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Researchers Detect A Mysterious Flash Of X-Rays From A Faraway Galaxy (nytimes.com)
"It was a spark in the night. A flash of X-rays from a galaxy hovering nearly invisibly on the edge of infinity. Astronomers say they do not know what caused it." Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes the New York Times:
The orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, was in the midst of a 75-day survey of a patch of sky known as the Chandra Deep Field-South, when it recorded the burst from a formerly quiescent spot in the cosmos. For a few brief hours on Oct 1, 2014, the X-rays were a thousand times brighter than all the light from its home galaxy, a dwarf unremarkable speck almost 11 billion light years from here, in the constellation Fornax. Then whatever had gone bump in the night was over and the X-rays died.
The event as observed does not fit any known phenomena, according to Franz Bauer, an astronomer at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and lead author of a report to be published in Science.
He described some possible explanation in a blog post this week -- for example, a star being torn apart by a black hole, or the afterglow from a gamma ray burst seen sideways -- but the spectrum readings aren't a match, according to the Times. "None of the usual cosmic catastrophe suspects work."
The event as observed does not fit any known phenomena, according to Franz Bauer, an astronomer at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, and lead author of a report to be published in Science.
He described some possible explanation in a blog post this week -- for example, a star being torn apart by a black hole, or the afterglow from a gamma ray burst seen sideways -- but the spectrum readings aren't a match, according to the Times. "None of the usual cosmic catastrophe suspects work."
Clearly someone destroyed the Reapers.
Astronomical observations don't always need to be reported as "mysterious," tbh.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
This "mysterious" Flash form a faraway galaxy has been mentioned in print since the '30s.
Here's a youtube video that gives a brief explanation.
Clearly aliens have really bright flashes on their cameras. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
What would be interesting is if they told us when the event happened. 11 billion light years away didn't happen last nite. How do we know that half the stars in the sky aren't already dead their last bit of light hasn't gotten here yet..
Jack of all trades,master of none
At least they aren't getting any closer.
Back in 2014, on 1st of October I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as though millions of souls cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Slashdot is getting worse day after day
X-rays, of course, are a form of electromagnetic radiation (as is light), and travel at the speed of light
I wonder how long it takes light to travel 11 billion light years. Maybe if someone could figure that out, we could tell when the event happened.
An interesting thing to note is that the source wasn't 11 billion light years away when the light was emitted-- it was only 2.2 billion light years away back then. It took the light 11 billion years to travel that 2.2 billion light year distance at the speed of light.
Sounds paradoxical, doesn't it! That's the expansion of the universe in a nutshell.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
A flash of X-rays from a galaxy hovering nearly invisibly on the edge of infinity
To paraphrase Crichton...
Life will, uh, find... a ray.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You know, it's bad enough observing events that happened a few billion light years ago.
Did we really think the give-a-shit factor was going to somehow improve waiting over two years to report on it?
Fucking hell...
The Shock burst preceding the event that sparked the Vacuum Decay Wave.
Well.... it was nice knowing you all. Have fun in next Universe. Goodnight.
Also, given the gravitational masses and movement of galaxies and other matter in between, why is time expected to be functioning at the same rate across the distance those rays have traveled? In fact, couldn't time dilation present the appearance of an expanding universe, if only observed from one location?
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
So have they analysed the burst for data content? It could have been a civilization broadcasting all of their knowledge in one great encyclopedia.
Sadly, we weren't here to catch the public encryption key they published a billion years earlier.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
If the universe is expanding wouldn't the distance that the light has to travel also expand as well during the journey? So really the light would have traveled more then 2.2 billion light years distance?
Exactly. The two points were 2.2 billion light years apart when the light started travelling, but due to the fact that space was expanding as the light travelled, the distance travelled was 11 billion light years, not 2.2.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Constellation Fornax? Edge of infnity? (And beyond!)
Did someone publish the script for another episode of Toy Story?
Once upon a time the human race used to reason along the following lines: "I don't understand, therefore it must be a god, the devil or evil spirits".
This explanation having gradually fallen into disrepute, now a large portion of the human race seems to reason: "I don't understand, therefore it must be aliens".
No doubt an explanation will be found one day.
"as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced"
So how far away is the source now? I'd guess a lot more than 11Gly.
GN-z11 is 32 billion light years away, but 13.4 billion years old as observed.
Totally not a physicist but 11 billion light years? Maybe the wave pattern doesn't look familiar because it had to travel through so much expanding space to get here.
That would mean that the space between Galaxies was expanding faster than light wouldn't it? I remember reading that there was no reason it couldn't do, but wasn't aware of evidence that it could.
A billion years is a long time. 600 years ago there was no printing press. 20 years ago there was no Wikipedia. Who knows what will happen in 10, 50, 100 years.
A civilization that existed a billion years ago would very likely have mastered space travel by now. Maybe they're here with us to see that flash. Maybe we are them.
lucm, indeed.
That would mean that the space between Galaxies was expanding faster than light wouldn't it?
No, if the space between were actually expanding faster than light, the light would never get there-- it would lose ground. The space between the source and us is expanding almost, but not quite, as fast as the light is traveling through it, so the light does get here eventually.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
But something that was there is no longer there, when will we know for sure?
Chaotica with his X-ray gun. But he didn't take in account that it takes 11 billion years to reach us. Ha! ;) Take that, Chaotica.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
If this source is soooo far away, wouldn't we see redshift of some sort?
If we are getting XRay frequencies, might this burst have started at a higher bandwidth - like Gamma?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Except the universe is not expanding. For some reason, people seem to think that there is "one time" for the entire universe. As If the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Laughable on its face. It appears as if nobody has internalized the Theory of Relativity. There are "areas" of the universe where 13.7 billion years have not been "experienced" and there are areas of the universe where 13.7 trillion (yes, not billion) years have been "experienced".
Simple proof: GPS Satellites experience 42 microseconds (roughly) more time passing, per day (day/night), than the same clocks on the surface of the planet. Over the 4 billion years that the planet has been in existence, that 42 microsecond difference adds up to significant amounts of time.
Further evidence: Galaxy rotation and Dark Matter
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Different observers see time passing at different rates, of course, and thus the rate of expansion is indeed observer dependent. But all of the observers still see the universe expanding.
It's a trivially small effect, though, unless you're in a gravity well so deep you're poised on the edge of an event horizon, or moving at speeds that are a significant fraction of the speed of light.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com