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 picture a cosmic engine.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, a cosmic engine.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but not just any engine. I mean something so

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<v Speaker 2>incomprehensibly powerful that its energy output easily outshines like ten

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<v Speaker 2>thousand of our.

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<v Speaker 3>Own suns, which is already pretty hard to wrap your

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<v Speaker 3>head around.

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<v Speaker 2>It really is. And the craziest part is that the

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<v Speaker 2>object driving this blindingly energetic mechanism is paradoxically completely defined

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<v Speaker 2>by its absolute darkness.

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<v Speaker 3>Right. It remains one of the most compelling paradoxes an astrophysics, honestly.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>You have this entity defined by an event horizon, which

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<v Speaker 3>is a boundary where space time is so severely warped

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<v Speaker 3>that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light itself. Right,

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<v Speaker 3>So nothing gets out exactly Yet the environment immediately surrounding

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<v Speaker 3>that boundary is responsible for producing well some of the

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<v Speaker 3>most violent, brilliant displays of power in the entire cosmos.

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<v Speaker 2>And today we are looking closely at one of those displays.

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<v Speaker 2>We're talking about Signus X one. A clap yeah for

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<v Speaker 2>anyone who follows the history of astronomy, that name carries

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<v Speaker 2>a ton of weight. I mean, this is this system

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<v Speaker 2>that famously prompted a bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip

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<v Speaker 2>Thorn back in nineteen seventy four.

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<v Speaker 3>I think, yeah, nineteen seventy four. Hawking actually bet against

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<v Speaker 3>it being a black hole, mostly as a sort of

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<v Speaker 3>scientific insurance policy.

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<v Speaker 2>Right like, if he was wrong about his life's work,

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<v Speaker 2>at least he'd win a magazine subscription exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>But he eventually conceded because the observational evidence just became

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<v Speaker 3>completely overwhelming.

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<v Speaker 2>So what we're looking at is a binary system. It

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<v Speaker 2>contains the first confirmed black hole humanity ever found, and

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<v Speaker 2>it's locked in this brutal gravitational embrace with a massive

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<v Speaker 2>O type supergene star.

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<v Speaker 3>It's an incredibly extreme enviroren it is.

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<v Speaker 2>But the reason we're talking about it today isn't just

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<v Speaker 2>for the history.

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<v Speaker 3>No, not at all.

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<v Speaker 2>A recent study published in Nature astronomy led by an

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<v Speaker 2>international coalition of scientists and spearheaded by researchers at Curtin University.

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<v Speaker 2>They actually managed to definitively measure the instantaneous power of

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<v Speaker 2>the jets shooting out of this specific black.

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<v Speaker 3>Hole, which is a huge deal. I mean measure and

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<v Speaker 3>jet power dynamically like as it's actually happening. That required

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<v Speaker 3>a complete methodological shift in how we observe high energy

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<v Speaker 3>Phenomena says.

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<v Speaker 2>We've known about these jets for a while, right, Oh yeah.

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<v Speaker 3>Identifying the presence of a jet in the radio spectrum

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<v Speaker 3>is pretty standard procedure at this point, okay, But calculating

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<v Speaker 3>its power output and clocking its velocity in real time

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<v Speaker 3>while it's being actively deflected by stellar weather that is

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<v Speaker 3>a monumental leap in ops astrophysics.

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<v Speaker 2>So let's get into the mechanics of that stellar weather.

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<v Speaker 2>Because I love the term the lead author used for this,

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<v Speaker 2>Doctor Steve Prabu, coined this phenomenon dancing jets. It's a

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<v Speaker 2>great visual, it really is. So we have the black

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<v Speaker 2>hole which is sitting around twenty one solar masses, and

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<v Speaker 2>it's orbiting this supergent star. Yeah, and the environment they're

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<v Speaker 2>sharing is just incredibly.

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<v Speaker 3>Hostile, extremely hostile because.

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<v Speaker 2>The primary force driving the chaos here isn't just gravity, right,

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<v Speaker 2>it's the stellar wind coming off the supergeon.

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<v Speaker 3>Right so O type supergens are massive, They are incredibly

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<v Speaker 3>luminous and extremely hot, and because their luminosity is so intense,

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<v Speaker 3>the radiation pressure pushing outward from the star's core actually

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<v Speaker 3>physically overcomes the star's gravity, particularly in its outer layers.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's literally blowing itself apart.

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<v Speaker 3>With light exactly. It drives what we call a line

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<v Speaker 3>driven wind. The star is essentially shedding millions of times

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<v Speaker 3>more mass than our Sun does with its solar wind.

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<v Speaker 3>It's blasting this constant, dense, high speed stream of plasma

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<v Speaker 3>out into the surrounding space.

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<v Speaker 2>And the black hole is sitting right in the crosshairs

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<v Speaker 2>of that plasma stream, right actively accreting mass from that supergen's.

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<v Speaker 3>Wind, right in the middle of the storm.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, but wait, let me stop you right there. We

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<v Speaker 2>need to clear something up about the mechanism of these jets,

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<v Speaker 2>because I think it trips a lot of people up. Sure,

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<v Speaker 2>by definition, an event horizon means nothing escapes, not even light. Correct,

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<v Speaker 2>So how on Earth is a black hole forcefully ejecting

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<v Speaker 2>a massive jet of plasma out into space at relativistic speeds.

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<v Speaker 2>If nothing can cross back over the threshold, where is

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<v Speaker 2>this material even coming from?

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<v Speaker 3>That's the key right there. The material in the jet

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<v Speaker 3>never crossed the event horizon. Oh really, yeah, never made

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<v Speaker 3>it inside the jet is generated by the extreme magnetohydrodynamics

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<v Speaker 3>of the accretion disc itself.

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<v Speaker 2>The accretion is being that swirl of material falling in.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly as the black hole pulls plasma from the supergians

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<v Speaker 3>stellar wind. That material doesn't just fall down. It has

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<v Speaker 3>angular momentum, right, It's spinning, so it spirals inward, forming

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<v Speaker 3>this really dense, flattened disc of superheated plasma around the

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<v Speaker 3>black hole.

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<v Speaker 2>And because that plasma is an ionized gas, it's carrying

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<v Speaker 2>its own magnetic field lines with it as it falls in,

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<v Speaker 2>right it is.

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<v Speaker 3>And as that plasma spirals closer and closer to the

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<v Speaker 3>event horizon, it accelerates to a significant fraction of the

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<v Speaker 3>speed of light. Wow, And the innermost region of that

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<v Speaker 3>disc is subject to extreme frame dragging. We call it

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<v Speaker 3>the lens thiring effect.

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<v Speaker 2>Frame dragging What does that mean?

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<v Speaker 3>It means the rotation of the black hole itself is

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<v Speaker 3>actually pulling the physical fabric of space time around with it.

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<v Speaker 2>That is just mind boggling. Space time itself is twisting.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and the magnetic field lines threaded through this plasma

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<v Speaker 3>get dragged along, twisted, and tightly wound up by this

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<v Speaker 3>differential rotation.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's kind of like taking a thick rubber band

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<v Speaker 2>and just twisting it relentlessly. The kinetic energy of the

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<v Speaker 2>spinning disc is being converted into magnetic tension.

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<v Speaker 3>That's a perfect way to look at it. And it

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<v Speaker 3>keeps twisting until the tension reaches a breaking point.

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<v Speaker 2>And then what happens.

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<v Speaker 3>The magnetic fields become so tightly coiled that they colimate,

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<v Speaker 3>meaning they form this tight vertical funnel perpendicular to the

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<v Speaker 3>accretion disc. Okay, the extreme tension basically acts like a

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<v Speaker 3>magnetic slingshot. It captures a fraction of the infalling plasma

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<v Speaker 3>just before it crosses the event horizon and violently blasts

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<v Speaker 3>it outward along the rotational axis.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow.

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<v Speaker 3>So the jet is powered by the rotational energy of

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<v Speaker 3>the black hole and the inner accretion disc, not by

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<v Speaker 3>anything escaping from inside the event horizon.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, that makes so much more sense. So we have

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<v Speaker 2>these highly colimated beams of relativistic plasma shooting out from

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<v Speaker 2>the poles of the black hole. But they aren't shooting

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<v Speaker 2>into a vacuum.

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<v Speaker 3>No, definitely not.

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<v Speaker 2>They're firing directly into that hurricane force stellar wind radiating

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<v Speaker 2>from the supergent star we talked about.

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<v Speaker 3>Which brings us right back to the dancing jets. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>doctor Probo's term perfectly captures the fluid die ynamics at

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<v Speaker 3>play here. We are basically watching a high velocity, low

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<v Speaker 3>density plasma jet slamming into a lower velocity but incredibly

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<v Speaker 3>dense stellar wind.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, let me try an analogy here. Think of a

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<v Speaker 2>high pressure water fountain in a public park.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, I'm with you.

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<v Speaker 2>If a severe gale rolls through the column of water

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<v Speaker 2>doesn't just shoot straight up, the lateral force of the

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<v Speaker 2>wind intercepts the stream and bends its sideways. If you've

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<v Speaker 2>ever walked past a fountain on a stormy day and

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<v Speaker 2>gotten misted, you've experienced the microversion of signus x one.

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<v Speaker 3>That's exactly it. The wind alters the trajectory of the

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<v Speaker 3>water based on the ratio of their respective forces.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, So in this system. The black hole is the fountain,

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<v Speaker 2>the suburgen's radiation driven plaza is the gale force wind,

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<v Speaker 2>and the jet is the water stream.

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<v Speaker 3>Spot on and as the black hole completes its five

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<v Speaker 3>point six day orbit around the star, the angle of

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<v Speaker 3>that stellar wind hitting the jet is constantly changing.

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<v Speaker 2>So from our perspective on Earth, what does that look like?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, the radio emitting particle in the jet appear to

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<v Speaker 3>sway and bend back and forth, altering their angle depending

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<v Speaker 3>on where the black hole is in its orbital phase.

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<v Speaker 2>That is wild.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the physical structure of the jet is actually deformed

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<v Speaker 3>by the ram pressure of the stellar wind.

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<v Speaker 2>But okay, visualizing a cosmic fountain bending in a stellar

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<v Speaker 2>storm is one thing. Actually observing it from what over

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<v Speaker 2>seven thousand light years away, that's an entirely different problem.

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<v Speaker 3>It is a massive headache observationally.

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<v Speaker 2>Speaking, because our largest single dish radio telescopes, even massive

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<v Speaker 2>ones like the Green Bank Telescope or the Parks Observatory,

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<v Speaker 2>they can't resolve something this small at that distance, can they?

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<v Speaker 3>No, they can't. At that distance. The entire binary system,

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<v Speaker 3>the wind and the jet just blur into a single

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<v Speaker 3>unresolved pixel of radio emission, and.

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<v Speaker 2>You can't just slab a bigger lens on a telescope

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<v Speaker 2>to fix that. Right, it's a physics limitation, right.

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<v Speaker 3>You are constrained by what's called the Rale criterion.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, hit me with the physics.

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<v Speaker 3>It dictates that you're singular resolution is proportional to the

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<v Speaker 3>wavelength of light you are observing, divided by the diameter

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<v Speaker 3>of your telescope's aperture.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, So the bigger the wavelength, the bigger the telescope you.

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<v Speaker 3>Need, exactly, and radio waves have very long wavelengths compared

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<v Speaker 3>to visible light, so to get high resolution in the

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<v Speaker 3>radio spectrum, you need an impractically large dish like continent

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<v Speaker 3>sized pretty much. So the only way the researchers could

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<v Speaker 3>resolve the minute deflection angle of this jet was to

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<v Speaker 3>utilize very long baseline interferometry or VLBI. Oh.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, So instead of building a single dish the size

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<v Speaker 2>of a continent, you use multiple existing radio telescopes scattered

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<v Speaker 2>all across the globe.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, it's a brilliant workaround.

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<v Speaker 2>You observe the exact same target at the exact same time,

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<v Speaker 2>and you use the physical distance between the telescopes, which

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<v Speaker 2>is the baseline as your effective aperture size exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>By linking telescopes across the United States utilizing the very

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<v Speaker 3>long baseline array, they synthesized an Earth sized virtual.

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<v Speaker 2>Telescop That is just incredible.

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<v Speaker 3>But the technical challenge of VLBI is staggering. You aren't

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<v Speaker 3>just pointing dishes at the sky.

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<v Speaker 2>What else goes into it?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, you have to record the incoming radio waves at

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<v Speaker 3>each individual station with incredibly precise time stamps. And I

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<v Speaker 3>mean precise. They use hydrogen maser atomic.

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<v Speaker 2>Clocks, oh wow, just to make sure they know exactly

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<v Speaker 2>when a specific wave hit a specific dish.

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<v Speaker 1>Right.

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<v Speaker 3>And then you have to physically ship those hard drives

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<v Speaker 3>to a central supercomputer.

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<v Speaker 2>Wait, physically ship them like in the mail.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because the data rates are often way too massive

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<v Speaker 3>to transfer over the internet. So they mail them to

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<v Speaker 3>a central supercomputer called a correlator.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, so what does the correlator do once it has

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<v Speaker 2>all these hard drives?

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<v Speaker 3>The correlator lines up those atomic timestamps accounting for the

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<v Speaker 3>microsecond differences and when the wavefront hit each telescope on

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<v Speaker 3>Earth and it interferes the signals to reconstruct a high

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<v Speaker 3>resolution image.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, So they basically stitched together an Earth sized telescope.

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<v Speaker 3>They did, and that synthesized allowed the team to actually

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<v Speaker 3>see the jet structure. They could map the exact vector

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<v Speaker 3>of the jet and measure the precise angle of deflection

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<v Speaker 3>caused by the stellar wind at different points in the orbit.

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<v Speaker 2>And this is where the physics of the measurement becomes

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<v Speaker 2>highly elegant, I think, because it's basically just a conservation

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<v Speaker 2>of momentum problem, isn't it.

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<v Speaker 3>That's exactly what it is.

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<v Speaker 2>Because the researchers already had constraints on the properties of

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<v Speaker 2>the supergent star, so they could calculate the ram pressure

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<v Speaker 2>of the stellar wind, meaning how much lateral force the

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<v Speaker 2>wind was applying to the jet. So if you know

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<v Speaker 2>the force pushing from the side, and you use your

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<v Speaker 2>earth sized interferometer to measure exactly how much the jet bends,

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<v Speaker 2>you can just calculate the momentum flux of the jet

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<v Speaker 2>pushing forward.

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<v Speaker 3>You've got it. The deflection angle gives you the direct

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<v Speaker 3>ratio between the winds power and the jet's power. It

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<v Speaker 3>allowed them to calculate the instantaneous power of the jet. Instantaneous, yes,

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<v Speaker 3>and Professor James Miller Jones, who is is a co

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<v Speaker 3>author from the Curtain Institute of Radio Astronomy. He emphasized

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<v Speaker 3>just how critical this instantaneous measurement is compared to our

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<v Speaker 3>historical methods.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's talk about those historical methods, because usually if

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<v Speaker 2>we wanted to know how powerful a black hole's jet was,

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<v Speaker 2>we had a look at the macroscopic damage it did to.

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<v Speaker 3>Its environment right right the aftermath.

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<v Speaker 2>Like we looked at the massive radio lobes or cavities

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<v Speaker 2>that the jets carved out of the surrounding interstellar medium

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<v Speaker 2>over time.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, you measure the volume of the cavity, you estimate

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<v Speaker 3>the pressure of the surrounding gas, and you calculate how

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<v Speaker 3>much mechanical work the jet had to do to push

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<v Speaker 3>all that gas aside.

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<v Speaker 2>But the issue there is that it only gives you

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<v Speaker 2>the time average power the jet over like hundreds of

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<v Speaker 2>thousands or even millions of years.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, It's a huge time scale.

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<v Speaker 2>But let me stop you there, because at timescale discrepancy

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<v Speaker 2>is really interesting. Signus X one has been a creting

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<v Speaker 2>matter and firing these jets for a very long time.

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<v Speaker 2>So if we are trying to understand the broad strokes

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<v Speaker 2>of how this black hole operates. Why is the million

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<v Speaker 2>year average insufficient?

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<v Speaker 3>That's a fair question.

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<v Speaker 2>Like if I want to understand the thrust of a

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<v Speaker 2>commercial jet engine, looking at its total fuel consumption over

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<v Speaker 2>a long flight gives me a pretty good baseline of

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<v Speaker 2>its efficiency, right.

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<v Speaker 3>But that's assuming a steady burn, and a black hole's

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<v Speaker 3>accretion process isn't a steady commercial flight. It is highly variable, chaotic,

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<v Speaker 3>and bursty.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh Okay.

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<v Speaker 3>A better analogy for this engine would be testing the

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<v Speaker 3>thrust dynamics of an experimental scramjet. If you only look

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<v Speaker 3>at the total fuel consumed over its lifetime, you learn

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<v Speaker 3>absolutely nothing about how the engine responds to a sudden

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<v Speaker 3>extreme fluctuation and air density in a specific millisecond.

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<v Speaker 2>Because the accretion disc isn't perfectly smooth, I get it.

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<v Speaker 2>So clumps of dens or plasma are falling toward the

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<v Speaker 2>event horizon, creating sudden spikes in friction and temperature.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly which manifest as intense rapid flares of X ray emission.

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<v Speaker 3>And we can observe these X ray flas happening in

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<v Speaker 3>real time. But if our only measurement for the jet

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<v Speaker 3>is a million year average, we cannot correlate.

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<v Speaker 2>The two because you're comparing a real time event to

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<v Speaker 2>a million year average.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, we can't see how a sudden influx of matters

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<v Speaker 3>signaled by an X ray flare translates into a change

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<v Speaker 3>in the jet's power.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh wow.

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<v Speaker 3>But by utilizing the wind deflection method to calculate instantaneous power,

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00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:26.840
<v Speaker 3>the team can finally measure the jets output at the

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<v Speaker 3>exact same moment they observe the X ray emissions from the.

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<v Speaker 2>Infalling matter, so they can dynamically link the fuel intake

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<v Speaker 2>directly to the exhaust output precisely.

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<v Speaker 3>It's a game changer.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, so they captured the snapshot, they ran the vector

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<v Speaker 2>calculus on the deflection angle. Let's talk about the numbers

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<v Speaker 2>they extracted from this, because.

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<v Speaker 3>They are staggering, they really are.

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<v Speaker 2>The calculated kinetic power of the jets and sickness x

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<v Speaker 2>one is equivalent to the total luminosity of ten thousand sons.

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00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:55.159
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, ten thousand sons, and that is just the mechanical

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00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:58.440
<v Speaker 3>energy channeled into the jets. It is a highly focused,

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00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:02.799
<v Speaker 3>tightly collimated being of plasma carrying the energy equivalent of

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<v Speaker 3>ten thousand main sequence stars.

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<v Speaker 2>That is terrifying, honestly, and the velocity measurement is equally

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<v Speaker 2>impressive because determining the speed of relativistic jets without obvious

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<v Speaker 2>moving clumps or knots I think they call them two

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<v Speaker 2>track has historically been a massive headache.

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<v Speaker 3>It's notoriously difficult.

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<v Speaker 2>But the team determined the jet in signus X one

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<v Speaker 2>is traveling at approximately zero point five c half the

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<v Speaker 2>speed of light.

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<v Speaker 3>Roughly one hundred and fifty thousand kilometers per second.

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<v Speaker 2>Just to put that in perspective for you listening at

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<v Speaker 2>that velocity, the plasma would reach the Moon from Earth

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<v Speaker 2>in just over one second.

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<v Speaker 3>It's fast. And pinning down that velocity allowed the researchers

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<v Speaker 3>to finalize the most crucial calculation of the entire study,

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<v Speaker 3>the accretion efficiency.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, break that down for us.

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<v Speaker 3>When you calculate the mass accretion rate, meaning how much

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<v Speaker 3>matter is actually plunging toward the black hole, and you

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<v Speaker 3>compare it to the instantaneous power of the jet we

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<v Speaker 3>just talked about, derive what we can refer to as

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<v Speaker 3>the ten percent role.

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<v Speaker 2>The ten percent role.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Doctor Paba's research confirmed that approximately ten percent of

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<v Speaker 3>the rest mass energy of the infalling material is extracted

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00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:11.519
<v Speaker 3>and channeled directly into the jets.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, we definitely need to contextualize that ten percent figure.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh for sure, because it's easy to.

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<v Speaker 2>Look at a ten percent conversion rate and assume the

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<v Speaker 2>engine is highly inefficient. Like if my car only converts

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<v Speaker 2>ten percent of its fuel into forward momentum, the rest

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00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:27.200
<v Speaker 2>is mostly wasted as heat.

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<v Speaker 3>That's terrible, right, But in astrophysics it's the exact opposite.

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<v Speaker 3>The conversion of rest mass into energy via black hole

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<v Speaker 3>accretion is actually one of the most ruthlessly efficient processes

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<v Speaker 3>in the universe. Okay, think about nuclear fusion, the process

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<v Speaker 3>powering our Sun and every other star. Fusion converts roughly

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<v Speaker 3>zero point seven percent of its mass into energy.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow, less than one percent, right, But.

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<v Speaker 3>A black hole accretion disc can reach radiative efficiencies of

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<v Speaker 3>up to forty percent, depending on the spin of the

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<v Speaker 3>black hole.

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<v Speaker 2>Forty percent. That's a massive jump.

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00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:04.640
<v Speaker 3>It is the sheer gravitational compression friction liberate a huge

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<v Speaker 3>fraction of the plasma's rest mass energy dictated by Einstein's

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<v Speaker 3>EMC two.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, so out of that total liberated energy, ten percent

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00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.480
<v Speaker 2>is captured by the magnetic fields and accelerated.

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<v Speaker 3>Into the jet exactly. And because of EMC two, ten

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<v Speaker 3>percent of the yield from an accretion disc represents an

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00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:24.519
<v Speaker 3>almost apocalyptic amount of kinetic energy being violently deposited into

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<v Speaker 3>the surrounding interstellar medium.

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00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:30.119
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so ten percent is actually a massive cosmic return

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00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:34.440
<v Speaker 2>on investment. Oh absolutely, And this specific fraction, this ten

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00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:37.440
<v Speaker 2>percent rule, is not just an interesting piece of trivia

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00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:41.680
<v Speaker 2>for signus x one. The research emphasizes this heavily. This

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00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:44.480
<v Speaker 2>fraction is kind of the lynchpin for modern cosmology, isn't it.

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<v Speaker 3>It really is. When astrophysicists run cosmological simulations to model

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<v Speaker 3>the formation of the universe or the cosmic web and

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<v Speaker 3>the evolution of galaxies, they rely on complex hydrodynamic code,

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00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:58.039
<v Speaker 3>and baked into that code for years has been.

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<v Speaker 2>An assumption assumption about this ten percent.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, they assumed, based on theoretical models of magnetohydrodynamics and

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<v Speaker 3>some indirect observations, that black hole jets carry away roughly

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<v Speaker 3>ten percent of the accretion energy.

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<v Speaker 2>So they just plug that number in.

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<v Speaker 3>They had to. They needed that specific feedback mechanism in

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<v Speaker 3>the simulations to make the virtual galaxies evolve into something

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00:18:18.039 --> 00:18:20.039
<v Speaker 3>that actually resembles the real universe.

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00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:23.640
<v Speaker 2>We observe what happens If they don't include that ten

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<v Speaker 2>percent energy injection from the central black hole.

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<v Speaker 3>The simulations fail. The virtual galaxies would just keep cooling

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00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:34.000
<v Speaker 3>gas and forming stars endlessly. They would grow too massive,

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00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:38.240
<v Speaker 3>too quickly. The simulated universe wouldn't match reality at all.

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00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:42.319
<v Speaker 2>Wow, So the models literally required that ten percent assumption

384
00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:42.759
<v Speaker 2>to work.

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00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:47.759
<v Speaker 3>They did. But confirming that theoretical value through direct dynamic

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00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:51.319
<v Speaker 3>observation of a living black hole system has been incredibly

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00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:55.480
<v Speaker 3>elusive until now. Right, the Curtain University led study finally

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00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:59.119
<v Speaker 3>provided the observational proof. It anchored our mathematical models to

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00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:00.279
<v Speaker 3>empirical reaction.

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00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:03.160
<v Speaker 2>And that concept of an anchor point is exactly how

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00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:06.079
<v Speaker 2>Professor Miller Jones framed the importance of this discovery.

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00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:07.400
<v Speaker 3>It's get a great term for it.

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00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:10.200
<v Speaker 2>Because think about it. We're looking at a stellar mass

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00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:13.400
<v Speaker 2>black hole here around twenty one solar masses. But the

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00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:16.400
<v Speaker 2>black holes at the centers of galaxies supermassive black holes

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00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:19.759
<v Speaker 2>or active to lactic nuclei, those are millions or billions

397
00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:20.599
<v Speaker 2>of solar.

398
00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:21.960
<v Speaker 3>Masses right, completely different scale.

399
00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:25.799
<v Speaker 2>But the fundamental physics of the accretion disc magnetic field

400
00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:31.440
<v Speaker 2>twisting the mechanism launching the jet. It scales invariantly, doesn't.

401
00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:35.839
<v Speaker 3>It It does. The equations governing general relativity and magnetohydrodynamics

402
00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.799
<v Speaker 3>in these systems do not fundamentally change just because you

403
00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:40.039
<v Speaker 3>increase the mass parameter.

404
00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:42.599
<v Speaker 2>So a supermassive black hole operates on the exact same

405
00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:44.839
<v Speaker 2>blueprint as signus x one exactly.

406
00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:48.519
<v Speaker 3>Signus x one essentially acts as a cosmological Rosetta stone.

407
00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:53.839
<v Speaker 2>That's brilliant. We spent decades developing the VLBI techniques, observing

408
00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:57.920
<v Speaker 2>the X ray flares and mathematically untangling the wind deflection

409
00:19:58.359 --> 00:20:02.039
<v Speaker 2>of this relatively close twenty one solar mass black hole. Yep,

410
00:20:02.319 --> 00:20:05.160
<v Speaker 2>And now we finally translated the instantaneous mechanics and confirmed

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00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.119
<v Speaker 2>the ten percent conversion rule. So now we possess a

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00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.480
<v Speaker 2>verified translation key that we could apply to the supermassive

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00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:13.880
<v Speaker 2>engines driving the evolution of distant galaxies.

414
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.720
<v Speaker 3>Engines we could never hope to observe with this level

415
00:20:16.759 --> 00:20:19.759
<v Speaker 3>of localized detail. Yeah, it's critible, and the timing of

416
00:20:19.799 --> 00:20:23.480
<v Speaker 3>this verification is critical too, because observational radio astronomy is

417
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:25.839
<v Speaker 3>on the verge of a massive paradigm.

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00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:26.759
<v Speaker 2>Shift you're talking about the SKA.

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00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:31.400
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the Square Kilometer Array Observatory. The paper points directly

420
00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:35.240
<v Speaker 3>toward it. It's currently under construction across Western Australia and

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00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:35.920
<v Speaker 3>South Africa.

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00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:38.599
<v Speaker 2>And for anyone who hasn't heard of the SKA, it

423
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:42.920
<v Speaker 2>isn't just another telescope. It's a generational leap in interferometry.

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00:20:43.319 --> 00:20:46.400
<v Speaker 2>We're talking about thousands of dishes in Africa and up

425
00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:49.799
<v Speaker 2>to a million low frequency dipole antennas in Australia.

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00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:53.400
<v Speaker 3>The scale is hard to comprehend. The data processing requirements

427
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.319
<v Speaker 3>alone will rival the entire global Internet traffic.

428
00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:57.319
<v Speaker 2>It is just nuts.

429
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:00.480
<v Speaker 3>But the sensitivity and resolution of the SKA will allow

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00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:04.759
<v Speaker 3>astronomers to detect radio jets from active galactic nuclei across

431
00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:10.119
<v Speaker 3>millions of distant galaxies peering deep, deep into the universe's pass.

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00:21:09.799 --> 00:21:13.119
<v Speaker 2>So we will have this unprecedented catalog of supermassive black

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00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:17.640
<v Speaker 2>holes actively feeding and firing jets into their host galaxies exactly.

434
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:21.400
<v Speaker 3>But as you know, observing a million jets is just cataloging.

435
00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:23.279
<v Speaker 2>Right, it's just stamp collecting at that point, right.

436
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:26.319
<v Speaker 3>To understand the life cycle of those galaxies, astronomers need

437
00:21:26.359 --> 00:21:29.319
<v Speaker 3>to know exactly how much mechanical energy those jets are

438
00:21:29.359 --> 00:21:33.160
<v Speaker 3>dumping into the circumgalactic medium. This is the process of

439
00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:35.920
<v Speaker 3>agn feedback or stellar feedback.

440
00:21:36.039 --> 00:21:38.920
<v Speaker 2>Let's talk about that feedback. Because a galaxy's ability to

441
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.240
<v Speaker 2>form stars is governed by the temperature of its gas reservoirs. Right.

442
00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:46.960
<v Speaker 3>That's cold, dense molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity

443
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:49.480
<v Speaker 3>to ignite nuclear fusion and birth new stars.

444
00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:49.720
<v Speaker 2>Ok.

445
00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:52.759
<v Speaker 3>But if the supermassive black hole at the galactic center

446
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:55.960
<v Speaker 3>is firing a relativistic jet carrying ten percent of its

447
00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:59.640
<v Speaker 3>accretion energy into the galaxies halo, the kinetic energy of

448
00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:02.759
<v Speaker 3>that jet drives massive shock waves through the gas, and

449
00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:06.559
<v Speaker 3>those shockwaves heat the gas up exactly dramatically, increasing its

450
00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:10.200
<v Speaker 3>kinetic energy and preventing it from collapsing. It physically quenches

451
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:11.720
<v Speaker 3>the galaxy's star formation.

452
00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:14.119
<v Speaker 2>Wow, it just shuts down the star factory.

453
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:18.880
<v Speaker 3>It does. Or, alternatively, under specific density conditions, the compression

454
00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:21.240
<v Speaker 3>from the bowshock of the jet can actually force gas

455
00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:24.960
<v Speaker 3>clouds to collapse, triggering a sudden localized starburst.

456
00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:28.920
<v Speaker 2>So the jet ax is the galaxy's primary thermodynamic regulator.

457
00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:32.279
<v Speaker 2>It can turn star formation off or force it into overdrive.

458
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:35.839
<v Speaker 3>Precisely, you cannot accurately model the life and death of

459
00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:39.119
<v Speaker 3>a galaxy without quantifying that feedback mechanism.

460
00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:42.359
<v Speaker 2>But when the SCA comes online and observes the quasar's

461
00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:46.039
<v Speaker 2>jet a billion light years away, scientists won't need to

462
00:22:46.079 --> 00:22:49.599
<v Speaker 2>resolve the microscopic fluid dynamics of its local stellar wind

463
00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:51.039
<v Speaker 2>to understand its power.

464
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:53.599
<v Speaker 3>Will they No, they won't, And that's the beauty of

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<v Speaker 3>it because the international team behind this study researchers from Curtain, Oxford,

466
00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.880
<v Speaker 3>the University of Barcelona, the University of Wisconsin Madison, the

467
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:04.319
<v Speaker 3>University of Lethridge, and the Institute of Space Science, they

468
00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:07.880
<v Speaker 3>already did the grueling foundational work on Signus x one.

469
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:09.920
<v Speaker 2>So the SCAA astronomers will just be able to observe

470
00:23:09.960 --> 00:23:12.880
<v Speaker 2>the X ray luminosity of the distant quasar as acretion disk,

471
00:23:13.240 --> 00:23:16.240
<v Speaker 2>apply the confirmed ten percent rule derived from Signus x one,

472
00:23:16.599 --> 00:23:20.039
<v Speaker 2>and instantly calculate the thermodynamic impact that jet is having

473
00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:21.400
<v Speaker 2>on its host galaxy.

474
00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:25.000
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, we calibrated the instrument we need to decode the

475
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.880
<v Speaker 3>evolution of the cosmos. It connects the microscopic physics of

476
00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:32.680
<v Speaker 3>a localized plasma interaction right to the macroscopic structure of

477
00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:33.559
<v Speaker 3>the cosmic web.

478
00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:36.000
<v Speaker 2>It's just a phenomenal journey when you step back and

479
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:38.799
<v Speaker 2>look at it. We started by looking at a violently

480
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:43.720
<v Speaker 2>unstable supergent star shredding its outer layers through radiation pressure

481
00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:46.960
<v Speaker 2>to create a dense stellar wind. Then we saw how

482
00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:51.000
<v Speaker 2>an earth sized interferometry network managed to capture the precise

483
00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:55.000
<v Speaker 2>deflection of a relativistic plasma jet plowing into that wind.

484
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:55.559
<v Speaker 3>The dancing jet.

485
00:23:55.640 --> 00:23:58.799
<v Speaker 2>The dancing jet. Yeah, And through the vector calculus of

486
00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:02.119
<v Speaker 2>that deflection, the instantaneous power of the black hole was

487
00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:05.720
<v Speaker 2>finally clogged at ten thousand solar luminosities moving in half

488
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:06.160
<v Speaker 2>the speed of.

489
00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.960
<v Speaker 3>Light, which ultimately proved that ten percent of the incredibly

490
00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:12.559
<v Speaker 3>efficient accretion energy is diverted into the jet. That confirmed

491
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:15.839
<v Speaker 3>a fundamental assumption of cosmological modeling and really set the

492
00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:18.559
<v Speaker 3>baseline for the next era of radio astronomy.

493
00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:23.559
<v Speaker 2>It fundamentally changes how we view astrophysical chaos. The turbulent,

494
00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:27.519
<v Speaker 2>violent interaction between a Subersen's wind and a black holes

495
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:30.519
<v Speaker 2>jet isn't just noise obscuring the physics.

496
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:32.480
<v Speaker 3>Oh, the turbulence itself was the key.

497
00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:36.319
<v Speaker 2>Exactly the turbulence contain the exact mathematical variable needed to

498
00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:39.640
<v Speaker 2>understand how galaxies grow and die. And I think that

499
00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:43.400
<v Speaker 2>leaves us with a really profound, lingering consideration regarding the

500
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.920
<v Speaker 2>nature of complex systems. Oh. Absolutely, If the localized fluid

501
00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:50.720
<v Speaker 2>dynamics of a single binary system hold the mathematical constraints

502
00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:53.200
<v Speaker 2>for the evolution of the entire universe, it raises the

503
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:57.279
<v Speaker 2>question what other fundamental constants of reality are currently hiding

504
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:01.000
<v Speaker 2>in the plain sight of chaotic localized phenomen just waiting

505
00:25:01.039 --> 00:25:03.000
<v Speaker 2>for the resolution of our instruments to catch up to

506
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<v Speaker 2>the math