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NASA’s Hubble Finds that a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions

Hookshot

Member
As if Black holes weren't dangerous enough.

In a surprise finding, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby.
The finding is confounding researchers searching for an explanation. "We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," said Alec Lessing of Stanford University, lead author of the paper published in The Astrophysical Journal. "This means there's something missing from our understanding of how black hole jets interact with their surroundings."

hubble-m87-26sept24-stsci-01j6ws5znbgmg8hdhqthzb7ac6.png

Killer space energy beams, that cause stars to explode without even needing to be close to them.
 
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Novae is when a star explodes. In double star systems the same star can do it multiple times, "eating" the neighboring star. What we don't get is how the stream could double the likelihood of novae.

gO6Mlp1.png
Beautiful shot.

How long is that jet from the supermassive blackhole? It must be millions of light years long no?
 

Hookshot

Member
Beautiful shot.

How long is that jet from the supermassive blackhole? It must be millions of light years long no?
It's 3,000 light years long, but effecting a much larger range than just that.

A light year is approximately 6 trillion miles. At 60 mph it would take you 28 billion years so you best start today if you want to drive it.
 
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Trogdor1123

Gold Member
I read the article and was going spout off about correlation and causation and realized that this is NASA… they forgot more than I will ever know. Obviously I’m wrong.

I look forward to more info on these. The more information we have on stuff like this the better.
 
It's 3,000 light years long, but effecting a much larger range than just that.

A light year is approximately 6 trillion miles. At 60 mph it would take you 28 billion years so you best start today if you want to drive it.
24 quadrillion miles??

Crazy…

Basically a galactic core nutting out into deep space…
 

Hookshot

Member
24 quadrillion miles??

Crazy…

Basically a galactic core nutting out into deep space…
M87 is one of the most massive galaxies in the local Universe. Its diameter is estimated at 132,000 light-years, which is approximately 51% larger than that of the Milky Way.[5][6] As an elliptical galaxy, the galaxy is a spheroid rather than a flattened disc, accounting for the substantially larger mass of M87.
Trillions of stars so it has a while to go to blow up them all.
 
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Hookshot

Member
Wait, so this thing is like real life Death Star? 😲
Death Star on steroids, it's a giant black hole so it's swallowing up whatever it's gravity can get like they usually do, all while shooting out a death ray that causes stars to blow up. We'll never know how many planets have been destroyed by it, but if those stars go boom then entire solar systems would be wiped out.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
Death Star on steroids, it's a giant black hole so it's swallowing up whatever it's gravity can get like they usually do, all while shooting out a death ray that causes stars to blow up. We'll never know how many planets have been destroyed by it, but if those stars go boom then entire solar systems would be wiped out.

I want one.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
Novae is when a star explodes. In double star systems the same star can do it multiple times, "eating" the neighboring star. What we don't get is how the stream could double the likelihood of novae.

gO6Mlp1.png
51 to 34? Is that really a significant enough difference to not be due to small sample size?
 

West Texas CEO

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
Death Star on steroids, it's a giant black hole so it's swallowing up whatever it's gravity can get like they usually do, all while shooting out a death ray that causes stars to blow up. We'll never know how many planets have been destroyed by it, but if those stars go boom then entire solar systems would be wiped out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this called Hawking Radiation?

Hawking Radiation Hawking Radiation , please confirm
 

EverydayBeast

ChatGPT 0.1
There are scientists who disagree with black hole data, would love someone to really explain black holes, they’re a real enigma.

black hole GIF
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
It's 3,000 light years long, but effecting a much larger range than just that.

A light year is approximately 6 trillion miles. At 60 mph it would take you 28 billion years so you best start today if you want to drive it.
Heading out now so I avoid rush hour to make a good start.
 

llien

Member
would love someone to really explain black holes
There is a small chance I make some details up, but AFAIR it went like this:

After Sir Newton rolled out his laws (3 + gravity), astronomers enjoyed centuries of... mental superiority.
They could calculate shit so well, that "astronomically precise" meant almost "exact".

Until 1858 that is. When it was noticed, that this little piece of a planet misbehaves a bit. Meet the Mercury Perihelion Precision "Anomaly":

pOela82.gif

The anomaly was very small. In other branches of physics such difference between expected and measured results would most likely be brushed off.
But in was astronomy, so scientists went bananas about the lost "astronomical precision".

There were many attempts to to explain it: e.g. by adding more celestial bodies or by changing formulas of gravity. All futile.

Until "hold my beer" from Albert Einstein, the guy who had just rolled out the common sense defying Special Relativity Theory (SRT) (to address chaos caused by Maxwell).

And this is how we got General Relativity Theory (GRT), (a theory that I find rather intuitive, compared to the SRT)
It basically says: forces of gravity are a by product of bodies changing curvature of space-time around them. Imagine it along these lines:

8IORanE.png

the heavier the object, the stronger the deformation (and slower... the time, but that besides the point).

There weren't that many experiments to confirm it back then, but Albert Einstein was already Albert Fucking Einstein, so everyone, but Nobel's committee, went orgasmic about GRT.

And then someone said,: wait a second, but what happens if space curvature is deformed so much, that you simply cannot escape it... OMG, a black was born! In theory, that is.

(Imagine light passing by. Since space is deformed, it will travel along a curve. Black holes turns that curve into a circle.)

So GRT predicted, that "sufficiently compact" mass could deform space time so much it would become a "black hole". You can get in, but can't get out.

It took a while until we've found black holes. As it's an ideal black (Hawkins later on, using yet another common sense defying theory, insisted it still emits something, although very very little) you cannot observe it directly, but hell, you can watch the havoc it causes to the celestial bodies around.

Here is one of the most famous "photos" of a black hole (reconstructed radio image), the only one at this point:

FCmwnBO.png
 
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