Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Black Hole Birth Detected this Morning

Posted by timothy on from the look-out-for-space-placenta dept.

An anonymous reader writes "SPACE.com is reporting on the first optical afterglow ever detected from a short-duration (milliseconds) Gamma-Ray Burst. The GRB signals the birth of a black hole resulting from a merger between two neutron stars. Theory had predicted the whole thing, which was all spotted this morning by NASA's Swift satellite and ground-based observatories, thanks to an automated email system that notifies astronomers worldwide."

14 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. If you hear the bomb fall... by RobertB-DC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I read somewhere about workers at an Army ammunition plant. A newbie came on, and was being shown around his area of responsibility, when there was a loud metallic CLANG, as some object in the warehouse full of high explosives dropped to the floor. The newbie instinctively dove to the ground has his compatriots chuckled. As he stood back up, they told him, "If you hear it hit the floor, it didn't explode."

    Looks like this one was a dud. Lucky much?

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  2. Re:Er... by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Wasn't there another slashdot article a few weeks ago about how blackholes don't exist? I think it was talking about this report.

    Let's rename them 'Schrödinger's holes' - They may or may not exist. Seems to fit in with a lot of the battling theories.

    Our astronomy club hosted a local speaker, studying the lives of black holes, where the entire cycle was explored. Pretty cool stuff. I'll try to remember his name and find a link.

    they should put these doctoral types on american gladiator and have them defend their theories!

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Detected how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How did a gamma ray burst escape the black hole? Sounds contradictory to me.

    I call bullshit! Prove me wrong.

    1. Re:Detected how? by Hatta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Every other post seems to be a joke, so I'll just put this here. What's with the artist's rendition? The article said the event was photographed, why not use that image instead of some swirly colors that may or may not have any relation to reality?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  4. Terminology, people! by WormholeFiend · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Shouldn't this be more appropriately described as a black hole being ripped, rather than being born?

  5. ROTSE did that before? by helioquake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wait a second...didn't ROTSE detect an optical afterglow first in 1999?

    ROTSE's first detection of optical afterglow /a?

  6. Starting to feel like the universe is.. by Alzheimers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Great. Now it really is starting to feel like the universe is just one big version of Conway's Game of Life?

  7. farsighted by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Human sense augmentation has come quite a long way when we can identify a millisecond event in a gigayear process within a gigaparsec radius. But we can't find Osama, or my car keys.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  8. Re:How bright was the burst? by Detritus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if you can estimate the actual brightness of the object. If it is like the longer duration bursters, it produces two jets of radiation along an axis through the center of the object. How close are we to the center of that axis?

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  9. Gravity waves! by neonleonb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hopefully, a sensor was able to catch some gravity waves from this. This is the sort of event that should produce large, measurable gravity waves, so we may finally have evidence of their existence. I certainly hope so.

  10. Re:Wait a minute... by Skye16 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hate to ask this and lose whatever geek credibility I *may* have had, but what is this from? I have a feeling I'd love to check it out.

  11. Merger between two neutron stars? by Eminence · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The GRB signals the birth of a black hole resulting from a merger between two neutron stars.

    Is that the current scientific consensus? Because I've just yesterday read about a whole different theory behind GRBs, namely that they signal a collapse of a super-massive star inside star nurseries at the edges of the observable Universe.

  12. Re:Drake's equation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The newest discovered pair of infalling neutron stars is said to be coming together in around 85 million years' time, and they're only 2,000 light years away.

    Although it's comforting to know that our biosphere clearly hasn't been entirely wiped out within the last few hundred million years (or even within the last billion), I get the odd feeling that we might be underestimating the frequency of critical events of various kinds.

  13. Re:Drake's equation by haggar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did you take into consideration that Gamma-ray bursts are directed (beamed) and not spherically dispersed? I think talking of an extinction radius is wrong for this and other reasons. You could be on a planet reasonably close to a black hole formation without any risk of estinction, because you are away from the axis of the beam.

    Also, at a distance wherethe Gamma-ray flux is fairly weak, you might find yourself on the opposite side of a planet, and survive.

    In fact, it is not impossible that life as we know it, is not the only one possible. Life may not be based on carbon, or organic matter. The excellent movie "The Andromeda Strain" in fact, describes a lifeform based on non-organic chrystals. Who is to say that such lifeform wouldn't be much more resistent to Gamma rays.

    --
    Sigged!