Slashdot Mirror
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.
We don't need these old, damn-near useless satellites.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Didn't you get the memo? WMD is so last year. The new hotness is reaching out to social conservatives. You know, opposing gay marriages, increasing funding for anti-porn initiatives, screaming about Janet Jackson's left boob, etc., etc.
i thought black holes were not proven to exist, or am i living in the past?
There is a tremendous amount of evidence favoring the existence of black holes. Whether or not you personally consider this evidence "proof" is up to you. Some people accepted the theory of evolution as soon as Darwin proposed it, while others still don't, despite the unbelievable preponderance of evidence and complete lack of scientific alternatives. In the end, all you have is the evidence, and what you make of it is up to you.
For what it's worth, virtually every astrophysicist considers the existence of black holes to be a simple fact at this point. As they know a hell of a lot more about the subject than I do, I tend to simply accept their beliefs on such matters. This in no way means that they can't be wrong, but they're much more likely to have things figured out than I am.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I think it's fairly certain (and has been for a long time) that black holes exist. We can mathematically calculate the escape velocity for neutron stars based upon their mass and volume. Any neutron star with a mass large enough or volume small enough that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light must, according to all current knowledge of physics, become a black hole.
This is a special excite
This
> in which scientist thought there was a small, but real, chance of igniting the ... horrifically high for such a terrible risk).
> atmosphere and literally roasting everyone and everything on the planet. IIRC it
> was something like 2% odds
Well, no..there wasn't that risk at all. There was *believed* to be such a risk.
It's like saying train travel is dangerous because people once believed that if you exceeded 15 mph or went through a tunnel then all the passengers would suffocate. It's simply not true.
Interesting. So a 1 ton black hole will evaporate in 10 nanoseconds, and in that time emit 9*10^19 Joule, equalling 21500 megatons of TNT.
I have a feeling that this research will not be lacking in funding.
in fact, if they DIDN'T exist we'd be totally screwed.
Why is this?
It doesn't matter that we now know their was no risk of igniting the atmosphere. The fact is that at the time, we didn't know it.
It's as if someone gave you a gun and said that there's a good chance it's not loaded, but it could be. Do you take the gun, stick it to your head and go *click*? Hell no! Maybe he knows there aren't any bullets in the gun, but you don't. From the knowledge available to you the risk is far too great.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The Earth is 4.5 or so billion years old, and we're still here. So basically, the odds that anything like this will affect your life is ~0. There are more important things we have to worry about that we actually have control over.
Once upon a time, wise men studied the stars. They knew that the power of the stars were directly related to the fate of people and places. They called it Astrology and those who differed, were ridiculed.
Once upon a time, wise men understood that the earth moves around the sun and the earth was flat and the center of the universe. For God had told them so in their holy book. They called it religion and killed or ridiculed any who differed.
Once upon a time, wise men knew that Newton's Laws of Physics and later Principia Mathematica were fact. When some wise men disagreed, they were ridiculed.
We can interpret some (but not all) of what our senses relay about the world and universe around us. There is evidence to support that our brain 'filters' quite a bit of the signals we receive, so we actually make observations and guesses with only a portion of what our senses can relay to us.
Anytime I hear a physics say that they 'know' the facts, I have to wonder how long they've actually bee doing physics.
For me, I will say that I know one thing:
I will never fully understand the universe, nor the possibilities that exist therein.
Hail Eris, All Hail Discordia
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey