In this episode of SpaceTime, we uncover the mysteries lurking in the cosmos, from a rogue supermassive black hole to a meteorite crash in Georgia, and the origins of asteroids Bennu and Ryugu.
An Invisible Monster in the Cosmos
Astronomers have made a chilling discovery of a supermassive black hole, 600 million light years away, that has been lurking in the darkness of space. Using NASA's Hubble and Chandra space telescopes, along with a Very Large Array radio telescope, researchers identified this rogue black hole that consumes stars and planets that venture too close. The black hole was revealed through a tidal disruption event, where a star was torn apart and swallowed, offering a glimpse into the physics of these cosmic behemoths.
Meteorite Slams into Georgia Home
In an extraordinary event, a meteorite crashed through a house in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 26, narrowly missing the homeowner. Witnessed by hundreds, the fireball streaked across the sky before fragments penetrated the roof and ceiling. Planetary geologist Scott Harris retrieved samples for analysis, revealing the meteorite's origins in the asteroid belt, dating back 4.56 billion years, and potentially linked to the breakup of a larger asteroid.
Origins of Asteroids Bennu and Ryugu
Recent research suggests that both Bennu and Ryugu may share a common ancestry, originating from the same collisional family of asteroids known as Polana. Spectral data comparisons indicate similarities between these asteroids, supporting the hypothesis that they were formed from the remnants of a larger body that fragmented early in the solar system's history. This discovery opens new avenues for understanding the evolution of these near-Earth asteroids.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Astrophysical Journal Letters
https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205
Planetary Science Journal
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/planetary-science-journal
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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Stuart Gary: This is space Time Series 28, episode
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 103 for broadcast on 27 August
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 2025. Coming up on Space,
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 an invisible monster hiding in the darkness of
00:00:11 --> 00:00:14 space. A meteor slams into a house
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 in Georgia. And the likely origins of the
00:00:17 --> 00:00:20 asteroids Bennu and Ryugu. All that and
00:00:20 --> 00:00:22 more coming up on, uh, Space Time.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:26 Voice Over Guy: Welcome to Space Time with Stuart
00:00:26 --> 00:00:27 Gary
00:00:43 --> 00:00:46 Stuart Gary: Astronomers have uncovered an invisible monster
00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 hiding in the darkness of space. Like
00:00:49 --> 00:00:52 a scene out of a sci fi horror movie, the behemoth
00:00:52 --> 00:00:54 was discovered lurking 600 million light years away in
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 the inky black depths between stars.
00:00:58 --> 00:01:01 There it was, consuming entire stars and planets
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 that ventured too close. In fact, that's how
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 the monster was uncovered. Astronomers spotted it
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 using NASA's Hubble and Chandra space telescopes, together
00:01:09 --> 00:01:12 with a Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico
00:01:12 --> 00:01:15 and determined that it was a rogue supermassive
00:01:15 --> 00:01:18 black hole. They're called black holes because
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 nothing, not even light, can escape them.
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 So this monster lies in wait,
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 completely invisible, until its next victim comes
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 within reach. Now, uh, the thing is, these
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 demons are supposed to reside in the heart of galaxies,
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 not in the black emptiness of deep space.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 The sneaky black hole betrayed its presence in a newly
00:01:38 --> 00:01:41 identified tidal disruption event, where a hapless star
00:01:41 --> 00:01:44 was ripped to shreds and swallowed in a spectacular
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 burst of radiation. A tidal disruption
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 event occurs when an infalling star is stretched or
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 spaghettified by the enormous gravitational tidal forces
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 of of a black hole. The shredded star's remnants
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 are pulled into a circular orbit around the black hole called an
00:01:58 --> 00:02:01 accretion disc. There the star's
00:02:01 --> 00:02:03 material is crushed and torn apart at the
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 subatomic level. This releases vast
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 amounts of energy. Most of the star's material
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 and energy will fall beyond a point of no return called an
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 event horizon, where it will plummet forever into the black hole
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 singularity. These disruption events are
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 powerful probes of black hole physics, revealing
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 conditions necessary for launching jets and winds
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 when black holes are in the midst of consuming a star.
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 The new tidal disruption event, catalogued as at
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 2024TVD, allowed astronomers to
00:02:32 --> 00:02:35 pinpoint the wandering supermassive black hole, showing it
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 to be well offset from the centre of its host galaxy.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 The findings, reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 and on the pre Press physics website arXiv.org
00:02:44 --> 00:02:47 describe a million solar mass black hole not
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 residing where it should. Out of approximately
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 100 tidal disruption events recorded by optical sky
00:02:53 --> 00:02:55 telescopes so far, uh, this is the first time an
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 offset tidal disruption event has been identified.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:02 The study's lead author, Ewan Yao, from The University of
00:03:02 --> 00:03:03 California, Berkeley says at
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 2024TVD is the first offset
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 tidal disruption event captured by optical sky
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 surveys. And it opens up the possibility
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 of uncovering this elusive population of wandering
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 supermassive black holes with future sky surveys.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:21 Now, this supermassive black hole wasn't alone in its
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 host galaxy. The centre of the galaxy already
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 hosted a supermassive black hole weighing over 100
00:03:27 --> 00:03:29 million times the mass of our Sun. Now, by
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 comparison, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius a, has
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 about 4.3 million solar masses.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 Hubble's observations show that at2024
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 TVD is some 2 light years
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 from the more massive black hole at the galaxy's centre.
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 Now, that's about a tenth of the distance between our sun and
00:03:49 --> 00:03:52 Sagittarius A. Now, the bigger black
00:03:52 --> 00:03:55 hole at the centre of this distant galaxy spews out energy
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 as it accretes infalling gas. And so it's
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 categorised as an active galactic nucleus, or
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 agn. Strangely, the two
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 supermassive black holes in this distant galaxy are, uh, not
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 gravitationally bound to each other as a binary pair.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 They simply coexist in the same galaxy.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:14 Astronomers think the smaller black hole may eventually
00:04:14 --> 00:04:17 spiral into the galaxy's centre in order to merge with its
00:04:17 --> 00:04:20 bigger companion. But for now, they're too far
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 separated for there to be any gravitational interaction.
00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 Until now, theorists haven't given much attention to
00:04:25 --> 00:04:28 offset tidal disruption events. But
00:04:28 --> 00:04:31 Yao thinks that this discovery will motivate more and
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 more astronomers to start looking for more examples.
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 Needless to say, we'll keep you informed.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:40 This is space time. Still to come.
00:04:40 --> 00:04:43 A, uh, meteor slams into a house in Georgia
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 and the likely origins of the asteroids Bennu and
00:04:46 --> 00:04:48 Ryugu. All that and more still to come
00:04:49 --> 00:04:50 on space time,
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 scientists have had an amazing opportunity to examine a
00:05:08 --> 00:05:11 pristine meteorite fragment that crashed into a house
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this year. The
00:05:14 --> 00:05:17 extraterrestrial visitor slammed through the roof and ceiling and
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 into the living room of the house in Henry county on June
00:05:20 --> 00:05:23 26, missing the owner by just metres
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 earlier. Hundreds of eyewitnesses saw the fireball as it
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 streaked across the daytime sky over the southeastern
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 United States. Planetary geologist Scott
00:05:31 --> 00:05:34 Harris from the University of Georgia was able to retrieve
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 several fragments from the house for detailed examination
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 in order to determine the meteor's origins and
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 classification. Harris eventually gathered
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 23 of the 50 grammes of meteorite recovered from the
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 house. Using optical and electron
00:05:48 --> 00:05:50 microscopy, Harris and colleagues analysed the Fragments
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 determining their low metal L type chondrites.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 That suggests this meteor formed around
00:05:56 --> 00:05:59 4.56 billion years ago and it
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 formed in the presence of oxygen. Harris says it
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 belongs to a group of asteroids from the main asteroid belt between
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 Mars and Jupiter that astronomers now think can be tied to
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 the breakup of a much larger asteroid about 470
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 million years ago. But in that breakup, some
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 pieces got flung into Earth crossing orbits and
00:06:16 --> 00:06:19 given enough time, their orbits around the sun and Earth's
00:06:19 --> 00:06:22 orbit around the sun ended up being at the same place at
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 the same time. Meteorites, uh, are named after
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 the locations they land in. So these fragments will
00:06:28 --> 00:06:30 eventually be named the McDonough meteorite when the study is
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 officially published in the Meteoritical Bulletin.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 Harris says a fireball entered the Earth's atmosphere faster
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 than the speed of sound. But the atmosphere is very
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 good at slowing things down. Still, Harris
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 says, you're talking about something twice the size of a 50 calibre
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 bullet, travelling at around a kilometre per second. So it still
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 has enough momentum to not just go through the roof of the
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 man's house, but also his H vac duct and the
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 ceiling and leave a solid dent in his floor.
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 Harris says it was the 27th meteorite recovered in
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 Georgia and the sixth witness.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:03 Dr. Scot Harris: Fall what was witnessed by many people across North
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 Georgia and certainly the metro Atlanta area of a,
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 um, fireball, sometimes called a bolide,
00:07:10 --> 00:07:12 coming in through the atmosphere. It just broke
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 apart in its flight, probably
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 a couple of miles still up in the atmosphere. And
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 then those pieces made it to the ground as
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 individual meteorites. But one of them actually
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 penetrated a house, went right through the, through the
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 roof, through the ceiling and into the floor. And uh,
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 we've had the um, pleasure
00:07:33 --> 00:07:35 and the opportunity to examine uh,
00:07:35 --> 00:07:38 that both the, the rock as well
00:07:38 --> 00:07:40 as the dynamics of entry through the house.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 Understanding what caused that was
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 this the velocity that it maintained, simply
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 flying through the air, Was it an extra kick from that
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 disruption in the air? Where in that
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 process did it get the momentum that
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 we see evidence for in the collision?
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 There's a link between the physics of going through something
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 and, and the materials though, in terms
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 of their strength. A lot of these asteroids
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 have undergone a lot of collisions, a lot of
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 internal damage billions of years before they
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 encounter Earth. So we think it may have still been
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 travelling, uh, at least many, many
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 hundreds of metres per second, even up to as much as
00:08:20 --> 00:08:23 1 kilometre per second as it went through the house.
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 The homeowner was about, we measured it exactly. It
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 was 14ft away. So
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 still to this day we have only one,
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 um, absolute clear record of a person
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 being hit back, um, in the
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 mid-1900s in Selacaga, Alabama.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 Impacts, whether they be large or small,
00:08:43 --> 00:08:46 are the only thing that we have a potential
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 of actually stopping if we have enough information
00:08:49 --> 00:08:51 in advance about them.
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 Stuart Gary: That's Dr. Scott Harris from the University of Georgia.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:00 And this is space time. Still to
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 come, the likely origins of the asteroids Bennu
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 and Ryugu. And later in the Science report. New
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 research shows that scientists can now tell what you're going to
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 buy simply by scanning your friend's brain.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 All that and more still to come on, uh,
00:09:14 --> 00:09:20 spacetime.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 Astronomers have identified that the near Earth asteroids Bennu
00:09:33 --> 00:09:36 and Ryugu may both be part of the same Polana
00:09:36 --> 00:09:39 family group of asteroids. A report in the
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 Planetary Science Journal claims spectral data of the main
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 belt asteroid Polana matches the samples of Bennu and
00:09:45 --> 00:09:48 Ryugu which were returned to Earth in separate sample return
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 missions. Polana, uh, is a collisional family
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 of space rocks which orbit the sun in the main asteroid belt
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 between Mars and Jupiter. The study compared
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 spectroscopy data from Polana with spacecraft and
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 laboratory data from both Bennu and Ryugu samples,
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 discovering similarities in their near infrared signatures,
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 supporting the idea that they originated from the
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 same parent body. The study's lead author,
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 Anika Arredondo from the Southwest Research Institute in
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 San Antonio, Texas, says it seems that early on in the
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 formation of our solar system, large asteroids
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 collided and broke into pieces, forming asteroid
00:10:22 --> 00:10:25 families with Polana the largest remaining body
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 in one of these families. The hypothesis
00:10:28 --> 00:10:31 suggests that the collision not only created Polana, but
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 also Bennu and Ryugu. To test this
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 idea, Arredondo and colleagues started looking at spectra from
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 all three bodies and then comparing them to one another.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 They used the Webb Space Telescope to observe Polana
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 using two different spectral instruments, focusing on both the near
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 infrared and mid infrared wavelengths. They then
00:10:48 --> 00:10:51 compared that data with spectral signatures from physical
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 samples of Ryuga and Bennu collected during two different
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 space missions. JAXA, the Japan Aerospace
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 rendezvoused with the asteroid Ryugu in 2018,
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 bringing back samples in late 2020. And
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 NASA's uh, Osiris Rex mission visited the asteroid
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 Bennu in 2020, returning samples back to
00:11:10 --> 00:11:13 Earth in late 2023. Both
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 Bennu and Ryugu are relatively small compared to
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 Polana. Bennu is around half a kilometre wide,
00:11:19 --> 00:11:21 about half the size of Ryugu. By
00:11:21 --> 00:11:24 comparison, Polana dwarfs both measuring roughly 60
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 kilometres across. The authors believe that
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 Jupiter's immense gravitational forces ended up
00:11:30 --> 00:11:33 pushing both Bennu and Ryugu out of their orbits close to
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 Polana. Uh, the authors admit that the spectral data
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 from all three asteroids has variations and differences,
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 but not enough to disprove the hypothesis that they all share
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 a common origin. After all, Polana,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:48 Bennu and Ryugu have each undertaken their own individual
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50 journeys through the solar system since the impact that formed
00:11:50 --> 00:11:53 them. Bennu and Ryugu are now much closer to the sun
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 than Palana, so their surfaces are likely to be more
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 affected by solar radiation and particles from the Sun.
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 Likewise, Palana is possibly older than Bennu and
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 Ryugu and thus would have been exposed to micrometeoroid
00:12:05 --> 00:12:08 impacts for a longer period of time and that
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 would have changed aspects of its surface, including
00:12:10 --> 00:12:13 its surface, uh, composition. This is
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 space, time
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 and time. Now to take another brief look at some of the other stories making
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 using Science this week with the Science Report.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:39 A new study has shown uh, that using a fan in very hot
00:12:39 --> 00:12:42 temperatures won't actually keep you cool and in fact may
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 put extra strain on your heart if you're not staying hydrated.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 A uh, report in the Journal of the American Medical association shows
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 that fans generally become detrimental to your health
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 once the ambient Temperature hits around 39 to
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 40 degrees Celsius. The authors tested how
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 hydration impacts this by exposing 20 people,
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 either well hydrated or dehydrated to three hours
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 of heat at the threshold at uh, which fans stop
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 helping. They say only those who were well
00:13:08 --> 00:13:10 hydrated thought any relief from the fan. While
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 dehydrated participants actually saw worsened heart strain
00:13:13 --> 00:13:16 when the fan was on. Overall, the researchers
00:13:16 --> 00:13:19 found heart rate and core temperatures were much higher in
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 dehydrated participants, underscoring the importance
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 of good hydration during heat waves.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:28 Well, here's something to creep you, uh, out. Scientists have discovered that they
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 can tell what you're likely to buy simply by scanning your
00:13:31 --> 00:13:34 friend's brain. A report in the journal J
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 Neurosci shows that close friendships can lead to
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 friends brain activity and even their shopping habits becoming
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 similar. The authors ran a series of
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 experiments in which 175 participants of varying
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 degrees of friendship were asked to evaluate the various products and
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 determine whether they'd buy them or not. They found
00:13:51 --> 00:13:53 friends were more likely to purchase the same products compared
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 to strangers. Uh, in tandem. They scanned the
00:13:56 --> 00:13:59 brains of 37 people, also of varying degrees of
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 friendship, as they watched TV ads for various products.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 Here they found that as friends viewed ads together, their brain
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 activity synchronised with increased activity seen in
00:14:09 --> 00:14:11 brain regions linked to object perception, attention,
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 memory, social judgement and reward processing.
00:14:14 --> 00:14:17 The authors say they were then able to predict which goods a person
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 would likely buy based on their brain activity alone
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 and the goods their friends were likely to purchase as well.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 A new study has shown that while artificial intelligence
00:14:27 --> 00:14:30 chatbots are great at answering medical questions, when the
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 answer is easy to find online, their accuracy
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 drops dramatically when they're asked to use reasoning alone
00:14:36 --> 00:14:38 to determine an answer. A report in the Journal of the
00:14:38 --> 00:14:41 American Medical association tested six AI
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 chatbots to see if the chatbots could use reasoning to come up with
00:14:44 --> 00:14:47 an answer rather than simply parroting one they found
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 online. The authors asked the chatbot
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 68 questions, but in data being
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 searched by the chatbots, they replaced easily findable
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 answers with the phrase none of the other answers. So
00:14:58 --> 00:15:01 the AIs would have to reason their way to a solution.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 And this made the chatbots a lot less accurate, with
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 Deepseek getting 6 of 48 questions wrong and
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 ChatGPT stuffing up 18 of the answers.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 The worst performer was Facebook's Meta, which got
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 26 questions wrong. You wouldn't want to go to that doctor.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 The findings show that you really can't rely on
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 AIs to provide accurate medical answers using
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 reasoning. The authors say their clinical applications
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 therefore, should be limited to support roles only and
00:15:27 --> 00:15:30 should always be checked, uh, over by a healthcare professional.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:34 Australian Telstra bigpon Internet users are suffering
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 more failures through their NBN broadband
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 connections. The problems are now so bad that
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 many customers are looking at switching to rival options
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 like Starlink. So has the NBN
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 been a failure? And if so, what are the alternative
00:15:48 --> 00:15:51 options? To find out, we're joined, uh, by technology
00:15:51 --> 00:15:54 editor Alex Zaharov Vroith from Tech Start
00:15:54 --> 00:15:55 Life.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:58 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: We live so much of our lives online in some
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 capacity. And when one major network goes out, or
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 when the NBN goes out, just in your street, it's just you, for
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 example. I mean, it's a huge disruption.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 Stuart Gary: The NBN is causing problems. It's not as
00:16:08 --> 00:16:11 reliable as it should be. It was supposed to be the information
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 superhighway. It's more like a go track, really.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:16 Alex Zaharov-Reutt: Best alternatives to the NBN are the 5G networks. A,
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 uh, competing broadband network like the Vision
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 Network in Canberra and in some other places. And
00:16:21 --> 00:16:24 also Elon Musk satellite. And there will be more
00:16:24 --> 00:16:27 satellite providers, but Elon Musk satellite system is available
00:16:27 --> 00:16:30 anywhere around the world, just about and at very high speed.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 This is Stalin. Yeah, Elon Musk Stalin. For many people it's the
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 alternative. But you also do have 5G modems from
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 Vodafone, Telstra and Optus. And for people Listening around the world, your
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 phone companies will offer this 5G modem to you. And also
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 Amazon's got this Project Hyper, which is their
00:16:45 --> 00:16:48 own version, uh, of satellite serving
00:16:48 --> 00:16:50 broadband from the sky. So we've got more
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 connectivity options than ever before. And of course a lot of People use their
00:16:53 --> 00:16:56 5G and 4G phones as hotspots, which you can use
00:16:56 --> 00:16:58 anywhere, as opposed to the WI fi that people
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 use in, uh, cafes or airports because
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 they want a private connection, they don't have
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 to have a VPN and people are trying to hack into
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 it. So, uh, we do have a wonderful range
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 of connectivity and you know, you do not have to use the
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 NBN if you don't want to. And people who really are
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 concerned and have the capacity to pay for it will
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 have like a 5G modem and, or a Starlink and, or
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 an NBN fixed connection. So they've got
00:17:25 --> 00:17:28 redundancy and backup. But outages happen and unfortunately
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 sometimes it can take several days to fix. So if you don't
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 want to be on the nbn, you definitely have several
00:17:33 --> 00:17:34 choices.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 Stuart Gary: That's Alex Zaharov Reutt from TechAdvice dot
00:17:36 --> 00:17:37 life
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