A Little Red Dot might have a big black hole in its heart. And that’s a bit of a challenge to explain.

Little Red Dots are galaxies from the first 1.5 billion years of the universe. The name comes from their appearance – they’re small and red, but they’re especially bright. They don’t appear to have enough stars to make them so bright. So a good bit of their “shininess” could come from giant black holes that are devouring material around them. As they tumble inward, the hot gas, dust, and stars produce enormous amounts of energy.

Even so, the black hole in one Little Red Dot is a bit of a puzzler.

Led by astronomers at the University of Texas at Austin, a team looked at CAPERS-LRD-z9 with Webb Space Telescope. By measuring the speed of material orbiting the center of the galaxy, the team determined that the black hole is up to 300 million times the mass of the Sun.

And that’s where the challenge comes in. The galaxy is so far away that we see it as it looked when the universe was just 500 million years old – three percent of its current age. That makes the black hole the most-distant yet seen. But theories of how such monster black holes form say that half a billion years probably isn’t long enough to make one that big. So theorists have a lot of work to do to explain the giant black hole at the center of a Little Red Dot.

More about black holes tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield

With the autumn harvest safely stowed away, many people in bygone centuries turned their attention to hunting. And just as the Harvest Moon helped them bring in the crops, the Hunter’s Moon helped them find game. The moonlight made it easier to track animals through the empty fields and beyond.

Although most present-day Americans don’t have to worry about storing food for the winter, we still keep the names for those full Moons. We had the Harvest Moon last month. And tonight, it’s time for the Hunter’s Moon.

The names for both of these full Moons come mainly from parts of Europe and the British Isles. The names were recorded as far back as the early 1700s, but they’d probably been in everyday use for much longer. Variations of the “Hunter’s Moon” label were used by several native tribes and nations in the Americas as well.

The Harvest Moon is usually defined as the full Moon closest to the autumn equinox. Most years, that puts it in September. But this year, October’s full Moon edged out September by just a few hours. So the Hunter’s Moon got bumped into November.

Officially, the Moon will be full at 7:19 a.m. Central Standard Time tomorrow. So it will appear almost as “full” when it rises tomorrow night as it does tonight – extra time to appreciate the brilliant glow of the Hunter’s Moon.

Tomorrow: A giant black hole at the center of a little red dot.

Script by Damond Benningfield

In 1908, a space rock the size of a small office building exploded above Siberia, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest. In 1975, several “fireballs” blazed across the night, and instruments on the Moon recorded several impacts. And 30 years later, scientists saw an impact on the Moon.

These events might all be related to the Taurid meteor shower, which is underway now. The shower is created by two objects – a comet and an asteroid. They might be the remnants of a larger body that broke apart thousands of years ago. The debris might include larger rocks ranging from the size of boulders to mountains.

The material is spaced across a long, wide path. Earth flies through this path twice a year. We sweep up some of the debris – mostly small bits of dust and rock.

The amount of material varies from year to year, depending on which part of the stream we pass through. Right now, we’re in a thin region. In 1975, we passed through a denser part, producing more fireballs.

It’s been suggested that when we pass through denser parts of the stream, we might encounter some of the bigger rocks, which could cause major damage if they hit us. Astronomers will be watching during the next crossings through dense regions, in the next decade.

For now, the Taurids are at their best the next few nights. The Moon will wash out almost all the meteors. But a few fireballs might shine through.

Script by Damond Benningfield

The Taurid meteor shower has a double identity. It’s split into two different streams, which peak a few nights apart in early November. Neither stream is particularly impressive, but things pick up when they overlap.

Their story begins thousands of years ago, with the breakup of a big ball of ice and dust – Comet Encke. The biggest remaining chunk kept that name. But the breakup created several other big pieces, plus clouds of dust. The whole messy bunch is known as the Encke Complex.

The southern Taurid stream consists of small bits of dust and rock shed by Encke itself. The northern stream is produced by one of its offspring – an asteroid that wasn’t discovered until 2004.

Both streams contain a lot of debris, but it’s spread across tens of millions of miles. So it takes Earth weeks to fly through the streams. That means the twin showers last a long time, but they’re not usually all that noteworthy – at best, they produce no more than a handful of meteors per hour. Things are a little busier when the showers overlap, as they’re doing now.

Unfortunately, the Moon will be full in a couple of days, so it’ll overpower almost all of the Taurids. The streams do produce a few especially bright meteors, but that’s about the best we can expect from the shower with a dual identity.

The Taurid Complex may include some especially big, dangerous chunks of debris, and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield

AUDIO: We have contact. We have initial contact – initial contact of the Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 1 crew to the International Space Station.

A key milestone in the human exploration of space took place 25 years ago tomorrow. The first permanent crew took up residence in the International Space Station. And people have been living on the station ever since.

They weren’t the first to actually visit the station. Several groups of astronauts and cosmonauts had spent time assembling the early pieces of the station. And by November 2000, it was ready for full-time occupancy.

The Expedition 1 crew was commanded by American astronaut Bill Shepherd, and included Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko. They launched on October 31st, from Kazakhstan:

AUDIO: 4, 3, 2, 1, we have ignition – we have ignition and liftoff. Liftoff of the Soyuz rocket, beginning the first expedition to the International Space Station and setting the stage for permanent human presence in space.

After arrival, they had a lot of work to do to get the station ready, as Shepherd described a decade later:

SHEPHERD: So the first week was really living in a sleeping bag, running around with a checklist and a bunch of tools, trying to get this stuff all to get cranking.

Shepherd and crew spent more than four months getting the station cranking. Since then, almost 300 people from more than two dozen countries have lived and worked there – an unbroken presence in space.

Script by Damond Benningfield

Like other buildings, observatory domes can outlive their usefulness. They may not be big enough for the latest telescopes. The light from encroaching cities can make it hard for them to see the heavens. Or time may just catch up to them.

Many domes and related buildings have been torn down. Others have been converted into offices or libraries. And still others have been abandoned – left to the elements and the ravages of time.

Several of these buildings are scattered around the country – in places like Illinois and the woods of Michigan, for example. Their walls are covered with graffiti, their floors with water and trash, their spaces haunted by the ghostly memories of nights under the stars.

Perhaps the most famous abandoned observatory sits on a grassy knoll in Cleveland. It was built by the men who founded Warner and Swasey, a machine-making company. They were amateur astronomers who devoted part of their business to building telescopes – including the first big telescope at McDonald Observatory.

In 1919, they donated an observatory to Case University. They equipped it with a telescope of their own making. Bigger telescopes followed. The beautiful building was abandoned in 1982. Its telescopes had been sent elsewhere, and its staff moved into other quarters.

Today, the building is decaying and dangerous – a ghostly presence beneath the stars on Halloween night.

Script by Damond Benningfield

The night sky is filled with monsters. And none are more fearsome than the Gorgons – three sisters who were so hideous that a single glance at them turned the observer to stone. One of them was beheaded by Perseus the hero. His constellation shows him holding the head, which is outlined by four stars – the Gorgons.

In mythology, two of the sisters were immortal. But the third, Medusa, was not. Perseus managed to lop off her head with the help of the gods. They gave him an invisibility cloak, a diamond sword, and a bronze shield. He could safely view the Gorgons by looking at their reflection in the shield.

Perseus used Medusa’s head to destroy the sea monster, Cetus, which was about to kill the princess Andromeda. Cetus and Andromeda have their own constellations, as do Andromeda’s parents.

The brightest star in Medusa’s head is Algol – a name that means “head of the demon.” It’s low in the northeast in early evening and climbs high across the sky later on.

The other Gorgons form an arc to the right of Algol. One is fairly easy to spot, while the other two require a darker sky. All four of the Gorgon stars are bigger, heavier, and brighter than the Sun. Algol is a couple of hundred light-years away, while the other three are about a hundred light-years farther.

The Gorgons form a demonic presence in the sky – shining down on Halloween weekend. We’ll have more about Halloween tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield

A young “cotton-candy” planet is hastening its own demise. As it dips close to its star, it appears to trigger giant explosions that erode the planet’s atmosphere.

The planet orbits HIP 67522, a star roughly 400 light-years from Earth. The star is a little bigger and heavier than the Sun, but less than one percent the Sun’s age. Such young stars generate strong magnetic fields. Lines of magnetic force tangle and snap, producing powerful flares. The planet, HIP 67522 b, orbits just a few million miles from the star, so it already receives hefty doses of radiation and charged particles.

A European space telescope, Cheops, has seen 15 flares that are tied to the planet’s orbit around the star. The planet may gather magnetic energy as it whips around the star. Waves of magnetic force ripple outward like the wake of a ship. When the waves hit a stormy spot on the star, they trigger a giant flare. That douses the planet with six times more radiation than it would receive otherwise.

HIP 67522 b is almost as big as Jupiter, the giant of our own solar system. But it’s only about one-quarter of Jupiter’s mass. That makes the planet especially puffy, like cotton candy. But as it’s zapped by the star, some of its atmosphere is blown away. In a hundred million years or so, it could shrink to less than half its current size – a shrinkage caused by its close orbit around the star.

Script by Damond Benningfield

A visitor from far beyond the solar system is getting better acquainted with the Sun this week. Tomorrow, it’ll make its closest approach to the Sun – just 126 million miles. After that, it’ll head back toward interstellar space.

The visitor is 3I/ATLAS. It was discovered on July 1st by an automated telescope that looks for comets and asteroids. Calculations of its orbit quickly showed that it came from outside the solar system. That makes it the third known visitor from interstellar space.

It originated in the galaxy’s “thick disk.” That’s a region that sandwiches our part of the disk. It contains stars that are far older than the Sun. Estimates say 3I/ATLAS could be three billion years older than the solar system, so it could preserve a chemical record of an earlier era in galactic history.

3I/ATLAS is a comet – a ball of rock and frozen gases a few miles in diameter. As it’s closed in on the Sun, some of its gas has vaporized, releasing bits of dust as well. Observations will reveal the composition of this material, telling astronomers about conditions in the region where it formed.

Unfortunately, astronomers can’t see 3I/ATLAS at all right now – it’s hidden in the Sun’s glare. It’ll return to view in December – but only when viewed through a telescope. It’ll pass closest to Earth on December 19th – almost 170 million miles away.

Script by Damond Benningfield

Big “wobbles” in Earth’s magnetic field more than 40,000 years ago could have made the cultures of the time feel wobbly as well. Early modern humans might have adapted to the wobbly field better than Neanderthals.

Earth’s magnetic field protects the surface from high levels of solar radiation. But during a period known as the Laschamp Excursion, which began 42,000 years ago, the field weakened to just 10 percent of its current intensity. And instead of acting like a bar magnet, with strong north and south poles, it generated smaller poles all across the planet.

As the field wobbled, it produced brilliant auroras in regions where they had seldom been seen. It also allowed more radiation to zap the upper atmosphere. That destroyed some of Earth’s protective ozone. It also changed climate patterns across the planet. This turbulent period lasted about 1800 years.

A new study found changes in the behavior of Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe and Asia during this period. The changes suggest these cultures were trying to protect themselves from the dangers of the weakened field, including sunburn, higher rates of skin cancer, and eye damage. The early humans apparently adjusted better than Neanderthals.

Many factors were involved in the behavioral changes. Even so, researchers say the Lashcamp Excursion might have spurred early humans to respond to their changing environment.

Script by Damond Benningfield