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JWST's Black Hole Star, Lichen Survival & Jupiter's Aurorae | Aug 15
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
JWST has spotted a potential new class of astrophysical object — a black hole star 100 billion times brighter than our Sun — while Mojave lichen survives lethal UV radiation, expanding the search for life on alien worlds. Plus Jupiter's auroral hydrogen outflow measured for the first time and India's commercial space boom.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Desert lichen from the Mojave survived three months under UVC radiation that kills most living things. That single result has quietly shifted what we think is possible on worlds orbiting stars far harsher than our Sun.
Now to the early universe, where JWST has found something that doesn't fit neatly into existing categories. The object is called MoM-BH*-1.
The reason this discovery carries weight beyond just one unusual object is that it may explain something that's been sitting unresolved since JWST's early images came in. The telescope kept finding ultra-bright red sources in the deep early universe, far too luminous to be explained by known objects.
Closer to home, Juno has directly measured hydrogen molecular ions escaping from Jupiter's auroral region at a rate of ten to the power of twenty-six ions per second. That's an enormous outflow.
One story that sits outside astrophysics but carries real strategic weight: India's space sector, currently valued at around nine billion dollars, is projected to reach forty to forty-five billion dollars over the next decade. The country has four hundred and forty registered space startups and has attracted over six hundred million dollars in private investment.
Two things are worth tracking closely from here. First, whether additional JWST observations of MoM-BH*-1 can confirm the black hole star interpretation.
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