Hundreds of Black Holes Roam Loose In Milky Way

sciencehabit writes "From Science: 'Astronomers suspect that hundreds of medium-sized black holes are roaming loose in the Milky Way. These rogues, according to a new study, are the orphaned central black holes of the many smaller galaxies that the Milky Way has swallowed over its billions of years of existence.'"

Comments

First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[adnonsense]

Anything else we need to be worrying about?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[miffo.swe]

Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start. :D

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sopssa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_event#Scenarios

I will count for An Alien Invasion.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[daniel_newby]

How could you forget swine flu?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

His parent mentioned it in the post title.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[noundi]

Why would you exclude other christians than fundamentalists? They are just as insane as the rest.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sgbett]

How could you forget "Terrorism" more like.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Nephrite]

Looks like everyone has already forgot the LHC...

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sadness203]

These roaming black holes are the legacy of old civilization from other planet... testing their own LHC, before being sucked into oblivion.

And someone, somewhere, must be watching and laughing.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sadness203]

All of this, wrapped up in a cute gift box. Ready for 21 December 2012. Cheer, less than 3 years till we unwrap it!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[mrsquid0]

And the biggest risk that most of us face, getting hit by a car on the way to work.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Opportunist]

At least you left out all the conspiracy crap, like alien invasions, mind control probes and terrorism.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Opportunist]

That's what has puzzled me to no end since the onset of various hypes. SARS? Your chance to catch it? Play the lottery if you do, your chance for a jackpot is higher. Mad cow? Ditto. Terrorism? 3000 affected of roughly 200 million (directly, not due to the political fallout). Swine/bird flu?

And now compare that to the chance of a heart attack. Lung cancer. Getting run over by a car. Getting mugged. And various freak accidents that happen all the time.

It's a miracle that you're still alive! And it's not because of black holes, not because of terrorism, not because of pandemics. It's because you're living.

Your alternative is to spend your life under your bed. But then again, where's the difference to being dead already?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Rogerborg]

Cultist. Also, illiterate.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Nocturnal Deviant]

Did anybody expect anything else, last i checked the universe was considered at least partially infinite, black holes have been known about for YEARS, so anybody want to explain how this is news exactly?

  also they are black holes...they eat everything around them in a sense, i doubt they are "roaming" however it may seem that way being that it takes X amount of years because of distance for us to see whatever they "eat"

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

BLASPHEMER!!!!!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

And somebody stole my red stapler. I'm gonna burn down the fucking building.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[NotBornYesterday]

It has to work before it's considered dangerous.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[doti]

Because terrorism is nothing to be worried about?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Capt James McCarthy]

Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start. :D

That list says quite a bit about your views. ;-)

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't, 'muslims'

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[clickety6]

The Spanish Inquisition?

(Bet you didn't expect that!)

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, tell me what is there to worry about "fundamentalist christian" [sic]?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Zumbs]

miffo.swe did mention fundamentalist christian-jews-muslims ;-)

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that. The government and it's agencies MUST overreact to these things, or at least hype the media up to let them know they are doing "everything they can" in light of the unfortunate turn of events Katrina caused. Because we didn't overreact at that time, a sh**load of angry black people came out of the woodwork looking for a FEMA handout because Kanye announced Bush hates black people. Now don't flame the comment as racist, it's not, but it was a very dynamic situation that people capitalized on to scam the government for handouts after the fact. If one kid, Asian, Black, Latino, White, (whatever) dies from this, there will be some lawyer telling those parents "Go get the government, they don't like you anyway, let's get rich" he takes a percentage and we keep paying taxes.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[kid_oliva]

Parent should be rated "Funny", not Informative. Didn't you notice the ":D" at the end. It is called sarcasm. Now please rate me Informative as I have explained the previous post. Thank you. :D

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lolled. /. needs an in-build FPS with a scheluding system for solving these face-offs.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

SUPERSTITIOUS!!!!!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[mrsquid0]

> Your alternative is to spend your life under your bed. But then
> again, where's the difference to being dead already?

I am not going to spend my life under my bed. That's where the monsters live.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[PhxBlue]

Your alternative is to spend your life under your bed. But then again, where's the difference to being dead already?

About six feet. *Rimshot!*

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[cpartrid]

I'm curious as to what exactly Partially Infinite means?
Just another way of saying: Not infite?
Or its not quite inifite yet, but it will be?
Or does it mean that some of it is infinte but other bits aren't?

Black holes can certainly roam. They are no different from other interstellar bodies in that respect.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[jeffshoaf]

At least you left out all the conspiracy crap, like alien invasions, mind control probes and terrorism.

That's because the alien conspiracy has already used their mind control probes to make him forget about terrorism.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[hesaigo999ca]

Well, I would like to know, if a black hole comes by, does it actually pull a whole planet into its hole, do we know if this is possible...I mean at the core a small start implodes and turns into a black hole, but does it have enough strength to suck in another star, or even a whole solar system...and what happens if you put 2 black holes side by side, do they cancel each other out...sort of like putting a bag of holding inside a bag of holding...?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[chadplusplus]

Not that I RTFA, but I think the idea is that because these blackholes are apparently the former center of galaxies which merged with the Milky Way, these blackholes are traveling around/through/across the galaxy in strange ways. During the merging process, I would suspect most of these blackholes would be expelled from the universe, but a few would probably be captured by the milky way's gravity. They would probably travel is an irregular way compared with the average angular momentum of the galaxy making them appear to us as "roaming".

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you about terrorism, etc but...

> SARS? Your chance to catch it? Play the lottery if you do, your chance for a jackpot is higher. Mad cow? Ditto

You're using some hindsight there and really missing the history of the events.

* SARS -- brand new virus, very high fatality rate initially (higher than spanish flu, for example) and seemed likely to be very spreadable: went from unknown to thousands of cases VERY quickly. In many respects looked like a probably pandemic.

What spared us: most people turned out to not be all that contagious, but for some reason a few people were REALLY contagious ("superspreaders") This meant that public health measures were very effective: once people stopped circulating and speading it all over it burned itself out pretty quickly.

* Mad cow: England had been having BSE infections among cattle for awhile... and when they got a downed cow they'd just kill it and use its offal to make more cow food. This unwittingly caused BSE to spread all throughout the island. By the time it was done the whole herd needed to be destroyed.

When it first started causing disease in humans there was VERY good reason to be concerned: millions had been exposed to the tainted beef, the gestation period for the disease was years long, and there was no real hope of developing a treatment. At first there was a distinct possibility that the human fatalities would be enormous. Luckily, this did not pan out.. within a few years of eliminating the tainted beef from the food supply the human cases slowed to a trickle.

I'd definitely agree that anyone worried about mad cow TODAY isn't being rational. There will probably always be the occasional cow that randomly comes down with BSE but as long as you don't feed cows to other cows and don't let sick cows into the human food supply, the chances of it ever spreading to another human are low.

Finally, pandemics are REAL: less than a century ago a single flu pandemic killed 2-3% of EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. Based on the history of the last few centuries I'd guess you probably have a ~1% chance of meeting your end to one. Sure, this isn't as high on the list as heart disease or cancer but it's not negligible either. (Plus a pandemic event would have massive societal effects for the survivors)

In short, don't be cocky just because we've dodged the last couple bullets. The wrong virus is still capable of ruining everybody's year.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[bugeaterr]

Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start. :D

Nothing a rogue black hole can't fix, or at least make a LOT smaller.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sgbett]

note capital 'T'

Terrorism
-noun
Terrorism adj. use by the media to sensationalise otherwise typical occurances into newsworth articles.
1. the use of panic and ignorance to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes
2. the state of fear and submission produced by government or governance
3. a Terroristic method of reporting or of interpreting news reports.

terrorism
-noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[JTsyo]

No, the black hole will just make the problems last a lot longer while we wait at the event horizon.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

3000 affected of roughly 200 million

um, you do realise that there are countries (and people) out there besides the USA, and that lions don't roam the streets of Joburg central, right? ;)

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[mdwh2]

It's not known if the Universe is infinite or not (I'm not sure what you mean by "partially infinite").

Even if it is, the article is "hundreds in the Milky Way", not "hundreds in the Universe". I am not aware that the number of observed candidates for black holes in our galaxy numbers in the hundreds, so this would still seem newsworthy.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the culprit. We just don't know it yet because these black holes are occurring backwards through time, a la "All Good Things".

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[argStyopa]

I wonder if one of these bloggers (and their apparently-infinite spare time) could add up ALL the various possible dangers, and the odds of it happening in a given year...odds of getting hit by lighting, 1:22 million. Odds of being in a car accident 1:50,000, etc, etc...I suspect that once you compiled a comprehensive list, you'd end up being nearly certain you'll die in the next year.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> 3000 affected of roughly 200 million (directly, not due to the political fallout).

I am so sick of this argument. And, how many would be affected if this were allowed to go on Monday-Friday, 52 weeks a year? How destroyed would the economy be when everyone stayed home and avoided high rises and large public gatherings?

>> Swine/bird flu?
Right now, anyone that shows up with symptoms is being treated like royalty. When hundreds of thousands are coming down with it every day, that situation will be different. And 36,000 deaths from the normal flu in the U.S. per year? Yep...that is right and 90% of those are 65 or older. Over 50% of that population is vaccinated against the flu every year. Ignoring everyone else and the fact that being around vaccinated people protects an unvaccinated person from the flu, you can expect ~68,000 deaths just from this age group (assuming this is just a "normal" flu). And what happens when the 50 million doses of antivirals on hand (in the U.S.) are gone and people are still getting sick? It will take eight months to have more available according to the leading manufacturer. (Vaccine is at least 6 months away.)

** Blackholes/Gamma Ray burst
Sure, your point is valid here. I worry about this crap (for no good reason...I mean, what the hell can anyone do about this?) But certainly, the masses shouldn't worry about it much. And you know what...I haven't heard the DHS/HHS/TSA/FBI/NSA/WHO/ET CETERA issuing warnings, asking people to take precautions, stirring panic over this

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[buckadude]

yep, that happened to my friend just yesterday. I'm sure it will cheer him up to hear that he could have been hit by a black hole.... i'll make sure to tell him when he is conscious.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[harperska]

um, you do realise that there are countries (and people) out there besides the USA

in which case both sides of the ratio would be larger, and the total proportion would be similar.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Loose Hole Coalition?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[1stvamp]

Fundamentalist poisonous food additives?
Ohnoes!!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[YttriumOxide]

Well, I would like to know, if a black hole comes by, does it actually pull a whole planet into its hole, do we know if this is possible...

If it has sufficient gravity, then yes, it is quite capable of "swallowing" a planet. Any black hole that formed in the "usual way" from a collapsing star, certainly has enough gravity (pretty much exactly the same as the star that it was before it collapsed) to suck in a nearby planet if the planet is unfortunate enough to be nearby. Of course, that's only really a problem with these "wandering" black holes - if our sun was mystically replaced with an equally massive black hole (which would be MUCH smaller in size), then the planets would continue to go around it exactly as they do now (although we'd all die from freezing since the hole isn't putting out heat like our sun does, but that's another matter entirely)

I mean at the core a small start implodes and turns into a black hole, but does it have enough strength to suck in another star, or even a whole solar system...

Again, depends on the size (gravity) of the hole, but generally yes - put two stars on a collision course and it'll be pretty nasty.

and what happens if you put 2 black holes side by side, do they cancel each other out...sort of like putting a bag of holding inside a bag of holding...?

Nope, they'd just "merge" in to one bigger one. So, two that had a mass of x, would become a single one with a mass of 2x.

Black holes are pretty weird and there's a lot of strange physics around them when you get deep in to it, but at the very basic level, they're not particularly odd at all - just think of them as objects with a REALLY large mass for their size (but still no larger than many other objects around, such as stars (of course, holes that used to be galactic centres are generally a bit bigger, since our best theories regarding black hole galactic centres involve a LOT of matter going in to creating them)).

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Opportunist]

So it's 3000 people out of roughly 8 billions?

What? What do you mean, "other people affected by terrorism"? That's not US citizens, so they don't count, have you been sleeping through "Global politics 101"?

Sorry for being cynical, but that's how it is. About 3000 people die in the WTC attack and suddenly the whole globe goes nuts. 3000 people died and die every single day in some civil war or similar massacre, and nobody gives a shit.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Large Hardon Collider?

Yeah. That's gotta hurt.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Inner_Child]

Loose Hole Coalition?

What does a group of Vegas hookers have to do with anything?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[ScentCone]

Anything else we need to be worrying about?

Apparently, yes. The political appointee in the White House who plans $300,000 photo ops involving Air Force One, F-16s, and major landmarks... he seems to be worth keeping an eye on.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see....

There's the coordinated attack on secondary school science standards, their constant attempts to destroy the recognition of church-state separation, their bigoted hate-speech enflaming public opinon against the minority du-jour (especially in Europe), violence against medical care providers, violence against homosexuals, violence against other religious adherents, their routine attempts to repeal various freedoms and rights....

Just because they kill fewer people than other fanatics doesn't make them harmless.

Also, I'd like to go ahead and pre-empt whoever wants to pull the "but the people that do those things are a minority!" by pointing out that nobody ever specified in what quantity they exist nor ranked them in relation to other threats.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Gilmoure]

Squirrels? Just saw a documentary about a girl who got squirrels in her pants.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Eli Gottlieb]

No, that stuff falls under "jews" ;-).

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[landaishan]

lol

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[errxn]

Meh. I got hit with plenty of "loose roaming black holes" in college, and I'm none the worse for wear. Well, mostly.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the people who live under their beds are the monsters.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[impaledsunset]

You all seem to be missing more immediate worries. You forgot to include women. I thought an average slashdotter wouldn't leave out such a major treat.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[impaledsunset]

And you would miss all that fun? It would certainly make your life worth, I mean, who doesn't like monsters? And no need to worry about getting hit by a car, catching swine flu or getting raped by some desperate pretty blonde girl on the street...

Come on man, you've that ultimate chance, would you go for it or just let it slip?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[SupremoMan]

He already mentioned fundamentalists of most religions. What other kind of terrorists do we have? A naked PETA chump with a jar of paint?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Jesus_666]

That's right! Why use the LHC to create black holes when we can simply fetch one of those already flying around everywhere? Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Atari400]

A black hole is much more likely to perturb the orbit of the Earth than to actually swallow it. Of course, if you wave goodbye to the habitable zone the net effect is the same.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[DinDaddy]

I am beginning to think there may be an infinite number of ways to spell infinite.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only to the external observer! The rest of us in the black hole will fly along at our usual speeds. Though I imagine a permanent snapshot of us in our current state will not impress the rest of the universe. :-(

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[radtea]

Looks like everyone has already forgot...

No, we just remember that KDawson and other irresponsible sensation-mongers are guilty of killing far more people and blighting far more lives than any of the supposed "dangers" they hysterically scream about.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[arminw]

....Nothing a rogue black hole can't fix,....

The problem can't be fixed this way because there are no such things as black holes. There is a line in the article that says:

->However, not much tangible evidence supports the theory.-

Mathematical simulations are fun to watch especially when turned into colorful videos, but in this case have no relationship to reality. No direct evidence of a black hole has ever been found neither have their cousins dark energy and dark matter.

So sorry to disappoint you, no black hole will come along and fix humanity's problems.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Ajaxamander]

such a major treat.

Freudian typo? t{h}reat?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[sfazzio]

The thing with black holes is that they have the same gravitational pull as the star that forms it. Yeah, it'd suck if Earth collided with a black hole, but it'd also suck if we collided with a star, and as far as I can tell there are a lot more stars than black holes.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget fine christian organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the IRA. Not to mention the eight years the US just went through being run by a religious fanatic who had people tortured, killed thousands of US troops and many, many thousands of foreigners, mostly civilians.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Shakrai]

What other kind of terrorists do we have?

Eco-terrorists. Domestic terrorists who aren't motivated by religion (OKC bombing).

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[cpartrid]

Must have been the gravitational pull of a black hole moving my keyboard around while I was typing.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[kenp2002]

let's not forget the secular horrors including eugenics, nuclear weapons, lobotomies, communism, and all those other enlightened idealogies that don't rely on superstition. And lets not skip over fundamentalist eco-terrorists, fundementalist PETA members, or for that matter fundamentalists in general.

As if religion held some kind of monopoly on dangerous fundamentalists. You seem to have a selective memory in that regard...

More people in the 20th century have been murdered in the name of non-religious enlightment with communism still in the lead.

Evil, as a concept is an equal opportunity force and rather well divisified in the idelogies and social groups it infects.

First it was pedophile priests but soon we found that as a percentage it was no different then school teachers or prison guards. We found that evil doesn't have a gender bias or apparently an ideology bias.

Leave your enlightened bigotry in the closet please, we have little use for any form of it.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Bemopolis]

At least you left out all the conspiracy crap, like alien invasions, mind control probes and terrorism.

That's what he WANTS you to think. You bought the lie, you simple-minded dilettante!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[steveo777]

I wouldn't worry too much about the fundamentalist Christians. At most they'll just smack you on the forehead and yell "BE HEALED". (okay, so maybe they'll bomb your abortion clinic, loonies...)

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Mister_Stoopid]

I figure it'll take them about, say, 2.5 years more to get it going? Yeah, that sounds about right...

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought PETA _was_ a religion...

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[averner]

That's what has puzzled me to no end since the onset of various hypes. SARS? Your chance to catch it? Play the lottery if you do, your chance for a jackpot is higher. Mad cow? Ditto. Terrorism? 3000 affected of roughly 200 million (directly, not due to the political fallout). Swine/bird flu?

And now compare that to the chance of a heart attack. Lung cancer. Getting run over by a car. Getting mugged. And various freak accidents that happen all the time.

It's a miracle that you're still alive! And it's not because of black holes, not because of terrorism, not because of pandemics. It's because you're living.

Your alternative is to spend your life under your bed. But then again, where's the difference to being dead already?

Nice false dichotomy. The truth is, you'll do a lot to extend your lifespan if you eat healthy, don't smoke, drive a safe car while sober, live in a safe neighborhood, etc. There are, in fact, a lot of things you can do that are underrated in effectiveness by the general population, whereas terrorists and exotic diseases are overrated. The correct approach is to be aware of them.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[NeoSkandranon]

Don't forget poor spelling.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Stratocastr]

global echonomic collaps

An echonomic collapse happens when the greed of a select few echoes off of the ignorance of the many.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Crysm]

This is an excellent point. I love it when people point out what should be obvious.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Longer? From YOUR reference point maybe...

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[God_TM]

Bears.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[donbenot]

SAVED!!! Sorry you apparently are not.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[HTH NE1]

such a major treat.

Freudian typo? t{h}reat?

No, a Freudian typo would be t{r}eat.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[HTH NE1]

And the biggest risk that most of us face, getting hit by a car on the way to work.

In my experience, it's more likely one gets hit by a car on the way home from work. More people tend to be in a more reckless hurry leaving work than (are) going to it.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[MCZapf]

Here's a start: death rates by age.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[darkmeridian]

You missed the boat entirely by claiming that the federal and state governments failed to overreact to Hurricane Katrina. Governmental response were almost negligently nonchalant. With a storm bearing down on a densely-populated city, the government did not order a mandatory evacuation. They did not activate the National Guard to help evacuations. They did not bus people out in advance of the storms.

You could say that the residents should have left on their own accord. You could, but you'd be wrong. Many of the poor did not have access to cars or other means of transportation. Roads were clogged by hasty evacuations. Cars were breaking down or running out of gas on the road, stymieing transportation.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[jc42]

... add up ALL the various possible dangers, and the odds of it happening in a given year...odds of getting hit by lighting, 1:22 million. Odds of being in a car accident 1:50,000, etc, etc...I suspect that once you compiled a comprehensive list, you'd end up being nearly certain you'll die in the next year.

A few years back, I read an interesting article whose authors pretty much did just that, and wrote about the conclusions. One of their more interesting ways of expressing the results of the study was: Suppose that medical science found a way to eliminate aging, so that we all stayed permanently in the state of health of a person in their 20s, and only died of things at the rate that 25-year-olds died of them. How much would this increase our expected lifespan? The answer turned out to be about 15 years.

It put an interesting perspective on a lot of the hype around various medical scare stories. Yes, we do get older and feebler, and it'd be nice if we could fix that. But such medical advances by themselves wouldn't actually increase our lifespan by much. To do that, we have to fix the zillions of (mostly unlikely) things that would keep killing us off at a low rate.

I don't think black holes were on their list of dangers, though. And what we know of the history our planet tells us that asteroid impacts are a more significant danger.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[MBGMorden]

I think what scares people more about certain things is their ability to affect multiple people all at once. If a black hole passes through the system, I don't just die - everyone a I know (including the whole species) dies. That alone scares me more than my own death, and so even if the odds are much lower of it happening, the consequences are so much more dire that it'll weigh heavier on my mind. Not that that's necessarily a logical position, but humans being driven by emotion rather than pure logic is nothing new.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[jc42]

The political appointee in the White House who plans $300,000 photo ops involving Air Force One, F-16s, and major landmarks... he seems to be worth keeping an eye on.

Heh. He seems to have been as surprised by that fun story as the rest of us.

Part of the problem here is that our government (and a few others) are sufficiently big and complex that no single leader, no matter how good he might be, can keep an eye on all the bizarre activities going on in there. So while you're keeping an eye on him, you might also pick out a few government agencies and keep your other eye on them, too. Tell us if you find anything "interesting", because we'll be busy watching some of the others.

Maybe I'll add a link to one of the better reactions to that incident that has appeared so far. It all started from an editor's suggestion that "the White House staffers could've gotten better results - for a lot less money - from the comforts of their own D.C. offices using a program like Photoshop." There's still time to contribute to the effort ...

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eco-terrorists. Domestic terrorists who aren't motivated by religion (OKC bombing).

Too bad OKC bombing wasn't done by an eco-terrorist, try a survivalist neo-nazi.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[jc42]

A couple of years ago, there was an astronomy news story about the discovery that our nearest spiral-galaxy neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, has two large black holes (with masses of several million sols) in its core. This explained some of the anomalies in that galaxy's shape, which isn't quite as flat or symmetrical as you'd expect a big spiral to be. The suggested explanation is a merger with another galaxy that probably happened several billion years ago, long enough that the resulting mess has settled down into what at first glance looks like a single normal spiral galaxy.

This isn't at all unusual, though. There are lots of galactic collisions visible in space. There was a fun one a few days ago on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. Stories on them generally explain that few if any of the stars collide, because they're too far apart. The dust and gas clouds do collide, and the result is a period of star formation. In many cases, simulations show that the galaxies merge, typically producing an elliptical galaxy if both were large and had different orientations. In the Andromeda case, they were probably roughly coplanar, so the merger just produced a slightly bigger spiral.

Another recent story is about calculations showing that the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are on a collision course, and will collide in several billion years. The result may look a lot like the above picture to astronomers in other nearby galaxies.

Astronomers have also found the remnants of several smaller galaxies that our Milky Way has gobbled up. They were generally disrupted, but most of the stars from a single such galaxy now have similar orbits, so each appears as a loose "stream" of stars with a thickening that corresponds to the core of the original small galaxy. It's likely that each such smaller galaxy contributed one or more "medium" black holes (with a few thousand solar masses) to our galaxy.

Anyway, this story isn't especially surprising to anyone who follows atronomy news.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[jackchance]

Actually, guessing at the lifestyle of many ./ers i would say heart-disease and type-2 diabetes are bigger risks.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Hindu, you insensitive clod!

In my case it's anything greater than 130F

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[DMUTPeregrine]

As a Jew, I'd have modded that funny. It's a very Jewish-style joke.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[husker_man]

You missed the boat entirely by claiming that the federal and state governments failed to overreact to Hurricane Katrina. Governmental response were almost negligently nonchalant. With a storm bearing down on a densely-populated city, the government did not order a mandatory evacuation. They did not activate the National Guard to help evacuations. They did not bus people out in advance of the storms.

It was the responsibility of the State and local government (City of New Orleans) to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. It was the responsibility of the State of Louisiana to activate the National Guard. It was the responsibility of the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans to bus people out in advance of the storm. Instead, neither the local or the state government did anything other than sit on their hands and whine that the Federal government (which was not intended to be on the scene immediately) wasn't there.

Now, we have this travesty of a supposed epidemic getting all of the politicians worried about their future careers if they give a realistic view of the problems about this swine flu pandemic. It feels to me like we've become a nation of cowards about any natural event, whether it is disease, earthquake or fire.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[ScentCone]

The guy I'm referring to isn't the C-in-C, but the person in the White House's military planning office. Used to always be a general or an admiral - the sort of senior people who know better, and are otherwise active duty officers. Not any more - the post has been politicized by the new administration... and lookee what happens!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

How could you forget swine flu?

How could you forget "Terrorism" more like.

Can't it be both?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

More than 3000 children around the world die every day from starvation and treatable diseases and nobody gives a shit.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Eli Gottlieb]

And I'm one, as I thought my name showed. I'm attempting to seed a meme of "Gottlieb's Law" to counter conspiracy crap: "As the length of a conspiracy-theoretic conversation or discussion grows, the probability of someone assigning blame to the Jews approaches 1".

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[MillionthMonkey]

and as far as I can tell there are a lot more stars than black holes.

WTF? How can you tell there are more stars than black holes? I have trouble when I try to count the holes.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[RockDoctor]

Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start.

Why would you exclude other christians than fundamentalists? They are just as insane as the rest.

I'm not a fan of god-squaddies in general, may they rot in their own personal hells for all the eternities they desire under the torments of real "Room 101" experts, but I have to admit that non-fundamentalist Christians are often (possible "generally") not quite as spittle-dribblingly insane as their fundamentalist brethren. Equally, the dealings that I've had with fundamentalist Muslims indicate that they're as insane or more insane as their fundamentalist Christian sisteren (there seems to be no good antonym for "brethren"), while non-fundamentalist Jews, Muslims, Bahai's, Hindus, Buddhists and Wiccans don't generally have other consistent noxious habits.

The insanity seems to be associated with being fundamentalist, rather than the particular religion that you choose to take from normal silliness to insane degrees of silliness.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Fuzzums]

Don't forget about cars.

More people get killed by cars than by terrorism

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[AP31R0N]

Indeed, terrorism is not about motive, but about tactics and goals. Tactics being "things that cause terror" and goals being "influence people/gov'ts". One can have the cause of religious fundamentalism w/o being a terrorist. One could be a terrorist in the emacs/vi wars by planting car bombs to kill vi users.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[frenchgates]

Actually you're making the same mistake as most apologists, defining religion down instead of up. Most of the ideologies you add to the list share much more in common with religion than with enlightenment ideas. Communism, nazism, etc are close enough to religions to earn the name.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[BoothbyTCD]

I suppose pointing out that historically the IRA were socialists and more or less anti-clerical would be unwelcome here?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[peetm]

Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start. :D

Who's this 'fundamentalist christian' you're referring to - the Pope?

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[Thing 1]

But such medical advances by themselves wouldn't actually increase our lifespan by much. To do that, we have to fix the zillions of (mostly unlikely) things that would keep killing us off at a low rate.

No, we just have to be able to make backups. Singularity, here we come!

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

...suddenly the whole globe goes nuts.

Correction, the USA went nuts (and started stomping through the china shop).

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[hesaigo999ca]

Cool, that is a great input on multiple super black holes within a galaxy....makes sense...I would still like to see what happens when 1 blackhole comes too close to another....now that would be something.

Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes?

[hesaigo999ca]

Cool

It's the economy!

[Dutchmaan]

Perhaps all our money really WAS disappearing through a black hole!

Re:It's the economy!

[noundi]

Inflation means that the currency has been devalued, thus we have too much money. I realise it's a joke, but even jokes need to make sense.

Re:It's the economy!

[TerribleNews]

I think what we were actually seeing was virtual money. The uncertainty principle says that we can either know how much money we have or how fast we're spending it, but not both, and since we choose to measure GDP...

Maybe we'll get lucky and one of those rogue black holes will sweep through Wall St.

Re:It's the economy!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have too much money I will be glad to take some off your hands...

Re:It's the economy!

[batquux]

That sucks.

Re:It's the economy!

[Dutchmaan]

Inflation means that the currency has been devalued, thus we have too much money. I realise it's a joke, but even jokes need to make sense.

I'll bet you're a blast at parties.

Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[MichaelSmith]

I wonder if black holes could account for either of these things? Gamma rays would be released if a large mass hits a black hole. A cosmic ray could be accelerated if it passes too close to a black hole.

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamma-ray bursts = an advanced civilization switching on its own LHC.

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[Anonymous Coward]

A cosmic ray is accelerated when it passes close to a black hole, but then it decelerates back to its original speed as it moves away. What, did you think that black holes could be used to break the laws of thermodynamics? Tsk tsk.

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamma-ray bursts = A FORMERLY advanced civilization switching on its own LHC.

There, fixed that for ya!

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[ceriphim]

By definition, if cosmic rays passed "too close" to a black hole it would enter the event horizon, from which it could not be accelerated away. Did you mean "close, but not too close", perhaps?

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[dissy]

By definition, if cosmic rays passed "too close" to a black hole it would enter the event horizon, from which it could not be accelerated away. Did you mean "close, but not too close", perhaps?

That is just a figure of speech.

Like saying "Wow that was a near miss!" when in fact a near miss means they hit, and the proper term is a 'near hit' since they nearly did but did not.

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[dcollins117]

A cosmic ray is accelerated when it passes close to a black hole, but then it decelerates back to its original speed as it moves away.What, did you think that black holes could be used to break the laws of thermodynamics?

In other words, it fought the law, but the law won.

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[jae471]

Or the black hole loses an equal amount of momentum imparted to cosmic ray. Gravity Assist

Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays

[Bill Currie]

No, "a near miss" is correct. As in, it missed, but it was very near the target (as opposed to a "far miss" (not normally said?): a long way off target).

FTFS: The Milky Way Swallows

[Anonymous Coward]

My kind of galaxy!

Re:FTFS: The Milky Way Swallows

[Anonymous Coward]

She swallows the milky

Remembers me of this prank

[superFoieGras]

Anyone remember this prank with the British red devil ? He planted hundreds of dog craps across a walking bridge so you had no way to avoid them...

Nah, I call BS

[DavidRawling]

Scenario. The Milky Way swallows a galaxy, and by extension, all the stars around the central black hole. Yet, the same gravity that causes the stars to amalgamate completely misses the biggest mass in that swallowed galaxy? Why would that make sense?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

Scenario. The Milky Way swallows a galaxy, and by extension, all the stars around the central black hole. Yet, the same gravity that causes the stars to amalgamate completely misses the biggest mass in that swallowed galaxy? Why would that make sense?

The only bit which I think is strange is that the black hole from the swallowed galaxy hangs around in our galaxy. It should have enough velocity to pass right through our galaxy and never come back. Most likely the captured stars would die of old age before they passed though our galaxy. Only red dwarfs would keep going because of their long life. Gas clouds in the captured galaxy would interact with our gas clouds. I think that is the only component which would really get captured.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Brown]

The Milky Way swallows a galaxy, and the swallowed galaxy's stars get added to the milky way, orbiting the galactic centre in the usual way. Presumably the same happens to the black hole - there's no reason why it should be sucked into the middle. Black holes will happily orbit around each other, as long as they're outside each other's event horizons.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[4D6963]

What makes you think the black hole would have a trajectory any different from any of the stars from the captured galaxy? Because it's marginally heavier than the other stars?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[markusre]

since the gravitation force is ~M_blackhole*M_milkyway and F_bh=m_bh*a i dont think the trajectorie is dependent on the mass of the particle in the first order as long as m_bhm_milkyway

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

What makes you think the black hole would have a trajectory any different from any of the stars from the captured galaxy? Because it's marginally heavier than the other stars?

I think the black hole and stars from the captured galaxy will not change their trajectory when they enter our galaxy. Gas clouds will change their trajectory because they are big and diffuse. The galaxy will appear to be captured because the bright stars inside it will burn out and no more will be born with the original trajectory because the gas clouds have gone.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

The Milky Way swallows a galaxy, and the swallowed galaxy's stars get added to the milky way, orbiting the galactic centre in the usual way. Presumably the same happens to the black hole - there's no reason why it should be sucked into the middle. Black holes will happily orbit around each other, as long as they're outside each other's event horizons.

Why would the stars and black hole change their trajectory significantly? They are passing through a near perfect vacuum. I could believe that a galaxy from the halo of our galaxy could pass through our galactic disc and lose all its gas clouds, but the black hole would keep right on going.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

since the gravitation force is ~M_blackhole*M_milkyway and F_bh=m_bh*a i dont think the trajectorie is dependent on the mass of the particle in the first order as long as m_bhm_milkyway

No but the velocity change caused by drag depends on the density of the object. Stars and black holes won't experience significant drag. Gas cloud molecules will. When they hit another cloud gas will be compressed in a shock wave and new stars will form.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[KDR_11k]

Why would the stars and black hole change their trajectory significantly?

Gravity?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

Why would the stars and black hole change their trajectory significantly?

Gravity?

Gravity can change the direction of travel of a black hole or star. It can't significantly change momentum unless the object passes very close to a large mass. Our space probes do that at Jupiter, etc, but that requires guidance or an extreme amount of luck. To be captured by gravitational slingshot a black hole would have to pass very close to our own central black hole. Thats not very likely.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[AlecC]

Because the galaxy is not a point mass. Most ordinary star/planet modelling is based on viewing each object as a sphere, which behaves as a point mass at the centre. But when you penetrate inside another body, as two galaxies do when they collide, this simplification no longer applies. Some of the mass of the "other" galaxy moves behind the penetrating galaxy, slowing it down rather than, as the point mass model would suggest, continuing to accelerate into the centre. In the simplest model, of inter-penetrating spheres, gravity no longer has an inverse square law but an inverse linear law. Of course, galaxies are not uniform spheres, and the modelling is much harder. However, it is widely accepted that when two galaxies collide, they merge and the vast majority of the mass forms a single galaxy - though clusters may be flung out. If the galaxies are of broadly similar masses, the distinctive spiral structure is wiped out and the merged result becomes an elliptical galaxy for a few hundred million years before the spiral structure re-establishes.

Google "andromeda collisions" for simulations of the collision between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy in about 3 billion years.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Brown]

There is clearly enough gravitational pull from the galactic centre to keep the milky way together, despite its spin - so presumably this would have a considerable effect on other smaller galaxies passing through it, especially if their relative velocities were low in relation to their size.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[stonewallred]

What happens when two black holes actually intersect at their event horizons? Inquiring non-astrophysicists would like to know.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MichaelSmith]

Yes I can see that your argument might work as a gravitational slingshot. The way I visualise it is that the time you spend on certain trajectories in a gravitational field can determine the amount of energy you transfer through the field. A helicopter hovering above the ground will use an infinite amount of energy in an infinite time. A satellite can orbit the Earth for an infinite time for zero energy cost. If I fall towards jupiter and fire an engine at accelerate at closest approach I will spend less time in Jupiters gravitational field on the way out. Jupiter will have tugged me more one way than the other during the encounter so kinetic energy and momentum have been transferred through the gravitational field.

Now looking at your scenario of passing through a galaxy, I could think of it as passing 10 stars. Once I pass the first star its gravitational field will start to reduce my acceleration. Once in the middle my velocity will be lower than it would have been if I had been passing a point source. This gives more time for me to interact with the remaining five stars on the way out, so more of my momentum will be transferred to them than was transferred to me on the way in.

So yes, I see your point.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[anandsr]

I wouldn't have much faith in this, precisely because it would have been done based on Newtonian gravity. It does not take care of the MOND phenomenology. With MOND in the picture things may be totally different.

MOND is an empirical equation which predicts the rotation curves based on the visible mass in Galaxies. It works beautifully at Galactic scales but does not work well at cluster scales.

We know that General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) both are mutually incompatible, which indicates that something is wrong in both of them. In addition GR does not work well when we get very high gravitational fields like a black hole. The equations lead to a singularity. It works beautifully when gravity is somewhat lower but doesn't seem to work well below a threshold, which leads us to the prediction of Dark Matter, with really weird properties to account for the lack of observation.

Also GR takes into account only one special constant speed of light or the maximum signal speed. It does not take into account the Planck's Length or the minimal wavelength of the signal. This is probably why it does not work well with QM. The modification due to taking into account the Planck's length may cause MOND we don't know.

-anand

Re:Nah, I call BS

[CrashandDie]

To be captured by gravitational slingshot a black hole would have to pass very close to our own central black hole. Thats not very likely.

They've had billions of years to practise. One of them is bound to get lucky at some point.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[beanyk]

What happens when two black holes actually intersect at their event horizons? Inquiring non-astrophysicists would like to know.

They merge into one bigger hole. The final hole mass will be (almost) the sum of the two masses, and will likely have a significant spin, even if the pre-merger holes don't.

Disclaimer: this is actually my area of research.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[evanbd]

They merge into a single black hole, spherical except for the deformations resulting from spin. If they're in close orbit, they'll lose energy to gravity waves and other forms of radiation (both Hawking and synchrotron) and spiral into each other. The gravity waves should be quite strong -- one of the sources that LIGO etc ought to be able to detect.

Of course, IANAA either, so I might be off base here, but that's my recollection as to what happens.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Sockatume]

A massive energy release. Much of the energy is released as EM, but a great deal of it comes in the form of gravity waves. Observatories like LIGO are hoping for black hole collisions, because they're some of the strongest gravity wave sources we'd expect to see.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it possible for the two holes to merge with each other? It was my understanding that nothing could reach the event horizon of a black hole because, as you approach it, time moves increasingly slowly, until ultimately, at the exact point of the event horizon, time moves infinitely slowly.

Wouldn't this mean that the two black holes would never be able to touch each other and merge?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[beanyk]

Well for one thing, the "time moving slowly" thing is an observer-dependent effect. If you were the one falling into the hole, you wouldn't notice any real time lag at all [depending on the size of the hole -- and your personal oxygen supply, etc -- you might even survive crossing the horizon].

But to a distant observer, your progress would look more and more gradual. Signals leaving you would also get more and more red-shifted, and eventually pass out of the visible spectrum. So a distant observer would never see you cross the horizon.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I assume that the difference between the mass of the product hole and the sum of the masses of the two predecessor holes is released as energy?

Also, a wilder question: when the two event horizons come into contact, is it possible for a "bubble" to form for a short time between them which is cut off from the rest of space-time by the two event horizons, but is not technically within either - sort of a Chandrasekharian Kaliningrad? I have no idea what the effect of something like that would be (obviously whatever was inside would eventually end up inside the event horizon of the combined object), but it seems like an interesting situation.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[melikamp]

Just guessing, but from the outside they probably look like two blobs joining into a single blob.

A more interesting question would be, what if the universe is shaped kind of like a 3-d donut (with 3-d "surface", folded in 4-d), and you take so many black holes that you can string them together and make a "belt" out of them. Will it remain as a stable "black belt"?

Dibs on nomenclature!

Re:Nah, I call BS

[digitalchinky]

There might be enough gravity, unless we can build an FTL drive of some type, who can really tell. Theories such as dark matter and dark energy try fill the gap, though there are some new ideas popping up that say these big universal constants might not be so constant after all. Blasphemous I know. Apologies if you are a physicist or something and understand this infinitely better than I do. (There are no stupid statements, just one stupid me) :-)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

> What happens when two black holes actually
> intersect at their event horizons? Inquiring
> non-astrophysicists would like to know.

Big Badaboom.

(IANAAP)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[4D6963]

Right, of course you realise that it's all infirmed by both galaxy collision simulations and actual galaxy collisions that we can look at, right? You're clearly underestimating the gravitational pull that our galaxy has. Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to say? (that wasn't very clear to me)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

At what speed do they need to spin in order for them not to collapse?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[beanyk]

Can I assume that the difference between the mass of the product hole and the sum of the masses of the two predecessor holes is released as energy?

Yes; the mass difference is radiated as gravitational waves.

Also, a wilder question: when the two event horizons come into contact, is it possible for a "bubble" to form for a short time between them which is cut off from the rest of space-time by the two event horizons, but is not technically within either - sort of a Chandrasekharian Kaliningrad?

I'm not absolutely sure, but I haven't seen results from any simulation that hasn't maintained a "simply connected" (i.e. no strange disconnected regions) common horizon.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

... So yes, I see your point.

Oh good! Everyone, feel free to breathe again... MichaelSmith says we won't have to rewrite classical mechanics after all.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[TapeCutter]

It's also worth pointing out galaxies orbit each other and when the galaxies are of similar size you get repeated collisions before a merger. Black holes were a mathematical conjecture when I was a kid and we still tend to think of galaxies as islands that occasionally bump into each other but advances in astronomy and computing are telling us it's a much more dynamic and structured universe than we thought existed 30-40yrs ago.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: this is actually my area of research.

How is that a disclaimer, or A statement made to free oneself from responsibility?

Maybe a disclosure? Yeah, that's what you meant.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[beanyk]

At what speed do they need to spin in order for them not to collapse?

All current research seems to indicate that eventually -all- orbiting BHs will merge eventually, regardless of spin. When the holes are large and aligned with the orbital angular momentum, it will -delay- merger: the system has to radiate more angular momentum before it can collapse.

One of the first numerical relativity papers to demonstrate this effect can be found here: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0604012

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

>So a distant observer would never see you cross
>the horizon.

Right...it seems to me that from our frame of reference here on Earth, we should never be able to observe a black hole that has merged with another black hole at any point in the past. Two black holes approaching each other would seem to move ever more slowly, and never manage to merge.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[melikamp]

A thin-walled bubble with a membrane is simply connected.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Shakrai]

But when you penetrate inside another body

There aren't too many slashdotters that can relate to your analogy. May I suggest a car one instead? ;)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[FiloEleven]

The only bit which I think is strange is that the black hole from the swallowed galaxy hangs around in our galaxy. It should [...] pass right through our galaxy and never come back.

Gas clouds in the captured galaxy would interact with our gas clouds.

Why does it always have to be us versus them? Is it a color issue? ;)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[bcrowell]

Here's what I don't understand. TFA states that it's believed to be common for black holes to merge. Why would this be common? A supermassive black hole has an event horizon with a radius of about 0.1 AU, which makes a collision cross-section on the order of 10^-2 AU. Given that typical orbital periods in a galaxy are something like 10^8 years, the two black holes are only going to get ~100 chances to collide over the present age of the universe, so I would think the probability of a direct collision would be extremely low. Are there dissipative mechanisms that tend to bring the captured hole closer and closer to the galactic center?

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Locke2005]

Google "andromeda collisions" for simulations of the collision between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy in about 3 billion years.
 
Oh shit!!! We're gonna collide with Andromeda in 3 billion years?!? I sincerely hope I can get all of my real estate holdings sold before then!

Re:Nah, I call BS

[AlecC]

I think that is so. I think the mechanism described in another followup by MichaelSmith applies. If anything is diving into and out of the halo of stars around the galactic centre, it loses energy because the gravitational field is no longer following the inverse square law. Basically, as it passes near stars from the galaxy it is hitting, it will drag them along behind it, but lose energy to them. Thus, either it zooms in once and then flies out, as TFA says is freshly discovered to be more likely than expected, or as it continues orbiting the other black hole, it is steadily losing energy to the stars that other black hole's galaxy. The stars within that galaxy are, however, "stirred up" by the passing black hole and, as has been known for some time, can be thrown right out of the galaxy into intergalactic space.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Main Gauche]

Disclaimer: this is actually my area of research.

We'll try to believe you anyway.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. This would be one of those weird "objects can't move faster than c, but these two objects are moving apart at 1.5 c, but that's ok, it's just space expanding" type of things. Think about it this way, as the two black holes approach, their gravitational effects are already combining from the point of view of objects being drawn to them. So, their event horizons change shape... Actually, the more I think about this, the weirder it gets. For an object on the opposite side of one of the black holes from the other black hole, the gravity would increase, so the event horizon would extend outwards... On the other hand, between the two black holes, the gravity would cancel out, there would be a lagrange point between them, and the event horizons would recede. I'm having trouble conceptualizing what that means for an object falling into the even horizon at a point where the horizon recedes. Can it actually escape the event horizon at that point (if it can, it's a pity we'd probably never be able to observe it, it would, after all, be escaping into an inferno of unimaginable energies), or does it simply follow the even horizon instantaneously as it recedes? Presumably, the event horizon between the black holes would be stripped back all the way to... to what? Can we imagine a surface of the black hole? Does it have one, or is it all time dilated unknowable singularity in there? Anyway, as the black holes get close enough, the event horizons around them, twisted into bizarre geometries though they may be, would enlarge and merge into one larger event horizon, so that bit in the middle where the event horizon recedes would be surrounded and cut off from the rest of the universe.
That got me thinking about gravity cancellation and lagrange points. It's generally accepted that forces cancel out. If Bob and Joe are pulling on Tim's arms in opposite directions with the same amount of force, Tim doesn't go anywhere. If Bob and Joe are elephants, Tim becomes TimA and TimB, two probably unequally divided parts of Tim, now moving apart. This doesn't happen with gravitational forces because they're pulling evenly on every particle of Tim. The particles themselves don't pull apart, maybe because the nuclear forces are so strong at close range, or is it because the granularity of gravity acts at the level of the particles, so it doesn't pull unevenly on any part. So what happens when the gravity pulling from both sides is intensely powerful? What level does gravity act on. Do atoms hold together? Yes, no, what about individual baryons? It sounds like it would be a very interesting wall to be a fly on.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[jae471]

MOND has been debunked. Recent observations from a galactic collision show the dark matter halo trailing the normal matter. We know the dark matter halo is trailing based on the gravitational lensing of a distant galaxy. While I had nothing against MOND, the confirmation of dark matter halos pretty much kills it.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[CodeBuster]

I seem to recall that Kip Thorne of Caltech had a discussion and explanation of just such a collision (complete with hand sketched drawings!) in one of his books written for the lay audience (i.e. those of use who aren't PhD astrophysicists). If I remember correctly then such a collision will result in a significant amount of spin being carried over into the new and larger hole (in fact the new whole will actually store some its mass as spin energy in the swirling space time surrounding the hole). He also included a science fiction short story which suggested that a sufficiently advanced civilization or group of colonists might construct a ring framework around the hole and then use a magnetic field to 'extract' energy from the spin of black whole, thereby generating electricity and also slowing the spin of the whole, although it would supposedly take a very long time for the ring-world civilization to extract all of the energy stored in the spin of the hole.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[zeropointburn]

That island of stability is still subject to tidal gravitational stress. The gravitational forces between the two black holes do not cancel out exactly. It is like an unstable lagrange point, where drifting off to either side even slightly will put you out of the 'stable' zone.
  So, Bob and Joe are still pulling really hard on Tim. Right in the middle of Tim, the forces do cancel out. At Tim's head (or arms) and his feet, they do not. I'd imagine that most configurations with a stable point would be roughly equal in mass, so the tidal force would not be too significant unless they were small black holes and very close together.
  As for atomic stability, if one black hole does not rip the atoms apart, then two certainly will not do so (barring odd configurations with spin and charge that are beyond my simple understanding).

Re:Nah, I call BS

[sznupi]

For some reason I have difficulties visualising it in a way that agrees with my (silly?) notion of event horizon which isn't really that special, it's mostly about the singularity.

And while in many/most such collisions getting close would be enough, I would intuitively guess that in some cases (two black holes almost head-on, both almost at c) one of the singularities would actually have to get inside the other event horizon to not be able to escape.

If you have a way to explain this in a short and moderatelly easy way I'd be thankfull. Note: I was postponing for a few years the moment when I will truly dig into books about those issues, so not need to bother if it becomes clear only much further. Right now I just suspect it might have something to do with changing/exchanging natures of space and time components of spacetime after crossing event horizon.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[MBGMorden]

Because it's marginally heavier than the other stars?

Remember that it's usually super-massive black holes at the center of a galaxy. Not your average run of the mill black hole. Now I know that they mentioned "medium sized" in the summary since these would presumably be from dwarf galaxies, but we don't have a good definition of "medium sized". Just for example though, the smallest black holes are about 3-4 solar masses (usually it takes a star at least 10+ solar masses to actually form a black hole, but a lot of the mass is thrown off in the resulting supernova). By comparison to that 3-4 solar masses for small stellar black holes, the black hole at the center of the galaxy is around 3 million solar masses. That's way more than "marginally heavier".

Re:Nah, I call BS

[jc42]

There is clearly enough gravitational pull from the galactic centre to keep the milky way together, despite its spin ...

Actually, it's known that galaxies sometimes evict some of their members via gravitational interaction. Treating a galaxy as a single mass at its center is only useful for calculations between galaxies some distance from each other. When dealing with the internal dynamics of galaxies, you can't model galaxies as point objects. You have to treat them as collections of objects, each with its own mass and motion vector, if you want your model to be at all useful. This can take a lot of processing power.

Thus, our solar system doesn't really orbit the center of our galaxy. Rather, it just sorta ambles along its current path, with gravitational interaction with each of the other individual masses (stars, dust clouds, black holes, etc.) in the rest of the galaxy. The other things nearby are likely to have larger effects than that clump of stars and the black hole down in the center. Individual stars like ours have somewhat irregular "orbits" over time.

Our sun's path does curve into an orbit of sorts, since the mean mass is off to the left side of our path. But the orbits of stars around the galaxy are nowhere near as regular and predictable as the orbits of the planets in our solar system. Over the more that 200 million years that it takes us to make one trip around the galaxy, there will be a lot of passing stars and massive clouds on slightly different paths, and their gravity will slightly change our path.

In any case, to get a realistic model, it's better to treat a galaxy as a gaggle of separate objects, each following its own path independently of the others. That path is affected by the gravity of all the others, so you get wobbly, irregular orbits around the center of mass. But that center really isn't a physical "thing" in its own right; it's merely the average of the jumble of smaller masses in the general vicinity. This is something very different from our solar system, where over 99% of the mass is concentrated in the object at the center. (And even there, it turns out that the center of mass of our solar system isn't actually within the sun.)

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I was worried enough about these 'roaming black holes' and now you have to bring up this impending Andromeda disaster?? Are you really trying to scare me!

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Kagura]

He means that a strong gravity source in our galaxy doesn't automatically force an incoming celestial body into a circular orbit. It needs to interact with a third object in some way in order to keep the incoming celestial body from either passing through the galaxy or being flung out.

Re:Nah, I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I was thinking that staying at a lagrange point between two supermassive objects would be a bit like balancing a bowling ball on a pin that is itself balanced on a hyperactive ferret. Agree 100% there. What I was more thinking of with that though is what really happens when gravity "cancels out" gravity from the other direction. We tend to think of a lagrange point as a point where you have effectively zero gravitational influence. I was just wondering if you could reach a point where the sheer intensity of gravity has interesting effects. I'm pretty sure observing two black holes colliding with every instrument they can get their grubby little hands one would be just about every astrophysicists dream.
Also, saying that if one black hole does not rip atoms apart, then two won't doesn't wash. It's like saying that if just Joe is pulling on one of Tims arms (and the other is tied to a post) and he doesn't rip apart, then even if you hook up Bob to the other arm, he still won't rip apart. Also, consider neutron stars. Obviously supermassive objects _do_ rip atoms apart, although that's presumably via indirect effects of gravity (many particles squeezing into a tiny place and displacing other particles) rather than direct effects of gravity.

Milky Way?

[krou]

If I found hundreds of "black holes" in my "Milky Way", surely that would mean it's an Aero?

I'll grab my coat ...

Re:Milky Way?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Well, if the universe is expanding in a uniform fashion, the perimeter in all directions must be equidistant from the centre.

I think you mean a Malteser.

Re:Milky Way?

[Canazza]

I always thought the universe was a hyperbolic paraboloid... hence it's actually a Pringle

Re:Milky Way?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I tried looking up why you said that, and came up with this. All well and good.

I then had to read this and this and this and and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this to explain why people think it's a different type of curve.

I now couldn't give a hoot if it's a sphere, a parabaloid, or atop a giant turtle right now.In fact, the turtle makes more sense.

I wonder if A'Tuin eats grass or astroturf. (Shameless FotC link).

Re:Milky Way?

[WoRLoKKeD]

Pringles with holes in? We're doomed!

I have a couple right here.

[Jane Q. Public]

Anybody want to bid?

Re:I have a couple right here.

[MichaelSmith]

Anybody want to bid?

For gods sake don't let them go. You could feed Osama Bin Laden into them a bit at a time and power a small city.

Re:I have a couple right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but not if they're too loose.

I read this headline

[Presto Vivace]

and it sounded like a cartoon.

Re:I read this headline

[Destoo]

The only image I had was that they were looking for Hawking, floating around to find his wheelchair, in a cosmic-sized pacman game.

Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[VShael]

And how can the news networks use it to induce fear?
And more importantly, how we can we use it to sell stuff?

"Black hole protective face-masks" just don't seem like a seller, to me.

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

The Black Holes were created by the Large Hadron Collider during the short time that it was online, before the radioactive liquid helium leaked out and freeze-burned its way down toward the center of the earth (China Syndrome), where it was reflected back up and surfaced in a pig patch in Mexico, and irradiated sick pigs with Swine Flu, which mutated into the Mexico Flu, and hopped a ride on some poor little kid, who passed it on to Mexico city.

Seems all pretty plausible to me.

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "black hole toilet seat covers"? Or portable black holes that make your money disappear - oh wait - we already have these - they are called "taxes"...

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[Dan541]

Does your home insurance cover "Black hole damage"

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[CrashandDie]

Nope, but with the amount I'm paying it feels like one.

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[antic]

Does insurance cover anything these days?

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[hitnrunrambler]

Does your home insurance cover "Black hole damage"

Insurance IS a black hole (and is on a much faster path toward destroying civilization)

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[DinDaddy]

Black hole-filling putty? Now with free spatula!

Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu?

[mdielmann]

The Black Holes were created by the Large Hadron Collider during the short time that it was online, before the radioactive liquid helium leaked out and freeze-burned its way down toward the center of the earth (China Syndrome), where it was reflected back up and surfaced in a pig patch in Mexico, and irradiated sick pigs with Swine Flu, which mutated into the Mexico Flu, and hopped a ride on some poor little kid, who passed it on to Mexico city.

Seems all pretty plausible to me.

Have you ever considered piracy^H^H^H^H^H^Hpunditry? You'd make an excellent pundit.

Bad timing - media on a sugar rush!

[Knutsi]

The media is currently in doomsday-mode, so please Slashdot, be careful with these juicy stories suggesting impending doom ;p

Oblig

[Smivs]

Obligatory Goatze link. On second thoughts, let's not!

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that Goatze is bad you haven't done much surfing on the Internet!

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Goatse.cx. Pronounced "goat sex". It's bad enough when people forget about the .cx, but "goatze" is just plain wrong.

Don't hate

[oldhack]

Live and let live. Black holes are people, too.

Black Hole Ranch

[AlterRNow]

Those space cowboys aren't doing their job.

Get to work, Spike.

Are they absolutely sure?

[hack slash]

Take this wise lesson from Red Dwarf:

"Well, the thing about a Black Hole, its main distinguishing feature, is it's black. And the thing about space, your basic space colour is black. So how are you supposed to see them?"

*later on*

"They weren't Black Holes."
"What were they?"
"Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes..."
"Oh shut up!"

Re:Are they absolutely sure?

[ledow]

Swirly Thing Alert!

Re:Are they absolutely sure?

[EvilBudMan]

--I vote for Buck Rogers to be remade like BSG, who's with me?--

Remake it like the good the bad and the ugly.

Re:Are they absolutely sure?

[GodfatherofSoul]

I vote for Buck Rogers to be remade like BSG, who's with me?

A few years ago, I watched a cheesy rerun with Wilma posing as a hooker to sneak into some fat-cat's hotel room. Oh my! She was SMOKIN' back in the day! I just never picked up on that as a kid.

What About Black Holes from Common Massive Stars?

[Fleetie]

What about black holes NOT from the centre of galaxies? Fairly normal large (massive) stars end up as black holes too, so I'd expect a lot of black holes in this galaxy anyway, even if it hadn't interacted with any other galaxies.

Oblig S.L.Jackson

[nbharatvarma]

I want these m*f*ng black holes off the m*f*ng galaxy!

Re:Oblig S.L.Jackson

[Warlord88]

Are you the actor in the movie "Blackholes in a Glaxy"?

Re:Oblig S.L.Jackson

[Jogar the Barbarian]

Dark Vader: "The power of a black hole is insignificant compared to the power of The Force."

Mace Windu: "BULLSHIT, m*f*er!"

The Republicans are at it again ...

[MasterRat]

Its obvious, that in order to be more eco-friendly and healthy, the central-black holes in democratically controlled galaxies have gone free-range to avoid contributing to universal warming. Its the damn republican black hole at the center of the Milky Way, sitting there, denying universal climate change that needs to be shown the error the of its ways. I say, lets raise taxes on republican black holes so that we can share the wealth and help the black holes in poorer, predominantly democratic galaxies become empowered, thus giving them the opportunity to become free-range black holes.

Re:The Republicans are at it again ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit. George Bush doesn't care about black holes.

Solar Flares, Asteroids.

[wiredog]

Space Invaders. Giant monkeys throwing barrels.

Not News

[Dan541]

This shouldn't even be news,

"Coming up next: The earth is in orbit around the sun, Liquid Nitrogen is cold; and why sleeping inside an active rock tumbler may be damaging to your health."

Patently Untrue!

[Anonymous Coward]

She told me, I mean, my friend, that she spits, not swallows.

I think I found one

[hyades1]

I'm reasonably sure there's one in my ex's purse. Money goes there to die.

Just remember ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.

What happens when...

[hesaigo999ca]

Well, I would like to know, if a black hole comes by, does it actually pull a whole planet into its hole, do we know if this is possible...

I mean at the core a small start implodes and turns into a black hole, but does it have enough strength to suck in another star, or even a whole solar system...and what happens if you put 2 black holes side by side, do they cancel each other out...sort of like putting a bag of holding inside a bag of holding...?

Re:What happens when...

[DinDaddy]

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1217007&cid=27771503

Re:What happens when...

[jae471]

Won't happen. They continue their merry little orbit the same as any other mass.

Pop quiz:
If the sun were replaced with a black hole of equal mass
A.) Earth would get thrown from the solar system
B.) The orbit of all the planets would remain unchanged
C.) Jupiter would become the new sun.
D.) All the planets woulld be sucked into the black hole

The answer is B.

Re:What happens when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much, but not absolutely 100%. The problem is that the sun isn't a point source of gravity. Take the light from the sun as an example instead of the gravity. Look at the shadow of a tree during a solar eclipse (or use a pinhole in a cardboard box, but I think the tree is cooler). You'll see the shape of the currently visible parts of the sun repeated over and over where the light shines through. It's pretty neat. The suns gravity is kind of like that as well (not the same distribution, of course), in that it has a shape. And that shape influences the orbit of planets. Replace the sun with a point source (virtually so, in any case) with equal mass, then wait a hundred years and see what's happened to the orbits of the planets, especially the inner ones.

and Cheney got black hole funding cut

[jollyreaper]

For the love of Christ, Republicans! You know that line about anti-zombie research? Don't fucking touch it! You saw what happened when you cut funding for volcano and pandemic flu research!

Re:and Cheney got black hole funding cut

[TimSSG]

For the love of Christ, Republicans! You know that line about anti-zombie research? Don't fucking touch it! You saw what happened when you cut funding for volcano and pandemic flu research!

I would of guess the funding was pro-zombie, not anti-zombie. Tim S

Re:and Cheney got black hole funding cut

[GodfatherofSoul]

The problem with your satire is that we aren't under a real threat (economic) by zombies or black holes.

That sucker's never gonna work.

[maillemaker]

They will get within weeks of flipping it on again, and then something will break requiring another 5 years and 5 billion dollars to fix it.

It's in the pipeline..

[EvilBudMan]

Flushed down those tubes.

undefined

[Scubafish]

3. a Terroristic method of reporting or of interpreting news reports.

2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

You cannot define terrorism with the word terrorism.

That's like saying var x = x; Terrorism is undefined.

Re:undefined

[sgbett]

I defined Terrorism with terrorism- a play on words if you will.

the definition for terrorism (small t) was copypasta from dictionary.com so you'll need to speak to them

Re:undefined

[Headcase88]

I wasn't familiar with dictionary.com, but they did a great job of providing a textbook example of how not to define a word. Merriam-Webster has a better definition:
The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

And in turn, the terror definitions that fit with this are:
1: a state of intense fear
4: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands

Some are right here on earth..

[fataugie]

They're called Government Programs.

Doubt me? Try cutting funding for one, you end up with an increase when it's all done.

SSI, MediCare, Welfare, Bailouts

Medium-sized?

[kalirion]

If it used to be a galactic center, even for a smaller galaxy, wouldn't it be a super massive black hole?

Federal budget

[bryan1945]

Are the scientists sure that these black holes are still free roaming, and haven't been lodged in the US federal budgets for decades?

Here's my response to the fellow /. smarties

[Anonymous Coward]

The post points out something. It's not a scare-mongering article. So why is the typical /. response an arrogant disapproval by comparing it to daily risks?

The risk coming from the black holes and other cosmic disasters is one of human extinction. Actually the extinction of all terrestrial life. Therefore, miniscule it may be, it's not 'trivial' in that sense. So comparing it to individual risks that may kill you (a single trivial organism) and dismissing it with a smart comment = downright arrogance.

What's worse, the most arrogant comments typically come from those who don't RTFA. Can we on slashdot learn to be more modest and willing to RTFA? Can we really?

If?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe people should RTFA

"These rogues, according to a new study, are the orphaned central black holes of the many smaller galaxies that the Milky Way has swallowed over its billions of years of existence. If one of them is discovered, it could provide important clues about the evolution of our galaxy."

I'd like to point out one line in particular:

"If one of them is discovered"

so basically there are none known to man. . . . .

So the prophecy....

[masshuu]

that in 2012 a large black object will consume the earth is possible.

damn, people 2000 years ago were smart

Partially infinite

[IndustrialComplex]

Maybe he meant that on the X and Y axis, the universe was finite. But don't look down the Z axis, there in lies the path of madness.

Duke Nukem Forever?

[Z_Malloc]

In other news: "Duke Nukem Forever has announced a minor setback as it overhauls its current game engine, again"

"Black Hole Sun, won't you come..."

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nothing a rogue black hole can't fix, or at least make a LOT smaller." - by bugeaterr (836984) on Thursday April 30, @09:10AM (#27771561)

Heh, no doubt! I think this tune, fits:

"Black Hole Sun, won't you come... & wash away, the rain" - Soundgarden

APK

Levity Field

[OldHawk777]

I still think that gamma-ray burst and black-holes have common UFT origins within a multi-verse levity-field.

That a levity-field can contain a gravity-field bubble (our godddd universe with Newton/Einstein physics) and vice versa (within a go4D-universe) there could be levity bubbles (black-holes) and distorted/curvilinear levity-field conduits/spaces (worm-holes) across go4D-space.

The levity-field is "nothing" as we know it, because all go4D ST&P macro/micro physics is "indeterminate" within a levity field. IOW (sort of...): I know it is there, because I am here, and ST&P stability/distortion (atom/wormhole) depends on energy generation/conversion. A stable/distorted state is relative to the environment/conditions, the go4D universe would sustain a levity-field black-hole, because both seek to be stable (fields do not have boundaries of existence) the edge of the interacting fields is a generation/conversion energy state. One side a field with go4D physics, one side a field with the unknown/indeterminate [AKA: nothing].

When atoms/atomic go4D particles are split/destroyed..., well (I think maybe) the closer to total particle annihilation... the closer to a black-hole levity-field... the energy generation/conversion is always more/or less than expected.

If you enter a distorted/curvilinear levity-field worm-hole, (or black-hole) from your go4D-space governed physics, you would cease to exist (as would light), not pop out the other side; IOW, worm-hole faster than light and/or time-travel are great science fiction constructs, but not a possible reality. This does not mean there is not a way to travel faster than light, but it is another story in levity physics. Time is a relative measure within a go4D-universe, time in a levity field would become nothing (as we know it).

!HAVEFUN!

God of the Gaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this remind anyone else of the "God of the Gaps" proof of God's existence? The scientists admit in the article that there is little observational evidence for this theory. From now on, this will be my research agenda: wherever things don't fit precisely, I'll postulate a black hole. And mabye I'll get a Nobel Prize...

And I bet they're all headed here...

[Roadkills-R-Us]

... and we won't close the borders!

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm duh. If stars in random parts of the galaxy have died in the past then there are going to be random black holes in their place. Is this really news?

Rogue black hole sighted....

[sgt_doom]

Several rogue black holes were reported sighted today, location:

Wall Street, New York City, USA

No TV back then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids were doing calculus.

Alien Hadron Colliders

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is proof that there was alien life in the universe but they annilated themselves after starting up there own Hadron Colliders. =P

Orphaned black holes? Here is a simple solution!

[porky_pig_jr]

Adopt one! Duh ...

Uranus

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Uranus was a black hole....

Re:It's the economy! Burst of stimulus rays!

[Anonymous Coward]

And money falling into a black hole generates a burst of stimulus rays.