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."
It's the resurgence of K-Mart!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Speaking of stars, what is the source of the heavier elements? I thought most came from star fusion, but I don't think that can account for all the elements. Plus planets seem to have a higher distribution than hydrogen-rich stars.
Stinking ricers have taken over a whole galaxy. If you think galactic undercarriage lighting is bad, wait till you hear them blasting that galactic bass late at night.
Elements past iron can only be created in a supernova explosion. Google on "supernova elements" for more information. Of course, the element synthesis during a supernova explosion is due to fusion, but I'm not sure one could call it "star fusion".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Wouldnt matter too much...our Milky Way and Andromeda are on a slow collision course anyway - by the time an ejected star got here, the rest of the galaxy would be right behind it. But no need to go hide in a cave just yet, we've still got about 3 billion years.
Yeah, cause God forbid, in 2.9 million years we'd all be dead!!
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
Umm, dude, the stars in question are at the center of a completly different galaxy. Even if by some miracle of probability they did come in our direction, our sun would have gone nova by the time they arrived.
Technoli
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...
The thing about space, is it's really really big, huge, you know? So the distances are in light years which means whatever we're seeing happend that many years ago. If we were to launch a probe to see it we'd probably find much of the excitment has moved on, especially by the time the signals make it back to us and all the probe finds is a few empty popcorn buckets and candy wrappers left by aliens who beat us to the show and got better seats besides.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Ok, I was guessing about the nova part. I didn't know off-hand how far away andromeda was.
Technoli
To rule them all,
And in the Darkness bind them.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I Loved this link at the bottom of the article... Survival Tips for Black Hole Travelers
... Since that has SO much to do with a cluster of stars in another galaxy.
well....i haven't read TFA, but i'm assuming that the stars are going at a fraction of the speed of light, which as you all now is the speed limit in the Universe...(at least that's the theory)
:D)
but even at the speed of light it would take something from the Andromeda Galaxy a few million(/billion?) years to get here....
(of course the light is only reaching us now, so the stars might be half way here by now
and even if you think you'll still be alive by then, the chances of them being on a collision course with our galaxy (let alone Earth) are REALLY small.....
oh...and the energy necessary to make leave orbit (considering that it's a FREAKING star, orbiting a FREAKING black hole!!!) is...well....a LOT!!!
IANAA, but could these stars have formed prior to being caught by the gravity of that black hole?
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
Fortunately for you, the Astronomy police were at lunch at the time...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
If they have them there, we might have them here. In which case we may be doomed in a mere 10 million years.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
Maybe this group of stars is not a natural phenomena? Que the twilight zone theme.
All kidding aside, they could have formed outside the vicinty and got pulled in. What keeps them from ripping apart from tidal forces is interests me.
It's the terrible secret of space!
The owls are not what they seem
If it appears to be physically difficult to explain these stars, perhaps it is an artificial constuction. I'd expect an advanced extra-terrestial civilization to exploit the immense power of the galactic core black hole. Who knows what they are doing with it? Sustanence? Wormhole transport? Communication? Entertainment? Maybe one hundred infant stars whizzing around the center has something to do with this.
DUDE!!! holy shit. As you probably know, this discovery actually happened a while ago in time (cause of the time it took the light to travel). So the star could be flinging itself at us AS WE SPEAK. It could be __cking halfway here ALREADY!!!
DUUUUUUUUUCK
HA! Dude, no it's not. If we were close enough to a black hole to send a probe into it, we'd also be close enough to have the entire Earth sucked in and squeezed down to a grain of sand... or you know, whaver actually happens when you get sucked into a black hole.
... the same thing about Pamela Anderson. She's had some strange stars surround her black hole. Like Tommy Lee or Kid Rock.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
According to Here Our sun will still be burning brightly.
:)
According to the article, it should happen in about 3 billion years
On a side note---considering the lifespan of planets, galaxies, universis - it is kind of depressing we won't be around to see spectacular things (i.e. Star Trek space travel). Ah I need to find me a "Q" and get them to let me join up
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
are correct. Thanks for the correction.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The sun won't go nova in any case; it's too small.
Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way, a mere ~2 million light years away. It's moving toward us rather rapidly though, and the two galaxies should collide in about 3 billion years; if one of these stars was "thrown free" (how exactly?) it might get here well before that, but your basic point is right on: By the time it got here, there is basically no chance that the earth will still be a habitable planet.
Of course, the chance of an object randomly thrown from that far away hitting the earth is like... Let's see, if I randomly threw a dart (really hard), the chances of hitting the bullseye of a dartboard on the planet neptune... are much much better.
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.
We get a slow expansion to red giant, then it peters out to a dwarf. I think we at least get a planetary nebula in the deal.
Well anytime I get sucked into a black hole, well I tend to feel really good. So maybe the Earth is just trying to get laid?
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I think this is the first evidence of galactic NASCAR.
From the subject line, I was looking forward to reading a pithy and scathing remark. Now I have to go kick someone.
I'm thinking more like blue as in Vedrans, powered by the rapid rotation of Gene Roddenberry's corpse, and all centered around a 140-million solar-mass abyss of suck.
I think they are just trying to make a new baby galaxy!
I've noticed that sometimes when dealing with spiral phenomena (hurricanes, tornadoes, whirlpools, etc.) there are secondary, much smaller spirals that are thrown off from the main body. Could this be in effect here? Could the black hole be throwing off gravitational "eddies" that cause stars to be formed?
"Mysterious Stars Surround Andromeda's Black Hole"
Thats just rude to refer to Kevin Sorbo's career that way. Sure I know he sucks in stars that are never heard from again, but thats no cause to put the man down.
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
"My God! It's full of stars!"
That's nothing, I have mysterious SORES around my black hole!
My guess: R. Kelly
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
You can read the abstract; if you have an institutional subscription to Astrophys.J., you can also view the full text.
At first glance, thought it said: Mysterious Porn Stars Surround Andy Dick's Black Hole
Is it Friday yet?
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
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.
An artist's rendition on their picture of the day:
_ feature_411.html
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image
--
fu
Iain M. Banks extendes this into a religion in The Algebraist the premise of which is that if enough of the 'simulated' subjects believe that they are in a simulation then the simulation would be worthless and the people running it would just turn it off - a kind of cosmic Judgement Day, but without the judgement.
Well, as a fellow Christian, I don't believe that's what God wants us to do. Why would God create a universe with the appearance of age if he didn't want us figuring out how these processes work? We can acknowledge his sovereignty and still look into the processes behind the universe. I hope these scientists don't just shrug it off as "the way things are", but instead continue studying it and expand our knowledge of how the universe works.
the stars so rarely pass actually close to each other that they never meat
That's good. Seeing two meating stars is not for the faint of heart.
Just doing some quick and dirty estimations, the messing with orbits issue seems pretty unlikely. The earths orbit, for example, would only be disturbed by something pulling different amounts on the earth vs. the sun, because the earth was closer to it or further from it. It would have to be awfully close for the distance from the earth to the sun to be very significant. Even at 1 light year, we're talking something like 1 part in 100,000. You'd need something very massive, passing quite close, and very quickly. The quickly part is there, but the other two are a pretty tiny probability.
The galactic collision will no doubt wreck all sorts of re-arangement on the massive scale of galaxies. Any observers concerned only with the relatively minute scale of a single solar system will presumably not even notice.
Not, as noted, that there is much chance those observers will be human.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy
Wiki says 2.9 million light years distant.
So yeah, what we are seeing is ~3 million years ago. The OP was obviously trying to be funny, but if Andromeda were to try to fling a star across intergalactic space towards us, it would take hundreds of millions of years unless there is some way to accelerate an object the size of a star close to the speed of light.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Well said. I'm not a Christian, and not a particularly religious person at that. Still, the fact that we can question means to me that we should; even to prove the negative. We're not talking about child porn or something like. Figuring out how the Universe works and what makes it work, sounds like a good idea. Besides, what's the worst thing, you die and G-d laughs at you for wasting your time?
I'm more impressed with a G-d that can make an increadibly complex and old universe with tons of neat things for us to figure out and explore, than the alternative creation story I learned as a child.
Why not, right?
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
...in the so-called "Theory" of Gravity. (what, did you think I was going to say goatse?)
When will those fancy-pants university astrologers accept the truth of Intelligent Falling. It's in all the news, so it must be true.
It's the singularity you're thinking of. For a large enough black hole, the time dialation isn't even noticable at the event horizon. You could still watch the rest of the universe speeding up as you fall towards the center, however, as the event horizon doesn't prevent you from watching what's going on outside.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Actually, the discovery happened just recently - the actual event happened a long time ago.
But regardless, you're actually exhibiting a common logic falacy. Because the star is travelling at less than the speed of light, it's impossible for the star to "sneak up on us" by arriving here before it's lightwaves do.
In any event, my original post was just a joke.
Well, given that only 50% of scientific reports are accurate we might fall into a black hole and well...merely fall into a black hole. The whole space/time stretching, mass collapsing, and matter altering could all be completely false. In fact, we might get close enough one day to hear something like,
"Hey! Anyone out there? We've fallen into this HUGE black hole and well...can't get out! WTF was this thing, anyway!? Like some kind of old mining hole? Was someone mining stars or planets or something? Anyway, throw a tow rope or something, will ya? EGADS!"
Ok, it happened again. I always do this. I say something without fully stating my thoughts. I agree with both of you. There is nothing wrong with manking finding out how the world/universe works. But its when people say that there is no way to explain how or why it happens. As if it doesn't fall into what science says, then its wrong. But we also must thing that there are also things that mankind isn't supposed to know and why that is, we don't know. I just wish that something like evolution, which I don't believe in, wouldn't be taught in school as fact, but as theory, which it is. And since America is full of all kinds of people, its hard to teach Creation in schools, but don't dismiss it and just put evolution or something else in there as 'the way it is'.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Consider the source. Yahoo gets a bunch of bad press for snitching on poor Chinese users, infesting users computer with spyware and a bunch of other evil-Yahoo stuff. SO what do they do? "Don't worry about us, look at these stars being eaten by a black hole!! OMG, we're all going to die!!!"
Having the Earth "pulled out of orbit" by a passing star isn't the only problem. Consider a close approach at right angles to the ecliptic. As the intruder passes, it will perturb the Earth's orbit toward it, making it more eliptical than it is now. Not, of course, enough to cause a collision, but possibly enough for climate change; hotter summers and cooler winters for the Northern hemisphere, where most people live. (Assuming it came while there are still people living here, of course.)
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The textbooks are stating it as fact, or at least mine was two years ago.
I do NOT feel Creationism and Intelligent Design should be taught in school. While I am a Creationist, that belief is not a scientific viewpoint. I want secular evolution taught in schools, both its strengths and its weaknesses. This will encourage further investigation on the part of the students, and avoid presenting a theory as fact.
I also think it's mysterious that the star of Andromeda (Kevin Sorbo) signed on when SciFi brought it back. http://www.scifi.com/andromeda/
Eddies in the space-time continuum.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
To amplify: Science doesn't really care whether or not the universe was created by God, as long as He followed rules when he did so. Science seeks to understand the rules and patterns within the universe sa as to predict what we can't see based on what we can. It seems to work pretty well, so it would seem that God's playing along here, right?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
As a Christian, I can see both sides of the debate. I think we need to accept that things are the way they are "because it was God". I think that is what faith is. But I also believe that God, who created the laws of physics and quantum mechanics, would operate fully within those laws during his creation of the universe and things in it.
That said, I think that Christians can investigate the creation scientifically. We already know the WHO of the creation. But nothing is stopping us from finding out the HOW and WHY.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
Carne diem, dude. Carne diem.
Indeed! Investigation of a theory's weaknesses is precisely how science progresses, and we should encourage that! However, it should also be made clear that when a scientist says "theory" he means "something that we're certain of, to so many significant digits, for the currently available data" and not "guess".
It should also be taught that science is less interestd in "what really happened" and more in "how things act", and that regardless of where life really came from, life forms reliably and predictably act as if evolution was their origin - true or false, the theory is incredibly *useful* (at least, to biology, farming, and medicine) and should be taught.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Needs to talk to V.I.N.CENT
Our galaxy is "quiet" because the black hole has "pushed" the surrounding matter away from it so that it no longer has any significant incoming matter. A galactic collision would probably play hell with this balance, though, sending material into our very own supermassive black hole. When this happens, the levels of radiation could be so high that small perturbations in the earth's orbit will be the LEAST of humanity's concerns.
The good news is that at the very earliest, the Milky Way won't collide with another galaxy for several million more years, when Andromeda MAY hit us.
While the "only 50% accurate" thing doesn't apply much to theoretical work, that doesn't change your point much. General relativity is about as thouroughly tested as a theory can be, but trying to understand what happens inside a black hole is extrapolating beyond the theory's bounds and there's a lot of "hmmm, the result is an imaginary number; well *I* imagine that means this!" going on. Entertaining, but probably not very predictive.
Fortunately, there aren't any black holes nearby with which to sort out the theories emperically.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
My motivations for not writing a word has nothing to do with fear of a lighning bolt, but something that I enjoy doing. My question to you is, why are you going off on a rant about it? Who cares? So what? What if my supreme being is a dead fly on my desk? Who cares? That was my point, although I was being kind to a person who seemed to care about religion. Not particularly religious applies to how one follows sald religion that they ascribe to. There's a difference between that and not believing in g-d at all. Let me ask you a question? Ever knock on wood? Ever have a good luck charm? It's the same thing and just as harmless and meaningless. Lighten up kid. Since when did i say, "You apparently think there's a supreme being, maker and master of all creation, who for reasons we mortals cannot begin to fathom"? That's a lot to assume from one single short post. Also, if it depresses you about that, then don't go to the mid-west. You might want to kill yourself.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he. Is he." He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly, then?"
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
The mystery of which lies in the incomprehensible "error" information provided by said blue-screens.
Come hear me sing!
it's a sad, sad day when our best source for science news is Yahoo
I'm in agreement that evolution occurs. I also agree there needs to be a MUCH greater focus on the rules and methods governing evolution. Several of my classmates still think we "decided" to develop larger brains.
My primary rational issue (versus my theological issues, which are irrelevant to this discussion) with evolution is whether mutation and natural selection are sufficiently capable of creating new information to explain the diversity of life. To my knowledge, our insight into evolution to date has shown primarily loss of information (such as the four-winged fruit fly), or minor modifications to virii and bacteria that modify immune system identification, rather than increasing function. If anyone can point me toward a study showing otherwise, I'd appreciate it.
Some black hole rotation could be caused by matter falling onto the event-horizon, imparting its kinetic energy onto the black hole, causing it to start turning.
I can imagine that as a method to start black-hole rotation, but what I can't figure out is why a black hole such as cygnus x1 ISN'T rotating.
Maybe cygnus x1 originally inherited its progenitor-star's rotation, but matter falling on the even-horizon since has braked the rotation? Doesn't seem likely...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
so was mine. Also, the star could actually be travelling at whatever speed it wants to travel at. It pop into my living room based on certain physics theories going around, and I don't even have a living room.
Apparently both you and whoever modded me Flamebait took me more seriously than I intended. I apologize for not being clearer; I just found it slightly amusing that you say you are not particularly religious, but are sufficiently so so as to not write "God", which I associate with people who are pretty seriously religious. I also took "not particularly religous" to be much closer to "not religous" than you would apparently intend.
I don't generally knock on wood or have good luck charms, but I do have a small plastic astronaut figurine which I have intentionally convinced myself will drive me crazy if it is not kept surrounded by a circle of tiny blue stones. I have no problem whatsoever with anyone who does not expect me to take their religious beliefs any more seriously than I expect them to take my belief about the astronaut. And I expect them to find that belief utterly laughable (but I'd apreciate it if they did not move the stones).
Having been to the midwest, suicide would definitely be on the table if no other method of leaving were available.
Agreed, on all except that life forms reliably and predictably act as if evolution was their origin. While their behavior doesn't disindicate (it's CORRECT, even if it is a double negative *eyes the circling grammar nazis*)origin via evolution, it doesn't indicate their origin was evolution either. While they act as if they are currently undergoing evolution, and probably have been since they came into existence, current observations are incapable of indicating the force responsible for abiogenesis. I'm okay with it being taught in science classes, but not as a theory by your definition. Perhaps it should instead be taught as a belief widely held by scientists.
Actually, currently the Earth is closest to the sun in Northern Hemisphere winter. For the effect you describe, it would have to get much more eliptical, and in the opposite direction. But that's nitpicking. I'll happily agree that actually pulling the earth out of orbit around the sun (which is just stupendously unlikely) wouldn't be necessary to cause a problem; any significant disturbance to the orbit would do it. I was just pointing out that to cause a significant disturbance in the earths orbit would require a combination of mass and closeness of aproach such that the odds very heavily favor passing all the way through the Andromeda galaxy without it happening.
If we were to launch a probe to see it we'd probably find much of the excitment has moved on,
Actually, if the probe was to move fast enough, it wouldn't miss the show, but rather see the whole thing in fast-forward.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
Eh. It won't stop the young minds full of mush around here from accepting it as...uh...gospel.
the magic roundabout
- Evolution: the statistical distribution of alleles in a population changes over time. This is a fact, constantly observed like "water runs downhill", and there's lots of chewey math and predictive goodness here. Extremely useful in biology and medicine.
- Common origin: this is the cladistic theory of taxonomy - all of the millions of known species can be orgainized well by assuming they had a tree of common ancestors. Very useful: regardless of whether the species *had* common ancestors, it's a fact that it's very useful to organize them that way. It's also a fact that man makes new species (for some definitions of that word) in the lab and in agriculture, and has for centuries, so the theory is useful far beyond taxonomy.
- Abiogenisis - this is the "belief widely held by scientists", but it's not important to any of the useful bits of evolution (though it might become useful to nanotechnology one day).
I know I didn't learn this in high school! Explain the facts properly and there's no need for "evolution is just a theory" stickers on textbooks. The facts speak for themselves.Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If the radius of the event horizon was big enough, tidal forces would be minimal, as tidal force is actualy the delta-G at two points such as your head and feet. So if the event horizon is big enough, you could "fall" into a black hole and survive becuase there wouldn't be enough tidal forces to hurt you. Now because time dilation is infinite at the event horizon, you'd never even get to the event horizon so getting past it would be out of the question.
I guess that means that you can't fall into a black-hole, you an just get really close unless you had no mass. Getting all the mass sucked out of your matter would probably hurt alot.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Roadkill on the supergalactic highway is just so ugly.
It will go nova, just not supernova. This will happen when the H is just about used up and will be the beginning of the Sun's shift to being a red giant.
(IIRC, IANAA, void where prohibited by physical law.)
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Post in haste, repent at leisure - I checked Wkipedia and what I said is correct except technically it isn't called a nova, which is a word reserved for somthing which happens in white dwarfs in binary systems. But the Sun will use up the H in the core, and eventually expand into a red giant 1E3 - 1E4 times more luminous than now in a series of steps brought on by "He flashes" which might as well be novae as far as surviving them on Earth is concerned.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Okay, that was my first one ever.
(... maybe not even sure of the repurcussions of his actions at this stage)
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
That is already going to happen in a mere 63 million years.
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
Well, not that a remote star passing through our solar system is particularly likely either, but it's worth pointing out that a star passing within twice the radius of the Oort cloud would be enough to significantly alter our planet's orbit, to the point where our ecosphere would be annihilated, and if we were lucky maybe we could hide from new deadly weather under domes.
Granted, stripping two digits out of that mantissa makes it insignificantly less spectacularly unlikely.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
The "pfft" sound you hear is coming from your readers, not the stars.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
That said, I think that Christians can investigate the creation scientifically. We already know the WHO of the creation. But nothing is stopping us from finding out the HOW and WHY.
If you allow yourself to engage in such unscientific thinking that lead to your "knowing" who, you're likely to find yourself having trouble being scientific about the how and why.
For example, you may attempt to impute the why of something to "god's plan".
Or it may lead you to believe c really isn't a constant, since god can change it if he wants, or that Quantum Mechanics is flawed because "god does not play dice".
I mean, just imagine a science book that says, "the Earth's rotation is the cause of the day, in which the sun appears to circle the Earth every 24 hours, except when god decides to stop the sun in the sky."
You just can't do it. God and science just can't directly mix, because wherever the answer has been "god", science has always come back with, "no, it's this natural cause".
Of course, you may not suffer from any such problems, but the mere act of believing god as a scientific fact (who) stacks the odds against you.
Blue stars tend to be hotter and younger than red ones. They have a shorter life span being blue
we figure, since they are burning up fuel at a much higher rate than red stars do.
Hence the idea that they must be young.
However, it may be a plausible idea that these stars, being under such extreme circumstances,
within 1 lightyear of a 140 million solar mass black hole, emit blue light not because
of their high internal fuel consumption, but because of external influences.
Being bombarded by highly energetic particles, exposed to immense gravitational and/or magnetic
effects, speeds, etc..
The thought would be that the disc of stars around the black hole is actually more or less uniform where age is concerned, but that the ones closest to the black hole undergo some effects that make them turn blue.
If I was a type 3 player in this universe and wanted to make my presense known maybe I would place stars in unusual places.
Eventually other would figure it out and maybe there is a message to decode.
They should look for mathematical alighnments in the stars to see if they are unnatually positioned.
Would be pretty cool.
Pablo