Black Hole Swallows Star

Thorfinn.au writes "The New Scientist writes a conjectural piece to explain the light pattern of SCP 06F6 in what was first identified as a supernova — but observations show a skewed and stretched light curve not fitting with an current theoretical explanation of exploding stars. Also, the discussion in the comments is interesting."

Comments

"discussion in the comments"

[Anonymous Coward]

and you couldn't summarize the "discussion in the comments" in the summary because...

Re:"discussion in the comments"

[stupid_is]

Probably cos it mostly now reads:

This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.

Re:"discussion in the comments"

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.

Re:"discussion in the comments"

[cpricejones]

To be fair, half of those comments were sarcastic.

Re:"discussion in the comments"

[mcgrew]

I can see why the article had so many "breached terms of service" posts, considering the title "Black 'ho swallows star". That sounds like a porn movie.

pervyj nah!

[Anonymous Coward]

pervyj nah!

Everyone panic!

[Anonymous Coward]

We're next! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Re:Everyone panic!

[Khashishi]

Probably a joke, but if there are free-floating black-holes flying around, and we happened to be unlucky enough, we could be gone just like that, and there ain't nothing we could conceivably do about it.

First Ur Mom Post

[Anonymous Coward]

A black hole swallowed your ur mom.

All according to plan

[null etc.]

I guess Samantha Carter's plan worked!

Re:All according to plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god we didn't listen to McKay.

Re:All according to plan

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it around the wrong way.

new research shows

[wjh31]

over 50% of black holes in the western hemisphere are clinically obese. It's though that the high availability and low cost of stars is to blame. Ejection of gas is one of the many unfortunate side-effects.

Re:new research shows

[noundi]

The messed up part is that now these obese black holes are entitled 2 seats when traveling by wormhole.

Re:new research shows

[Draek]

You know how sometimes in the mornings, before you're completely awake, you get the weirdest ideas that in retrospect made no sense at all? Well, I just had one when reading your comment.

I wondered how a black hole's gas smells like.

Re:new research shows

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen and a bit of Helium?

Probably doesn't have any noticeable smell.

Re:new research shows

[Anonymous Coward]

The farts smell really awful. Lots of hydogen cyanide and ammonia, to say nothing of the high-energy radiation.

Re:new research shows

[LEMONedIScream]

Raspberries?

Re:new research shows

[Anonymous Coward]

I wondered how a black hole's gas smells like.

Huh? That makes no sense.

I've been there before

[Anonymous Coward]

A black prostitute swallowed my cum in New Orleans last weekend.

I'm not scientist

[Ukab the Great]

But wouldn't a roving black hole produce a tell-tale roving gravitational lensing?

Re:I'm not scientist

[wjh31]

gravitational lensing happens on the scale of galaxies and galaxy clusters.

Re:I'm not scientist

[Xeriar]

But wouldn't a roving black hole produce a tell-tale roving gravitational lensing?

Only if you were extremely close by or got a perfect lineup. The former, we could probably notice out to a significant fraction of a light year or so if we were watching the sky.

The latter case is rather problematic, as it would be hard to distinguish a black hole's lensing effect from noise - one frame you see a few photons, the next you don't. Was it a galaxy? A star? Nebula? Random noise?

Re:I'm not scientist

[drinkypoo]

O RLY? Detectable gravitational lensing happens on the scale of galaxies and galaxy clusters. HTH, HAND.

Re:I'm not scientist

[nedlohs]

"""The amount of the stretching suggests the object sits some 2 billion light years away"""

So if the conditions are perfect and it's moving exactly sideways with respect to us, and it's moving at the speed of light (the first is unlikely, the second is impossible)) - then in a year it moves 0.00000003 degrees in our view.

Good luck.

Especially considering the lensing will be insignificant, since the black hole isn't a galaxy cluster.

Re:I'm not scientist

[Gunnut1124]

um, wasn't it first discovered using the sun?

I could have sworn that something like that happened in 1919 when a guy named Arthur Eddington kinda helped confirm the theory for Einstein. Proximity allowed us to see the lensing, which we can't easily see from a distance, but it's there on all objects of sufficient mass, not just galaxies.

Re:I'm not scientist

[SquirrelsUnite]

Every massive objects creates a gravitational lens effect: for example it is used to detect extrasolar planets. As a star passes behind a solar system (as seen from Earth) its apparent brightness increases first because of the lensing effect of the foreground star then due the planet. Some of the smallest exoplanets have been discovered using this technique.

As for black holes acting as gravitational lenses, I'm not sure it has ever been observed. Some of the problems would be the environemnt of the black hole drowning out any background image, lack of backgroud objects, or in the case of microlensing surveys not recognizing that the lensing object is a black hole.

Re:I'm not scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just at that scale, there are surveys to find MACHOs (MAssive Compact Halo Objects) around our galaxy that just look at an enormous amount of stars to measure their brightness. When a MACHO crosses close to our line of sight to one of these stars its brightness will increase a bit because of gravitational lensing of the star (the MACHO needs to be between us and the star for this to work). These events are called 'microlensing' events. As all things mircro in astrophysics micro is still pretty big :P

See for instance:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.2044

Re:I'm not scientist

[cpricejones]

if it's close enough, i would think you could observe it from two different places at least or many at best and figure it out that way.

repaired Hubble Telescope may come in handy here

[MollyB]

from the last paragraph of tfa:

Gaensicke hopes one of Hubble's new cameras, the Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed on the last space shuttle mission to visit the telescope, could reveal more about the object's origins. The camera may be able to spot a host galaxy around the object that was too faint to see with other instruments.

As our instrumentation improves, we'll probably have many more head-scratching discoveries...

Maybe we'll get a chance to see this happen!

[TheLeopardsAreComing]

Well unfortunately you cannot tell very much about what happens in this system ( wether it is a binary system or not) by what is happening with the light. You would have to look at the x-ray spectrum to be able to measure the kind of energies in the system. Chandra observatory is the best we can do at the moment... but it seems they still like to measure things in Crabs! But in the mean time, this would be cool to get some photo's of this happening!

90's flashback

[jollyreaper]

*creepy smile* black hole sun, black hole sun

Re:90's flashback

[drinkypoo]

Black Hole Sun, won't you come
And wash away the rain...

It's really a beautiful piece that has to be stood next to in order to be appreciated. The sun wasn't in the right place for me to take any brilliant photos (and all I'd have had was my cellphone) but this one at least gives you a nice clear view.

Re:90's flashback

[teknopurge]

fantastic song - fantastic band.

Re:90's flashback

[Dragonslicer]

Wow, I never did understand that bit in the polka. It might be kind of sad that in the last few Weird Al albums, I've never heard most of the original songs. I'm getting old, huh?

Re:90's flashback

[jollyreaper]

Wow, I never did understand that bit in the polka. It might be kind of sad that in the last few Weird Al albums, I've never heard most of the original songs. I'm getting old, huh?

You and me both. The last Weird Al parody I've heard before he did it (talking recent music) was for Amish Paradise. I had no idea what raps All About the Pentiums and White and Nerdy were based on. I consider this to be a good thing. You know what's considered artistic in rap? Buster Rimes, he has a track on GTAIV. It's a soulful little ditty called "where my money" where he goes ranting about how he's taller than a hall of midgets and if he doesn't get his cake he's gonna kill bitches and niggas, where my fucking money?

I'd like to think if MLK came back from the dead he'd go all Cosby and start smacking these idiots upside the head.

Re:90's flashback

[drinkypoo]

I'm pretty sure that Busta has a full appreciation for the complete ridiculousness of the whole affair. He's some sort of Hip-Hop Gangsta Satire in my book. Maybe I'm wrong and whoever dresses him is the genius, I don't know.

I do share your sentiment that it's a positive sign when you don't recognize pop culture references. I was being annoyed by the music in some store the other day and I caught myself saying to myself "Wow, that's worse than the Eighties!" Of course, as anyone knows, that's fucking impossible. If the seventies weren't worse than the eighties, there's no fucking way this decade has a shot at it. (The nineties? Maybe. I'm still in denial about most of it.) And so I did my best to think back and actually, it was basically the same music as the eighties, with a slightly different pace and sets of vocoder effects, voices, and samples.

Re:90's flashback

[Will.Woodhull]

I'd like to think if MLK came back from the dead he'd go all Cosby....

And sell his soul to Coca Cola? I don't think so.

I know that's not where parent post was heading with this, but despite MLK's philandering, I have a great deal of trouble with seeing him and Cosby tied together in the same sentence. One took tremendous personal risks that resulted in his assasination. The other is an entertainer who thought he knew how to get a free ride on a broad coattail.

Re:90's flashback

[Domint]

I'd think that if Dr. King did rise from the dead, he'd be too preoccupied with an insatiable desire for brains to offer any real constructive input on the matter.

Re:90's flashback

[bogjobber]

People like you make me very angry. You claim to be generally unfamiliar with popular music and rap made in the last fifteen years, and yet you somehow still think you're fit to discuss the music critically. What gives you the idea that you can speak intelligently about something you admittedly don't know a goddamn thing about?

If you actually did pay attention, and did know what you were talking about, you would know that there is a wide range of styles and traditions in hip hop. Some are quite thoughtful and intelligent, other aren't. I'm not saying you have to like hip hop, but your logic is ridiculous. Would you dismiss rock music entirely because you heard a bad Limp Bizkit song? No more soul music because of Robin Thicke?

Stop spreading ignorant trash about a culture you obviously don't understand. You are attacking a stereotype, one that exists pretty much exclusively in bitter old people. It sure makes you look like an asshole to all of us who do understand hip hop culture.

Re:90's flashback

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that Busta has a full appreciation for the complete ridiculousness of the whole affair. He's some sort of Hip-Hop Gangsta Satire in my book. Maybe I'm wrong and whoever dresses him is the genius, I don't know.

Perhaps... and maybe Fred Phelps is really just a performance artist who has turned his life into a piece of art that nobody will ever understand, or even recognise as such.

Maybe.

In reality, chances are the guy (the rap guy, not Phelps) has found a way to make a lot of money, and he's sticking with it. (I don't blame him; I'd do the same.) Chances are also that he genuinely believes his music is worthwhile - almost all musicians do.

Re:90's flashback

[LunaticTippy]

Wow, so touchy.

Those of us who hate rap do not hate it in some vague theoretical fashion. I hate it because I am bombarded with it a lot. Maybe I don't know who wrote what song, and maybe I can't tell whether it is crunk or hyphy, but boy oh boy have I heard a lot of rap. I have liked maybe 2 songs total.

I am thoroughly qualified to state my opinion that rap is garbage.

I am similarly qualified to state that I am sick to death of classic rock. I don't have to have a fricking degree from Santana Tech and know exactly what bullshit overplayed song is from which bullshit elderly band to say that I am sick of it. Stop it already.

Jeez, now who is touchy? I guess it is me.

Re:90's flashback

[bogjobber]

Sorry if I came of touchy, but it's really irritating to hear the same thing over and over from someone outside the culture. If you don't care about hip hop, that's fine, but don't try and make dramatic, overreaching statements about a genre that is *incredibly* diverse. If you're interested in hearing a few hip hop songs outside what you may have experienced (in the interest of sharing), here's a few great tracks off the top of my head:

Tribe Called Quest - Award Tour
Black Star - Definition
DangerDoom - Sofa King

And then a couple you might not even realize are hip hop:
DJ Shadow - Building Steam with a Grain of Salt
Massive Attack - Risingson
Blockhead - Expiration Date

Re:90's flashback

[drinkypoo]

Massive attack is trip-hop, which is related but not a subgenre any more than rap/rock fusion (e.g. Faith No More, Kid Rock.) It's grouped more with Portishead. The common elements with Hip-Hop would be beats and turntablism.

Re:90's flashback

[bogjobber]

Genres aren't that rigid though, and most "fusion" or artists with a unique sound are grouped based on the scene they're associated with rather than actual musical similarities. The difference between trip hop and "regular" instrumental hip hop is pretty miniscule. I've always believed that if the Bristol/UK trip hop scene had happened in the US it would've been much more accepted from the community. I don't know much about Bristol, but I can't imagine that there's a lot of cultural exchange between there and New York, Philly, LA, etc. But maybe not, mainstream hip hop culture has rarely been accepting of anything coming in with heavy influences from electronic or rock music.

could someone please explain

[v1]

Gaensicke and colleagues envision two scenarios that might explain the object. In one, a carbon-rich star gets too close to a middle- or heavy-weight black hole, which tears the star apart. Some of this material is absorbed by the black hole, and some is blasted away in a flare that was eventually seen from Earth as SCP 06F6.

I'm not educated in astrophysics and everytime I read something like this I wonder, how does anything manage to get "blasted away" from a black hole? I was under the impression anything that got close to it was absorbed?

Re:could someone please explain

[samcan]

One possible way would be a jet of energy streaming from a rotating black hole...

Wikipedia article.

Re:could someone please explain

[Xeriar]

I'm not educated in astrophysics and everytime I read something like this I wonder, how does anything manage to get "blasted away" from a black hole? I was under the impression anything that got close to it was absorbed?

Simple, black holes are very messy eaters - they radiate a significant fraction of their food as photons. Keep in mind you are accelerating much of the star to a significant fraction of c, letting it collide with itself. This goes double for stellar mass black holes - you have a million+ kilometer star getting 'swallowed' by a twenty kilometer black hole. Even a perfect landing is going to result in most of the star's mass getting flung back out into space if only because the hole is smaller than the core of the star.

Re:could someone please explain

[John Hasler]

Anything that crosses the event horizon is absorbed. Anything that does not interacts gravitationally with the black hole as it would with any other massive object. Black holes don't have any sort of magical ability to suck things in. All they have is gravity (Well, ok. They also have charge and spin.)

Re:could someone please explain

[tjonnyc999]

The common view that a black hole has a definite "boundary" beyond which nothing can escape, although essentially true, overlooks several important factors.
Yes, the "event horizon" (EH) is the boundary beyond which nothing can escape the gravitational pull of the black hole.
However, it's not a physical boundary (black holes do not have a physical surface), it's the mathematically-calculated boundary beyond which events inside the EH cannot affect an outside observer. As a particle gets closer to the EH, its chances of escape shrink to infinity, and once the EH is crossed, it's effectively gone from the outside world.
That being said, under certain conditions, particles can be radiated outward from a black hole:
1.) If an object inside the "photon sphere" (Schwartzchild Radius X 1.5) but still outside the EH emits photons, those photons can still escape. (Photons coming inbound are screwed, though. Approaching on a tangent, have a slim chance to "bounce off" due to rotational gain.).
2.) If the black hole is rotating, and a particle is approaching the black hole at a tangent, it may also escape via "stealing" some of the rotational energy.
3.) Rotating black holes also emit particles via Hawking radiation, which is more of a particle-antiparticle explanation that I want to get into here.

So, yeah, it's sort of an issue of semantics - if you consider the zone right outside the EH a part of the black hole, then yes, things can escape from a black hole; if you take the common (and incorrect) view that a black hole has a definite "border", and discount all the fun stuff that's going on around the black hole, then no, nothing can escape.

(Of course, this is a ridiculously simplified explanation, and I do expect at least one Slashdot astrophysicist to poke it full of holes (pun intended).)

Re:could someone please explain

[Prefader]

IANAPhysicist/Cosmologist/whatever applies here, so please do verify this yourself.

The star isn't IN the black hole . . . yet. The black hole is somewhere close to the star, and we're seeing the energy being thrown off by the stuff being pulled into it. There's an awful lot of colliding going on, so stuff is getting thrown around in a lot of directions at once.

Light (and other stuff) outside of the event horizon can escape. That's my understanding of the definition of "event horizon" . . . the proximity to the black hole at which light can no longer escape the black hole's gravitational pull. As long as stuff happens outside of that region, we can observe it.

Re:could someone please explain

[tjonnyc999]

Oh damn, forgot to include the relativistic jet. Idioth. Anyhoo... black hole spins, drags stellar gas / dust / occasional star towards it (accretion disk, om nom nom), things spin around faster than the speed of light (yes, FTL. Objects can't move faster than speed of light, but regions of spacetime can move FTL relative to other regions), eventually the sheer rotational energy + radiation forces the particles outward in a thin jet, perpendicular to the accretion disk, which can be as long as tens of thousands of parsecs. There's enough junk flying outward, and at high enough speed, to create its own disturbance in the Force^H^H^H^H^H spacetime continuum, in addition to the screwiness created by the black hole itself.

Re:could someone please explain

[Colonel Korn]

Gaensicke and colleagues envision two scenarios that might explain the object. In one, a carbon-rich star gets too close to a middle- or heavy-weight black hole, which tears the star apart. Some of this material is absorbed by the black hole, and some is blasted away in a flare that was eventually seen from Earth as SCP 06F6.

I'm not educated in astrophysics and everytime I read something like this I wonder, how does anything manage to get "blasted away" from a black hole? I was under the impression anything that got close to it was absorbed?

Black holes gravitationally pull matter toward them like any other object with the same mass, until you're inside the event horizon, at which point there is no escape. Thus, outside the event horizon, objects will tend to orbit the black hole just as they'd orbit a star of equal mass. Over time, the orbit of gas falling into a black hole decays and the gas falls toward the singularity and its orbital velocity increases. When this happens, the volume occupied by the orbit of the gas decreases, leading to higher density gas and thus heat generated through friction and compression. This heat raises the temperature of the gas, which increases its pressure and can result in a portion of the gas being blown off into space.

Re:could someone please explain

[Chris Burke]

All they have is gravity (Well, ok. They also have charge and spin.)

Amongst their properties are... I'll come in again.

Re:could someone please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

How big are the chances of escape before they "shrink to infinity"?

Re:could someone please explain

[forkazoo]

Simple, black holes are very messy eaters - they radiate a significant fraction of their food as photons. Keep in mind you are accelerating much of the star to a significant fraction of c, letting it collide with itself. This goes double for stellar mass black holes - you have a million+ kilometer star getting 'swallowed' by a twenty kilometer black hole. Even a perfect landing is going to result in most of the star's mass getting flung back out into space if only because the hole is smaller than the core of the star.

Simple analogy I sometimes use to explain black hole emissions in a way most people are familiar with...

Ever flush a toilet and notice a splash that jumps above the rim? Same thing.

While the majority of the mass gets pulled into the hole, the chaotic nature of the flow means that some mass gets ejected every which way. Depending on where you are situated, the ejected material can be quite noticeable.

Re:could someone please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, what would happen if two black holes (same size) would collide head on?

Re:could someone please explain

[MikeBabcock]

Take calculus again. :-)

Re:could someone please explain

[Khashishi]

Anything that gets too close to the black hole gets sucked in. But on the outside of the event horizon, there is still the possibility of escape. Anything that falls near a black hole gains huge kinetic energy which can't just disappear (conservation of energy). When these things collide with each other, they emit x-rays, much of which will escape.

Re:could someone please explain

[Khashishi]

Black holes are a bit weirder than your typical Newtonian gravity well, if you get really close. Light can orbit the black hole at 1.5 Schwarzschild radii. Closer than that, light will get "sucked in" unless it's pointed outward. Farther outside, you can drop an object with sufficient angular momentum and it will stay in orbit, but too close it will get sucked in.

Re:could someone please explain

[Khashishi]

Wow, someone actually used the phrase spacetime continuum outside of Star Trek! And it makes sense, too!

Re:could someone please explain

[rahultyagi]

Oh damn, forgot to include the relativistic jet. Idioth. Anyhoo... black hole spins, drags stellar gas / dust / occasional star towards it (accretion disk, om nom nom), things spin around faster than the speed of light (yes, FTL. Objects can't move faster than speed of light, but regions of spacetime can move FTL relative to other regions),

Now this doesn't make sense to me. what do you mean by "regions of spacetime can move FTL relative to other regions"? does it make any sense to talk about an object being stationary wrt a region of spacetime? if yes, then what is the relative velocity of an object that is stationary in one of these spacetime reference frames with respect to another object that is stationary in the other spacetime reference frame? FTL?

Re:could someone please explain

[v1]

until you're inside the event horizon, at which point there is no escape. Thus, outside the event horizon, objects will tend to orbit the black hole just as they'd orbit a star of equal mass.

that would also seem to imply that nothing can orbit a black hole inside it's EH. (since the EH is basically the distance at which photons orbit the black hole, if they get any closer, they de-orbit)

Re:could someone please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

All objects that experience gravity have an escape velocity. (This is true of small and large objects, and where there are multiple objects, such as you (with a very small escape velocity) and the Earth (with a much larger escape velocity)).

The escape velocity of an object increases with proximity to that object's centre of mass.

Black holes have an escape velocity that reaches the speed of light at the event horizon.

Further away from the centre of mass, the escape velocity is less than the speed of light.

As material is drawn close to a black hole it becomes very hot, much as closer to the centre of the Earth it grows hotter.

In a a very hot environment, material can experience violent accelerations, and if they are strong enough, the ejected material can exceed the escape velocity. The superhot material in the accretion disk of a black hole can be ejected in a jet. An analogy would be a supervolcano throwing a plume of ash right out of the atmosphere, or perhaps a solar flare.

Also, very hot material radiates photons (black body radiation). The hotter the material, the higher the energy of radiated photons tend to be. We can detect these directly by observation. Extremely high frequency photons (gamma rays) collide with particles of matter in the accretion disk transferring their momentum -- imparting a "kick" that can accelerate the particle to escape velocity -- or their energy, which can fission atomic nuclei, the lighter daughter products of which can also reach escape velocity.

However, once the escape velocity reaches the speed of light, there is no "blasting away" of material. Stellar (and supermassive) black holes may shrink very very very slowly through Hawking radiation, but it's the material in the accretion disk near the black hole that is the source of the blasts.

Re:could someone please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, your explanation fails to mesh with my own documentation:

Invisible
To telescopic eye
Infinity
The star that would not die

All who dare
To cross her course
Are swallowed by
A fearsome force

Through the void
To be destroyed
Or is there something more?

Atomized
At the core
Or through the astral door...
To soar....

Re:could someone please explain

[dotancohen]

does it make any sense to talk about an object being stationary wrt a region of spacetime? if yes, then what is the relative velocity of an object that is stationary in one of these spacetime reference frames with respect to another object that is stationary in the other spacetime reference frame?

European or African stationary object?

Re:could someone please explain

[tjonnyc999]

what is the relative velocity of an object that is stationary in one of these spacetime reference frames with respect to another object that is stationary in the other spacetime reference frame? FTL?

Yes, a stationary object inside the ergosphere of a rotating black hole (if it's even possible for anything to be stationary in there, considering the rotational forces and the turbulence) is moving faster than light in relation to the rest of the Universe - because the ergosphere itself is dragging spacetime around faster than c. (This is not prohibited by relativity).

The only way that it would be possible for an object inside the ergosphere to remain stationary (in relation to rest of Universe), is for that object to be moving faster than c (and that Einstein would have a problem with).

The outer limit of the ergosphere is moving at c (WRT Universe); an object orbiting exactly at the boundary would have to move at c in order to remain stationary - outside the boundary, less than c - inside the boundary, faster than c (which is impossible according to relativity - as speed approaches c, energy approaches infinity. Can't have more energy than infinity.)

...Hope that made some sense. Tying to condense a few hundred pages of astrophysical theory into a paragraph inevitably loses something in the translation, LOL.

Re:could someone please explain

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a pretty good explanation of all these from Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

The cow says "mooooo!"

[MoldySpore]

The star says "Shine shine shine!"

The black hole says "NOM NOM NOM!!!!"

...Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:The cow says "mooooo!"

[the donner party]

I thought the star would say "Run, Coward, Run!"

Because it's not interesting.

[argent]

Aside from all the "This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed" messages, most of the comments are by kooks or people who clearly misunderstood the article (like the guy who saw a 2s flare in Delphinus).

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from all the "This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed" messages, most of the comments are by kooks or people who clearly misunderstood the article (like the guy who saw a 2s flare in Delphinus).

Ahhh, so it's like the comments on Slashdot when a legal topic comes up?

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, so it's like the comments on Slashdot when any topic comes up?

Fixed that for you!

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. Thanks for the correction.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[BLQWME]

I know there is a hemmorhoid joke in here somewhere.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[OldSoldier]

One of the comments I like is the fellow who complains that:

So called scientific "facts" such as, black holes, big bang, stretched space, warped space, spacetime and so on,are merely flawed mathematical constructs. They have never been observed

What always strikes me with these sort of comments is the underlying belief that scientists are hiding something from the rest of us. Don't these posters realize that they're complaining about this "supposed conspiracy theory" in an article where scientists are openly admitting that they saw something they don't understand?

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was a story about Hugh Grant and a hooker. Thought it was little strange to be filed under Science.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[czarangelus]

The thing is, they DIDN'T see a black hole swallowing a star. They saw a massive burst of radiation. But they describe NOT what they actually observed, but their interpretation of what they observed instead. Are there no other possible sources for massive bursts of radiation than black holes swallowing stars? Given the aberrant numbers of high energy particles entering our star system, I would say it's premature indeed. Same with the neutron stars, or pulsars allegedly being stars that "rotate faster than dentist drills." The impossible is far more likely than the improbable.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than finding a 2 flares around Uranus

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[profplump]

If they just told us what they saw and not what they think it might be they'd simply be talking telescopes, not scientists. It's also disingenuous to suggest that they aren't publishing the original observations for third-party analysis -- they just aren't publishing those observations in the press release.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

With your degree in philosophy, I'm not sure that you're the best source to make claims on physics or astronomy.

I was wondering where you ran off to after getting banned at Fark.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Chris Burke]

Same with the neutron stars, or pulsars allegedly being stars that "rotate faster than dentist drills." The impossible is far more likely than the improbable.

And... what's so improbable about a massive and extremely dense object spinning rapidly, vs an even more massive but much less dense object spinning at a rate that is proportionally slower?

I'd say that the impossible, in this case violating Conservation of Angular Momentum, is usually what is far more improbable.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[AlecC]

And nobody has actually seen an electron, a nucleus, a photon outside the visible spectrum, the other side of the moon... We infer most of the things we have "seen" from instrument readings. Of course, the body of different measurements for the electron is much greater than it is for, say, dark matter, so we have a higher confidence level in the former. But there is no qualitative difference between the two, or the other quoted things, merely the size of the pile of evidence. And even some of those things are pretty well documented.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is some of those *have* been observed. I can't find a link, but a clock was flown around in an airplane or satellite or something and showed a skew compared to an identical clock synced at the beginning of the experiment.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[stevelinton]

The article does say that someone has proposed this as the best fit to the details of the observed data, while someone has proposed something else (a massive supernova of a star surrounded by carbon dust). Dozens of other possibilities probably got considered and rejected before making the article. If you read the actual scientific papers they will likely consider many more alternatives and explain in detail why they don't fit what's observed. They will also describe in detail

If you want the raw details you need to read the papers and be prepared for some maths (in which they work out which theories fit the data and which don't). The idea that pulsars are neutron stars, for instance, emerged over several years and was confirmed as the predictions it made about what kinds of patterns would, and wouldn't be seen in pulsar radiation panned out. Many other ideas fell by the wayside.

The real data is published and discussed, multiple interpretations are considered, but in scholarly articles, not in press releases.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[stevelinton]

Basically correct, but people have seen the other side of the moon directly. Only about 30 people all told, but they have seen it.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, so it's like the comments on Slashdot when a legal topic comes up?

More like when the subject is Obamanation.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Ezrymyrh]

OK they caught me , it was my Black hole. My Bad

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[osu-neko]

Basically correct, but people have seen the other side of the moon directly. Only about 30 people all told, but they have seen it.

Or so they say... ;)

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[osu-neko]

The thing is, they DIDN'T see a black hole swallowing a star. They saw a massive burst of radiation. But they describe NOT what they actually observed, but their interpretation of what they observed instead.

Um, no, you're factually wrong here. They DO describe what they actually observed. They then go on to speculate on possible causes, and clearly label this as "conjecture".

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[arminw]

...and clearly label this as "conjecture"...

Much of of cosmology is interpretation of what we actually see and receive. For example, we have never seen a black hole, never observed so called dark matter, never actually seen a neutron star and on the list goes. We see the galaxies move in a certain way and their motion does not fit their theories at this time. So, to to make the data fit they give explanations and invent these never directly seen constructs. It appears that the more scientists probe the mysteries of the cosmos, the harder it is to really figure out what is going on. Every time the data do not fit to their theory, they invent a new construct to try to explain what is really happening. Maybe it is time to go back to the drawing board with an entirely new set of theories by which the universe operates. At this time, the God theory, that God runs it all, can be and maybe just as valid as any of the so-called "scientific" theories which on purely philosophical grounds leave God out of the picture.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[bhiestand]

The impossible is far more likely than the improbable.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[stupid_is]

You probably mean these fellas

Re:Because it's not interesting.

[Nefarious Wheel]

I don't know about any others, but I *always* hide my flawed mathematical constructs from others. That is, when they're not hiding from me...

Red Matter

[starglider29a]

Yes, I AM out of my Vulcan mind.

Reavers!

[T Murphy]

The article calls it the 'firefly event'. It wasn't a black hole. It was the reavers.

Re:Reavers!

[Tyrun]

Dugg for firefly reference... I mean, ow my head, what was I saying?

I felt a great disturbance

[Laser Lou]

in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Roving black hole

[aereinha]

I don't seem to grasp that black holes can become mobile. I can not imagine something would be able to exert enough force on the black hole to actually accelerate it.

Re:Roving black hole

[Jamu]

Everything creates enough gravitational force to accelerate a black hole. Although those things with a comparable mass (or energy), close to the black hole, should be more noticeable.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

motion is relative.

Re:Roving black hole

[James Skarzinskas]

Well then, I volunteer you to go check for us.

Re:Roving black hole

[Dragonslicer]

I don't seem to grasp that black holes can become mobile. I can not imagine something would be able to exert enough force on the black hole to actually accelerate it.

Other than the obvious everything-attracts-everything-else, also remember that black holes don't magically appear from nothing. Whatever matter initially created the black hole was most likely moving, and that momentum doesn't go anywhere.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, ya got me thinking. I'll share aloud.

If a black hole is moving (but not spinning rapidly), that momentum is going to be working with its gravitational pull on the side facing the direction the black hole is moving, and against it on the opposite side. So the EH should be "weaker" in that one place. I realize the EH is the distance at which things cannot escape by definition, so I suppose wording it as "the EH is not spherical" is better.

Suppose that the black hole is moving fast enough, wouldn't it be possible for this momentum to counteract the force of gravity enough for objects to escape? In short, create a weak point or break in a highly elliptical EH, directly behind the black hole as it moves through space. Somebody explain why this won't work, or why it would.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside the event horizon, the black hole's motion is subject to the very same influences that the motion of any object with the same mass would be subject to; from the viewpoint of gravity, a black hole outside its event horizon is just a really really small, somewhat heavy star that doesn't emit any radiation whatsoever (though anything that gets close enough to be swallowed does emit, on the way down).

Re:Roving black hole

[Culture20]

Ok, ya got me thinking. I'll share aloud. If a black hole is moving (but not spinning rapidly), that momentum is going to be working with its gravitational pull on the side facing the direction the black hole is moving, and against it on the opposite side. So the EH should be "weaker" in that one place. I realize the EH is the distance at which things cannot escape by definition, so I suppose wording it as "the EH is not spherical" is better. Suppose that the black hole is moving fast enough, wouldn't it be possible for this momentum to counteract the force of gravity enough for objects to escape? In short, create a weak point or break in a highly elliptical EH, directly behind the black hole as it moves through space. Somebody explain why this won't work, or why it would.

I think you stand a better chance of getting an answer if you don't post Anon. Some people only read 2+ (me, I read -1).

Re:Roving black hole

[Chris Burke]

So the EH should be "weaker" in that one place. I realize the EH is the distance at which things cannot escape by definition, so I suppose wording it as "the EH is not spherical" is better.

The EH is often non-spherical, mostly due to the rotation of the black hole if I understand. But I realize what you're saying, an egg or teardrop shape favoring the trailing side.

Suppose that the black hole is moving fast enough, wouldn't it be possible for this momentum to counteract the force of gravity enough for objects to escape?

Momentum is mass times velocity. Gravity is a force, mass times acceleration. Once the object is so close that the gravitational acceleration is so great that even photons, which naturally have a velocity of c, cannot escape then no other matter has a hope either, regardless of what the momentum of the black hole is.

About the only difference the black hole's velocity would make is to make it less likely that an object would get close enough to be drawn in by the hole's gravity from the trailing side. Like if you were trying to fly your spaceship into it, you'd have to match or exceed its velocity to get close enough for its gravity to drag you in. Once you were close enough, though, that'd be it.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that you're thinking of a gravitational field shaped like a falling raindrop -- a semi-sphere on the leading edge tapering to a point on the opposite end. But raindrops are only that shape because of air resistance; falling in a vacuum raindrops would be spherical. Likewise there is nothing to "push against" the gravitational field as an object moves through space, so there is no reason for that field to deform.

Re:Roving black hole

[mrdoogee]

A Galaxy

A more massive black hole

A more massive star

Pretty much anything, although there would have to be a lot of anythings for the effect to measurable by humans.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

and that momentum doesn't go anywhere.

No, that's the thing, it DOES.

Re:Roving black hole

[Ardipithecus]

Thanks, now add roving black hole to gamma-ray burst and false-vacuum collapse in the worry list.

Re:Roving black hole

[Khashishi]

1. Everything is moving relative to everything else. There is no stationary reference frame, so unless you happen to move at the same velocity as the BH, it will appear to move.
2. Black holes aren't necessarily all that massive. The ones in the centers of galaxies are super massive, but black holes created by supernovae could be around 2 solar masses, which is not very massive on cosmological scales. If it sucks in another solar mass, it just sucked in a huge influx of momentum, which isn't going to disappear.
3. Gravity accelerates things regardless of how massive it is. A black hole will orbit a gravitational center just like a star will.

Re:Roving black hole

[Khashishi]

Motion is relative. You can always transform to a frame where the black hole center of mass is not moving. I'm not sure about this, but I suppose a moving black hole is length-contracted like in SR. Gravity waves might exhibit a headlight effect, which makes gravity stronger in front (??? I'm way out of my league here). But it will still be impossible to escape the length-contracted EH.

Re:Roving black hole

[ae1294]

I don't seem to grasp that black holes can become mobile.

I'm not a scientist but I was abducted by aliens once.

As far as I'm aware a black hole isn't any different than anything else except that it's got mad gravity. Our sun has lots of mass and gravity but it still orbits our milky way galaxy and our galaxy is moving in relation to everything else in the universe which as a whole is expanding outward from a big bang'ish point of origin. Black holes get formed from really big stars so if it that star was moving to begin with than it probably will still be moving after becoming a black hole.

Plus while black holes have massive gravity it's not as massive as a galaxy and so they can still get thrown around just like everything else in the universe.

Black holes are pretty normal until you cross the event horizon. Just think of a black hole as our sun. Stuff orbits it, gets sucked in, ejected, etc.

Re:Roving black hole

[Anonymous Coward]

and that there is no such thing as 'not moving'

Re:Roving black hole

[PingPongBoy]

I don't seem to grasp that black holes can become mobile

Isn't it the other way around? There isn't anything that can be taken as the ground zero reference for speed.

Slashdot's gone cold

[Smidge207]

Slashdot's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all And even if I could it'll all be gray but your picture on my wall It reminds me, that it's not so bad -- it's not so bad Dear Rob, I wrote but you still ain't callin I left my email, my ICQ, and my yahoo chat at the bottom I sent two emails back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em There probably was a problem with your sendmail or somethin Sometimes I scribble email addees too sloppy when I jot 'em but anyways; fsck it, what's been up? Man how's your boxes? My boxes is linux too, I'm bout to be a compiler once I learn gcc, I'ma go on and compile for hours I read about your Palm Pilot too I'm sorry I had a friend lose his Palm over at the airport in Maradonna I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan I even read all your bullshit Linux news and Microsoft's man I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man I like the way you sold your ass out too, that shit was fat Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan Dear Rob, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance I ain't mad - I just think it's FSCKED UP you don't answer fans If you didn't wanna talk to me outside your Linux World you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Matthew That's my Senior sys admin he's only 26 years old We waited on a 9600 baud for you, four hours and you just said, "No." That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fsckin idol He wants to be just like you man, he likes you more than I do I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to Remember when we met in Boston - you said if I'd write you you would write back - see I'm just like you in a way I never had a clue about shit either I gcc'd shit with my wife then beat her I can relate to what you're saying in your page so when I feel like rmusering I read Slashdot to begin the rage cause I don't really got shit else so that shit helps when I'm depressed I even got a tattoo of slashdot across the chest Sometimes I even packet myself to see how much it floods It's like adrenaline, the DDoS is such a sudden rush of blood See everything you say is real, and I respect you cause you tell it My girlfriend's jealous cause I talk about you 24/7 But she don't know you like I know you Rob, no one does She don't know what it was like for people like us growin up You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Waste-A-Packet-On-My-Fans, this'll be the last packet I ever send your ass It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it? I know you got my last two emails I wrote the @ signs on 'em perfect So this is my payload I'm sending you, I hope you hear it I'm on my modem now, I'm doing 9600 baud so fear it Hey Rob, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to code? You know the song by Deep Purple or Slayer its irrelevant by playing on my linux player while I write some php scripts and play some Dragonslayer That's kinda how shit is, you coulda rescued me from drowning Now it's too late - I'm on a 1000 downloads now, I'm drowsy and all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call I hope you know I ripped +ALL+ of your pictures off the wall I love you Rob, we coulda been together, think about it You ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you SCREAM about it I hope your conscience EATS AT YOU and you can't BREATHE without me See Rob {*screaming*} Shut up bitch! I'm tryin to code Hey Rob, that's my senior admin screamin from the comode but I didn't cut the power off, I just rebooted, see I ain't like you cause if rm -rf'd we'd suffer more, and then the boxes die too Well, gotta go, I'm almost BGP bridged now Oh shit, I forgot, how'm I supposed to send this packet out? Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy You said your box is running now, how'd you like your gcc? Look, I'm really flattered you would install 7.0 Redhat and here's an autograph

This is old...

[Schnoogs]

...they already explained this in the new Star Trek movie

Re:This is old...

[Schnoogs]

Modded redundant? Noone else posted anything like this.

Ooops!

[Sport89]

Looks like the inhabitants of the nearest planet just switched on their brand-new LHC...

Re:Ooops!

[gstoddart]

Looks like the former inhabitants of the nearest planet just switched on their brand-new LHC...

I think this works better. ;-)

Cheers

A starship making course correction, obviously.

[John Hasler]

n/t

Is this another George Michael story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Black hole swallows star... Is that what you nasty fags are calling it, now?

BTW, where are all the hysterical shrieks of "Fascism!" now that the US government really IS taking over the private sector? Next up: Health care and energy. Next time, try reading the fine print, folks, instead of just the shiny packaging.

Re:Is this another George Michael story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the bulk of all money paid in the US health care has created some of the wealthiest people in the world, its clear there is no competition. In a world were a pack of [what is essentially] cotton (~$40 wholesale) can cost upwards of $600, its clear there is no competition. One of the purposes of government is to stimulate business. Since health care in America has run amok and they clearly do not want to be forced to compete (they'd rather rape every US citizen while laughing all the way to the bank), they've left no other option.

If you're angry and the government, first and foremost you need to be angry at the business who have done nothing but rape, pillage, and plundered every US citizen.

inforgmative MareMare

[Anonymous Coward]

our ability to w_as at the same approximately 90%

Re:repaired Hubble Telescope may come in handy her

[SatanicPuppy]

Heh. The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know...Unless you're an asshole or a teenager. In the grand scheme, we're still just scratching the surface. There are so many things we do not understand.

Black hole says...

[Anonymous Coward]

om nom nom nom!

ObSexistComment

[drinkypoo]

A whole star? Someone should Cc: this article to my girlfriend.

Re:ObSexistComment

[beav007]

Oops, I think I just accidentally the whole star!

Star swallows Black Hole

[caywen]

Now THAT's news!

Re:Star swallows Black Hole

[rbrausse]

you're a screenwriter for porn?

Science

[kenp2002]

We are in the earliest stages of undesrtanding how the universe works. For the first 8-10 thousand years we have looked what that which is in our universe and how it functions within our universe. Only in the last 3000 years have we started to look at how the universe (or if you prefer reality) itself works.

Based on our understanding the very fundamental laws of our universe at some point has changed. The laws, as we call them, 5 seconds before the big bang may have been very different then at the time of the big bang and vastly different a billion years afterwards.

We look to oddities like black holes to try and grasp and dredge out what additional laws that may exist to better understand how to exist within a system of laws. We must be ever so careful though as we go forward in collecting and looking at data. Who knows, perhaps we will find a white hole adding mass to our universe potentially signalling an escape from heat death or the big rip. Perhaps the graviton will be found... perhaps not.

The question all this begs is crucial to the core of our own existence, and is the harbinger to the meaning of life. The question must be asked after observing this article:

How could we miss an opportunity for a sexual joke with this?

Re:Science

[TinBromide]

How could we miss an opportunity for a sexual joke with this?

Because every slashdotter knows that a black-hole spits as it swallows.

Re:Science

[Anonymous Coward]

True. I think we all getting old, and married, so sex, porn and sexual jokes are becoming something lost faraway in the past.
But, I totally got that Ghetto-Ebony XXX joke...

Re:Science

[osu-neko]

We are in the earliest stages of undesrtanding how the universe works.

Wow! You already know how the universe works?

(Note: In order to gauge how far along you are in a process, journey, etc., you must know the destination. You don't know how far you are along in a trip unless you know where it ends. Unless you know what the end-state is of our understanding of the universe, it's impossible to make any credible statement about how far along we are. To know that we're "in the earliest stages" rather than "in the last stages", you must already know how it's going to play out in the end.)

Re:Science

[Chris Burke]

Wow! You already know how the universe works?

To know that we're "in the earliest stages" rather than "in the last stages", you must already know how it's going to play out in the end.

Yeah, but you can make an educated guess by first assuming that the journey is long, and then humbly admitting that whatever the length of the journey, you have only just begun. We're on a journey of discovery, even if we know little more about the end than that, so for their assessment to be wrong we'd have to be under-estimating the effort required to understand the universe.

It's funny how you seemed like you were making about about being humble and assuming you know too much, but you did it by logically reversing the intended meaning of saying "earliest stages" to mean "ignorance", and end your post by leaving open the possibility that we actually really do know how the universe works. Hm.

Suffice it to say that I too agree that we are in the earliest stages of understanding the universe. We don't know the end goal, but it's nowhere in sight, and I'm willing to bet it's not just over the horizon. That's anything but the same as knowing how the universe works.

Re:Science

[kenp2002]

Holy crap, get the stick out holmes, that whole speech was salt and pepper leading up to the "no sex jokes" part. Jebus rice man, not everything I write is gospel... just most of it! :)

Re:Science

[Chris Burke]

Yeah I know, but then someone tried to cut on you by using a deliberately obtuse understanding of what you said. It's become a pet peeve of mine lately: people who use pedantry and "logic" not to illuminate, but as an excuse to not understand plain English.

wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, what's with the dianetics.org banner on slashdot?

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

American swallows hamburger
Japanese swallows sushi
Lion swallows GNU (eeeh... gnu)

I knew she was old, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Samantha Carter's plan worked!

FTFA:

...the object sits some 2 billion light years away...

I guess plastic surgery and short hair go a long ways towards making you look a whole lot younger.

Re:I knew she was old, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to think more temporally.

I've never seen a Dup this close...

[Culture20]

after the original. Posted less than an hour apart, right next to each other on the front page!

Has Bing Already Overtaken Yahoo? Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 08, @08:54AM
Black Hole Swallows Star Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 08, @09:38AM

And Taco posted both of them. Getting old, Taco?

Re:I've never seen a Dup this close...

[ColaMan]

It's actually a little-known form of Hypertext lensing caused by the Slashdot Anomaly.
Let me explain.

The Slashdot Anomaly is a powerful attractive force on the internet, drawing in general News-For-Nerds and Stuff-That-Matters articles towards it, constantly increasing the size of its article/comments database - which is the prime generator of it's attractive force.

If there is an article of news behind the Slashdot Anomaly (as viewed from our browsers here in front of the Anomaly) you will often see two distorted copies of the original article that's out there in the internet, set a small distance apart. Sometimes, if the angles are just right, you can see multiple distorted copies. This is the general principle of Hypertext lensing - similar to Gravitational lensing, the size of the Slashdot Anomaly's internal database actually warps the underlying structure of the internet.

Initially, when the Slashdot Anomaly was small, it's Hypertext Lensing effect was minimal, and multiple copies of articles were rare. However, over the years the database size of the Slashdot Anomaly has grown a thousandfold and the attractive force has become so powerful that it now severely warps the view of internet that we observe beyond it, leading to the problems we have today regarding "dupes".

Some posit that the attractive force will become so large that our view of the internet through the Slashdot Anomaly will eventually be so distorted as to be useless (see: digg) , however others contend that advances in the relatively new field of adaptive Hypertext filtering may yet save the day.

So you see, it's not the dupes that make Slashdot suck - it's actually the reverse.

Slashdot sucks so hard that it makes dupes appear.

Misleading headline

[imgod2u]

There's nothing in the article about Paris Hilton.

Ambiguous

[ChrisMaple]

Are these black hole swallows starring in Capistrano? Are there any chickadees?

Warp core or Red Matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing either a warp core breach.. or there was red matter involved.. just a guess...

WHO said it WAS a black hole?

[argent]

The scientists gave a number of possible interpretations. The journalist who wrote the article, or his editor, picked the most interesting-sounding explanation for the thrust of the article.

I think anyone familiar with Slashdot summaries should be aware of this distinction.

Re:WHO said it WAS a black hole?

[beav007]

What does the World Health Organisation have to do with this?

Re:WHO said it WAS a black hole?

[iggymanz]

and what did the WHO see White Anglo Saxon a Black Hole? A snow queen?

LOOK at your TITLE bar!

[Nick Ives]

Although I do see your point about TFS on /. ;)

Re:LOOK at your TITLE bar!

[argent]

"Free-floating black hole may solve space 'firefly' mystery"

Possiblity

[Terrorwrist]

When that star enters into the black hole, it would probably go out of the black holes butt, and the outcome would be a Black Star lol.

Red matter

[canonymous]

Clearly the star was going to go supernova and threaten the entire galaxy, so Ambassador Spock took one for the team by dropping some red matter into it...

ObShenanigansCallOnGirlfriendClaim

[oni]

Undeliverable: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. The following recipient(s) cannot be reached: girlfriend@drinkypoo.com

The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.

Bad Title

[Quaoar]

Quoth the conclusion of the referenced paper:

"These possibilities, combined with the observation that the
disrupted object be a carbon-rich star, rather than a normal
main sequence one appear to make the case for tidal disruption
somewhat contrived. Nonetheless, with only one object, and
thus an essentially unconstrained rate and space density for
such events, it remains a possibility."

So, while tidal disruption is a possibility, it is not the favored scenario.

ATTN: Slashdot Monitor, Galactic Navigators Guild

[Will.Woodhull]

Quoting this for your attention just in case (once again) your filter software fails to pick up on a communication whose existence your Guild would prefer to ignore:

The thing is, they DIDN'T see a black hole swallowing a star. They saw a massive burst of radiation. But they describe NOT what they actually observed, but their interpretation of what they observed instead. Are there no other possible sources for massive bursts of radiation than black holes swallowing stars? Given the aberrant numbers of high energy particles entering our star system, I would say it's premature indeed. Same with the neutron stars, or pulsars allegedly being stars that "rotate faster than dentist drills."

Can it be any more clear that the indigenous technosavvies of this backward planet are about to see through the ruses you have been feeding them, and recognize the artifacts of your warp ship accelerations for what they are? How long do you think you can preserve that foolish fiction of a "Hubble Constant Universe" you've been encouraging them to accept?

Would it really be that costly for you to exercise a little more control over your thrust vectors? Yes, it would cut into the profits of each voyage by several tenths of a percent. But that is a pittance to pay for this unique opportunity to study a pre-Warp and pre-Contact civilization during that critical period just prior to its recognition of the bubble distortion at its heliopause. We've only had one such opportunity before. Need I remind you of how your Guild mucked up that one?

Re:repaired Hubble Telescope may come in handy her

[CorporateSuit]

Unless you're an asshole... In the grand scheme, we're still just scratching the surface.

We're just scratching the surface of our assholes? Hey, I mean we haven't discovered any working grand unified theory yet, but at least we're TRYING!

oh I get it

[Anonymous Coward]

so CmdrTaco's gaping rectum swallowed a little boy's ruby-colored starfruit?

Heard 'Round the Galaxy...

[Frightened_Turtle]

BELCH!

+1 funny

[BitterAndDrunk]

Well played, AC.

Very disapointed

[ThatsNotFunny]

Based on the title, I thought Eddie Murphy found another tranny prostitute.

Re:ATTN: Slashdot Monitor, Galactic Navigators Gui

[lilomar]

best. comment. ever.

If it's a galaxy far, far away...

[solune]

It all fits...all that carbon are the poor inhabitants of Alderaan.

Re:repaired Hubble Telescope may come in handy her

[arminw]

...Hey, I mean we haven't discovered any working grand unified theory yet, but at least we're TRYING!...

Well at least the scientists have not yet discovered such a theory, but the theologians have. It is called the "God Theory". That theory says that God made and runs the universe whether you believe that or not. This theory is not very palatable to us philosophically, because if there REALLY is such a God, we instinctively feel responsible to him and that is discomforting because most of us want to be independent and responsible to no one except ourselves.

a, an, the: the forgotten articles, apparently

[hardwarefreak]

an current

I always used to be able to spot foreigners by their misuse of "an" in front of words beginning with hard consonants. Now stupid Americans who think it makes them look cool are adopting this shitty overseas grammar butchery of American English...

We all mastered a, an, and the in 3rd or 4th grade. If not, we didn't proceed to the next grade in school. Why, for the love of Pete, are thousands upon thousands of very educated and intelligent U.S. people all of a sudden forgetting these rules which they have used for all of their adult lives?

Is this a more subtle version of ultra-liberal American TV and radio 'journalists' adopting British accents, in the hope it will somehow give them credibility they haven't actually earned?

More fantastic examples of proper usage of the article 'an':

"Dad, can I have an bicycle for my birthday?"
"That's not an lion, that's an kangaroo."
"Hay, let's fly an jetliner into an skyscraper and an Pentagon!"