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Space Nuts: The M87 Black Hole, a Vanishing Exoplanet and Dragonfly’s Journey to Titan

In this episode of Space Nuts , Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson revisit the Event Horizon Telescope’s landmark image of the black hole in galaxy M87 — and explain how a CSIRO team has now independently confirmed it using artificial intelligence. They then investigate an exoplanet that stopped transiting its star, apparently because the gravity of another planet has tilted its orbit out of view. Finally, Andrew and Fred Watson look ahead to NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan, where a flying rotorcraft will explore a moon with methane and ethane lakes. You can even send your name along for the ride. Join Andrew and Fred Watson for black holes, shifting planetary orbits and an extraordinary mission to Saturn’s largest moon.

Key topics

- How a CSIRO team used AI to independently validate the M87 black hole image.

- Why independent confirmation is an essential part of the scientific process.

- How gravitational interactions may have tilted exoplanet TOI 2535b’s orbit, making its transits disappear.

- Whether the planet may return to view, and if its unseen neighbour could transit its star.

- NASA’s Dragonfly mission, its planned exploration of Titan and how to send your name.

- Titan’s thick atmosphere, icy surface and lakes of liquid methane and ethane.

- How AI is helping scientists make new discoveries.

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction and the episode’s cosmic stories

01:30 - The 2028 total solar eclipse across Australia

04:30 - CSIRO independently confirms the M87 black hole image

10:00 - Why independent validation matters in science

13:30 - An exoplanet’s transits disappear from view

17:00 - How another planet’s gravity may be tilting its orbit

20:00 - Could the planet return, or might its neighbour become visible?

23:00 - Send your name to Titan aboard NASA’s Dragonfly mission

26:00 - Titan’s methane lakes and the search for unusual forms of life

29:00 - Can AI accelerate the pace of scientific discovery?

33:00 - Closing conversation and Space Nuts details

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Show notes

A hot Jupiter called TOI-2535 b has become the first planet around a single star seen to stop transiting, tipped out of line by an unseen neighbour. Plus: why Uranus and Neptune have scrambled magnetic fields, MeerKAT measuring how cosmic hydrogen clusters, Euclid's first big data release, ESCAPADE heading for Mars, Starship Flight 15's double-catch attempt, the 2026 ozone hole, and a both-hemispheres sky with Mars and Jupiter 1.2 degrees apart. The planet that stopped transiting. TOI-2535 b, an 8.24-day hot Jupiter ~1,000 light-years away, ran up to ~6 hours early or late and its transits shortened and faded over seven years of TESS data until they vanished in 2026. A hidden companion of at least Saturn mass, likely in resonance on a tilted orbit, is making both orbits precess. Transits should return in 30–50 years. Yee, Petigura et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 9 Nov 2026. Ice giants' scrambled magnetic fields. Dynamo models with electrical conductivity rising with depth reproduce Uranus- and Neptune-like fields, and suggest their tilt could shift by tens of degrees within decades. Aurora observations could test for change since Voyager 2. Yan et al., Communications Physics. MeerKLASS hears the cosmic web. Running MeerKAT's 64 dishes as independent telescopes, the MeerKLASS collaboration detected the 21-cm hydrogen power spectrum on cosmological scales at z = 0.42 over ~236 square degrees, signal-to-noise 6.2. MNRAS. Euclid DR1-Foundation. ~1,900 square degrees (about 1,400 in the southern sky), ~1.8 PB of images, catalogues and spectra. Weak-lensing and clustering products follow in mid-2027. Quick hits. ESCAPADE Blue and Gold complete powered Earth flybys, Mars arrival Sept 2027; Starship Flight 15 targeted NET 13 Nov 22:45 UTC; 2026 Antarctic ozone hole seventh largest in 48 years, recovery on track. Skywatch. Mars–Jupiter 1.19° on 16 Nov (pre-dawn, north-favoured); Venus 1.2° from Spica, a 10%-lit crescent; Saturn high in southern evenings; Leonids peak 17–18 Nov; first quarter 17 Nov, full Moon 24 Nov. Sources · UCLA Newsroom — First known 'disappearing planet' — https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/first-known-disappearing-planet-neighbor-wobble-like-top · Yee et al., ApJL 1011 L60 — https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aeb4a4 · arXiv 2611.13343 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.13343 · Yan et al., Communications Physics — https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-026-02841-y · UT Austin Jackson School release — https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2026/11/wacky-magnetic-fields-of-ice-giants-explained/ · University of Portsmouth — MeerKLASS — https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/news/breakthrough-cosmic-hydrogen-measurement-could-transform-our-view-of-the-universe · MNRAS stag1911 (DOI) — https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1911 · Caltech/IPAC — Euclid DR1 — https://euclid.caltech.edu/page/euclid-dr1 · ESA — DR1 timeline — https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline · Berkeley News — ESCAPADE — http://news.berkeley.edu/2026/11/09/berkeleys-escapade-spacecraft-say-goodbye-to-earth-next-stop-mars/ · NextSpaceflight — Starship Flight 15 — https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/8403/

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Wednesday SpaceTime 20261111 Series 29 Episode 135

A stellar grave yard at the heart of the Milky Way A new study has shown that the gas orbiting the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is rich in metals from the corpses of dead and dying stars. The mystery of the origin of Earth’s water A new study suggests planet Earth may have formed much of its water during its formation in the protoplanetary disk rather than later from asteroid and comet impacts as often speculated. Rocket Lab to fly from Alaska Rocket Lab is building two new launch pads in Alaska to conduct rapid-response launches and missile-defence testing for the United States military. The Science Report A derivative of vitamin B5 used as a cholesterol-lowering supplement shown to stop psoriasis. Having a spouse with dementia may put you at a higher risk of developing dementia yourself. Northern Australia becomes a lifeboat for the critically endangered Green Sawfish. Smartphone after 10pm linked to teens falling asleep later, waking up later and sleeping less. Alex on Tech messages from the dead.

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Show notes NASA turns Curiosity's spare test-bed rover into PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover bound for the Moon's south pole, as part of a sweep of Moon Base awards. Plus: a theory of 'gravitational reconnection' hidden in Einstein's equations, a record 9.7-picokelvin quantum gas aboard China's Tiangong space station, ESCAPADE's twin burns over southern Australia, and a both-hemispheres skywatch. NASA's PROMISE rover and the Moon Base awards NASA Release 26-095 (7 Nov 2026) and PROMISE mission page. JPL is converting the duplicate Curiosity test-bed rover, powered by a flight-spare MMRTG, for a late-2028 launch and an 18-month mission at the lunar south pole. Blue Origin: $94M base + $140M option to deliver it on Mark 1. Also: eight CLPS 2 companies ($10B maximum, 10 years), CLPS 1 raised to $4.2B, six VADR task orders (~$1.3B), a 2028 Starship cislunar communications demo. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-moon-base-transportation-technology-science-projects/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/promise/ Gravitational reconnection Comisso (Columbia) & Asenjo (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez), 'Reconnection of Gravitational Fields', Physical Review D 114, 084095, 28 Oct 2026, DOI 10.1103/lmqy-pf9k; preprint arXiv 2609.25241 (Sept 2026). Theoretical only. https://news.columbia.edu/news/can-gravitational-fields-break-and-reconnect-einsteins-equations-suggest-they-can https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25241 Quantum gas below 10 picokelvin on Tiangong 'Quantum gases below 10 picokelvin in space', Science (First Release, 5 Nov 2026), DOI 10.1126/science.aea5324. ~20,000 Rb-87 atoms, 9.7 pK equivalent temperature, 7 s observation (CAS). Peking University, SIOM and CSU-CAS. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea5324 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lowest-temperature-china-space-station ESCAPADE's powered Earth flybys NASA ESCAPADE blog (2 Nov 2026). Blue's burn 8:51 p.m. AEDT 7 Nov; Gold's 9:51 p.m. AEDT 9 Nov, both over southern Australia; Mars arrival 7 and 9 Sept 2027. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/ Quick hits Starship Flight 15 targeted Fri 13 Nov, 22:45 UTC, pending regulatory approval; Voyager 1 one light-day ~18 Nov; Euclid DR1-Foundation due in November. https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/spacex-plans-to-launch-starship-15-flight-on-nov-13/ https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid/dr1-timeline Skywatch New Moon 9 Nov. Venus about 1° from Spica before dawn 9–10 Nov (higher from the north). Mars and Jupiter close to ~1.2° on 16 Nov (our calculation). Crescent Moon ~2° from Antares on the evening of 11 Nov (southern-favoured). Saturn high in southern evenings. Northern Taurids 11–12 Nov; Leonids 17 Nov. Four-galaxy challenge for southern observers. Solar viewing only with ISO 12312-2 certified filters.

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Space Nuts: Vanishing Stars, White Holes, Earth’s Mass and Neutrinos

In this listener Q&A episode of Space Nuts , Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson tackle four cosmic questions that stretch from distant stars to the nature of space-time. They explain why a star billions of light-years away would still appear in our sky long after it had gone out, and why looking across the universe means looking back through time. Next, they consider whether white holes are the opposite of black holes, then investigate whether dark matter could affect our measurements of Earth’s mass and gravity. Finally, they explore how neutrinos interact with gravity, whether black holes can capture them, and why space-time itself is not something a black hole can consume. Join Andrew and Fred Watson Watson for big ideas, listener curiosity and the occasional detour into the value of the Earth in dollars.

Key topics

- How light-travel time means we see distant stars as they were in the past.

- White holes as theoretical solutions to relativity, and how they differ from black holes.

- Whether dark matter contributes to Earth’s measured gravity and mass.

- The mass of the Earth and how astronomers determine it.

- Neutrinos, gravity, black holes and whether space-time can be consumed.

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction and listener questions

01:30 - If a distant star goes out, when would we see it happen?

06:30 - Looking back in time across the observable universe

10:00 - What are white holes, and are they the opposite of black holes?

15:30 - Could dark matter affect measurements of Earth’s gravity?

20:30 - How the mass of Earth is determined

23:30 - Do neutrinos interact with gravity, and can black holes capture them?

27:00 - Could a black hole feed on space-time itself?

30:00 - How to send questions to Space Nuts and closing remarks

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