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NASA Announces Discovery of 30-Year-Old Black Hole
broknstrngz tips news of an announcement today from NASA about the discovery of a black hole in the M100 galaxy, roughly 50 million light-years from Earth. The discovery is notable because, if confirmed, it's now the youngest known black hole, born from the remains of a supernova we observed in 1979. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait explains why scientists think it collapsed to a black hole, rather than a neutron star: "The way a neutron star emits X-rays is different than that of a black hole. As a neutron star cools, the X-ray emission will fade. However, a black hole blasts out X-rays as material falls in; that stuff forms a flat disk, called an accretion disk, around the black hole. As this matter falls onto the newly created black hole, it gets heated to unimaginable temperatures — millions of degrees — and blasts out X-rays. In that case, the X-rays emitted would be steady over time. What astronomers have found is that the X-rays from SN1979c have been steady in brightness over observations from 1995 – 2007. This is very strong evidence that the star’s core did indeed collapse into a black hole." He also warns that we're not certain quite yet, and we'll have to keep our eye on it to make sure it's not a pulsar.
There's an obvious universal frame of reference: measure everything relative to the place where the big bang happened. Your choice of axes is somewhat arbitrary, though.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"I know of a younger one. It actually just happened. Sorry though, the light from the supernova won't be here for 50,000,000 years. Go ahead, prove me wrong! ;p"
OK, ok, I'll do it. If only you first tell me how did you get to know about your new black hole so I can corroborate your findings. If not, I'll simply think you were lying.
(This exactly why those telling this black hole is in fact 50.000.030 year old are not even wrong but making an unsensical claim).