Slashdot Mirror
More Blackholes Discovered...
Lispy writes "Space.com has this story about the surprising finding of missing blackholes. There might be up to five times more blackholes in space than previously estimated.
"The European Southern Observatory in Munich, Germany reports that the black holes were all in "active" galaxies, meaning they were actively consuming large quantities of galactic matter.""
What if there are black holes being formed constantly, appearing in pen space even WITHOUT there having been a star there?
The universe could be collapsing, with black holes appearing faster and faster, exponentially more and more of them.
Well, I for one welcome our new black hole overlords.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Does this make the theory of a "big crunch" any more likely than before? I'm guessing not.
The theory which I understood to be most prominent at present was one of an accelerating, expanding galaxy. Eventually, all galaxies would be moving away from one another so swiftly it would be impossible to see one galaxy from another. Every galaxy would sputter and die in a universe its inhabitants would perceive as utterly empty.
Does the discovery that black holes are more prominent than before just mean that the pace of destruction of said galaxies will only be any different? Or does it do anything to reverse the present theory? It's possible there's no change at all. Any galaxies like this that were seen (in the article) were behaving that way billions of years ago. Who knows what's going on now.
Also, I wonder what could trigger the Milky Way's black hole into an "active" state. Heck, it may already have happened, but it would take about 50,000 years for us to see it.
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but there is other explanation for all the gravitational effects, missing matter, galaxies not expanding etc... There is a possibility of "antimatter" with antigravity property. This can explain why galaxies are not expanding as the theory would predict. Some says it's the mass of the neutrinos, some says it's the gravitational equation that bounds to a minimum, and some other explain that we simply live with a parallel universe (no SF here), wich can only interact with us by gravitational force. So, it's like the opposite of magnets : in that "world", everything is like the gravity we know in our world, but when a + encounter a -, it becomes like a gravity repulsion. If you speak french, you can have details of this theory (as well as a program prototype wich clearly demonstrate that galaxy form like what we see can come from such a model) at www.jp-petit.com This guy is very open minded, and have a very strong scientific career. Think what you want, but one aspect of intelligence is being imaginative and open minded. I actually prefer this theory as what we actually try to make us eat.
In the beginning,
the Earth was without form,
and void.
But the Sun shone upon the sleeping Earth
and deep inside the brittle crust
massive forces waited to be unleashed.
The seas parted
and great continents were formed.
The continents shifted, mountains arose.
Earthquakes spawned massive tidal waves.
Volcanoes erupted
and spewed forth fiery lava
and charged the atmosphere
with strange gases.
Into this swirling maelstrom
of Fire and Air and Water
the first stirrings of Life appeared:
tiny organisms, cells, and amoeba,
clinging to tiny sheltered habitats.
But the seeds of Life grew,
and strengthened, and spread,
and diversified,
and prospered,
and soon every continent and climate
teemed with Life.
And with Life came instinct,
and specialization, natural selection,
Reptiles, Dinosaurs, and Mammals
and finally there evolved a species
known as Man
and there appeared
the first faint glimmers of
Intelligence.
The fruits of intelligence were many:
fire, tools, and weapons,
the hunt, farming, and the sharing of food,
the family, the village, and the tribe.
Now it required but one more ingredient:
a great Leader
to unite the quarreling tribes
to harness the power of the land
to build a legacy
that would stand the test of time:
a CIVILIZATION!
misc_pondering
/misc_pondering
By some process, matter turns into dark matter. By measuring the amount of dark matter, we can determine the age of the universe.
The real cool thing with this story is the fact the black holes were discovered using the Astronomical Virtual Observatory (AVO). The AVO is a giant database of images take from a variety of telescopes including Hubble, Chndra, and the VLT in Chile.
Hubble for instance aquires about a terabyte of data every year. Some projects under development now will collect that much data every single day. Virtual observatories let anyone grab some of this data to work with it. There's a lot of new information being collected or digitzed every day which means just that much more data to mine for every region of the sky.
An excellent example of this (besides this recent discovery) is the research done on the KBO 2001 KX76. A team of European astronomers used a program called Astrovirtel based out of the European Southern Observatory to better map the orbit of the KBO. They were able to parse over data going back to 1982 which means they were able to watch almost 20 years worth of the KBO's orbit. One of the researchers was even able to perform some of the processing work on his home computer. The orbital mapping of 2001 KX76 gives credence to the theory that it is actually larger than Ceres and thus the largest space rock discovered in the solar system thus far.
Virtual astronomy can easily find information on just about any observed object that varies by some bit over time. Examining old plates has been a hallmark of astronomy for years but these new virtual observatory projects take the concept to a higher level. The discoveries of these black holes is a testament to how useful it is to be able to mine through years of observations from entirely different types of observatories. For some types of research it makes telescope time, which is typically hard to come by, a bit less important. It also opens the door for anyone to do astronomical research.
Virtual astronomy is really open source astronomy. The collective work of hundreds of individuals can be leveraged by just about anyone. These same people can also contribute back to the VOs for other people down the road to work with.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.