A Cosmic Cannibal: Uncovering the Mystery of the Loneliest Galaxy in the Universe | Space Nuts #343

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Hello again. Thanks for joining us. This is Space Nuts. Stop laughing at me, Fred. My name is Andrew

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Dunkley, your host. It's great to have your company on this edition, episode 343. Coming up,

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_06]: we're going to talk about some Australian physicists who didn't know we had any. They've

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_06]: been looking into when carbon started forming in the universe, which was a couple of weeks ago

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_06]: below. And there's a lonely galaxy that shouldn't be alone. Why? Well, it's got something to

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_06]: do with cannibalism. And we'll be dealing with some audience questions. We've had a couple

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_06]: of questions pop up this week about quantum entanglement. So we'll be tangling all that up

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_06]: and unraveling it and merging black holes, not anything to do with the fact that it happens.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_06]: But why does it happen? People want to know. Well, one person does. Nobody else really cares.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_06]: That's all coming up on this edition of Space Nuts.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_01]: One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one. Space Nuts.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Astronauts reported. Feels good. And joining me as always is his good self, Professor Fred.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_06]: What's an astronomer at large? Hello, Fred. Hello, Andrew. How have you been?

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm quite well. Thanks. It's my grandson's birthday today. He's eight and his name

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_06]: is Nate. And today is going to be great and I won't be late for his party.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Same joke I told on the radio this morning. He actually heard it. I didn't think he even listened.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_06]: There you go. Oh, that's great. And his birthday, by the way, his birthday is 15, 315.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_06]: He was born March 2015. And my youngest son was born 9797.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, it's interesting numbers in our writing. Interesting numbers. Yes, yes.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Indeed. There are 15, 315. Pretty good. And how are you? Oh, well, thank you.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Very well. Thanks. I had a nice encounter with our good friend David Astle on Sunday

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_05]: evening on the radio, which was wonderful. Slightly unexpected but nice to have.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_05]: He, as always, was very complimentary about Spacenuts. So, shout out to David from Andrew and myself.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Hi, Dave. That's terrific. Now, we might as well get straight into the guts of the program,

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Fred. Not much else to do really. I was going to make some coffee and maybe have a bit of it.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I'll do that later. Australian astrophysicists, I thought, I didn't know we had any,

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_06]: but we might have one or two. They've been looking into how carbon started forming in the universe.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, this is very important because we're a carbon-based lifeform. Are we not?

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_05]: We are, yes. We're made of organic molecules, which are molecules that contain carbon. So,

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_05]: it is important. This is a really interesting piece of work. The lead author is Rebecca Davis,

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_05]: who is at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. It's a fairly large

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: collaboration that has done this work, but she's the lead author on the paper. It's all about

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_05]: probing the evolution of carbon in the universe. As you've just highlighted, carbon is very

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_05]: important. So, it's nice to know where it came from. We do know where it came from. We know that

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_05]: it came from the nuclear processes in stars because that's where all the elements come from,

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_05]: with the exception of hydrogen and some helium and some small amounts of other stuff like lithium.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_05]: These elements, they were formed in the Big Bang, but all the rest, which we

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_05]: often call the heavy elements, but astronomers peculiarly, and I think we've talked about this before,

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_05]: refer to them as metals. Anything that's not hydrogen or helium is a metal.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Or oxygen, the metal. Yeah, yeah. In the world of astronomers, that's right.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway. That explains the heavy breathing.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I love it. I love it. You should be on the radio.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I should. So, I've just picked up the wrong story here.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_06]: While you're looking for it, I read a story today about a radio presenter who's just broken the

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Guinness World Record for the longest time on air in a career. She started in,

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_06]: can't remember, but she's from Texas and she's just racked up like near 73, 74 years as a radio

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_06]: star at the age of 12. So, to catch up with her, you've got to keep going until I'm into my 90s.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_05]: She's on a couple of weeks away. I was going to say you don't have long to wait.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, that's another story. So, Dr Rebecca Davis and her colleagues, what they've done is

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_05]: how do you probe the evolution of something like carbon in the universe? And the trick is,

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_05]: to observe very distant bright objects. And the particular bright objects that they

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_05]: observed were quasars. Quasars are almost like beacons in space. They were very common in the

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_05]: early universe. They are basically the result of black holes in the centers of galaxies,

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_05]: young galaxies, gobbling up lots of material and emitting lots of radiation. So,

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_05]: quasars are detectable over vast cosmic distances. So, when you look at quasars, perhaps at distances of

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_05]: 12 or 13 billion light years, you're looking back in time by that amount. But what you find is

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_05]: the light of the quasar on its journey to us in the present time as it has made its way through

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_05]: space passes through basically the gasey environment of the universe, the intergalactic gas within the

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_05]: universe. And that gas imprints on the light what it's made of. And it's such a brilliant trick

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_05]: because this is all about redshift. So, this imprint from different distances looking back in

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_05]: time gets stamped on the spectrum of a quasar at different places which you can immediately identify

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_05]: as being a different era back in the past. And so, what they've done, I saw that.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm just taking my hits. It's a very neat trick. It gives you this handle on

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_05]: essentially the way things have changed over cosmic time. So, what they've done is they've

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_05]: looked at the signature of carbon over very long periods and they found that in the early universe

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_05]: there was a lot of cold carbon which was sort of replaced as the universe evolved by warm carbon.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, you might well ask Andrew how can you tell the difference between the two?

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm really glad you asked me that because it's all about what we call the ionization state,

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_05]: the carbon. How many electrons it's lost because of temperature? Yeah. And so, I think if I

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_05]: have got this working out in my head properly, the warm carbon is carbon four. That's an

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_05]: ionization level of four, less four electrons, something like that. And the cold carbon is

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_05]: carbon two and there was more carbon two in the early universe than later on. So,

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_05]: the question is why is it so? And there are two... Julius Sumner Miller would have asked the

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_05]: question. He would have asked. That's right. Yeah. There's a name to conjure with. Yeah.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I never knew him actually. No. And I arrived in Australia kind of after the Julius Sumner

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Miller era. I just loved watching him on TV after school. Yeah. Yeah. In the science show.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_05]: It was fantastic. Yeah. That's what everybody says and I wish I'd been there to see it.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_06]: He's like a mad professor. He obviously got all your hair for it because he's...

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, yeah. He had more... He had more... He had more...

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_05]: I had more hair cut. Yeah. There was a fellow at the UN when it was their last month who

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_05]: looked like Einstein. I kept wondering, is that Einstein? He's getting mixed up.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_05]: He's getting mixed to Elvis. Maybe he was. I did see Elvis. No, I didn't.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, so the two theories and I'm going to quote here from Cosmos Magazine which has got this

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_05]: very succinct way of putting it. I should credit the author who is Ephraim Yusgin.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_05]: He is the author of this article on Cosmos Magazine. What he says is two theories have been

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_05]: put forward to explain the increase of warm carbon. First is that carbon became more abundant purely

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_05]: because it was being formed through nuclear fusion in the young universe's stars. In other

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_05]: words, that first burst of star formation at the end of the universe's dark ages when the

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_05]: what Rebecca Davis goes on to say is during the period when the first stars and galaxies are forming,

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_05]: a lot of heavy elements are forming because we never had carbon before we had stars.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_05]: One possible reason for this rapid rise is just that we're seeing the products of the

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_05]: first generation of stars. But again, I'm quoting from the Cosmos article,

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_05]: that doesn't quite account for evidence in the study which shows that cool carbon decreased

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_05]: in the same period. And that suggestion is that this perhaps was meant there were two

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_05]: phases of carbon evolution arise when the first stars kicked in followed by a plateau.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And so that's essentially where the measurements led them to this conundrum.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Why do we find this drop in the amount of cold carbon compared with the amount of

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_05]: of the drop in the amount of cold carbon compared with the amount of warm carbon?

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_05]: And the jury appears to be still out. I think it's there's a number of ideas.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the nice quote from Rebecca Davis, our results are consistent with recent studies

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_05]: showing that the amount of neutral hydrogen, which is just called hydrogen,

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_05]: in intergalactic space decreases rapidly around the same time. And a nice note looking to

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_05]: the future, this research also pays the way for future investigations with the square kilometer array,

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_05]: which aims to directly detect emissions from neutral hydrogen during this key phase of the

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_05]: universe's history. So maybe it's not going to be until we've got the square kilometer array

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_05]: later in the decade that we'll find out why this conundrum occurred with the carbon.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Wow, it is interesting though. And it's, yeah, it's open, I suppose, more questions as these

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_06]: discoveries tend to do, but there appears to be a smoking gun, I suppose.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, yes, since smoke is usually carboned, often carboned, that's probably right.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure. Penza, what's burning?

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, we are going out live on YouTube and Patreon. And have you got time for an off the cuff

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_06]: question from one of our listeners? This is a YouTuber called Ghost81.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_06]: A quick question for Professor Watson. If you jump on the moon at Miranda,

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_06]: you can jump 57 meters high. What happens when you land? Would it be slow, graceful,

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_05]: or an accelerating death dive? Good question. Yeah, it would be, you probably have the same

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_05]: impact, you know, feeling as if you jumped on Earth. Because what you're doing is you're jumping

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_05]: as high as you can, you jump as high as you can on Earth and you will land. You might

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_05]: strain, certainly, if you were me, you'd strain your knees and tell you I don't jump

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_05]: anymore. But it would be a soft landing, as it would be on Miranda. And it's because what you're

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_05]: talking about here is the acceleration due to gravity, which is much, much lower on the moon like that.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_05]: So you get up to 57 meters and you gracefully come back down again

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_05]: and land as though you were a ballet dancer finishing a pirouette. Okay. I mean, if you

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_06]: jumped from 57 meters on Earth, you'd probably go flat. You would go flat. That's right.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_05]: You would probably land reasonably safely. Yeah, you'd land like you would if you were jumping as

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_05]: high as you possibly could here on Earth. Okay, fair point. All right. Except more slowly. It's

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_06]: all relatively questionable. Thanks for the question. Lovely to hear from you.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_06]: This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Zero G and I feel fine. Space Nuts. Yes, indeed. And we continue with our next topic. And it's a

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_06]: lonely galaxy. Lots of songs have been written about this poor fellow. But this is a galaxy that's

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_06]: far, far away and should not be by itself. That's what's weird about this story. So what's

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_05]: happening here for it? Yeah, probably as you alluded to at the beginning, a case of

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_05]: an extreme galactic cannibalism. But the story is more complicated than that. And it's a nice,

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_05]: quite a nice story. I love the headline on Science Alert. This distant galaxy is all alone in space

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_06]: because it ate its friends. Oh, that's who's it? I like the name of the author, Michelle Star.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_06]: What a great name for someone. Oh, yeah, Michelle's a classic. That's right. She

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_05]: I had a colleague, many colleagues who've got names associated with astronomy. Peter Star used

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_05]: to run the Warren Bungal Observatory on the Cunabarabran. And one of my favorites is a colleague

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_05]: from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh or the University of Edinburgh, as he was,

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Alan Heavins. Oh, wow. It was very appropriate. I still can't get past one of the best

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_06]: names in a job that I've ever heard. It's an Australian meteorologist, works for the

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Bureau of Meteorology. Her name was Gina Weatherhead. Oh, yeah. I'm not kidding.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_06]: You could be a classic. It used to do radio reports. Gina Weatherhead. I think she got married,

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_06]: so I don't know if she kept it. I would have kept it.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Nominative determinism is what it's called, isn't it? It's where your name determines

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_06]: what you do. Yeah, all right. Well, I'm just clearing in a bunch of trees, apparently.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm just the son of what? So there you go. Anyway, back to this story about this hungry

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_05]: galaxy. And one of the things I like about this is this particular galaxy has the elegant name

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_05]: of 3C297. And the 3C in front of it tells you that it's what it is, it's the 297th galaxy in the

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_05]: third catalogue of Cambridge or the third Cambridge catalogue of radio sources, which dates back to

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_05]: the 1960s. It might even be the 50s actually when this catalogue was being prepared. It could

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_05]: be the 50s. So this is a galaxy that has been observed for a very long time. It's a very

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_05]: bright galaxy. And in fact, it's again, we talked about quasars in our last story, it's effectively a

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_05]: quasar. So it's radio loud, that's why it's in the third Cambridge catalogue of radio sources.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_05]: But it also emits visible light. So the quasar is basically the black hole at the center of

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_05]: this object. That's a supermassive black hole, it's scoffing material so quickly that it absolutely

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_05]: beams out light and quasars are the brightest objects in the universe at least in terms of

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_05]: the fact that they keep on shining continuously. So what's odd about this galaxy? Well,

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_05]: it is a galaxy that you would normally associate with a cluster, a large cluster of galaxies.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And how do you know that it will be in a cluster? Well, galaxies of this size seldom come alone. And

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_05]: a galaxy in a large cluster is usually surrounded by basically high temperature gas.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And that high temperature gas is there around 3C297. It's been observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory,

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_05]: a space telescope, looks at high energy radiation. And so there is the detection of this high energy

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_05]: gas, high temperature gas around this lonely galaxy. And that's the bit where it's a misfit because

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_05]: normally with that high temperature gas around it, it will be part of a large cluster and there'll

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_05]: be several galaxies of its size in the middle of that cluster. There's other evidence as well that

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_05]: came from Chandra that it's within a huge cloud of gas because some of the jets of material that

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_05]: are being squirted out of the black hole are actually bent because they've hit the flow

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_05]: of the interstellar gas. One of them has illuminated a bright spot of interstellar gas

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_05]: that's I think it's 140,000 light years away from the galaxy itself. The beam of

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_05]: radiation coming from the black hole has hit this other cloud of gas and once again it's

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_05]: emitting X-rays. So all the evidence is there suggesting this lonely galaxy sits in a giant

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_05]: gas cloud that would normally be populated by other galaxies. Now Andrew, there's a twist to the

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_05]: story here because when you look at it in big telescopes, you can see that it's surrounded by

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_05]: other galaxies except... Sorry say again... Infrared? Probably are infrared actually,

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_05]: the observations that have been made because this thing's at a distance of 9.2 billion light years.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So it's light has been well redshifted but the answer here and the twist in the story

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_05]: is that the astronomers who I haven't mentioned in this story, I think it's led from the

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_05]: University of Torino in Italy by Valentina Misogna and actually there's a nice quote from

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_05]: from Valentina. She says, it seems that we have a galaxy cluster that is missing all of its galaxies.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_05]: We're expected to see at least a dozen galaxies about the size of the Milky Way yet we see only

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_05]: one which is kind of what I just said but the reason... So what I said was yes there are

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_05]: other galaxies around it but what Valentina and her collaborators did was went to the

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Gemini Observatory of Manukau in Hawaii just two 10 meter plus telescopes and used a spectrograph

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_05]: to measure the redshift and hence the distance of these other galaxies. There are 19 of them

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_05]: surrounding 3C297 and it turns out that all of those other galaxies are at different distances

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_05]: from 3C297 so they're just line of sight coincidences. They are not anywhere near 3C297 and so

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_05]: they're not the missing galaxies in this cluster and so that galaxy is really all alone and what

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_05]: they've determined from these observations that this is an object which is usually called,

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's called a fossil cluster. I think that's how they describe them.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_05]: And a fossil cluster is one that was once a cluster of galaxies but one galaxy has had such a powerful

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_05]: gravitational pull that it's gobbled up all the other ones which have now become part of that

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_05]: one central galaxy. So it is the outcome of this research. Actually I think the

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_05]: noble term is a fossil group rather than the fossil cluster. You may in here make up a fossil

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_05]: cluster. I guess we do yes there's a cluster of fossils well there you go. You'll be mad at it though.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_05]: When's Hugh gonna get really annoyed with you Andrew that's what I want to know.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I haven't used it in a long time. I haven't used it in a long time.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I've been with the AGC so are you sure? Oh dear that's a good thing about fossils they don't

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_05]: know much. But there is another aspect to the story that makes this a record breaker because

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_05]: this is as I said it's a look back time of 9.2 billion years and it's actually the earliest

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_05]: fossil group or fossil cluster that astronomers have found because they thought that these sorts

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_05]: of events galaxies gobbling up their partners and friends only happened relatively recently

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_05]: in the universe but this shows that it actually occurs much earlier in the universe than astronomers

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_05]: have thought. How big is it did you say? Big. It's about the size of the Milky Way I think.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Does that suggest that before all this started it was much smaller or? Yeah yes that's right

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_05]: that it would have been a more modest galaxy it may even be bigger than the Milky Way the kind

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_05]: of the size of the Andromeda galaxy. So what would have given it the power to be the dominant

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_05]: in that area? It's a great question probably you know it would have started off by it would

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_05]: have been surrounded by probably 100 satellite galaxies we think that that's you know one of

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_05]: the consequences of galaxy formation that you get quite often get a big spiral will

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_05]: look to satellites around it yeah and the big spiral begins by eating them all up and

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_05]: that's what's happening with the Milky Way it's gobbling up the two Magellanic clouds

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_05]: they're being disrupted tidally and will form part of the halo of our galaxy in a few

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_05]: 100 million years but that's just the start of the process and then if you've got other

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_05]: smaller galaxies and I guess the analog in our local group of galaxies is our own galaxy

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_05]: and Andromeda where which are whizzing towards each other at I don't know 300 kilometers per second

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it is something like that Andromeda is a bigger galaxy than ours and what will wind up

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_05]: when this collision occurs in three or four billion years is there will be a combination

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_05]: of the Milky Way and Andromeda which is already being called Milcom I think it's Milcomeda

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_05]: and it's usually called something like that it's horrible it's horrible yeah it is horrible

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_05]: but that will be a single galaxy and then it'll probably gobble up there's another galaxy called

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_05]: M33 which is another spiral galaxy smaller than both the Milky Way and Andromeda and that'll

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_05]: probably get sucked in as well yeah so we I think have already seen the start of our galaxy

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_05]: becoming part of a fossil group but remember where the universe is now 13.8 billion years old

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_05]: and that's the time that you kind of expect these things to be happening like now whereas this one

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_05]: occurred 9.2 billion years ago so it's it is quite an interesting observation

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_06]: um Milcomeda I guess it's is it better than flipping it over and becoming Amway which

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_05]: I think doesn't work I don't think that works I don't know I think Milcomeda's

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_06]: it's a bit more pure than I think uh yeah um no I wonder if it's skim or

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_05]: what you're gonna skim and going I suppose skomeda skomeda might do it oh no that's no no

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_06]: look full full creamometer no the thing about this lonely galaxy is there's not going to be the

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_06]: only lonely galaxy in the far distant future because we'll all become lonely galaxies yes that's

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_06]: exactly right we're all on the way to it yeah which will be rather sad

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_06]: but um I don't know if we'll be around to see that because who knows what the future holds

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_06]: but uh yeah a fascinating story and and if you do want to have a read of that it's on the

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_06]: science alert.com website science alert.com uh and um yeah you can chase it up there

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_06]: this is Space Nuts Andrew Dunkley here with Professor Fred Watson

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_05]: three two one space nuts guess what Fred uh question time question time hey look I've

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_06]: got I'm on fire today well we've already done one but that was from a live studio audience

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_06]: we're gonna do three questions today but two of them basically ask similar things about

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_06]: quantum entanglement so I think the best way to play this would be to tackle them one at a time

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_06]: so the first question comes from Evan. Hi Andrew and Professor Watson Evan Carlow here

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: from Newcastle Australia my question is related to quantum entanglement suppose we have a set

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_00]: of quantum entangled coins in two black boxes one spinning clockwise and the other spinning

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: counterclockwise Fred has one of the boxes here on earth

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Andrew gets a ticket on a rocket to Mars and brings one of the boxes with him

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: will the entanglement collapse as soon as either Fred or Andrew open their box and look at one of

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: the coins if so is that message somehow going faster than the speed of light given it quickest

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_00]: it takes three minutes for light to go between Earth and Mars. Oof my brain hurts love your

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_06]: podcast Jans, keep it up good stuff. Evan I think your brain hurts because the supercars were in

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Newcastle last weekend they're pretty darn loud those V8s it was nice to see um I come from

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Maitland which is only you know half an hour's drive up the road from Newcastle so I know Newcastle

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Wells beautiful city too absolutely glorious I was there at the weekend were you? Yeah well it's

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_05]: not nice place not for the supercars but my son one of my sons lives uh William.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah okay did you hear the cards you should have? No but I heard the jets from William

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Town flying over the supercars yeah in fact saw one of them as we were getting on the train we

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_05]: went up by train you know. Yes well it's easy by train to get there it is it is it's nice

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_06]: six hours to get to Sydney by train from where I am that's only because every time

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_06]: it hits a hill we have to get out and push but um yeah quantum entanglement coins so you've

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_06]: got the clockwise one in your box on earth and I've got the anti-clockwise one in my box and then I go

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_05]: to Mars what happens? Well that's it's exactly what Evan says um uh but it's it's it is

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean it's an interesting aspect uh because the real physicists not people like me

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_05]: don't see um entanglement as uh as as basically um contradicting the speed limit of the universe

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_05]: which is the speed limit of the speed of light uh because what they're saying is that that entanglement

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_05]: um it it's sort of preordained by the entanglement itself as to what your your coin's gonna look like

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_05]: when you look at it so uh the the deconvolution bit is when it stops being a quantum object

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_05]: and that's when I look at mine it stops being a quantum object but you can look at yours at any

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_05]: time uh and you will find that the spin's in the opposite direction because that's the way it was

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_05]: when the two were created if you see what I mean it's not that a message is being sent saying hey

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Fred's looked at his looked in his box um because you've got to look in your box too to know that

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_05]: it's quantum entanglement I can tell by the expression on your face yeah I'm digging myself deeper into

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_05]: the whole what Evan's headache yeah it gives me headache as well Evan um you know it um it

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_05]: it is it is a strange and wondrous phenomenon uh which I think we are well we clearly don't

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_05]: understand it properly although the the quantum physicists are quite comfortable with it and they

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_05]: are using it entanglement's being used as you know in cryptography and things of that sort so

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_06]: yeah I think they sit in their canteen and and when they make their tea one of them

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_06]: stirs it clockwise and the other stirs it clockwise uh right that's probably what happens

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_06]: but uh I'm I'm none the wiser after that to be honest no I don't think Evan will be either

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_05]: um maybe I should lift my game really shouldn't I should should look at the equations and find

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_05]: out what they tell us if you could figure it out you'd probably win a Nobel prize wouldn't you

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_06]: you thought be good yeah I'll be really good okay there's room on my trophy cabinet

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_05]: we could we definitely share it under yes we'd have to be shared that's how it would it

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_06]: would probably be an entangle the Nobel prize as well maybe yes uh thank you Evan um and sorry

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_06]: couldn't answer it but uh we're going to get even more confused now because David is also

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_06]: asking a sort of a combo question about light and quantum entanglement hey guys my name's David

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm from Saskatoon Saskatchewan in Canada um once you first of all thanks for the podcast

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm new to the whole science space universe or our multiverse I guess and I've been learning

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_04]: about you through your guys podcast so thank you um I have a couple questions uh first question was

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_04]: I believe it was in January of 2022 where scientists showed a bunch of light at each other

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_04]: and the energy output was more than the input uh with this in any way tied to the theory of

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_04]: black holes white holes in the sets that black holes consume a bunch of energy including

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_04]: light and the output is more than the input in the sense that it creates an entire universe

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_04]: without through the white hole maybe that's a stupid question uh let me know and secondly um

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_04]: stay on the subject of black holes if one or two particles that are quantally entangled

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_04]: enter a black hole would they still be quantally entangled or I guess what what

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_04]: kind of happens to that once again thanks again for the podcast guys and um look forward

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_06]: to hearing the answers wow thanks David they were deep questions I do remember hearing about

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_06]: that experiment where they pointed light at each other and the output was higher than the input

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_06]: but I can't remember the the details um have you heard of anything like that for it oh yeah

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_05]: we talked about it I did you know say how good my name is yeah so it's the um it's the uh

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_05]: it's the sorry I'm just reading something it's the fusion reaction uh which was a was it Lawrence

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Livermore lab I think uh so they actually generated a fusion reaction for the first time

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_05]: that yielded more energy than was put into it now this is the kind of holy grail of of

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_05]: energy production if we can bring about nuclear fusion and control it then it's a clean source

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_05]: of energy that's uh almost infinite not quite infinite but it's what powers the sun this transition of

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_05]: making hydrogen atoms into helium atoms and and reaping the the slight percentage of mass loss

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_05]: that there is in that reaction uh that turns into energy and it turns because because the

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_05]: m for mass is multiplied by the square speed of light squared as in e equals mc squared

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_05]: you've got huge amounts of energy coming out the problem is sustaining the temperatures that you

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_05]: need to make that work and uh so the the you know the promise of nuclear energy from nuclear fusion

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_05]: is still as it has been for many years probably 50 years away uh there but this was the first time

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_05]: that you know with all the experimental controls and everything you can guarantee

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_05]: that uh that fusion um has taken place and that you have generated more energy only briefly

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_05]: but you generated more energy than you put in so it's a milestone um I was talking interestingly

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_05]: to nuclear physicists when I was at the u.m back in February um and because I sat in on

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_05]: some meetings about nuclear power sources in space which were really interesting yeah and um there was

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_05]: certainly a feeling among those physicists that the laurence sliver moor laboratory if i'm correct

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_05]: in saying that's where this work was done was really um you know milking the hype as much as they

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_05]: could uh for this for this event and were I think getting um these people felt they were getting

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_05]: more um vibes out of it than possibly they should have done because they said this was entirely expected

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_05]: that you know if you cloud these two lasers together or laser beams together at high enough

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_05]: energies then you're going to get nuclear fusion but I think the world they did they did agree

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_05]: that it's still a milestone um so just to um sort of close the loop on it there is a giant

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_05]: european experiment uh going on in the south of france called eta uh and I can't remember what eta

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_05]: stands for it er uh and it's about sustained fusion fusion reactions they that that machine

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_05]: has been being built for a very long time um we were probably more than a decade ago I actually

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_05]: talked to one of the physicists working there there was a strange and interesting person um but

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_05]: it that will probably eventually generate a fusion power or demonstrate the fusion power is possible

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_05]: but then it'll have to be it'll have you know the the step to to build power stations using this

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_05]: is probably half a century or so that's the it's good how it can happen it's great to know

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_06]: that can happen yeah and the other um little leap forward that was announced last week uh from

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_06]: monash university in melbourne Australia was that Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_06]: that can uh convert air into anything oh yeah that's right yeah it's just fabulous and they've

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_06]: published their findings in the journal nature but basically uh if they can harness this uh it will

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_06]: lead to um you know mobile phone batteries being able to charge themselves from thin air things

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_06]: like that and even they even think that the technology could grow to the uh size of batteries

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_06]: required for electric cars and things like that will probably take a long time but then they're

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_06]: talking not 50 years but five to 10 years before this technology's rolled out so that's really exciting

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_06]: and if you want to you know that's worth reading that story it's at fizz.org now I've got a caveat

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_06]: here um it's phys.org fused a few people by saying fizz.org because they think it's fi double z

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_06]: and that's or double z sorry for you Americans but um phys.org fizz.org is what that's what I mean

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_06]: when I say that but that's a really exciting discovery Fred uh yes that's right it is it's a

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_05]: milestone um so uh the second part of his question David's question yeah by the way David

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_06]: were quantumly tangled particles entering a black hole will they stay stay entangled

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I suppose what we mean by entering the black hole is crossing the event horizon because that's a bit

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_05]: where um and and um I don't know the answer to this um and I'm just trying to think I mean we you

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_05]: know it's Hawking radiation comes about because of virtual particles springing into existence

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_05]: at the event horizon one goes in and the other comes out um so they they they turn into real

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_05]: particles uh I uh I honestly don't know what would happen to entangled black particles entering a

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_05]: black hole I was trying to find out for you David I'm coming to Canada next year actually so um

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_05]: maybe I'll you know talk about it then obviously they're in May this year of course you are yeah

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_05]: you're heading in heading there in May three years later let's um let's just kind of put a bit of a lid

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_05]: on entanglement though and all these mysteries because what I'd like to do is refer everyone

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_05]: to a scientific American article which appeared actually it's just appeared it's appeared only

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_05]: this week February 13th 2023 um which is headlined and it kind of this echoes what I was saying earlier

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_05]: quantum entanglement isn't all that spooky after all uh and uh what the author of this whose name

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_05]: is Chris Ferry says is the way we teach quantum theory conveys a spookiness that isn't actually

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_05]: there and I would uh I would actually recommend uh all our listeners who are interested in

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_05]: quantum entanglement to read that because because because it is you know it is all

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_05]: always less spooky than what what we convey it um it's it's a really interesting phenomenon

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_05]: but it doesn't break the speed limit of the universe that's the bottom line okay again sorry

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_06]: David can't answer your question but it's quantum entanglement and Fred hasn't got the right

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_06]: packet of cornflakes yet to get his um particle physics certificate so that he can answer the

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_06]: question so he's got to keep buying cereal until it turns up you remember that old joke he got his

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_06]: driver's license from a cornflakes packet particle physics I think my dad did actually

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_06]: get over here thank you David let one more quick question and it's oh it's an easy one

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_03]: it's all about black holes this is from Duncan hello this is Duncan here from Weymouth in Dorset in the

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_03]: UK um quick question can you explain in layman's terms please how black holes merge that is to say

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: if nothing can escape from a black hole when two black holes come together how do they

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_03]: interact surely they would literally just roll around each other because neither one could allow

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_03]: anything to escape from the other to merge them into one hole um there probably is a simple answer

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_03]: but I can't think of it because nothing can get out of a black hole therefore how can they possibly

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_03]: join together into one big one because they would just wrap around each other maybe you could

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_03]: explain that for me keep up the good work glad that you're back risked you over Christmas so anyway

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_06]: thanks for the answer bye bye thanks Duncan um stop making trouble for yourself

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_06]: such an easy question um but I see the logic of his thinking yes I do too nothing can get out

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_05]: how can they get up well um the bottom line is nothing can get out but stuff can get in yeah

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_05]: well comes down to which one's the bigger black hole doesn't yeah this so when you look at um I mean

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_05]: the uh you know the classics uh studies of merging black holes have come from LIGO from the

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_05]: laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory in the USA when they made in fact the first

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_05]: gravitational wave uh observation that was made that was verified was in 2015 or I think it was

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_05]: released in 2016 but for an event that occurred in 2015 in fact on Mali's birthday the 14th of

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_05]: so the gravitational waves that that emitted fitted the theory perfectly and the theory says

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_05]: that you'll get exactly as um as Duncan has uh suggested these two black holes will spin around

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_05]: one another in ever increasing speed uh getting relativistic that's to say getting near the

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_05]: speed of light getting ever closer to one another uh and then basically they just merge they do

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_05]: merge they're not uh you know they're not um constricted from merging by the fact that they're

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_05]: black holes they are gravitationally attractive each one is attracted to the other with an enormous force

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_05]: so if you imagine think of them as singularities they don't have any dimensions

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_05]: then they basically just add together with a colossal release of energy which is why

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_05]: their masses don't necessarily add up and so it's not uh that much of a conundrum the um that the

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_05]: the one thing that is released is gravitational energy uh and that comes about because they're

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_05]: gravitationally highly highly attractive bodies um uh there's not really that much to add I mean

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_05]: this uh what they called what they were referring to in the in the um uh LIGO results was a I think it's

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_05]: called a ring down which is the last bit it's the phenomenon where the black holes themselves merge

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_05]: but um should check that I think it was called a ring down might be worth just having a look at

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_05]: that Duncan online black hole ring down and see what it comes up with because that will tell you

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_06]: about the instant that we see these black holes merge I I'd um caution you Duncan that that search

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_05]: could well maybe so yeah maybe maybe yes maybe uh uh astrophysics might be in the search

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_06]: definitely a good idea not that I've ever tried it but um it certainly is that and it

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_06]: could take you to the wrong place maybe that's right and you never know where you're gonna

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_06]: wait just you don't do you know it's the it's a lottery it is sometimes but but if I double zed

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_06]: dot org I don't know where that takes you that's right annoying uh anyway it's a great question uh

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Duncan I hope all is well down there in Wermouth I'm sure it is I suppose it's up here

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_06]: up there from down here but he's up here then again I maintain that the universe is upside

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_06]: down which puts us on top so well yes that's my tip it's true yeah all right Duncan thank you

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_06]: lovely to hear from you thank you to everybody who's sending questions we got a whole bunch of others

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_06]: to go through which will tackle overcoming episodes but if you do have a question for us

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_06]: go to our website and send it to us you can do that by going to spacenutspodcast.com or

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_06]: spacenuts.io now if you click on the AMA link which I'm doing right now it will take you

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_06]: to a page that says be a part of the show leave an audio question for Andrew and Fred and have it

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_06]: answered in the Q&A segment of the podcast and you can simply send us a text form question

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_06]: by filling out the form or you can hit the record button and away you go or if you want to just

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_06]: do it the easy way without having to click on another page just click on the send us your

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[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_06]: becoming a patron go to the Spacenuts shop you can get the latest news from the astronomy daily

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_06]: newsletter and so much more at spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts.io we spent millions of dollars

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_06]: to own both of those URLs so yeah that's where the big bucks go just so we can keep our

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_06]: website alive we're finished Fred thank you so much thank you Andrew thanks for bearing with those

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_05]: half-baked explanations about entanglement yeah we strive for adequacy adequacy is all

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_06]: good to know we sometimes achieve it no problem nice to talk next week see you later okay bye bye

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Fred Watson astronomer at large and thanks to Hugh in the studio who is stirring his tea and

[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_06]: pushing a couple of buttons on his phone because he doesn't know how to use it yet

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_06]: technology you know and from me Andrew Dunkley thanks for listening looking forward to your

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_06]: company on the very next episode of Spacenuts bye bye

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_02]: you can also stream on demand at bites.com this has been another quality podcast production

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_03]: from bites.com