 3>of that material would either be quickly reaccreted or permanently

583
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:25.200
<v Speaker 3>lost to the interstellar medium, long before moon size reached

584
00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:25.960
<v Speaker 3>its current age.

585
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:26.440
<v Speaker 2>Right.

586
00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:29.519
<v Speaker 3>While you can theoretically construct an orbit on paper that

587
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:33.759
<v Speaker 3>takes five hundred million years, assuming a dense enough population

588
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:36.440
<v Speaker 3>of shrapnel to fuel a constant X ray source is

589
00:29:36.519 --> 00:29:38.079
<v Speaker 3>highly improbable.

590
00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:41.000
<v Speaker 2>Which naturally leads us to the final proposed engine. Scenario

591
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.640
<v Speaker 2>three is also an inflow model, but instead of relying

592
00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:46.640
<v Speaker 2>on leftover shrapnel from the star's berth, it relies on

593
00:29:46.680 --> 00:29:48.839
<v Speaker 2>what astronomers call cosmic pollution.

594
00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:52.720
<v Speaker 3>This scenario grounds itself in phenomena we've actually observed in

595
00:29:52.759 --> 00:29:56.599
<v Speaker 3>thousands of other systems thanks to wide field spectroscopic surveys

596
00:29:56.599 --> 00:29:58.720
<v Speaker 3>over the last two decades, we know that about a

597
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:02.200
<v Speaker 3>third of all isolated white dwarfs are actively polluted.

598
00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:06.759
<v Speaker 2>What exactly constitutes pollution for a dead star. We aren't

599
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:07.599
<v Speaker 2>talking about.

600
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.960
<v Speaker 3>Gas here, No, we are talking about rocky planetary material.

601
00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:15.079
<v Speaker 3>Consider the history of a white dwarf. Before the star died,

602
00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:19.480
<v Speaker 3>it likely hosted a complex planetary system, gas giants, rocky

603
00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:23.839
<v Speaker 3>terrestrial worlds, asteroid belts, comets.

604
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:24.400
<v Speaker 2>Like our Solar system.

605
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:27.960
<v Speaker 3>Exactly when the star expands into a red giant before

606
00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:31.400
<v Speaker 3>collapsing into a white dwarf, the gravitational dynamics of the

607
00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:36.319
<v Speaker 3>entire system are thrown into absolute chaos. Planets migrate, orbits cross,

608
00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:38.960
<v Speaker 3>and asteroid belts are completely destabilized.

609
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:40.759
<v Speaker 2>It's a gravitational mass, it really is.

610
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:43.400
<v Speaker 3>For hundreds of millions of years after the star becomes

611
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:47.119
<v Speaker 3>a white dwarf, stray asteroids or even entire displaced planets

612
00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:50.200
<v Speaker 3>can wander too close. The immense tidal forces of the

613
00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:53.279
<v Speaker 3>white dwarf will literally shred these rocky bodies into dust,

614
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:55.319
<v Speaker 3>which then rains down onto the surface.

615
00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.359
<v Speaker 2>And when millions of tons of pulverized planetary rock hit

616
00:30:58.400 --> 00:31:00.799
<v Speaker 2>the surface of an ultra dense white door dwarf, that

617
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:04.799
<v Speaker 2>impact generates extreme heat, and heat creates X rays precisely.

618
00:31:05.160 --> 00:31:07.039
<v Speaker 3>And the great thing is because we can read the

619
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:10.039
<v Speaker 3>optical spectra of these stars, we can actually see the

620
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:14.079
<v Speaker 3>chemical fingerprints of the shredded planets. Oh, a pure white

621
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:17.480
<v Speaker 3>dwarf should only show hydrogen or helium in its atmosphere.

622
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:22.240
<v Speaker 3>When we see heavy elements carbon, silicon, iron, magnesium, we

623
00:31:22.359 --> 00:31:25.119
<v Speaker 3>know the star is actively consuming rocky debris.

624
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:29.279
<v Speaker 2>And this scenario looked incredibly promising at first, right because

625
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:33.240
<v Speaker 2>when the ISISTED team looked at Gandalf's optical spectrum, they

626
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:36.240
<v Speaker 2>didn't just see the weird hydrogen caddiers.

627
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:37.079
<v Speaker 1>No they didn't.

628
00:31:37.119 --> 00:31:40.359
<v Speaker 2>They saw heavy metals. They found distinct signatures of carbon

629
00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:43.160
<v Speaker 2>and silicon rich materials polluting the atmosphere.

630
00:31:43.200 --> 00:31:46.279
<v Speaker 3>They did. The data clearly shows that Gandolf is currently

631
00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:51.200
<v Speaker 3>actively accreting rocky planetary debris. The chemical signature is undeniable.

632
00:31:51.799 --> 00:31:55.400
<v Speaker 3>So initially, scenario three seemed like the perfect elegant solution.

633
00:31:55.759 --> 00:31:58.720
<v Speaker 3>Gandalf's X rays are being powered by the tidal disruption

634
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:01.440
<v Speaker 3>and consumption of a planetary system.

635
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:05.039
<v Speaker 2>But science requires consistency. If you claim to have found

636
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:07.880
<v Speaker 2>the engine for a new class of objects, that engine

637
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:09.759
<v Speaker 2>has to work for every member of the class.

638
00:32:09.960 --> 00:32:12.000
<v Speaker 3>If we connect this to the bigger picture, this raises

639
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:15.400
<v Speaker 3>an important question, and it is the exact hurdle that

640
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:20.400
<v Speaker 3>Scenario three stumbled over. A valid hypothesis must be universal

641
00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:24.400
<v Speaker 3>within the defined parameters. When Design and the research team

642
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:28.119
<v Speaker 3>applied the exact same spectroscopic analysis to the older twin

643
00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:31.960
<v Speaker 3>Moon sized, the results were completely contradictory.

644
00:32:32.039 --> 00:32:32.720
<v Speaker 2>What did they find?

645
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:37.000
<v Speaker 3>They found absolutely zero trace of carbon, silicon or any

646
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:41.920
<v Speaker 3>heavy element pollution. Moon Size's atmosphere is completely clean.

647
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:44.759
<v Speaker 2>So whatever is generating the X rays in Moon size,

648
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.079
<v Speaker 2>it definitively is not the consumption of rocky planetary debris exactly.

649
00:32:49.319 --> 00:32:52.279
<v Speaker 3>And because the fundamental requirement of this research is to

650
00:32:52.359 --> 00:32:56.200
<v Speaker 3>identify the singular mechanism defining this new stellar class, Scenario

651
00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:57.200
<v Speaker 3>three fails the test.

652
00:32:57.279 --> 00:32:58.079
<v Speaker 2>It falls apart.

653
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:00.920
<v Speaker 3>While cosmic pollution might be happening at GANDOLF, it cannot

654
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:03.839
<v Speaker 3>be the foundational mechanism responsible for the X ray emissions

655
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:07.160
<v Speaker 3>in both objects. Therefore, through the rigorous application of the

656
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:11.279
<v Speaker 3>scientific method, the ETA team has relegated the pollution hypothesis

657
00:33:11.319 --> 00:33:13.960
<v Speaker 3>to the least likely explanation for the class as a whole.

658
00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:17.000
<v Speaker 2>So we are left with a phenomenal astronomical cliffhanger.

659
00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:17.720
<v Speaker 3>We really are.

660
00:33:17.960 --> 00:33:20.960
<v Speaker 2>We have a masterfully defined new class of stars anchored

661
00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:25.319
<v Speaker 2>by five undeniable physical pillars, but the engine driving their

662
00:33:25.319 --> 00:33:28.960
<v Speaker 2>most violent and defining feature remains completely shrouded in mystery.

663
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.759
<v Speaker 2>The outflow model forces us to accept pulsar physics in

664
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:36.720
<v Speaker 2>a white dwarf, The shrapnel model stretches orbital mechanics to

665
00:33:36.759 --> 00:33:40.599
<v Speaker 2>the breaking point, and the pollution model completely contradicts the

666
00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:43.400
<v Speaker 2>observational data of the older twin that.

667
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:47.240
<v Speaker 3>Is the leading edge of astrophysics. We have deduced the

668
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:50.000
<v Speaker 3>shape of the puzzle, but we are missing the central pieces.

669
00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:52.359
<v Speaker 2>Let's take a macro view of the journey we've mapped

670
00:33:52.359 --> 00:33:55.880
<v Speaker 2>out here today. We started by dismantling the comforting idea

671
00:33:56.200 --> 00:33:59.480
<v Speaker 2>that stars like our son die quietly. We dove into

672
00:33:59.480 --> 00:34:03.559
<v Speaker 2>the violent, cataclysmic reality of stellar mergers. We've had gandalf

673
00:34:03.880 --> 00:34:08.199
<v Speaker 2>a deeply scarred ultra massive remnant spinning frantically every six minutes,

674
00:34:08.639 --> 00:34:11.239
<v Speaker 2>defying the central force of gravity by gripping a half

675
00:34:11.320 --> 00:34:15.360
<v Speaker 2>ring of plasma within an impossible lopsided magnetic claw.

676
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:16.239
<v Speaker 3>Such a wild object.

677
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:20.559
<v Speaker 2>And then we extrapolated half a billion years into the

678
00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:24.480
<v Speaker 2>future to meet moon size, an ancient twin crushing the

679
00:34:24.519 --> 00:34:28.119
<v Speaker 2>mass of our entire Solar system into a sphere barely

680
00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:30.760
<v Speaker 2>larger than the rock orbiting our own Earth, its X

681
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.320
<v Speaker 2>ray scream slowly fading into the dark. We watch these

682
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:39.360
<v Speaker 2>two cosmic anomalies forcefully dismantle the traditional accretion model and

683
00:34:39.400 --> 00:34:43.840
<v Speaker 2>compel the scientific community to invent an entirely new taxonomic

684
00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:45.239
<v Speaker 2>category for the cosmos.

685
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:48.840
<v Speaker 3>It is a staggering narrative of discovery, but the work

686
00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:52.440
<v Speaker 3>is really only just beginning. The immediate vital mission for

687
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:55.719
<v Speaker 3>the ISTA team and truly for X ray observatories globally,

688
00:34:55.840 --> 00:34:59.159
<v Speaker 3>is to expand the catalog. We need to find the third, fourth,

689
00:34:59.199 --> 00:35:02.760
<v Speaker 3>the tenth member of this isolated magnetic class, because.

690
00:35:02.559 --> 00:35:05.199
<v Speaker 2>Right now you're trying to plot a complex evolutionary graph

691
00:35:05.199 --> 00:35:06.360
<v Speaker 2>with only two data points.

692
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:08.400
<v Speaker 3>Precisely, two data points give you a line, but they

693
00:35:08.400 --> 00:35:10.679
<v Speaker 3>don't give you the full curve of evolution. If we

694
00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:13.039
<v Speaker 3>can locate more of these remnants at different ages, say

695
00:35:13.039 --> 00:35:15.360
<v Speaker 3>one that is fifty million years old and another that

696
00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:17.760
<v Speaker 3>is two billion years old, we can map the decay

697
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:20.239
<v Speaker 3>rate of their X ray emissions and their magnetic fields.

698
00:35:20.360 --> 00:35:21.320
<v Speaker 2>That makes sense.

699
00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:26.000
<v Speaker 3>More data will allow us to confidently eliminate the flawed hypotheses, or,

700
00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:30.719
<v Speaker 3>perhaps more thrillingly, the new data might reveal a completely unexpected,

701
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:35.199
<v Speaker 3>entirely unhypothesized branch of physics that resolves the paradox.

702
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:37.360
<v Speaker 2>That is the beauty of this kind of research. It

703
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:40.800
<v Speaker 2>never really ends, It just upgrades the quality of the

704
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:43.480
<v Speaker 2>questions we're allowed to ask. Absolutely. But before we finish

705
00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:45.679
<v Speaker 2>up today, I want to leave you with one final,

706
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:50.559
<v Speaker 2>deeply unsettling thought to mull over. We've spent this entire

707
00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:54.639
<v Speaker 2>time dissecting the physics of the stars themselves, these ultra

708
00:35:54.760 --> 00:35:58.880
<v Speaker 2>dense hypermagnetic engines blasting radiation into the void. Right, but

709
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:01.719
<v Speaker 2>we briefly touched on the the idea of planetary systems.

710
00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:04.519
<v Speaker 2>Think about what happened to the world's orbiting the original

711
00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:09.039
<v Speaker 2>two stars before they spiraled into that cataclysmic merger. Oh wow, Imagine,

712
00:36:09.079 --> 00:36:11.840
<v Speaker 2>just for a moment, a planetary system that somehow manages

713
00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:14.960
<v Speaker 2>to physically survive the orbital chaos of a stellar collision.

714
00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:18.360
<v Speaker 2>The skies above them literally explode as their two suns

715
00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:21.559
<v Speaker 2>merge into a single, hyperdense, spinning terror.

716
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:22.639
<v Speaker 3>It would be apocalyptic.

717
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:26.159
<v Speaker 2>And then for the next five hundred million years, Those

718
00:36:26.199 --> 00:36:30.960
<v Speaker 2>surviving planets don't get peace. They are bathed in relentless,

719
00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:35.079
<v Speaker 2>scorching X ray radiation. They are subjected to the violent

720
00:36:35.159 --> 00:36:38.920
<v Speaker 2>shifting forces of a lopsided magnetic field that whips through

721
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:42.639
<v Speaker 2>their atmospheres every six minutes. They spend eons watching their

722
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:46.760
<v Speaker 2>newly formed sun slowly consume the pulverized remains of their

723
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:47.880
<v Speaker 2>neighboring planets.

724
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.880
<v Speaker 3>That is a terrifying environment.

725
00:36:50.039 --> 00:36:53.760
<v Speaker 2>What kind of bizarre, heavily irradiated extreme worlds might be

726
00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:57.239
<v Speaker 2>orbiting gandolf and moon sized right now, entirely hidden from

727
00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:01.079
<v Speaker 2>our optical telescopes. What kind of unimagined Bible geology or

728
00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:05.119
<v Speaker 2>even twisted radiation hardened chemistry is being baked into existence

729
00:37:05.159 --> 00:37:06.320
<v Speaker 2>on the surface of those planets.

730
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:07.679
<v Speaker 3>It's so fascinating to think about it.

731
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:10.440
<v Speaker 2>It's a sobering reminder that every time we discover a

732
00:37:10.519 --> 00:37:13.480
<v Speaker 2>new violent type of star, we also have to imagine

733
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:15.719
<v Speaker 2>the terrifying new types of worlds that might be trapped

734
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:18.239
<v Speaker 2>in its gravitational grip. Keep that in mind the next

735
00:37:18.239 --> 00:37:19.719
<v Speaker 2>time you look up at a quiet night sky,