"Black hole shreds star, sparking gamma ray flash"

Thought this article was interesting especially since now the more in depth space information is being discussed in an avenue such as yahoo news in the main stream media.



news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by MonkeyWrench30


whoa, that's pretty cool. Never heard of black whole eating a star with an impulsive feeding frenzy.

What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or 24 trillion miles (38.62 trillion km) from Earth, was sitting quietly, not eating much, when a star about the mass of our Sun moved into range.

Somehow 4 billion light years seems like way more than 24 trillion miles away. Am I correct or am I missing something?

Originally posted by micmerci
What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or 24 trillion miles (38.62 trillion km) from Earth, was sitting quietly, not eating much, when a star about the mass of our Sun moved into range.

Somehow 4 billion light years seems like way more than 24 trillion miles away. Am I correct or am I missing something?

reply to post by MonkeyWrench30


Not trying to be a fear monger but dont we "just happen to align" with a black hole in the center of the milky way on 12-21-12? Im pretty sure thats what I read and this article just said that the star just happened to align when it was eaten. Any theories?

Originally posted by AllUrChips
reply to post by MonkeyWrench30

 

Not trying to be a fear monger but dont we "just happen to align" with a black hole in the center of the milky way on 12-21-12? Im pretty sure thats what I read and this article just said that the star just happened to align when it was eaten. Any theories?

We'll still be ~30,000 light years away from the black hole .. No need to worry

EDIT: About that anyhow .. no promises on the 2nd Coming and stuff!

reply to post by micmerci


Maybe you can get an image of the difference between a trillion, and a billion from this little illustrated website, then get back to me how meaningless 'numbers' seem to be.
What does a trillion dollars look like?


Quite a BIG difference isn't it?

Originally posted by micmerci

Originally posted by micmerci
What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or 24 trillion miles (38.62 trillion km) from Earth, was sitting quietly, not eating much, when a star about the mass of our Sun moved into range.

Somehow 4 billion light years seems like way more than 24 trillion miles away. Am I correct or am I missing something?

Yup there's a mistake in the article. 24 trillion miles is equal to like 4 light years. Oh well, not a big mistake - they just used a few too many 0's.

I dont want to fear monger but Ive heard Brian Cox and many more say that if an event like this was facing towards earth and at the right distance we would all be toast, this isnt I hope.

"This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before," said Joshua Bloom of the University of California-Berkeley.

What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon)

LINK
BBC NEWS
FULL ARTICAL BELOW

Astronomers have spied a star's swan song as it is shredded by a black hole.

Researchers suspect that the star wandered too close to the black hole and got sucked in by the huge gravitational forces.

The star's final moments sent a flash of radiation hurtling towards Earth.

The energy burst is still visible by telescope more than two-and-a-half months later, the researchers report in the journal Science.

The Swift spacecraft constantly scans the skies for bursts of radiation, notifying astronomers when it locates a potential flare.

These bursts usually indicate the implosion of an ageing star, which produces a single, quick blast of energy.

But this event, first spotted on 28 March 2011 and designated Sw 1644+57, does not have the marks of an imploding sun.

What intrigued the researchers about this gamma ray burst is that it flared up four times over a period of four hours.

Astrophysicist Dr Andrew Levan from the University of Warwick, and his colleagues suspected that they were looking at a very different sort of galactic event; one where a passing star got sucked into a black hole.

The energy bursts matched nicely with what you might expect when you "throw a star into a black hole", Dr Levan told BBC News.
Gasless centres

Black holes are thought to reside at the centres of most major galaxies. Some black holes are surrounded by matter in the form of gas; light is emitted when the gas is dragged into the hole. However, the centres of most galaxies are devoid of gas and so are invisible from Earth.

These black holes only become visible when an object such as a star is pulled in. If this happens, the star becomes elongated, first spreading out to form a "banana shape" before its inner edge - orbiting faster than the outer edge - pulls the star into a disc-shape that wraps itself around the hole.

As material drops into the black hole it becomes compressed and releases radiation that is usually visible from Earth for a month or so.

Events like these, termed mini-quasars, are incredibly rare - researchers expect one every hundred million years in any one galaxy.

The researchers used some of most powerful ground-based and space-based observatories - the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Gemini and Keck Telescopes.

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I POSTED THIS IN THE WRONG SECTION LOL HOPE IT HELPS YOUR THREAD

Astronomers have spied a star's swan song as it is shredded by a black hole.

Researchers suspect that the star wandered too close to the black hole and got sucked in by the huge gravitational forces.

The star's final moments sent a flash of radiation hurtling towards Earth.

Stars arent quite what people think and there are no coincidences. It didn't wander accidentally too close, and black holes could be seen as windows waste paper basket, and programs no longer needed go in.

reply to post by MonkeyWrench30


not only do black holes suck, but astronomers theorys of what they are also suck. it is a hypothesis that black holes exist at all.

on gamma stuff, 2 authors that i know of have claimed a gamma wave pulse has originated from the centre of our milky way 26,000 years ago and is coming to a solar system close by you, namely yours. vast changes are expected according to "pane andov."