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Ringworld exists - Found by Hubble!

Posted by timothy on from the looks-more-like-fish-to-me dept.

Dracul writes: "Niven was a prophet, clearly this object is not a giant hamburger, but rather evidence that Homo Habilis really was Pak!"

40 comments

  1. I prefer real burgers by infonography · · Score: 2, Informative

    This looks like a garden burger. But seriously, it looks like the early stages of the dust cloud being blow out by solar winds. it's just natural that it would follow the gravity/spin of the star. lucky us to be at the right angle to see it. Yay Hubble!

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
    1. Re:I prefer real burgers by infonography · · Score: 1

      On further contemplation it occurs to me that at some point the shape of the clouds will come to resemble a pair of cones (arrows seen from the side) pointing at the magnetic poles of the star. Can you say X marks the spot. I plan to wait around till that happens.

      --
      Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  2. llooks like by thewheeze · · Score: 1

    legs to me...on a fine lady, yeah that's right.

    ok
    i need to get out more.

    1. Re:llooks like by macdaddy357 · · Score: 1

      Looks like the thing between her legs, dimly lit by candlelight. I'm getting wood!

      --
      How ya like dat?
  3. Not really a ringwold by inio · · Score: 2, Informative

    For those that didn't read the article, its a ring of matter expelled by a dying star.

    Oh, and if I remember the series right, the Pak didn't build the Ringworld, they just found it. (Fawn built it).

    1. Re:Not really a ringwold by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I need to re-read that series... I can barely remember Ringworld -- much less the books that followed.

    2. Re:Not really a ringwold by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he's saying Homo Habilis was Pak, perhaps he's referring to us as being the Pak, since we're discovering a Ringworld (but not really).

    3. Re:Not really a ringwold by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't. They got progressively worse with each book.

      What the original poster only gave subtle reference to: You might be interested in some* of this man's spun-off short stories.

      * very strong emphasis on some.

    4. Re:Not really a ringwold by handsomepete · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      You're right, that's not really a ringwold. This is a ringwold.

      I realize I'm an ass for picking on your typo. I just thought it was funny. Sorry.

    5. Re:Not really a ringwold by satanami69 · · Score: 1

      You fucking idiot. Her name is Molly Ringwald, not ringwold. Notice the 'A' that clearly makes it different.

      --
      I really hate Dan Patrick.
    6. Re:Not really a ringwold by Dracul · · Score: 1
      Nope, they built it as an alternative to protect themselves from the core explosion (check out the two sequels to Ringworld).

      And as for the other comment, yes Pak are the ancestors of humans according to Brennan (who may or may not have been right - the Kzinti thought he was)

      And no, I didn't think Niven was that obscure...

    7. Re:Not really a ringwold by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      We always called her Molly Ringworm.

      Why do you think your post needed a +1 bonus? Couldn't you just post anaonymous to help keep the offtopic noise down?

    8. Re:Not really a ringwold by Snaller · · Score: 1

      Thats not even funny.

      --
      If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
  4. Hamburger? by tswinzig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The thing looks more like a yo-yo. Clearly god's way of telling us the universe continuously expands and then contracts... clearly.

    --

    "And like that ... he's gone."
  5. whoa by Evro · · Score: 0, Troll

    Dracul writes: "Niven was a prophet, clearly this object is not a giant hamburger, but rather evidence that Homo Habilis really was Pak!"

    That is the most nonsensical sentence I've heard in quite a while. I have never heard of niven nor pak! Except when referring to q3a files...

    If you are going to use obscure references, maybe at the least you could link to some relevant information?

    --
    rooooar
    1. Re:whoa by devphil · · Score: 4, Informative


      Hardly obscure. Larry Niven's "Known Space" future history is one of the most well-known story universes in SF -- and assuming you've at least heard of it is an understandable assumption for a geek site to make.

      Ringworld won Nebula and Hugo awards when it was published. Ten years later the massive continuing flow of fan letters and mathematical papers forced Niven to write a sequel, The Ringworld Engineers, also very good. He followed it up some 12-16 years later by publishing The Ringworld Throne which was mostly crap.

      The "Ringworld" is a gigantic artifical ring of solid matter constructed around a star, one million miles wide, six hundred million miles long, and several hundred feet thick. The inner surface is habitable (and, of course, fucking gigantic in surface area).

      --
      You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
    2. Re:whoa by flonker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Larry Niven, author of the Ringworld books, among others is hardly obscure. He also coined the term flash crowd. Google, as always, turns up a wealth of information.

      On a related note, due to the inherent instabilities of a ringworld, I would suggest looking for signs of jets (or other methods of in-space propulsion) around the peripherary of the disk. That should provide significant evidence as to whether it's really a ringworld, or "just" a belt of dust, as the article indicates.

    3. Re:whoa by Louis_Wu · · Score: 2
      Never heard of Niven?!?!? I'm crushed. Why don't you like me?

      ... Psst. Look at my nick again.

      Louis Wu is a recuring character in Niven's books. He plays a major role in the Ringworld series, he's seen in various Kzin stories, and he just crops up every now-and-then.

    4. Re:whoa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ok....you're reading a website clearly labeled "News for Nerds" and you aren't familiar with one of the most famous sci-fi authors (Larry Niven). Methinks you're in the wrong place.

    5. Re:whoa by Moxon · · Score: 1

      His fathers are a lot cooler, though. Discovering the core explosion and destroying a GP hull beats current addiction and fscking around on the Ringworld any day.

      OK, he's probably cooler than his genetic father, come to think of it.

    6. Re:whoa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you meant a radius of 1 million.

      circ. = pi * d

    7. Re:whoa by astroboscope · · Score: 0
      On a related note, due to the inherent instabilities of a ringworld, I would suggest looking for signs of jets (or other methods of in-space propulsion) around the peripherary of the disk. That should provide significant evidence as to whether it's really a ringworld, or "just" a belt of dust, as the article indicates.

      We can already see that there's lots of dust all over the system, because the hamburger buns are light scattered from dust. Also, although I didn't see it mentioned in the article, they probably took a spectrum which should show carbon dust like other stars of this type do.

      As for grav. instability, that's only if you make it in one big piece. Many individual particles would still be stable, like Saturn's rings. The particles could be space stations, and the same principle applies to Dyson spheres (which are more energy efficient).

      --
      If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
    8. Re:whoa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > His fathers are a lot cooler, though. Discovering the core explosion and destroying a GP hull beats current addiction and fscking around on the Ringworld any day.

      He destroyed a GP hull?!? Which book?

    9. Re:whoa by J.+Random+Software · · Score: 1

      A short story called "Flatlander". It's collected in Crashlander (rather than Flatlander) because it's about Beowulf Shaeffer, along with a rich Earth native who goes by "Elephant" gaining a healthy sense of fear.

    10. Re:whoa by thefensk · · Score: 1

      A radius of one million would be far too close to the star. The radius was 93 million miles. The *width* of the plane of the ring was 1 million miles. The rotation of the ring generated about 1G. A radius of 93 million miles would give it a length of almost 600 million miles. The original guy was right.

    11. Re:whoa by Suidae · · Score: 2

      I don't recall the story name, but didn't they go look at some antimater system/galaxy or something? The GP hull was destroyed in a series of mater/antimater collisions with free particles in the area. The contents of the hull, drive system, controls & etc, hung together long enough for them to get home.

  6. Watch out by schmink182 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Someone better watch out for the Hamburglar, this is clearly why we haven't seen him for a while.

  7. there are others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    two years ago i did a google search for "ringworld" and i found an astrominical site where you can follow the study of several stars and other objects through several years of observation, following the observations of one of this objects one can see how the object, each time observed with more accurate devices, takes the form of something like a ring world a. indeed the writers start calling it the ring world, they didnt know what it was at all in the beginning they think it was some kind of gas ring but later they found properties of the object that make it look like a solid object instead of gas.
    however only the older files where public and the end of the history is a "not authorized" page, maybe now those files get the public status (it was 2 o 3 years ago) and we can see wat was discovered... however i lost the link, maybe ill find time later to search again

  8. Also... by Shade1001 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Check it out on APOD

  9. Not found by Hubble! by beat.bolli · · Score: 2, Informative

    If any of you had read the explanation on the excellent APOD site, you'd have seen that this thing had already been found in 1985 by Arturo Gomez. This is hust a new Hubble picture of it.

    --
    Karma: none (due to not believing in reincarnation)
  10. ad server by drDugan · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    the server space.com uses to store their images is a1484.g.akamaitech.net -- which is a known ad source and sits in my hosts file as 127.0.0.1

    too bad. space.com is no longer any use to me because of excessive ads.

    1. Re:ad server by PhxBlue · · Score: 2

      Come to think of it, that's probably why the .mil proxy server I sit behind eight hours a day blocks it, too.

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  11. Ringworld sequels by dpilot · · Score: 1

    I read "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers" but wasn't aware that there was a third. So it's not worth the money, but if I see it in the library is it worth the life-span?

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    1. Re:Ringworld sequels by some+guy+I+know · · Score: 1

      The third book is "The Ringworld Throne".
      It's not as "science-fictiony" as the other two (e.g., no spaceships, etc.).
      IIRC, it's just Louis Wu wandering around Ringworld, the story having no real beginning or end, but it's been a while since I read it.
      I think that Niven has gotten away from hard scince fiction, and more toward so-called "science fantasy", in his later works, but even his earliest stories contain some elements of fantasy (e.g., the luck of Teela Brown in the original "Ringworld").

      --
      Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
  12. Louis Wu by dpilot · · Score: 1

    Not to mention in Steely Dan's "Katy Lied", either. Of course there he goes by his more formal "Doctor" title.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  13. Check out "Astronomy Picture of the Day" by Dammital · · Score: 1

    Gomez's Hamburger is featured today (August 7, 2002). I check this site out daily; they frequently post some really tasty pics. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

  14. Sigh... by SpiffyMarc · · Score: 1

    You do, of course, realize what Akami is... they do not, themselves, serve up any of that content to you. They are a hosting outsourcing and web caching service. Check it out.

    Would you refuse to go into a grocery store, just because it was physically located right next to a telemarketing office?

  15. Excuse me! by Izanagi · · Score: 1

    We've know about Ringworm a long time!!

    UH...WAIT A SECOND??

    --
    SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
  16. Encyclopedia of Known Space by Caduceus1 · · Score: 1

    For a complete (and I mean complete - it took over a year to create) Encyclopedia to Larry Niven's Known Space, head over to http://www.oinc.net/knownspace/

    --
    rm /dev/mem
    Sci-Fi Storm
  17. No, it's by shadowbearer · · Score: 1

    two flying saucers mating, of course :)

    SB

    --
    It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.