What is Digg?123 Comments
- profvegas, on 04/15/2008, -7/+49"..The galactic center is about 26,000 light-years from Earth, meaning we see events as they occurred 26,000 years ago. " + "By observing how this cloud lit up and faded over 10 years, we could trace back the black hole’s activity 300 years ago," So I'd guess it awoke 26,300 years ago.
- Flappity, on 04/15/2008, -3/+35I swear, astronomy threads ALWAYS have the most irrelevant/stupid comments..
- mortigon, on 04/15/2008, -3/+25You will be recieving a job offer from NASA shortly.
- icexe, on 04/15/2008, -1/+13That's their way of saying they're too dumb to actually understand the articles.
- cissystrut, on 04/15/2008, -2/+13dugg.... Leeloo Dallas multipass
- Anpheus, on 04/15/2008, -6/+15It's extremely sad, as it shows a profound misunderstanding of current astrophysics and observation. Whenever you talk about something happening last year, a hundred years ago, whatever, they can only say that's when they observed it. The object may be 26,000 light years away, it may be 25,000 light years away, we're not even exactly certain of the distances, hence it's stupid to try and come up with an even more precise number (adding significant figures) and say it happened 26,300 years ago.
This is also a profound misunderstanding of significant figures/digits and you should consider that. How meaningless is the information if we are only certain that it's 2#,### + 300 years ago that this happened? What is a non-exact figure plus 300? Can you tell me?
Can you pass your science classes, please? - frazier428, on 04/15/2008, -0/+9Anpheus is right.
They are saying it happened 300 years ago relative to us (our point of view on space). So, when he says "Chandra observations of X-ray light echoes to show that Sagittarius A* generated a powerful burst of X-rays about 50 years ago -- about a dozen years before astronomers had satellites that could detect X-rays from outer space," etc, it means relative to our point of view in space. - coherentlight, on 04/15/2008, -3/+11How on earth do you "certify" a black hole as a "monster" ? Is there some department I am unaware of ? Some paperwork that must be filed ? And what are the other black hole certification's ? "Really Really Big " "Ginormous" "Sucktacular" ?
-cl - nusuni, on 04/15/2008, -11/+19Is there any possibility of launching Hillary Clinton into it?
- HaSatan, on 04/15/2008, -10/+16The stones are not safe on Earth anymore.
- Radar3D, on 04/15/2008, -1/+7They certified it as a monster after the black hole received a cease and desist letter from Monster Cables. Sagittarius A vows to fight this frivolous lawsuit.
- cheezintern, on 04/15/2008, -2/+8Is that what they're reporting on fox news?
- Harbinger67, on 04/15/2008, -1/+5It better hurry up, we're making a fine mess of doing it ourselves!
- ths453, on 04/15/2008, -4/+82012
- TSK05, on 04/15/2008, -2/+6Well, anyone that has not taking at least an astronomy 100 course probably understands far less about the article than they think. I am an astronomy major, and before taking at least an intro course on it, I would not be able to understand much (although not so much in an article like this, which gives very little details).
- duckyinc, on 04/15/2008, -2/+6Not before we kill ourselves!!
- robbiemuffin, on 04/15/2008, -1/+4woah man, take a chill pill. while it was a great technical answer, it is a fairly reasonable question.
- LeeSoong, on 04/15/2008, -2/+5Don't forget the super brains at NASA that couldn't properly convert English to Metric, resulting in the loss of Mars explorer missions...
- Enderplayer1, on 04/15/2008, -1/+4Bush called he wants to know what the black hole's preset kill limit is so he can send waves and waves of our own men into it.
(as a side note we can always build more black holes) - angryredplanet, on 04/16/2008, -0/+3Sagittarius A* is no ordinary black hole - it's the Milky Way's galactic center. Such black holes are called supermassive for good reason. Unlike black holes that are born of stellar collapse, which requires that the star be at least 1.5 times the mass of our sun, supermassive black holes have masses between hundreds of thousands and tens of billions of solar masses. They generally grow by consuming matter caught in their event horizon, including other black holes. They are indeed "monsters".
"There is growing evidence that Sgr A* may be a million solar mass black hole accreting from the Galactic center wind."
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992ApJ...395L..87M - TSK05, on 04/15/2008, -1/+4Anpheus is exactly right (to see his reply, view the comment he made in response to fadetoone above).
judicar, what the hell are you talking about. What cluster? - linksus, on 04/16/2008, -0/+3Not very "black" is it.
- TobiasParker, on 04/15/2008, -0/+3Sagittarius A *
Sagitarius A Star is just how it is pronounced, * probably is used to represent the fact that is a Black Hole instead of a 'normal' cosmological body. - Dichotomic, on 04/15/2008, -0/+3Stellar bodies have official names based on their luminosity and their location in the sky. The black hole at the center of the Milky Way is in the constellation Sagittarius. Really not that exciting.
- Kallahan, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2not as unlikley as it seems, there are plenty of spiral galaxies where the central black hole is off axis to the disk.
- cheezintern, on 04/15/2008, -2/+4War is coming!
- SpacePoet, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2The great insights you get in forums usually has to be picked from between the satire and slap stick going on...
Well, there really isn't much to say about this if you are interested. The insight of the black hole was an amazing discovery to begin with, spooky, but amazing. I don't want to talk about this one, the monster at the heart of this great galaxy, I just wish I could close my eyes and it would be gone. It feels like 'The Nothing' lurking there...
What do you say to something that can eat time and space as well as anything else? - RussellDovey, on 04/15/2008, -0/+2It could. There's no way of knowing whether an even larger cloud of gas got pushed into the hole's gravity well just a bit less than 26k years ago, creating an x-ray flare powerful enough to outshine the sun.
Mind you, with the resolution we're getting from Chandra, I wouldn't be surprised if the astronomers could rule out such a gas cloud being anywhere nearby. Modern observational astronomy is so awesome. - Kallahan, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2Most likely not a collapsed star, probably an extremely large gas cloud that collapsed straight to a black hole.
- Kallahan, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2problem is, because the galactic core, even in its resting state, is so noisy across almost all bands that we cannot actually "see" anything on the other side of it.
- mbthompson, on 04/15/2008, -1/+3"Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Awoke from Slumber 300yrs Ago", upon waking it then proceeded to have the largest case of morning thunder ever recorded.
- inactive, on 04/15/2008, -2/+4Well, it seemed to give you an excuse to use some profanity. Your mother would be proud.
- angryredplanet, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2If we were exactly in line with either pole of this massive black hole while it was discharging a gamma ray burst, we could be in serious trouble. Highly unlikely, but still worth considering.
- Omeganon, on 04/15/2008, -0/+2More precisely, the event occurred 26,000 +- 600 years ago, depending on the relation of Sagittarius B2 to our solar system. If it's on the opposite side of A* from us, it took 300 years to get there, 300 years to get back and 26,000 years to get to Earth.
- xptoast, on 04/16/2008, -0/+2The point is that you can't have a photon coming from nowhere and yet it seems to. For if it came from somewhere it would have to have mass as everything must have mass. Otherwise it is a mathematical construct. Mass gives us the ability to measure space of the object and locations of it. They don't have any good ways to work it. It's not just a chemical thing either. It comes from many sources that are not related. The point is that they are basing their conclusions on something unstable as the shifting sands. Sorry but it was a loaded question/comment. Thanks for triggering the trap:)
- lostlyrics, on 04/16/2008, -0/+1**** The point is that you can't have a photon coming from nowhere and yet it seems to.
For if it came from somewhere it would have to have mass as everything must have mass.***
Well for one, we cannot yet - so to speak, and secondly - fyki
- they almost plan to have the higgs-boson discovered by 2009.
... feel free to visit my physics&astronomy group at myspace
(sucker-free zone) http://groups.myspace.com/darklymatters - daschupa, on 04/15/2008, -2/+3Does it suck as much as your "joke"?
- bosssmiley, on 04/16/2008, -1/+2What did it do to us to earn such unprovoked aggression?
- angryredplanet, on 04/16/2008, -1/+2In general relativity, no object of mass can travel at or faster than the speed of light. This is theoretical as we have no way of proving it one way or the other. With that said, it is a commonly accepted scientific notion due to related observations that are said to be proof.
Our knowledge of gravity, more the manipulation of it, is infant at best. I believe once we begin to learn more about this and the other of nature's force we will be able to test this theory. - Lazydriver, on 04/15/2008, -2/+3lol
I couldn't help it. - Fergy, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1I wonder what would happen when the two certified monsters collide?
- chrisinsocalif, on 04/15/2008, -6/+7Bush declared the black hole as a Weapon of Mass Destruction and a danger to the lives of Americans. He will soon send space troops to take care of the problem costing us billions.
- SpacePoet, on 04/16/2008, -0/+1What do you call something that can eat time and space as well as anything else? (rehashed from my last statement)
- xptoast, on 04/16/2008, -1/+2Speed of light is said to have a specific speed, but they can speed up light or slow it down. So how again is that anywhere near a finite way to measure something or even give credibility to anything? Also other particles do go faster than light. Or at least their finite value that is commonly used...even though it doesn't matter.
Just a quick google gave me this for instance:
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae219 ... - lostlyrics, on 04/16/2008, -0/+1irrigardlessly :D I'm not the creator of that creature.
and we should not bring up anglish to a logical issue - coldfire201, on 04/15/2008, -1/+2Well I get the article, but I find science humor funny as hell so I made a joke... sorry.
- Kallahan, on 04/16/2008, -0/+1The speed of light in a vacuum is constant. this has been experimentally proven many man many times.
- inactive, on 04/15/2008, -1/+2We really are all going to die you know, somebody does every day.
- TehGrisp, on 04/16/2008, -1/+2It already did--26,000 years ago.
- TehGrisp, on 04/16/2008, -1/+2Then... don't open the page.
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