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Robotic Telescope Unravels Cosmic Blast Mystery
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that scientists from Liverpool John Moores University have used their robotic telescope in the Canary Islands to measure the polarization of light from a Gamma Ray Burst just 203 seconds after its detection by NASA's Swift Gamma Ray Observatory Satellite. The result suggests that the emitting material flowing out from the explosion may not be highly magnetized in the way that some theories had predicted."
Good these Gamma Ray events actually be other big-bangs in far, distant regions of the Universe?
With explosions that size, wouldn't 203 seconds of lagtime before observation be a huge killer of the results?
Furthermore, is there any possibility of a dipole radiation distribution for the fraction of linear polarization? Perhaps for this particular sample, we caught the glimpse of a stellar pole? Wouldn't we need a larger sample size to make a more conclusive prediction if this was the case?
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When a black hole forms, the matter trapped within the event horizon has (for all intents and purposes) left our universe. Perhaps GRB's are merely the thermodynamic return on all that lost mass?
You know... I've wondered about that myself in the past...
I also wondered what might happen to the matter trapped in the accretion disks of two black holes when they began to merge, especially if they had opposing rotation... matter travelling at virtually the speed of light, hitting yet more matter, travelling at virtually the speed of light in the opposite direction... meaning an effective speed of impact almost double the speed of light... and all that happening in an area of dilated time... you have to wonder what that would look like...
Maybe someone smarter than me could tell us!
GRBs are thought to emanate only from the poles of a supernova. So no, a GRB can indeed be 'aimed'.
I've often wondered if GRBs aren't simply the result of some technological civilization stumbling onto a new law of physics, and wiping themselves out in the process. It would certainly explain the absence of any voices in a galaxy that -- by now -- ought to be teeming with life.
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The intense bursts of radiation observed from the vicinity of black holes (especially those forming as a result of supernovae) are generally the result of some pretty extreme interactions just before the matter enters the black hole, as this matter is subject to extreme heating and compression and such - enough, even, to perform fusion on some pretty tough stuff and get metals as heavy as uranium.
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Merely pointing this fact out as it occurs every time it occurs can have an impact in itself. Many people will wait until they see numerous others bringing this up to actually consider the concept. The great communicators today in astrophysics will typically introduce the current theory within the context of the theory's history, and this added information (which you very rarely get with NASA press releases) can affect peoples' beliefs about the current theories' believability.
I actually attempted to get Slashdot to post the disconfirming Stardust results to their homepage as a story without inserting any comments advocating any specific cosmology, and they refused my request (I suppose on the idea that disconfirming evidence is not "news"?). If true, I find this to be very problematic. It used to be that anomalous data points directed future research and affected our beliefs. This was an important part of the scientific method, and its recent absence appears to have been completely ignored by the public.
A big part of the problem is that although the people who run Slashdot can be credited with having an interest in astronomy, these same people have not involved themselves in the technical details of the arguments and would prefer to defer to "experts" rather than evaluate the arguments on their own. They are just as much behind the curve as the rest, and many good ideas go unnoticed by this website's management due to a pseudoscience labeling.
Another big problem that I have a lot of personal experience dealing with specifically on this forum are the avid astrophysical enthusiasts. They feel no responsibility for discouraging other people away from against-the-mainstream theories, oftentimes completely unaware of the overwhelming nature of the disconfirming evidence for the Big Bang and stellar evolution. They oftentimes consider advocates of against-the-mainstream (ATM) as being "misleading"; anything that is not mainstream is somebody's "pet theory"; and they try to make the case that ATM advocates want to *convert* the entire world to their own pet theories (as opposed to merely just creating a debate). Slashdot is heavily steeped in these types. They are condescending. They may be fairly intelligent. But their confidence and hubris can negate their intelligence. When you refuse to assimilate to their way of thought, they will give up on you. But they will rarely consider reading any books that you suggest for them. They don't understand that there is more value to multiple mainstream cosmologies. With one cosmology, you *listen*. With two or even three reasonable options, you *analyze* and *compare*.
The real problem is that the avid astrophysicist enthusiasts right now don't realize that there will never be a solution to this dark matter, dark energy problem within the mainstream models. It's clear that these concepts have become so unphysical that they are basically non-sequiters (anti-gravitational matter, for instance). It's especially ironic that a kid can read through all of Douglas Adams' books and not realize that he was ridiculing mainstream astrophysics! And if you don't recognize the previous non-sequiter, then you at least must recognize that it doesn't make sense that such a plentiful particle like dark matter can emit no electromagnetic radiation and not ever be detected here on Earth despite 20 years of trying. That's another non-sequiter.
My advice to you is that you not give up. Experiment with various techniques for getting your message across (you'll find that some definitely work better than others and your writing will improve over time as a result). If you have the time, become an expert in the evidence and try to understand all the
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.