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Matter Discovered Traveling at Near Light Speed

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the celestial-slingshot dept.

mcgrew writes to mention New Scientist is reporting that scientists have clocked matter traveling at 99.999% the speed of light. "The fastest flows of matter in the universe shoot out of dying stars at more than 99.999% the speed of light, new observations reveal. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it collapses to form a black hole or a neutron star. In the process, some of the matter from the star also explodes outward at blistering speeds, producing an intense burst of gamma rays and other radiation."

30 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. Kudos to the editor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Much better subject line than what was found in The Firehose...

    (The original subject line said "Matter found travelling at the speed of light", or something along those lines.

    Close != At.

    Given all the Complaints and BS the mods have to put up with sometimes, I think they should get complimented for a job well done as well.

    1. Re:Kudos to the editor by It+doesn't+come+easy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, the speed was calculated to be 99.9997% but there was a rounding problem when the report was generated via their new-fangled AI system and the system kept crashing from the unexpected logical impossibility...

      --
      The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
    2. Re:Kudos to the editor by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Informative

      Infinite nines (99.999.... per cent) would be the same as the speed of light. I say this only to have an excuse to link to a list of proofs that 0.9 recurring equals 1.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  2. To be clear... by brian0918 · · Score: 5, Informative

    We've known about gamma ray bursts for a long time. It's just that now we know how fast the matter is moving that causes these bursts.

  3. 99.999% by Trigun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slackers.

    1. Re:99.999% by hkgroove · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, report back to us when your contrails are plaid.

    2. Re:99.999% by the+dark+hero · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's Ludicrous!

      --
      You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.

      Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies

    3. Re:99.999% by snowgirl · · Score: 4, Funny

      I had a friend playing Silent Hunter, it was a German one, and when he put the boat into full speed ahead, they were saying "Wahnsinnige fortfahr aus!" I really had to listen to it a few times just to be sure. Then I confidently told him that one of the possible translations of that was "ludicrous speed".

      He also got a kick out of "periscope" being literally "see-pipe" in German.

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
  4. 99.999% Of the speed of light by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Funny

    will be snails pace when we get warp technology.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  5. What's the speed of force? by TheBearBear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey guys, let's say you have a 500 foot pole out in space, far away from anything (no friction, nothing). you are on one end of the pole, and i on the other. Then i push the pole towards you. When does the other end of the pole move towards you, after MY END MOVES? is it instantaneous? or does it take .000000005 seconds of whatever. Like the atoms of the pole push each other on and on and so forth till it gets to the end. if it does take time, is it faster than light, or slower? what if the pole was 300,000,000 meters long? does it take about 1 second for u to notice the other end moves?

    1. Re:What's the speed of force? by The_REAL_DZA · · Score: 4, Funny

      The only way you'd get a superluminal effect is if you had a perfectly rigid pole (and, seeing as how this is Slashdot, I'm going to discount that possibility.)

      --


      This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
    2. Re:What's the speed of force? by totallygeek · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey guys, let's say you have a 500 foot pole out in space, far away from anything (no friction, nothing). you are on one end of the pole, and i on the other. Then i push the pole towards you. When does the other end of the pole move towards you, after MY END MOVES? is it instantaneous? or does it take .000000005 seconds of whatever. Like the atoms of the pole push each other on and on and so forth till it gets to the end. if it does take time, is it faster than light, or slower? what if the pole was 300,000,000 meters long? does it take about 1 second for u to notice the other end moves?



      Do not try to push the pole. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no pole. Then you'll see, it is not the pole that is pushed, it is only yourself.


      --
      Click here or here.
    3. Re:What's the speed of force? by Barterer · · Score: 5, Informative

      The "speed of force" as you put it, is not really a speed inherent to force. You would be measuring how fast a tensile or compressive wave passes through the pole, same as the speed of sound through it. It would be much slower than the speed of light.

    4. Re:What's the speed of force? by Cadallin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wow, I was hoping that there would already be an explanation answering this, but here you go: The speed of "force" as you put it, is actually quite slow. It's a actually the speed of sound through the object. Why? Because when you push the rod, you're bumping the molecules, they have to push the molecules in front of them, and on until you reach the end. This is actually a sound wave propagating the medium, you just usually can't hear it. Now, if you had a perfectly rigid pole (cue penis jokes here) it would seeming move instantly. However, no known substance is anywhere close to perfectly rigid. Even atomic nuclei, which are, far, far more rigid than bulk matter, behave like drops of fluid and can have waves propagate through them. So no, you can't forge a pole to another planet and communicate instantly, it would be hugely slower than normal radio.

    5. Re:What's the speed of force? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know you're joking, but even a perfectly rigid pole would be subject to the propagation of forces. Think about what forces have to propagate in order to tell the other end of the pole to move. One atom has to repel the next atom using electromagnetic force, weak and strong nuclear forces, which has to in turn repel the next atom, etc, etc. There is an elastic repulsive process which goes all the way down the pole until it reaches the other end. And we know the fastest that this can happen is the speed of light. So the pole will be momentarily compressed as the force propagates.

      No information can travel faster than the speed of light, as a general rule.

    6. Re:What's the speed of force? by gatkinso · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >> is it instantaneous

      No. Imagine a train at rest. The engineer decided to back up. Boom boom boom go all the cars in sequence as the slack between them is eliminated by the cars compressing together. Finally, the caboose moves. Same deal with matter, but on a much smaller and faster scale, involving molecules and atoms.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    7. Re:What's the speed of force? by veganboyjosh · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think he's just yankin' your chain.

    8. Re:What's the speed of force? by whimmel · · Score: 5, Funny

      Woah! I can see why this hasn't been modded up yet. Too much emotion in your impression. Whoa.
      --
      Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
  6. Re:Speed of sound by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It will be whatever the speed of sound is in the pole. Assuming a perfectly rigid material it would be instant, but there is no such thing and the actual speed will much less than c.

  7. This is not new... by mbone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Superluminal" expansion from Quasars have been known since the 1960's. (They appear to be superluminal, i.e., faster than light speed, as they are so close to the speed of light that time dilation becomes important.)

  8. Re:Light is particles... by brunascle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    yes, light is particles, called photons. they are massless, which is what i believe allows them to move at the speed of light. and they always move at the speed of light too. i believe, in order to move at the speed of light, you must have always been, and always will, move at the speed of light. at light speed, time doesnt move, so you cant get out of light speed because that would require time to do so. i think it works the other way too.

  9. Red-shift? by bugnuts · · Score: 4, Funny

    "But officer, the light looked green!"

    1. Re:Red-shift? by PhxBlue · · Score: 5, Funny

      "But officer, the light looked green!"

      I tried that and got a citation for speeding instead. Do you have any idea what the fine is for going 201,184,560 mph in a 35-mph zone?

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  10. Re:Speed of Gravity by EMeta · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, Gravity moves at the speed of light. That's all part of general relativity.

  11. Re:Light is particles... by gatkinso · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, and believe you me I am no damn physicst (can't even spell it), a photon has no "resting mass", but does have momentum, which implies that there is an upper limit to is mass which cannot be zero.

    WTF does that mean? Dunno. OK screw that. No more Wiki for me.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  12. Re:Blistering speeds? by forrestt · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's the speed at which an object in a vacuum must travel to spontaneously get blisters to appear on its surface. What did you think it meant?

  13. Re:Speed of sound by NMerriam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is to say, it shrunk? isn'tthat weird???


    Not really. Take a brick of Jell-O. Push one end. You'll move it, but it will distort in shape, compress, wobble, send waves, etc.

    The only difference between Jell-O and every other solid substance is that your eyes and brain just aren't precise enough to see at a small scale that they are all behaving the same way, just to different degrees.
    --
    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  14. Re:I am a genius by wanerious · · Score: 5, Informative

    What really happens is that velocities don't add like that. They seem to for everyday objects, but relativistic effects become important at 0.7c. You should add them according to the Einstein formula: v = (B+v')/(1 + Bv') where B is the speed of one ship relative to an observer at rest (0.7c), and v' is the speed of the other ship in it's frame (0.7c). So the speed of one ship relative to the other is just v = 1.4/1.49 = 0.94c. You can see that, for small speeds, the product in the denominator is small, so we have the usual addition.

  15. Re:Blistering speeds? by FrameRotBlues · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean between ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed, right? Wasn't that the order on Spaceballs? Light Speed, Ridiculous Speed, Ludicrous Speed?

  16. Re:Blistering speeds? by drkich · · Score: 4, Funny

    Please, for the sake of Scientific completeness, do not forget PLAID!

    --
    Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention