There’s no doubt that the James Webb Telescope is set to bring back tons of much-anticipated
data. Although it will take decades to fulfil its primary objectives, data is already trickling
in. The James Webb Space Telescope or JWST is heavily invested in answering these questions:
Number 1: What did the early Universe look like?
Number 2: When did the first stars and galaxies emerge?
Number 3: How did the first galaxies evolve over time?
Number 4: How and where do stars form? Number 5: What determines how many of them
form and their individual masses? Number 6: How do stars die and how does their
death impact the surrounding medium? Number 7: Where and how do planetary systems
form and evolve? And finally, Number 8: What can we learn about
dark matter and dark energy? In this video, you’ll learn about the James
Webb Space Telescope’s Horrifying Discovery about Hawking Radiation, his out-of-this-world
ideas about black holes, and the testing of one of Stephen Hawking's most controversial
theories, new research suggests.
On March 14th in 2018, Stephen Hawking passed away after a long and impactful career in
physics. A lot of the late cosmologist's most impressive work addressed black holes. Those
insatiable discs of infinitely dense matter from which almost nothing can escape are fascinating
cosmic vacuum cleaners that defy so many notions of physics or what we think the universe should
resemble. To understand these bizarre celestial objects, Hawking's work was critical. From
the realization that black holes aren't truly black, to the "hair" that may emanate from
them, Hawking refined the data with his genius. Let’s rewind the clock a few decades to
the 1970s. It was then that Hawking proposed that dark matter, the invisible substance
that makes up most matter in the cosmos, may actually be made of black holes formed in
the earliest moments of the Big Bang. Now, three astronomers have developed a theory
that explains not only the existence of dark matter, but also the appearance of the largest
black holes in the universe akin to Hawking’s findings.
Study co-author Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist at Yale University, said in a statement.
"What I find personally super exciting about this idea is how it elegantly unifies the
two really challenging problems that I work on — that of probing the nature of dark
matter and the formation and growth of black holes — and resolves them in one fell swoop.
What's more, several new instruments — including the James Webb Space Telescope that just
launched — could produce data needed to finally assess Hawking's famous notion.”
Is the JWST Observatory the Tool for the Job? The James Webb Space Telescope was formerly
known as the Next Generation Space Telescope. And scientists are certain it contains the
instruments to effectively reap the results. The JWST observatory includes three main elements,
the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), the Optical Telescope Element (OTE) and the
Spacecraft Element which comprises the spacecraft bus and the sunshield.
Some of the key characteristics of the 6,200 kilogram JWST observatory are:
Number 1: The primary mirror that is 6.5 meters in diameter and made of 18 mirror segments
of gold-coated beryllium. Number 2: a giant shield protecting the telescope
and the instruments from the light of the Sun which is about the size of a tennis court.
Number 3: a wavelength range by the scientific instruments that cover infrared, mid-infrared,
and ultraviolet light. And for Number 4: the JWST will operate in
an orbit around the L2 point which is approximately 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. This
makes its operation, pointing and stability requirements much simpler in comparison to
its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Dark Matter and Black Hole Conundrum… Scientists have discovered that dark matter
does indeed make up over 80% of all the matter in the universe. Yet, it doesn't directly
interact with light in any way. It just exists like a massive void, affecting the
gravity within galaxies. Are black holes responsible for this elusive
matter? It's certainly tempting to think so. After all, black holes are famously dark,
so filling a galaxy with black holes could theoretically explain all the observations
of dark matter. However, in the modern universe, black holes
form only after massive stars die, and collapse under the weight of their own gravity. So
making black holes requires many stars. That means it requires epic amounts of normal matter.
Scientists have been able to calculate where the first hydrogen and helium formed, so they
know how much normal matter is in the universe. And when the numbers are added up, and after
all the dark matter astronomers’ observations, it’s clear to see that there just simply
isn't enough normal matter to justify all the black holes let alone the dark matter
that clearly exists. They’re as Old as the Big Bang
In 1971, Hawking suggested that black holes formed in the chaotic environment of the earliest
moments of the Big Bang. He theorized that pockets of matter could spontaneously reach
the densities needed to make black holes. In turn, this would flood the cosmos with
black holes, and their cousins - black matter, well before the first stars began to sparkle.
Instead of following that lead, most astrophysicists focused on finding a new subatomic particle
to justify dark matter. Hawking’s colleagues noticed that the models of primordial black
hole formation ran into observational issues. If too many formed in the early universe,
they changed the picture of the leftover radiation from the early universe. That leftover radiation
is commonly known as the cosmic microwave background or CMB. This indicated that the
theory only worked when the number and size of ancient black holes were fairly limited.
Without that limit, measurements of CMB conflicted. But in 2015, when the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-Wave Observatory found its first pair of colliding black holes, it became apparent
that even black holes are cannibalistic. That surely might explain their large mass, and
prove Hawking’s prediction. Black holes formed in the early universe, not in the hearts
of dying stars. Simplicity is the Smartest Solution
Natarajan, the Yale University professor of astronomy and physics, and Nico Cappelluti
at the University of Miami and Günther Hasinger at the European Space Agency (ESA) formed
a task force in order to prove the theory of primordial black holes.
In their experiments, the researchers assumed that the primordial black holes had a mass
of around 1.4 times the mass of the sun. They constructed a model of the universe that replaced
all the dark matter with these fairly light black holes, and then they looked for observational
clues that could validate the model or rule it out altogether.
The team discovered that primordial black holes could definitely play a major role in
the universe by seeding the first stars, the first galaxies and the first supermassive
black holes, which carry the antonym “SMBH’s” – Super Massive Black Holes! Observations
indicate that stars, galaxies and SMBHs appear very quickly in cosmological history.
Natarajan was quoted saying, "Primordial black holes, if they do exist, could well be the
seeds from which all supermassive black holes form, including the one at the center of the Milky
Way. And the theory is simple and doesn't require a zoo of new particles to explain
dark matter.” Her colleague, Cappelluti included, "Our study
shows that without introducing new particles or new physics, we can solve mysteries of
modern cosmology from the nature of dark matter itself to the origin of supermassive black
holes."
How sure are they? Well, for now it’s just an idea on a model. But it’s about to be
tested very soon – with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope! It has been specifically
designed to be the instrument of acquiring this knowledge. With its next-generation gravitational
wave detectors, and “LISA” - its Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, JWST is poised
to reveal much more about black holes, including primordial ones if they exist.
It’s a joyful occasion. The JWST observatory is on the brink of giving astronomers enough
information to piece together the story of the first stars and potentially the origins
of dark matter. Natarajan had to comment, "It was irresistible to explore this idea
deeply, knowing it had the potential to be validated fairly soon."
And to think, Stephen Hawking probably had it correct all along. He’ll go down in history
as one of the greatest scientists on earth.
So, scientists are definitely interested in some of his other far-out ideas about Black
Holes and Black Matter… One unforgettable hypothesis is that Black
Holes Have Hair! Scientists originally thought that black holes
had no complicated details at their edges. So, they were essentially bald. But in 2016,
Hawking and Harvard University physicist Andrew Strominger suggested that black holes sport
a luxurious crop of "hair" . This was a metaphor to say that long strands of zero-energy particles
emanated from their event horizon. The Next Outlandish Ideal of Hawking is that
Black holes may Fizzle and Explode! We mostly think of a black hole as a cosmic
entity that sucks up everything, and nothing can escape its vacuum into the abyss. But
in the 1970s, Hawking developed the concept of Hawking radiation, which would mean that
instead of expanding over time, black holes might eventually dissolve.
The idea suggests that matter and antimatter particles will suddenly emerge from nothing
and then annihilate each other, and if that happens at the boundary of the black hole,
it's possible for a particle to pop into existence on the outside edge of the black hole and
zoom out into space, so its antimatter partner doesn't have a chance to annihilate it, and
instead gets sucked into the black holes center. If this happens for a long duration, it means
that the black hole is leaking and therefore its size would decrease. It means that light
could actually be leaking out of some massive black holes. So far, no one has directly measured
Hawking radiation but most physicists are convinced it exists.
Do you agree with Hawking’s predictions about Black holes? Are they primordial? Do
they have hair? And can they actually fizzle or deflate?
Since knowledge is power, and the science isn’t settled, be sure to comment down below.
For more extraordinary details about the mysteries of space, smack that like button. Subscribe
to Space Infinity, share this video, and head to the Space Infinity archive for unlimited
power!