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Astronomers Solve the Mystery of 'Hanny's Voorwerp'
KentuckyFC writes "In 2007, a Dutch school teacher named Hanny van Arkel discovered a huge blob of green-glowing gas while combing though images to classify galaxies. Hanny's Voorwerp (meaning Hanny's object in Dutch) is astounding because astronomers have never seen anything like it. Although galactic in scale, it is clearly not a galaxy because it does not contain any stars. That raises an obvious question: what is causing the gas to glow? Now a new survey of the region of sky seems to have solved the problem. The Voorwerp lies close to a spiral galaxy which astronomers now say hides a massive black hole at its center. The infall of matter into the black hole generates a cone of radiation emitted in a specific direction. The great cloud of gas that is Hanny's Voorwerp just happens to be in the firing line, ionizing the gas and causing it to glow green. That lays to rest an earlier theory that the cloud was reflecting an echo of light from a short galactic flare up that occurred 10,000 years ago. It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare: these radiation cones are highly directional so only occasionally do unlucky gas clouds get caught in the crossfire."
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0806/hannysvoorwerp_wht_big.jpg
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
What determines the direction of the blackhole output cone?
I think that such a gas cloud is fairly lucky to be lit up like that. Unless, of course, the radiation is somehow harmful to a giant cloud of gas.
>> It also explains why Voorwerps...
I'm pretty sure it would be voorwerpen. By the way, doesn't this lady seem a bit full of her self?
does it look like Kermit is holding a torch?
Damn, science is cool. The stories science tells are better than the stories religions tell. Not only are the science stories bigger, grander, more interesting, more awe-inspiring, but they also have the significant added benefit of being true, to the extent that truth can be known. When science doesn't know the answer to something, science doesn't resort to meaningless cop-outs like "God did it". Instead, science gives the more reasonable answer "Yeah, uh, we don't know what that is, but we're looking into it." And then, at some point, science usually comes back and says, hey, we figured it out, and the answer is awesome. The problem with religious stories is that the mythologies are too paltry, too thin, to small for a modern person. God sits on a throne on the clouds, but in the actual universe the heavens go way, way, way, way beyond the clouds.
Science is cool. Up with science.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0806/hannysvoorwerp_wht_big.jpg
Kermit the frog . . . is that you?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Plural of voorwerp is voorwerpen (not voorwerps).
Put horizontally and vertically oriented quasars lined up in a perpendicular plane on the line between the black hole and the Voorwerp and you have just created the universe's largest TV screen.
Hanny's Voorwerp (meaning Hanny's object in Dutch)
explains why Voorwerps are so rare
I would have to disagree... "objects" are quite common.
AccountKiller
Hanny's Voorwerp ... is astounding because astronomers have never seen anything like it.
Is it really astounding? I thought astronomers see things they've never seen before all the time.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
"Hanny's Voorwerp" would be a great name for a Rock Band.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
As a baby. It's his mother holding... oh shit, she dropped him! Look behind her...
Free Martian Whores!
Advertising Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, apparently.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
When you know Dutch, the summary sounds really strange:
It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare
Really? Objects are rare?
Yeah, the plural of voorwerp is voorwerpen. Only Americans can find Voorwerps.
Why does the voorwerp shine? (The voorwerp is a mass of ionized gas.)
Green Monkey
Just an ordinary gas cloud... but watch out, because that's no ordinary gas cloud!
What mystery? We hear that Voorwerp Voorwerp Voorwerp sound whenever that stupid police box appears. There's no mystery except nobody knows what the owner's name is.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, "voorwerp" is simply a dutch word meaning "object", so, while you could say that "looks like a voorwerp," technically, so does this car, or this shell.
Of course, it is possible that "voorwerp" will now enter the English language as a word meaning "illuminated intergalactic dust cloud", but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? :)
and get cozy with my childhood favorite "How the Grinch Stole Gas Clouds, Star Systems, and Oh Zark, We're Next."
I thought a voorwerp was a Klingon sex toy. My bad... :-}
It's not that easy~ Bein green~
So, if it is getting caught in the crossfire what is shooting it on the other side? Oh, you meant it was just caught in the line of fire.
Derp?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Galaga/Getting_Started#Boss_Galaga
FIGHTER CAPTURED
As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wondrous thing happened, why not. They vaporised into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets, including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was at exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them: Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could have been happier unless it would have also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0806/hannysvoorwerp_wht_big.jpg
Kermit the frog . . . is that you?
No, instead of actually dying Jim Henson is becoming a being of pure mental energy, this is his "Star Child" form his subconscious mind chose to become while in transition.
The true problem of 'Hanny's Voorwerp' is the use of single quotes to enclose a name with an apostrophe.
Perhaps the universe is really full of these things all over the place and we just can't see them? It would seem to be a pretty plausible explanation for the 'missing mass' problem.
How boring would it be if 'dark matter' just turned out to be a bunch of ordinary, super thin gas clouds?
It's what's left when you actually have to detonate your Corbomite device...
How do you spell Voorwerp backwards, if it isn't already?
She's a babe with a voorwerp !.
1) morality is certainly within the purview of science. We even have good explanation for it. Hint : this is needed for a stable society.
2) science has a very good idea on what happens at death : The End. There is no evidence to the contrary. You may say "science can't know blahlbhalbha" but you are just making shit up. Fact is that our consciousness is our brain, and when the brain stops, our consciousness stop with it. Nothing more, nothing less.
3)There is *NO* before big bang time started with big bang. Therefore a concept of before big bang make as much sense as south of south pole.
You can decide to have faith. it is your prerogative. You can make up story saying some entity outisde the universe (what the heck that would mean) is the originator, and it is on top of a turtle on top of four elephant. Your prerogative. You are entitled your own faith. You are *NOT* entitled your own facts.
Finally! More evidence to support my theory that dark matter is not magic, but in fact matter with no detectable radiation emmited from it or bouncing off of it. I say that because if this particular cloud wasn't being lit up by the black hole, we'd have no idea it was there and scientists would be making up stupid theories about where the magical gravity/invisible mass was coming from. It's just an extra-galactic bunch of crap that we can't see without a big radiation flashlight shining on it, not an interdimensional, unknown particle that resulted from quantum hybrid unicorn leprochaun magic. I can't even believe some of the idiotic theories about dark matter that have been posted on Slashdot as headlines! It definitely reminds me of what they say about UFOs. What's the simplest explanation? We have tons of crap flying around these days and that's what it is OR it's aliens from far away or time machines come from another time to observe us. I think I'll go with the simpler explanation lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"We are working day and night to plug the accidental ignition of the black hole beam. We are currently lowering a beam-cap in place...." - IBP
Table-ized A.I.
> [*] And no, "octopi", while also an acceptable pluralization in English is not a counterexample, because it uses pluralization rules of a different language (Greek v. Latin), which is a distinctly English sort of thing to do.
If we used the proper pluralization for it, we'd end up with "octopodes."
Oh, and the plural of penis should be penes while we're at it.
I agree. A voorwerp should not be understood, in general, to denote this particular type of fluorescing gas cloud. This particular voorwerp just happens to be a fluorescing gas cloud.
If you did you would know that the plural is wrong (and nouns aren't capitalised in Dutch, that's German). :-)
Perhaps it works in Afrikaans?
just WATCH OUT for Moties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motie