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Most Powerful Eruption in the Universe Discovered
NASA website ^ | January 5, 2005 | Dolores Beasley, Steve Roy, Megan Watzke

Posted on 01/06/2005 11:27:25 AM PST by snarks_when_bored

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To: snarks_when_bored

It's Bush's fault!


21 posted on 01/06/2005 11:37:16 AM PST by beethovenfan
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To: snarks_when_bored
"Gas is being pushed away from the black hole at supersonic speeds over a distance of about a million light-years."

What's the speed of sound in a vacuum?

22 posted on 01/06/2005 11:40:18 AM PST by avg_freeper (Gunga galunga. Gunga, gunga galunga)
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To: HamiltonJay

I thought that the string theory had been discredited.


23 posted on 01/06/2005 11:40:34 AM PST by razoroccam (Then in the name of Allah, they will let loose the Germs of War (http://www.booksurge.com))
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To: FreePaul
How far away is this from us? Follow up questions. When did it happen? Is it still goin on?

About 2.6 billion light years away. So we're seeing it as it was 2.6 billion years ago. From out standpoint, it's still going on, but we're observing it as it was then. I suspect it's still there, but we'd have to guess what it looks like at this instant.

A link to the Chandra website.

24 posted on 01/06/2005 11:41:15 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored
I thought this was the largest (bimbo) eruption:

25 posted on 01/06/2005 11:42:42 AM PST by mcg1969
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To: snarks_when_bored

Interesting.


26 posted on 01/06/2005 11:46:17 AM PST by ELS
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To: avg_freeper
What's the speed of sound in a vacuum?

Sound doesn't propagate in a vacuum. By 'supersonic' in this context, I assume that it means faster than the speed of pressure waves propagating through the gaseous medium surrounding the black hole. Just as objects in our atmosphere can move faster than the sound they generate, so too can gas molecules exceed the speed of the pressure waves generated as they're pushed by the black hole's gravitational and magnetic slingshot effects.

(I'm not a physicist, but I play one on FR.)

27 posted on 01/06/2005 11:48:52 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: avg_freeper
Nice catch.

L

28 posted on 01/06/2005 11:51:07 AM PST by Lurker ("I answer to you, 'F*** you-I shall die on my feet.!" Oriana Fallaci.)
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To: HamiltonJay

I'm familiar with the string theory conjectures to which you refer, but I can't say whether your further conjecture has merit. I don't know enough to even guess.


29 posted on 01/06/2005 11:52:17 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: razoroccam
I thought black holes swallowed everything, including energy and gas. So how is it that this black hole is responsible for an explosion with gas streaming away from it, and with so much gamma radiation?

Read "The Elegant Universe", black holes actually are capable of emissions.

See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5473323/

DUBLIN, Ireland - After 29 years of thinking about it, Stephen Hawking says he was wrong about black holes.

The renowned Cambridge University physicist formally presented a paper Wednesday arguing that black holes, the celestial vortexes formed from collapsed stars, preserve traces of objects swallowed up and eventually could spit bits out “in a mangled form.” Last week, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., he revealed he had changed his long-held thinking on black holes.

Hawking’s radical new theory caps his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really “disappear” inside a black hole and leave no trace, as he long believed, when subatomic theory says matter can be transformed but never fully destroyed?

Hawking had previously insisted that black holes destroy all molecular fingerprints of their contents and emit only a generic form of radiation.

But on Wednesday at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, Hawking presented mind-boggling new calculations that suggest black holes are able to cast out their contents — and that there’s only one way in and one way out.

30 posted on 01/06/2005 11:55:02 AM PST by 1LongTimeLurker
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To: MineralMan

You've got that right!


31 posted on 01/06/2005 11:55:32 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored
Chandra X-ray Observatory. A super massive black hole generated this eruption by growing at a remarkable rate.

Can we stop talking about Gary Condit?

32 posted on 01/06/2005 11:57:29 AM PST by Koblenz (Holland: a very tolerant country. Until someone shoots you on a public street in broad daylight...)
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To: snarks_when_bored

What, did Michael Moore break wind????


33 posted on 01/06/2005 12:00:24 PM PST by SeamusVA
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To: snarks_when_bored

Yes, me either, since I know very little... it just seems to me that if the base concept is, we are on a membrane, and all (nearly all) of what we percieve is tied to that membrane, but Gravitons (gravity) for whatever reason is free to leave the membrane, and in further theory perhaps encounter other membranes which may or may not bind them...

Our universe (membrane) would have gravitons leaving or flowing throught it potentially all the time with narry a notice or care.

But say something happened, and for some reason a point on the membrane suddenly changed in some way, causing gravitons not to so easily float away, but to become stuck, like say, plaque in an artery... then a singular stuck graviton would exert more gravitational force that we normally experience.... then that same graviton or event attracted more gravitons, tying them as well to the membrane... the gravitational force would rapidly expand from that point, and would appear to us as a black hole or singularity event... and the "critical mass" point for the devastating impact on our reality when it occurred would be monsterous in its effects.


34 posted on 01/06/2005 12:00:38 PM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: snarks_when_bored
Sorry, I meant it as a rhetorical question.

The idea of "speed of sound" as presented in this article is silly. By its definition the velocity of the air coming coming out of the air vent above me could be considered supersonic once you add its velocity vector relative to me to its velocity vector relative to the sun.

Speed of sound has everything to do with the velocity of a fluid relative to a secondary mass it's capable of communicating pressure info with none of which is implied by the article.

35 posted on 01/06/2005 12:02:05 PM PST by avg_freeper (Gunga galunga. Gunga, gunga galunga)
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To: snarks_when_bored

"The Black Cloud"...reality, not the book..coming soon to a Planet near you !


36 posted on 01/06/2005 12:03:53 PM PST by PoorMuttly (Rule the Planet)
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To: HamiltonJay
Write it up! (smile)

You've probably already seen them, but I'll mention last year's February, May and September issues of Scientific American. Some excellent articles relevant to these issues.

37 posted on 01/06/2005 12:07:12 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: avg_freeper

Maybe my little improvised explanation is close to being right. But maybe the authors meant something more mundane, using 'supersonic' to mean what we'd expect it to mean, i.e., 'faster than the speed of sound in Earth's atmosphere'.


38 posted on 01/06/2005 12:09:28 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored

Oh, whew, I misread the title. I though it said "erection".


39 posted on 01/06/2005 12:16:47 PM PST by snopercod (Due to the graphic nature of this tagline, viewer discretion is advised.)
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To: snarks_when_bored; All

A Redneck's reaction to this discovery: Hey Bubba, it kinda reminds me of a Big Gulp from the 7-11....that's it, we'll call this here black hol'..."BIG GULP!"


40 posted on 01/06/2005 12:17:03 PM PST by mdmathis6
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