The Week in Space and Physics: Quantum Cats
On quantum cats and quantum sapphire, Betelgeuse, a NewSpace crash and a case of mistaken identity
The Quantum Cat, whom this newsletter is named for, belonged to Erwin Schrödinger. It was not, rather fortunately, a real cat, but a creature that existed only in the realm of imagination. Schrödinger dreamed it up as part of a thought experiment; one that he hoped would highlight the absurdity of quantum mechanics.
Quantum theory tells us that objects, even cats, can exist in several states at once. To illustrate this, Schrödinger asked us to imagine a cat locked in a box along with a capsule of poison gas. The capsule is connected to a radioactive particle. If the particle decays then the capsule will open and the cat will be killed. If it doesn’t, the cat survives.
The particle, all physicists will agree, follows quantum laws. As soon as we set the experiment up, the particle enters a superposition of states. In one the particle decays, in the other it doesn’t. Each of these options has a probability, given by the superposition, but until we measure the particle we cannot say which state is real. Indeed, quantum theory tells us that both states are real - that is, the particle is somehow both decayed and not - until we observe it.
This may be fine for particles, but what about the cat? Its life depends on the state of the particle. If it has decayed, the cat is dead. If not, the cat lives. Quantum theory would tell us that the cat is both - somehow both alive and dead - until we open the box and check. It is, Schrödinger said, a patently absurd situation. Yet it is one the laws of physics tell us must hold.
The conflict here is between the quantum world - where such strange things happen all the time - and our classical world, where such events seem absurd. Quantum objects, it is true, tend to be rather small. Classical objects, by contrast, are large. As a result, physicists have tried to find a boundary between the two realms based on how big things are. The cat, many would argue, must obey classical laws, simply because of its size. Others think this is nonsense - quantum laws hold, they might say, even when applied to the entire universe.
Still, it is true that most observations of quantum phenomena occur on microscopic scales. In a recent study, however, physicists managed to place a piece of sapphire crystal into a superposition. That has been done before, but what differed this time was the scale of the crystal. It was small, by our standards, but large enough to be seen by eye. Quantum phenomena, it turns out, actually can exist in our everyday world.
All this means, essentially, that we still don’t really understand what is going on. Somewhere there must be a boundary between quantum weirdness and everyday normality. But where it is, and why it is there, remain mysterious. The quantum cat, for now, remains a tale as relevant as ever.
When Will Betelgeuse Die?
Of all the stars close to Earth, Betelgeuse is one of the most fascinating. Astronomers have long watched as the star has brightened and dimmed; a cycle of activity so obvious that humans first noted it millennia ago. Betelgeuse does this because it is dying. One day, though probably one thousands of years from now, its nuclear furnace will splutter to a halt, its outer layers will begin to fall inwards and then, placed under extraordinary pressures, its core will erupt into a powerful supernova.
Three years ago, as Betelgeuse unexpectedly darkened over a period of months, headlines around the world proclaimed this end was near. Speculation raged over how the supernova would look, how it might affect Earth and when, exactly, it might happen. Yet Betelgeuse did not explode. Instead, by mid-2020 it had calmly returned to its normal state. At blame, astronomers now think, was a large cloud of dust belched out from the star.
Now, once more, Betelgeuse is beginning to brighten. In mid-April, when the current brightening started, it ranked as the tenth-brightest star in the night sky. Now, just a month later, it has risen to seventh place. Headlines are once again predicting an imminent demise. Astronomers, however, seem rather less concerned.
Of more interest, they say, is that Betelgeuse’s cycles of brightening and dimming seem to have somehow sped up. The dust it threw out in 2019 may be the reason why - astronomers speculate that the sudden removal of so much matter has upset the balance of the star, leading it to fluctuate more rapidly.
Whatever is going on, Betelgeuse is unlikely to explode any time soon. The star has been brightening and darkening for centuries. Astronomers believe that it still has a long way to go before it runs out of fuel and collapses into a supernova. Perhaps that is a blessing in disguise. Few other stars close to Earth are quite so fascinating. Astronomers will want all the time they can get to study it before it goes.
A Tough Year for NewSpace
Was the collapse of Virgin Orbit earlier this year a warning sign for the NewSpace industry? According to reports in SpaceNews, two other young space companies are now facing serious shortages of cash, and may lack the funds to make it through the year. Even SpaceX, long considered a NewSpace success, is apparently seeing weaker investor demand for its stock.
Though many startup companies claim to be part of the NewSpace industry, few of them have reached a point where they are profitable. Instead, most of these companies are highly dependent on funding from investors and governments. In the current economic situation, as investors are looking for more certain returns on their money, NewSpace appears to be losing out.
Partly that is because space is still expensive. Though rocket costs have fallen in recent years, it still costs a lot of money to put equipment into orbit. Even worse, much of that equipment has proven unreliable, with companies often struggling to prove that their technology actually works in orbit.
Despite the concern, little seems likely to change over the next year or so. Investors will stay cautious for some time to come, and while the costs of working in space may slowly come down, they are unlikely to do so fast enough to save many struggling companies. Those that survive the coming storm, however, may be well placed for the rest of the decade.
An Extraordinary Black Hole… Or Merely a Galaxy?
Earlier this year a team of researchers reported finding a weird streak of light in images from the Hubble Space Telescope. After examining it, they came to a startling conclusion: the streak, they said, was created by a rogue black hole.
Such rogue black holes almost certainly do exist. In this case the researchers speculated that a black hole had been kicked out of a nearby galaxy in the aftermath of a collision with a second galaxy. Later, as it smashed through a cloud of gas, it would have sparked star formation, creating this odd, isolated, streak of stars.
That was an interesting idea, but one that a new study calls unlikely. A second examination of the data, carried out by a team at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain, found the streak of light is probably a galaxy. Unlike many galaxies, however, this one lies almost perfectly side-on to us, appearing as a long thin line instead of as a spectacular disk.
Hey there, enjoyed this week’s article! I’d love to chime in about the NewSpace decline section--I’ll point out the 2nd link Article is an opinion piece written by a professional who’s career has largely been in government relations. To me, that article has a predictable and understandable bias to it, and while an interesting perspective, certainly isn’t hard hitting factual journalism.
The broader fact you discuss that investments in new space are lower this year than they were at their peaks a few years back to me seems a natural and expected part of this nascent industry’s growing pains. Similarly, the SPAC route fell out of favor a year ago, and the struggles the companies that went that direction were pretty predictable, and we’re seeing that play out accordingly now.
I think it’d be super interesting (if it fits in your planned topic coverage of course!!) your view of new space investments over the last ten years or so and this year’s dip relative to where space investments were pre-SpaceX, and what sorts of market environment factors have affected it.