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22:55energy, those things ionize hydrogen, no problem. And the electron goes off and does whatever it wants to do. Right? >> So that's the key. The key here is that the ionized hydrogen >> around a star >> could be causing this. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, the key insight of this paper is to say, all right, >> suppose I were to take that ionized hydrogen idea >> and I were to put that ionized hydrogen envelope around a black hole. >> I see. I see. >> What would that mean? >> What would that mean? >> Okay. And that's the key insight of this paper. It's funny because we've been talking about uh reionization and hydrogen in in
23:40astrophysics cosmology and space in a couple of our previous episodes. So folks will have a good grounding for this conversation based on several of our past >> Exactly. >> stories. >> Yeah. And and this paper came out in um I I think it was nature. We have the >> Yes, it was in nature January uh 13th, 2026. >> Right. So So very recently. And this is photo 13 just to show our folks what the what the paper looks like. Little red dots as young super massive black holes in dense ionized cocoons. That's where the ionized cocoons comes in. It's an ionized cocoon of stuff around my black hole. >> That okay. >> And the key is that that hypothesis
24:20then lays to rest all of the different conundrums that we've had. >> I see. Okay. >> I see. like when we talked about earlier about it's over massive and too big uh the Edington limit so it can't accrete enough to like be able to get to that size but the the the note here is that this the the ionized hydrogen envelope that's around it is what is making what we're measuring or seeing look the way it is >> look the way it is and so perhaps these black holes aren't as big >> as we thought they were. >> I see. I see. That's the idea. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> So, the inside of the ionized gas cloud means we can we can now recalculate the
25:01mass of these black holes because the line broadening before we thought the line broadening just had to do with the the hydrogen spinning around the black hole and then from that we calculate what the mass should be for it to spin around at that rate. >> Okay. Well, if there's ionized hydrogen, then what we're going to see is not the actual photons from the accretion disc, but we're going to see those photons get released, and then they're going to bounce around in the ionized hydrogen because the ionized hydrogen is just plasma. And plasma means that light doesn't really have a free path to travel all the way to us, >> right? It's going from here to there. And so the photons undergo this random
25:43walk of free electrons in a highly ionized environment. So you've got the black hole in the center >> and it releases a gausian profile. Yes. Because of the accretion, but by the time it gets to us, by the time it gets to the James Web, it's going to be bouncing around this hydrogen atom, then this electron, then this hydrogen, then this electron electron, blah blah blah. And you're going to get this Thompson Thompson scattering. The electron the free electrons are going to scatter around. >> Yes. >> Okay. And when that happens, the Gausian profile is actually going to resemble more of an exponential decay on both sides. >> So the way to test this and in physics
26:25and in in science really a lot of times what it comes down to is can you get good enough data to discern one theory from another. So the two theories that are competing in this case are it's a gausian profile so it's a bell curve and the other one is it's a exponential decay >> the James web style telescope is g giving us good enough data where we can discern between those two theories >> and that's why it's so important to get really good data >> and [clears throat] which which means we have to build really great instruments. >> Yeah. And the James Web is just a phenomenal instrument. And so here you can see from their paper they fit an
27:06exponential and then they fit a gausian >> and the errors when it comes to fitting an exponential are basically zero. That's the teal color. And then if you look at the purple there's plenty of error. >> Yeah. Yes. >> The exponential fits this profile a lot better. the the model the exponential model of the theory to explain why we're seeing the what we believe to be these you know black holes look the way they do this ionization of hydrogen >> which then ends up having this exponential decay uh on this that >> that we did uh theoretically on paper. >> Yeah. We're like, we're like, okay, if
27:46there's a cocoon of hydrogen that's ionized, so a bunch of plasma that's like diffuse, what would it look like? Well, it would look like an exponential. So, let's fit an exponential. >> And then we got the experimental data of high fidelity from JWST that now it's like, oh, yeah, that's exactly what we're seeing. >> That's exactly right. Yeah. And now instead of 2,000 km per per second, Yes. that the accretion disc is going around. >> Yes. >> Instead, it's something like 300 km/s. Okay. So, actually the accretion disc isn't moving all that fast. The broadening is happening because of the plasma that's all around >> that's surrounding it, not the actual internal structure of the black hole itself. So, it I guess to the intuition is then that means the black holes are
28:28much smaller and much younger because they're not super massive and they're not going very very quickly. That's all being sort of obvisiscated by the amount of plasma ionized hydrogen that's around this. She's really young small black hole. >> That's exactly right. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. And and so when you when you redo the estimate for the mass, you get something like 10 to the 5 >> which is you know several orders of magnitude below right >> what we had earlier. >> And now this makes sense. >> Yeah. Now it's now it fits. >> Now it fits. It's like now you could have that light seed of the population three stars. But this thing this guy doesn't have to constantly eat like a hot dog contest for hundreds of million years. He can take breaks, you He he he
29:09can go sub Edington limit and like he'll be fine. He'll he'll make it he'll make it to this far. Yes. You know >> so and and given the volume of these that we're seeing it then also matches the like frequency >> of of its appearance like okay these are >> this is probable now. >> Yes. >> You know and then and then now it kind of explains why there's so many of them. The missing X-rays also makes sense because all of these X-rays are now going to get absorbed by the plasma so we don't see the X-rays. The red color makes sense because the cocoon absorbs the high energy light and then remits it in the lighter part of the spectrum. The the redder part of the spectum. >> I was going to ask earlier, I'm like I thought black holes were like black holes of light, but I get the accretion
29:50disc and then stuff happens there. But I'm like why is it why was it red was kind of >> Yeah. Yeah. But it's just I mean the the stuff around the black hole is so hot that it's releasing a bunch of a bunch of light, right? And then it also explains the black hole mass problem because now you don't need this accretion and the host mass. You know, before we used to think, oh, this thing is like 10% to 100% of the of the host galaxy >> as opposed to the 0.1 we see. >> Yeah. Yeah. And now you can see in the final figure in their paper is actually showing. So the the >> the gray circles >> Yes. >> are what it would be without their hypothesis. >> And you can see the mass is decreasing. Yes. because they use this exponential
30:30fit and they're saying actually these black holes are not that >> massive and the blue line is what the theory says, >> right? >> It's like lining up very nicely with theory. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yes. >> Now, there's caveats. They only analyze 12 of these and we've seen, you know, several hundred. >> So, it could be that there's a bunch of different things >> and not it's not like a one um one answer fits all little red dots, right? Some of them could be young galaxies and then there's always more questions. But this at least puts a lot of the black hole theories. >> Yes. >> In to rest >> like it's making sense now. Okay. The
31:11universe did the big bang did start 33.6 billion years ago. And >> right after the big bang within a billion years there were black holes but they weren't that big. It was fine. But because there was so much gas around at the time you could have these ionized cocoons. Nowadays you can't because the gas is so sort of diffuse. >> Yeah. We have we have Pepto-Bismol now. So it's >> exactly the universe [laughter] is 13.6 billion years old. The universe needs some Pepto-Bismol, [laughter] you know. But I thought I thought that was really cool just the way that you know it it's it's a recurring theme in um astrophysics research actually that the closer you measure something the better you can discern between two competing
31:52theories. >> Right. >> Right. Right. And like it goes all the way back to Kepler and Taiko Bry. Taiko Bry was this really rich guy who had a very nice observatory, not with lenses and stuff, but an observatory to point out locations of planets. And he tracked the locations of planets to a really high degree of accuracy. And then Kepler, who was the mathematician, took that data and he was trying to fit Capernacus's model of circles. Yep. And he's like, "The circles don't fit, >> but the ellipses do fit." >> And the difference between the ellipse and the circle was really small because the the orbits of the planets are
32:33basically circles, but they're more ellipses than there are [laughter] circles. Right. >> But there's a very famous quote by Taob O'Bri. I'm going to paraphrase. He said that this error is too big >> Yeah. >> for Taob O'Bri. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. like the error between the circle and the ellipse is big enough that I'm pretty sure Taiko Bry's error bar is smaller than the difference between these theories. So I'm pretty sure these things are ellipses. >> Mhm. >> Yep. >> And then he came up with Kepler's three laws and then you know Newton ran with it. So it's it's an amazing like sort of it's the tradition holds true. The better data you get the more you can discern between one or the other theory. >> This is why we need to continue to
33:15support and invest in frontier research. It's not necessarily tied to commercial impact. No, >> because the better instruments will eventually somehow someway always is dual use. Yeah, >> it's always dual use. Our better the better we understand the world around us, the better we can get all the conveniences we love every day. >> Yeah. And this is this was >> I mean it was just so cool that now we know that there were black holes >> you know 800 million like like an infant universe >> had just a bunch of black holes >> that were just like going gang busters. >> Yes. Yes. And then started spitting out and creating all of this and >> again and we can see it we can literally
33:56>> see it now. >> Yeah. Um, I still get so my mind still gets so weirded out by the idea that because of the speed of light, when we look far enough, it's like looking in the past. >> Oh, dude, it's still it's still weird to me. >> It's very, >> it's weird to me. >> It's very hard for my brain. >> Um, like it makes logical sense. >> Yeah, of course. But >> but like then you're like, are [laughter] you sure? >> That's our astrophysics story of the day. I think we're almost averaging one per one per week at this point. Um, great story one. Um, we're going to move now into the rundown. Uh, before we get to story two, we can't cover every story
34:36happening in the frontiers of research labs, not only in the US, but across the globe. It's an incredible time and it's really important that we kind of keep track of what's going on because these things are eventually going to impact our lives one way or another. And we're going to start the rundown. These are some fun stories this week covering a couple different areas. Our first story in the rundown is about a prehistoric wolf's gut. >> Yeah. >> Frozen in time and revealed an ice age giant. This is from the center of paleo genenetics in Stockholm, Sweden and Stockholm University that was published in Genome Biology and Evolution. The
35:19summary here is that a wolf pup that died 14,000 years ago close to when the woolly rhino >> Yeah. >> went extinct. >> Went extinct. >> And there's some hair and stuff. >> Yeah. That's still in the stomach. >> Still in the gut. And which means that the DNA apparently is well preserved.