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Chandra Sees Black Hole Rip Star Apart

beeplet writes "Nasa just sent out this press release titled about an exciting Chandra observation. It states: "Thanks to two orbiting X-ray observatories, astronomers have the first strong evidence of a supermassive black hole ripping apart a star and consuming a portion of it. The event, captured by NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray Observatories, had long been predicted by theory, but never confirmed." There is more information on the Chandra home page, including the x-ray and optical observations that were involved in the discovery." Note that the star-ripping pictured on the front page is labeled an illustration, rather than an recorded image.

28 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. that wasn't a black hole... by cloudship_tacitus · · Score: 5, Funny

    it was just unicron eating one of the autobot mooons.

    1. Re:that wasn't a black hole... by Metallic+Matty · · Score: 4, Funny

      it was just unicron eating one of the autobot mooons.

      The first time I read that I thought it said "unicorn" and I was very puzzled.

    2. Re:that wasn't a black hole... by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's no moon..

  2. Better headline. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Black hole rips star a new one!

    1. Re:Better headline. by bigfatslob · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or better yet,

      Slashdot rips Chandra webserver a new one!

  3. Why they always gotta be racist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is just another conspiracy by the white man. First it's black holes distroying this, then dark matter touching that. What's a brother gotta do to earn a little respect in the universe?

    1. Re:Why they always gotta be racist? by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry. In another dimension, the other end of a black hole is called a white hole. Just imagine all of the white people being insulted as it's own universe is being flooded with "white trash". It's tough being white *sigh*

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Why they always gotta be racist? by spanklin · · Score: 5, Funny

      We have to be even more careful when we talk about "hot black body radiation".

    3. Re:Why they always gotta be racist? by Snad · · Score: 5, Funny

      and red dwarf?

      Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!

  4. Police Investigated further.. by Metallic+Matty · · Score: 5, Funny

    Police investigation into the brutal act led to one eye witness, Chandra, who described the black hole's violent attack as "gruesome."

    Clip at 11.

  5. Don't bother by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Funny

    strong evidence of a supermassive black hole ripping apart a star and consuming a portion of it

    The goatse jokes pretty much write themselves at this point.

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  6. Uh, are you saying it's a fake? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You must work for Fox.

  7. /dev/null by Anonymouse+Cownerd · · Score: 5, Funny

    cat star > /dev/null

    i thought black holes were not proven to exist, or am i living in the past?

    --
    http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
  8. Now there's an antacid commercial by kammat · · Score: 3, Funny

    The heartburn after chowing down on one of these has to be brutal. Where do you find a Rolaids or Tums to quench that sucker?

  9. A Twist by hambonewilkins · · Score: 5, Funny

    In a twist, this time it was the hole tearing a new one.

    --

    God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
  10. In other news... by drgonzo59 · · Score: 4, Funny

    A radio telescope has captured a wave pattern of a loud burping noise comming from the direction of a supermassive black hole.

  11. New Fox special... by Trickster+Coyote · · Score: 3, Funny

    When Black Holes Attack!

    --
    Ideology is for ideots.
    1. Re:New Fox special... by cbuskirk · · Score: 3, Funny

      Awsome. Now if only I could compensate for the time dialation I could figure out when it would be on.

  12. In Other News... by lexbaby · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thanks to Darl McBride, executives have the first strong evidence of IBM ripping apart SCO and consuming a portion of it. The event had long been predicted by theory, but never confirmed.

    --
    lexbaby
    "Be Brave, Be Loyal, Be True." -- Hawkeye Pierce
  13. Cosmic game eh?? by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Funny

    Blue 5 in corner pocket.

    --
  14. We found a WMD! by moosesocks · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is great news for both NASA and the Bush administration, as they have now located their first Weapon of Mass Destruction.

    Oh... false alarm.... wrong type of mass...

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  15. Re:Blackholes and Time Travel by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You say this as though anti-matter (also produced in labs) has any less planet-annihilating potential. Basically, we passed the threshold for potential self-annihilation as a species back in the 1940s. Every day we survive is little more than luck. Come to think of it, that we are here at all is a remarkable stroke of luck. Thus, our existence extinguished would be less of a loss to the universe than we would like to believe.

    If we are to destroy ourselves, it would be nice if we could do it in such a way that our life-building components are thrown about the universe so that we might actually father an entire new population on some distant world. Couple billion years of my DNA floating around space and a whole lot of luck could even spawn a whole race of 'Me's!

    I, for one, welcome our new planet-destroying scientist overlords!

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  16. Written in the stars by StuWho · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Astronomers believe a doomed star came too close to a giant black hole after being thrown off course by a close encounter with another star."

    The same thing happened to Kurt Cobain

    --
    "If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
  17. In other news... by berkut1337 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Supermassive /. traffic ripped apart a Chandra server and consumed a portion of it.

  18. Oh, SNAP! by read-only · · Score: 4, Funny

    What that black hole did to that star was just plain wrong!

    Did you see that? That star rolled-up on that black hole, but that black hole wasn't messing aroung. It straight-up punked that star!

    Let this be a lesson to stars everywhere: you better think twice before rolling up on some black hole's turf. Word.

  19. Re:How fast does a Blackhole consume? by SharkJumper · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wouldn't worry about it. The current plan is to throw Neptune in the black hole as an appeasement offering long before it gets to us.

    Crap. A perfectly good chance to make a Uranus joke, and I missed it.

  20. Re:Blackholes and Time Travel by Hays · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anti-matter goes away when it touches normal matter, there's not really any danger of run away chain reaction.

    I guess there could have been fear of run away nuclear reactions destroying the world... Of course we know it won't happen now.

    But fears that run away black holes could eat the planet seem a little more reasonable. Even if the physicists say they will exist for only short periods. It just makes me nervous.

    It just reminds me of someone's conjecture that the reason we don't find any advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in the universe is because they all stumble upon the same technology or experiment that destroys their civilization. And we'll be finding it in the future.

    Ah well... back to building my robot army. That couldn't cause any problems.

  21. Re:Cheers by Mick+Ohrberg · · Score: 3, Funny
    I find it interesting that we went from thinking black holes were rare, to thinking black holes are pretty common, but super massive black holes are rare, to black holes are pretty common and we think there are super massive black holes at the center of every galaxy.

    I don't know about you, but I find the phrase "the black hole is feeding" somewhat unsettling.

    --

    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.