Slashdot Mirror
New Type of Star Can Emerge From Inside Black Holes, Say Cosmologists
KentuckyFC writes "Black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight. Since there is no known force that can stop this collapse, astrophysicists have always assumed that it forms a singularity, a region of space that is infinitely dense. Now cosmologists think quantum gravity might prevent this complete collapse after all. They say that the same force that stops an electron spiraling into a nucleus might also cause the collapsing star to 'bounce' at scales of around 10^-14cm. They're calling this new state a 'Planck star' and say its lifetime would match that of the black hole itself as it evaporates. That raises the possibility that the shrinking event horizon would eventually meet the expanding Planck star, which emerges with a sudden blast of gamma rays. That radiation would allow any information trapped in the black hole to escape, solving the infamous information paradox. If they're right, these gamma rays may already have been detected by space-based telescopes meaning that the evidence is already there for any enterprising astronomer to tease apart."
So decaying black holes might be another source of gamma ray bursts? Interesting hypothesis. I suppose this would permit a big old star to bounce between being a black hole and a neutron star, depending on the rate of incoming material.
So, do I have to point out the obvious that the /. beta is horribly user-hostile to keep this from getting modded -1 insightful?
What TFS really means is that out of the suck generated by Beta, a new site will emerge, free from corporate cocksuckery.
Beta: Only slightly better than Facetwat.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
I usually try to stay on-topic, but this is a deserved exception.
I logged in, perused some of my old comments just for nostalgia and will be logging out for at least the remainder of the proposed boycott period.
I just wanted to say that it has been awesome being part of the Slashdot community. You guys are awesome. I have lost track of how much I have learned about different topics that I never would have learned were it not for participating in Slashdot discussions.
I hope to see you on the other side...with Beta existing only as a memory of an epic fail.
Sort of yes. "...under the force of its own gravitational attraction" would be more precise, I think. Gravity is a force, and weight is the measure of the gravitational force on a particular item. But it's common to think of weight as the force of gravitational attraction itself, and it's shorter to type.
And yes, as it collapses and the distance from particle A to the center of mass of the rest of the star decreases, the force of gravitational attraction (weight) increases.
Slashdot's Beta has proved that it is possible for information to be sucked in and never get out.
WTF is up with article titles that only the first 3 words are visible because of the huge font used?
Slashdot beta - the artificial blackhole created by Dice that Slashdot will be sucked into
...if a star can emerge from Slashdot Beta. That shit is a black hole of user interface hell.
There is no gravity. BETA just sucks that hard!
Dice released their 4th quarter filing...and it does not cast Slashdot in a good light:
Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.
Looks like running AdBlock on Slashdot and turning off ads may soon be the cause of their demise...
As I understand it, that's almost exactly it. The catch is that the universe is now 2 protons heavier than it was, and it can't keep them. "Normally" the proton and antiproton would recombine and annihilate and it would be gone, but now that they're separated that can't happen. So the black hole's mass gets debited 2 proton masses. So the final result is that the hole is down 1 proton mass and the rest of the universe is up 1 proton mass.
If there is a force that can prevent the total collapse of a star into a singularity, there is hope that we can harness such power to escape from beta...
But how can the black hole's mass go down when particles are being added to it?
Because the mass of that particle, and the particle that escaped, came from the black hole. So there is a net loss of mass. But the probability of this happening is so low that an immense number of eons are needed to evaporate a black hole, and the time required goes up with the cube of the mass. A solar mass black hole may take approx 10^66 years to evaporate. That is because its gravity sucks almost as hard as Slashdot Beta.