87: Star Go Boom!

This week, a new Black Hole Record (kinda), and with it a nice conundrum. the GAIA mission has found the biggest black hole ... of the stellar-mass variety ... in our galaxy. A lot of caveats there, but the fun thing is, it's just next door, which makes us wonder if that's coincidence or a harbinger of more big black holes to come in GAIA's data dumps! Plus, a riddle: why do we keep spotting black holes that are too big to make? Did we break physics? Emily has a few explanations.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodSome of the things we talk about in this episode:• The Biggest (small) Black Hole (in our galaxy)• The rapid-release paper• The GAIA mission• GAIA’s data release schedule• Types of Black Hole• LIGO gravitational wave telescope• Quasi-stars• Syzygy Episode 116: Black Hole Sun

We're live from the 10th birthday celebrations for the University of York's Astrocampus, Emily's home turf and all-round fabulous teaching and outreach space. Emily fields some amazing questions from kids and adults attending the event, and gives some of Astrocampus's highlights and achievements over the past decade, as well as some plans for the future!Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypod

After some lengthy follow-up (the Bennu sample is open at last! And SLIM is alive!), Emily investigates possibly the most podcasty story we’ve had on the show: six planets around distant star HD110067, all locked into resonances that play beautiful music. Turns out if you leave a planetary system alone for long enough, gravity tends to pull everything into simple harmonies. Maybe our own solar system has a song to sing in the far future?Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• The Bennu asteroid sample is open! • JAXA SLIM updates • First SLIM images • Sextuplet symphony: The Nature paper • A good article about the discovery • Blog post by Dr Hugh Osborn with exoplanet music video • Trappist-1 system • Orbital resonances • Multiple star systems • JWST finds methane in exoplanet atmosphere • A breathless headline

Emily and Chris tune in to JAXA’s livestream of SLIM — the Smart Lander for Investigating and Moon — as it attempted to slick the landing on the lunar surface on Friday 19 January 2023. We were prepared for success and champagne, or failure and lessons-learned. What we didn’t expect was … ambiguity, uncertainty and WE ARE STILL CHECKING THE STATUS SO PLEASE WAIT. Did SLIM and its fabulous little transformer rovers make it to the Moon OK or not?! Join us for all the anticipation, the wonder, and the confusion in this special syzygy episode.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• JAXA’s SLIM mission• YouTube livestream recording and press conference• Update article from 3 days later• Mission success!• The SLIM Rovers LEM 1 and LEM 2• Buy your own LEM-2 rover! (Or buy us one, we’d love you forever!)• Upcoming missions to the Moon• India’s Chandrayaan-3 landing• Israel’s failed moon landing• Moss Piglets on the Moon?

Long-time Syzygy listener Jack asks: "Hey Emily — what's the deal with quasi-stars?" (We're paraphrasing). Quasi-stars are hypothetical, enormous stellar-object-thingies that might have formed shortly after the Big Bang. They're so huge they might have formed with black holes at their cores. If they existed at all, it would explain why astronomers keep finding intermediate-mass black holes in gravitational wave experiments. And as a bonus for you, Jack, Emily presents Hawking stars: otherwise ordinary stars that could be hiding a tiny black hole deep in their core. Could the Sun be a Hawking star? The mind boggles.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• Quasi-stars• (… as opposed to Quasars)• Types of black hole• Intermediate-mass black holes and LIGO• Hawking stars• The research paper that seeded this episode• Asteroseismology, the music of the stars

Astronomers routinely detect cosmic rays, the high-energy particles from space that collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a shower of secondary particles that rain down on the earth below. But every so often — like, less than once a decade — they spot a cosmic ray smashing into the planet with just stupid amounts of energy. The sort of energy you associate with hitting a golf ball or maybe dropping a brick on your foot, but definitely NOT a single subatomic particle. Not only do astronomers have no idea what could produce these Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays, one was spotted recently that seems to have originated in one of the emptiest regions of the universe. Emily explains the Strange Mystery of the Cosmic Zevatron.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• The recent UHERC paper• A good article about the discovery• The Utah Telescope Array• The Oh My God Particle• Cosmic Rays• The Local Group• The Virgo Supercluster• The Local Void

We've talked BOATs before — cosmic events that are the Brightest Of All Time — and it's always a favourite topic on the show. Recently astronomers analysed the runner-up BOAT in the Burster category, an astoundingly violent, weirdly long-lasting, and oddly-located neutron star merger, and measured the amount of afterglow Tellurium to learn more about fast neutron processes. What?! As Emily patiently explains, with a brief cameo from Tom Lehrer, it's all about a deeper understanding of where all the chemical elements in the universe come from.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Instagram & Threads: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• Research paper• Overview of the research• Syzygy episodes with BOATS:— Episode 30: Stardust or Cosmic Poo— Episode 61: Biggest Bag Ever!— Episode 107: Biggest Bang Ever! (Again)• Nucleosynthesis• The rapid neutron capture process• … as opposed to the slow neutron capture process• Tom Lehrer’s Elements song• Binding Blocks• The actual BOAT

We love it any time a listener gets in touch — but the *best* is when a listener suggests a topic for an episode of the podcast. So when Zofia Szczesna got in touch (through the Syzygy website, natch) and asked about white dwarf stars, Emily put her research hat on and dug into the amazing astrophysics of these amazing little entities. In this episode she lists her three favourite things about white dwarfs: a cheeky supernova loophole, wibbly-wobbliness, and our white dwarf (or more accurately, black dwarf) future.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• Osiris Rex’s recent little problem• White dwarf stars• Degenerate electrons and neutrons• The Chandrasekhar limit• Types of supernovae• Variable stars• Proton decay• Black Dwarfs

JWST is flinging out Just Wonderful observations at great speed, many already leading to new astronomical insights. Here's one that was really unexpected: the Orion Nebula is full of JuMBOs! Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects, that is — pairs of giant planets (or planetty-things, the definition isn't terribly clear ...) floating free in space, in quantities that aren't possible based on what we *thought* we understood about planet formation. New observations that seem to break astrophysics? We're always up for that discussion!Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• The Fibonacci Sequence• The JuMBOs papers: overview, and JuMBO-specific• The Orion Nebula• JWST gets a good look at the Orion Nebula• Where is the Orion Nebula, exactly?• The definition of “planet"

Earth got a special delivery recently: a little pod plonked down in the Utah desert, containing a few hundred grams sampled from the surface of an asteroid. This isn't the first sample return mission, but it's definitely the biggest. The little parcel of asteroid dirt inside is now being very carefully handed out to researchers across the globe, and we're going to learn loads of important stuff, like what asteroids are made of, how we might stop one from hitting us ... and even, maybe, just maybe, whether they contain the building blocks of life.Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypodThings we talk about in this episode:• The OSIRIS-REx mission• Landing in the desert (NASA video stream)• Grabbing the sample in 2020• Sample return missions• Asteroid Bennu• OSIRIS-APEX• Asteroid Apophis• The Asteroid Belt