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Closest Look Ever at the Edge of a Black Hole

physorg.com — (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have taken the closest look ever at the giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way. By combining telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, they detected structure at a tiny angular scale of 37 micro-arcseconds - the equivalent of a baseball seen on the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles distant. These observat

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 4, 2008

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  • aimhelix, on 09/04/2008, -2/+84I love Astronomy stuff on Digg. With all the worries and the politics and the fads that make it to the front page, it's nice to be shown how little and insignificant we really are amongst the cluster of stars in the Universe. Nature is beautiful.
  • DeskFlyer, on 09/04/2008, -0/+43It's actually not even a sphere, it's a singularity. The event horizon, however, does form a sphere-like region around it, which is the point we cannot see past, thus resembling a black 'hole'.
  • PHJames88, on 09/04/2008, -1/+42That's no moon...
  • inactive, on 09/04/2008, -4/+35OH SHI--
  • freezerburn666, on 09/04/2008, -4/+27space goatse
  • inactive, on 09/04/2008, -3/+24Wow was that made with MS Paint?
  • WalkerTXclocker, on 09/04/2008, -0/+20Actually it depends on the theory you believe to be true...

    from wikipedia...
    "While general relativity describes a black hole as a region of empty space with a pointlike singularity at the center and an event horizon at the outer edge, the description changes when the effects of quantum mechanics are taken into account. Research on this subject indicates that, rather than holding captured matter forever, black holes may slowly leak a form of thermal energy called Hawking radiation. However, the final, correct description of black holes, requiring a theory of quantum gravity, is unknown."
  • daebat, on 09/04/2008, -7/+24what most people don't realize is that a black hole is actually a really compact sphere like a planet or star. we call it a hole because the escape velocity on the surface is stronger than the speed of light.
  • CindyMindy, on 09/04/2008, -2/+15I dugg you up, but I hate when people question their life's worth when they talk about the universe or nature. We ARE nature. As far as we know, we're the only conscious beings in the universe (again, as far as we know). I say I'm pretty damn special.
  • wrillo, on 09/04/2008, -0/+12do we really want to observe this? I mean... just looking can kill a cat
  • KSUdesigner, on 09/04/2008, -0/+11You're not THAT special, there are more than 6 billion others just like you on this planet alone.
  • ghostfaceDX, on 09/04/2008, -3/+14FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK
  • youannoyme, on 09/04/2008, -0/+11Not that it really matters, but its only a sphere when its not rotating. It becomes oblong when it spins.
  • boulderomen, on 09/04/2008, -0/+9Mind blowing, to say the least.
  • Jibberwalk, on 09/04/2008, -0/+9If you're at all interested in any of this... I really recommend the book "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" by Lee Smolin (ISBN: 0-465-07835-4)

    He really tackles quantum theory in an impressively clear way. It was one of the most solid reads I've done in the genre. As a follow up... or maybe companion book -- I'd recommend "Supersymmetry" by Gordon Kane (ISBN: 0-7382-0489-7)
  • WELLDOITLIVE, on 09/04/2008, -0/+8She's fat
  • staffa, on 09/04/2008, -1/+9A grain of sand bends light (a laser beam is also light)

    Anything with mass bends light, which is pretty much everything.

    Of course a grain of sand doesn't bend light much, a huge mountain doesn't even bend light much, heck the entire Earth can barely cause a flicker in the path of a beam of light, a flicker so small that we still can't detect it.

    Our sun bends light enough that we actually have detected it and used that detection to help prove Einstein right about relativity.

    A black hole bends light so much that it if it crosses the event horizen, it will spiral into the black hole lost forever* to the rest of the Universe.


    *Techinically not lost forever due to hawking radiation and the belief that information can not be destroyed (in an ultimate sense), but lost for a good long time none the less(trillions of years)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_informatio ...


  • GiJoeBob, on 09/04/2008, -1/+8Blackhole ate their server.
  • gluecode, on 09/04/2008, -0/+7The closest I went to the edge of a black hole was a SQL Error : database problem.
  • chrissku, on 09/04/2008, -1/+7Mirror?
  • wolferz, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6@jonathandyer

    you're an idiot and you're wrong... it's not a tag or a comment... its an irc/mmorpg command. Such commands, including emotes, start with a /

    Next time when you try to be a dick try making fewer assumptions in the process... that way you might not look like an idiot.
  • physicalzero, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6Black holes cost $300,000
  • LordPhilMil, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6...
  • Webnower, on 09/04/2008, -1/+7...Mom?
  • icebane, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5Share thoughts on the universe with friends and family you care about. Show them how wonderful and beyond imagination the visible universe, and the sub-atomic universe is. Then hope your friends/family spread it to others they care about.
  • uggidi, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5Science always confuses me...
  • iharbinger, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5I'm almost deeply certain he doesn't care jonathanyer.
  • mightyslick, on 09/04/2008, -1/+6I was expecting another Brittany or Paris upskirt .
  • Thuktun, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5The entire black hole isn't a singularity, the singularity is the point at the center of the spherical region inside the event horizon. However, all of this is mathematical and theoretical, as we can't examine the inside of one directly.
  • inactive, on 09/04/2008, -3/+8Howard the Duck lives in there.
  • GliTCH82, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4The photo captures a moment in time that happened anywhere between 26,400 - 35,000 years ago. Buried as old.
  • Darkaged, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4...That's a schooner
  • TooMuchTXN, on 09/04/2008, -2/+6Psssh we are all going to get a real close look of a black hole as soon as they flip the switch on the Large Hadron Collider and we are engulfed by a doomsday black hole.

    /places tinfoil hat on head
  • lulzitsadigg, on 09/04/2008, -3/+7What about Dick Cheney's heart?
  • scarwars, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4/me hasn't seen movie
  • misilman, on 09/04/2008, -2/+6OM NOM NOM NOM!
  • inactive, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4You're special to me.
  • aforce369, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4 ^ User was banned for this post.
  • fugeelama, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Not a mirror but the same story on a different site:

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/08090 ...
  • digichris, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4the double caps at the beginning was brilliant sir, i applaud u.
  • brettg102, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Dugg for Schrodinger's cat.
  • Corte, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3Wrong article, buddy. Ctrl+Tab and try again.
  • SkateorDie, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3i always wondered if that was stephen colbert.... is it?
  • thegrantman, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3I approve of poetic troll.
  • 5xSTUN, on 09/04/2008, -2/+5I heard Chuck Norris encountered a black hole, but I didn't hear what happened.
  • Minxiloni, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3He's actually correct. The star is presumed to be a sphere shape (this could be debated since at a singularity, the laws of physics break down, but we'll presume that an efficient, compact shape such as a sphere could exist), though extremely small and dense. This, of course, causes space/time to warp very extremely causing light to fall back in on itself. The event horizon is a boundary around this bend where nothing can escape. You go past that boundary and you can never get out, you orbit around the boundary and you're safe. The original name for black holes used to be "Dark Star," which of course describes light not being able to escape, making it seem black or "dark", and star because well, it's still considered a star, albeit an extremely small and dense one.
  • shoediva, on 09/04/2008, -8/+11Lets be truthful her outfit wasn't $300,000 it's the earrings that were so high. Very misleading
    headline......that's why I read the article I wanted to see what designer cost $300,000.
  • WrldsWrstDigger, on 09/04/2008, -1/+4the black hole was so strong it swallowed this web page!!
  • inactive, on 09/04/2008, -2/+5LOok into the blackhole
    Disappear tonight
    Look back into the blackhole
    It will no longer fright
    Science may reach it
    Even from afar
    It looks like one never ending pit
    made of something like black tar
    Peer into the dark
    Know not what to expect
    maybe it's has the cure for cancer
    or maybe it'll infect
    infect us with its mystery
    A truth not meant to be discovered
    it just distracts our attention
    and laughs at us for we think we have uncovered

    /poetic troll
  • leerayIG88, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2My mom says im special. You can't argue with that.
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