Black Hole Birth Detected this Morning 337
An anonymous reader writes "SPACE.com is reporting on the first optical afterglow ever detected from a short-duration (milliseconds) Gamma-Ray Burst. The GRB signals the birth of a black hole resulting from a merger between two neutron stars. Theory had predicted the whole thing, which was all spotted this morning by NASA's Swift satellite and ground-based observatories, thanks to an automated email system that notifies astronomers worldwide."
Upon Further Review... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Upon Further Review... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Upon Further Review... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Upon Further Review... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Upon Further Review... (Score:5, Funny)
email notification (Score:3, Funny)
It's unclear whether the newborn is a boy or a girl, but what is known is that it has no hair [wolfram.com].
Mother and baby are doing fine (Score:5, Funny)
Er... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Er... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's rename them 'Schrödinger's holes' - They may or may not exist. Seems to fit in with a lot of the battling theories.
Our astronomy club hosted a local speaker, studying the lives of black holes, where the entire cycle was explored. Pretty cool stuff. I'll try to remember his name and find a link.
they should put these doctoral types on american gladiator and ha
Fate of Black Holes. (Score:5, Informative)
"You've Got a Black Hole!" (Score:5, Funny)
automated email system that notifies astronomers (Score:5, Funny)
No credit card required click for details.
presents (Score:3, Funny)
Re:presents (Score:3, Funny)
The mother (Score:5, Funny)
The details... (Score:5, Funny)
If you hear the bomb fall... (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like this one was a dud. Lucky much [space.com]?
Re:If you hear the bomb fall... (Score:2)
See inverse square law. [gsu.edu]
Re:If you hear the bomb fall... (Score:3, Insightful)
Outstanding! (Score:2, Funny)
What about Dr. Reinhardt? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What about Dr. Reinhardt? (Score:5, Funny)
This is slashdot. It's not like anyone else will date us.
Weak! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Weak! (Score:5, Funny)
YOu better let the Kansas school board know about this. The universe is only about 3000 years old don't you know.
Re:Weak! (Score:2)
So your "one day is actually a thousand" falls apart when you consider that Moses lived to be a 120 years. So by your calculations moses lived longer then some planets!.
Re:Weak! (Score:2)
No, no, it's guarded by the military... You DO know what's in Area 51, don't you? *sshhh, don't tell*
Re:Weak! (Score:2)
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)
Holly: Well, the thing about a Black Hole, its main distinguishing feature, is it's black. And the thing about space, your basic space colour is black. So how are you supposed to see them?
Rimmer: But five of them! How can you be ambushed by five Black Holes?
Holly: Always the way, isn't it? You hang around in deep space for three million years and you don't see one. Then, all of a sudden, five all turn up at once.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/ [reddwarf.co.uk]
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2)
Happy Birthday! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Happy Birthday! (Score:5, Funny)
Especially if he also happens to be a large gay afro-american...
Re:Happy Birthday! (Score:2)
> 2. Racist
> 3. ???
> 4 . Profit!!!
3 = Become a standup comic.
Unfortunately, 3a is "get funny material," so that step has not yet been reached.
The whole hole? (Score:3, Funny)
Didn't you mean "theory had predicted the hole thing" ?
In other news... (Score:2)
Could've been worst... (Score:2)
Re:Could've been worst... (Score:2)
Those impetuous scientists! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, really! How droll, how clever...
Re:Those impetuous scientists! (Score:2)
Speaking of the name, why "b"? Did they discover another black hole earlier in the day and name that GRB050509a?
Re:Those impetuous scientists! (Score:2, Informative)
I would guess that it was the second gamma ray burst (candidate?) detected (since 1200 GMT?). Lot of guessing on my part though.
Re:Those impetuous scientists! (Score:2, Funny)
And from now on... (Score:2, Funny)
Terminology, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Terminology, people! (Score:2)
Re:Terminology, people! (Score:2)
Suprise Suprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suprise Suprise (Score:2)
I postulate that it's because your typical Slashdot poster has little to no physics expertise and can't even put forth a good front of having anything intelligent to
Drake's equation (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, kind of dire.
Here's a slightly scientific thought for you though (but only slightly). What's the extinction radius of a 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watt event like this one?
Because if the extinction radius is at all large, and if this happens at all frequently on a cosmological timescale, then it ought to be factored into Drake's equation.
It could be the reason why the galaxy doesn't appear to be crammed full of high-tech intelligent life --- maybe random sectors of the galaxy everywhere get sterilized back to lifelessness by magnetar events often enough to keep the average density of life in the galaxy near zero, because life simply can't persist very long?
Re:Drake's equation (Score:2)
Jokes are nice and all, but can we at least have a little content, mods?
Re:Drake's equation (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, at a distance wherethe Gamma-ray flux is fairly weak, you might find yourself on the opposite side of a planet, and survive.
In fact, it is not impossible that life as we kno
Re:Drake's equation (Score:3, Informative)
Extremely experienced scientists dumb down their talks all the time for lay people. When I give a talk to my colleagues, I use entirely different language and skip over very basic stuff that I definitely do go over when I talk to the general public.
It's stuff like this (Score:5, Insightful)
A Gamma-ray burst lasting less than a second from 2.2 billion light years away, followed by an X-ray afterglow (for a few seconds).
Probably a black hole.
Or maybe the civil war on Zebulon III finally escalated to gamma-ray weapons.
But what funding agency would believe that?
Re:It's stuff like this (Score:2)
Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed with Gamma-ray weapons. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.
Re:It's stuff like this (Score:2)
God divided by zero (Score:3, Funny)
Re:God divided by zero (Score:2)
ROTSE did that before? (Score:3, Interesting)
ROTSE's first detection of optical afterglow
Re:ROTSE did that before? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ROTSE did that before? (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it, the biggest GRB we've seen in our galaxy was not thought to be black hole formation, however,
sorry about that (Score:3, Funny)
How bright was the burst? (Score:2)
Re:How bright was the burst? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the style of pop science articles... (Score:2)
Starting to feel like the universe is.. (Score:3, Interesting)
And remember what they say... (Score:4, Funny)
farsighted (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:farsighted (Score:3, Funny)
I realize you're being droll, but it's obviously a signal to noise ratio issue. The gamma ray burst was a friggin huge signal against a (comparitively) quiet background. If Osama or your car keys were the loudest thing on the planet by an order of magnitude we'd have no trouble finding him/it. Alternatly if the US army started
congrats! (Score:2)
Gravity waves! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gravity waves! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully the physicists haven't been completely driven away yet. A gravity wave detection coincident with the gamma ray burst and visible light aftermath would be a great event for these folks.
Re:Gravity waves! (Score:3, Informative)
Chuck Jones syndrome (Score:3, Funny)
"...thanks to an automated email system that notifies astronomers worldwide..."
As this:
"...thanks to an automated anvil system that notifies astronomers worldwide."
I had this bizarre image of all different types and sizes of anvils, all with messages about the GRB attached, dropping onto (and through) desks and computers of astronomers all over the place while, in the background, Marvin the Martian is cackling about it in that lovably maniacal way that only Mel Blanc could give him.
Essence, I wish Chuck Jones was still around to exploit this one...
Merger between two neutron stars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that the current scientific consensus? Because I've just yesterday read about a whole different theory behind GRBs, namely that they signal a collapse of a super-massive star inside star nurseries at the edges of the observable Universe.
Obligatory statement (Score:2, Funny)
Er...wait...nevermind.
Why is it relevant that... (Score:2)
AstroCapella song about Swift... (Score:2)
Obligatory Red Dwarf quote (Score:3, Funny)
Rimmer: But you saw them - you saw them on the monitor.
Holly: They weren't Black Holes.
Rimmer: What were they?
Holly: Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes...
Rimmer: Oh, shut up.
Some context: (Score:2)
Rimmer: But a Black Hole's a huge, compacted star! It's millions of miles wide! Why didn't you see it on the radar screen?
Holly: Well, the thing about a Black Hole, its main distinguishing feature, is it's black. And the thing about space, your basic space colour is black. So how are you supposed to see them?
Rimmer: But five of them! How can you be ambushed by five Black Holes?
Holly: Always the way, isn't it? You hang around in deep
Did LIGO detect it? (sorry, a serious comment) (Score:2)
This is exactly the type of thing they're looking for a gravitational 'signature' from - it should give a 'chirp' or a signal with increasing frequency as the neurton stars orbit around each other closer and closer.
Here's a relevant quote:
http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12367
"In Einstein's theory, alterations in the shape of concentrations of mass (or energy) have the effect of warping space-time, thereby causing distortions that propagate through the un
what they detected... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Terrible Secrect of Space? (Score:4, Funny)
That's what I thought when I heard about Paula Abdul on Idol... this is how burned out old stars on earth behave, they attemt to merge with younger, brighter stars. A little titillation and BAM(!) their radiating again and the envy of all their neighboring dying stars.
Re:Terrible Secrect of Space? (Score:2)
Re:Detected how? (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAP; though, I do have a strong intrest in it.
Re:Detected how? (Score:4, Informative)
Think of it as a last cry of atoms being swallowed.
Re:Detected how? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Detected how? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/~cenko/grb050509b/0505
Re:Detected how? (Score:5, Informative)
From what I've read, you have a better chance of detecting a black hole by looking for the effects of its gravitational field on light that passes nearby. It should warp the apparent positions of stars.
Re:Detected how? (Score:2)
Also, I studied black holes for a bit (quantum field theory in curved spacetime 'n' all that). At no point was I able to make a connection between what I studied and the pop science description you just attempted. I think it probably bears little relation to the real physics!
Re:Indeed? (Score:2)
Re:LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU (Score:5, Insightful)
They "knew" that the cosmos was perfect and unchanging, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
The main difference being, of course, was once the evidence became irrefutable that such notions were incorrect, scientists changed the theories to fit the data. Religions have a tendency to kill people when challenged.
Re:LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU (Score:3, Insightful)
Where do you think the word "Protestant" came from?
And how many people died as a direct result of the Protestant reformation? Compare, please, to the number of people who died as a part of the revolution in physics at the advent of quantum mechanics and general relativity.
yes, then new evidence changes minds (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientists can be just as guilty as anyone of holding onto their beliefs, the difference is they can't say "God told me so" and justify killing the nonbelievers.
Re:LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU (Score:5, Funny)
God put them on earth to test you.
Via evolution, of course.
Re:I've Wondered... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has all the earmarks of "We don't understand this sh*t, so we think no one else does, so we think god did it". And the rest of the illiterate rabble thinks the same and says "Well that SOUNDS right, let's be skeptical about the very science that lets us use computers in the first place!"
Re:I've Wondered... (Score:2)
You sound like Jeff Goldblume in a bad movie about aliens or dinosaurs or whatever...
The truth is that if we really examined the number of theories vs. the number of provable truths you'd realize that the skeptics are the odds on winners. Being a skeptic doesn't mean you're rejecting anything other than the idea that half assed th
Re:...But they don't exist! (Score:3, Informative)
From your link "according to a physicist"... There is a general consensus that black holes with singularities exist, but the universe doesn't give a damn about our consensual opinion - the Earth would be flat otherwise.
This is how science works, people come up with testable ideas which are proven right or wrong. No-one is arguing that super-dense, intrinsically dark objects don't exist, we have plenty of evidence that they do. Infinitely dense sing