Slashdot Mirror
First Science From A Virtual Observatory
mindpixel writes "I first mentioned Virtual Observatories in my July 2000 Slashdot interview. Now, nearly four years later, Spacetelescope.org is reporting a European team has used the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) to find 30 supermassive black holes that had previously escaped detection behind masking dust clouds. The identification of this large population of long-sought 'hidden' black holes is the first scientific discovery to emerge from a Virtual Observatory. The result suggests that astronomers may have underestimated the number of powerful supermassive black holes by as much as a factor of five."
Are any close enough to toss SCO into?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't think this accounts for dark matter, but it may shed some light on one of the world's oldest questions, immortalized by the great Ray Stevens: "Where do my socks go when I put them in the dryer?"
It's official: The Universe Sucks! :D
(Couldn't help it)
we're using laboratories which don't physically exist to detect things we can't actually see...
hmmm...... somehow this seems like a perverse application of a double negative.
RIMMER: But a Black Hole's a huge, compacted star! It's millions of miles wide! Why didn't you see it on the radar screen?
HOLLY: Well, the thing about a Black Hole - it's main distinguishing feature - is it's black. And the thing about space, your basic space colour is black. So how are you s'posed to see them?
RIMMER: But thrity of them! How can you be ambushed by thirty Black Holes?
HOLLY: Always the way, isn't it? You look into Deep Space for years and you don't see one. Then, all of a sudden, thirty all turn up at once.
Modified from Red Dwarf, Series 3, Episode 2 "Marooned"
You don't need a lab to make mud.