Slashdot Mirror
Mysterious Stars Surround Andromeda's Black Hole
UltimaGuy writes to tell us that Yahoo is running a story about a recent discovery that shows the source of strange blue light coming from the center of the Andromeda galaxy. The light is actually a cluster of stars circling the galaxy's central black hole with immense orbital velocity. From the article: "Such frenetic activity was thought to prevent star formation. Stars form when a knot of gas and dust collapses under its own gravity."
No... Stars form however they damn well please. Our current models suggest it is done under their own gravity, but our models are not reality. They are our understanding of reality and are modified or thrown out when we find our understanding is wrong. The universe is always right.
P.S. Sorry, it's one of my pet pieves when someone says "that not how physics works!"
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Sounds similar to Saturn's rings. A ton of matter spread into teeny blocks in space by tidal forces, but still with enough mass to pull together into a bazillion little blobs. Perhaps the radiant matter/antimatter/energy from the black hole (I'm fuzzy on Hawking's theory on the subject) is heating the surrounding star-spray enough to light some of them?
Its too bad we only have one giant eye in the sky...
IANAA, but could these stars have formed prior to being caught by the gravity of that black hole?
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
My explanation is almost as bad as the fundamentalists. If something complicated happens, they say God made it rather some scientific explantion. I'm just substituting advanced aliens for God.
what I've heard is that while galactic collisions look like all holy hell breaking loose, the stars so rarely pass actually close to each other that they never meat - it's like two clouds of sand passing through each other. The only worry is that something massive brushing within a few lightyears of our solar system might screw with the oribits.
Well, as a religious person myself, I'll answer your question.
Simply because saying "Its because of God," leads us to a dead end. If we attributed everything to God, then our scientific progress would be halted. In fact, you can see the results of this type of thinking in our own history. It's called the Dark Ages.
Science has to take an agnostic stance in order to work. We have to take an agnostic stance in human knowledge in order to progress. If we depend on daddy (God) to give us all the answers, then we will never grow up.