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  • FRIDAY DECEMBER 21 2007 4:00 AM

Alderaan Was a Peaceful Planet (Before the Black Hole)

Submitted by _DictionaryGirl_

Edited by _DictionaryGirl_

How fascinating are black holes? Like bottomless, pitch-dark wells of mystery and intrigue, they are eternally showing us some new side and defying expectations. Sometimes it's as simple and self-contained as redefining dark matter's role in relation to space; other times, however, black holes like to take a page from Wil Tarkin's interrogation cliff notes and break a couple thumbs, Grand Moff style.

For the first time astronomers have witnessed a supermassive black hole blasting its galactic neighbor with a deadly beam of energy.



Have I watched entirely too much Star Wars growing up? I suppose that's all relative, isn't it? At least I'm not alone in my immediate association -- NASA astronomers are currently referring to the black hole nega-system in question as a "Death Star galaxy," wholly validating the mental link bound to occur regarding the structures' malicious intents.

Needless to say (as it is pretty much modus operandi for black holes), this whole dark-energy beam shtick is something the likes of which the good folks at NASA have never seen outside the mechanized lens of George Lucas, and they seem to be grappling for a statement.

"We've seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first time we've seen one punch into another galaxy like we're seeing here," said Dan Evans, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling."



Sadly, Dr. Evans has gravely mixed his metaphors. Punching into? Pummeling? This is Episode IV, sir, not Rocky IV. Drago was certainly a big dude, but he wasn't a planet.

But anyway, to elaborate further on the situation: long, long ago (because, as you know, what we see is not always when we're seeing it), and far, far away (in the 3C321 system, to be exact), there existed two galaxies: one our proverbial peaceful planet, and the other our war star of death. Instead of lasers, the black hole galaxy glances off its neighbor with a lightning-fast beam of electrons and radioactive-tastic x-ray and gamma ray photons, and while the result doesn't have quite the same panache as a fireworks explosion, it's pretty sinister nonetheless.

The deadly galaxy — the largest of two in a system known as 3C321 — is aiming the high-energy jet from its center at a smaller galaxy 20,000 light-years away from it, or roughly the distance from Earth to the Milky Way's core. [...] "The photons can have a really dramatic, profound effect on a planetary atmosphere," he said, including vaporizing ozone and other gases. With the protective layers gone, life at the surface would be subject to the jet's full wrath.



Dramatic, no? Perhaps it's all our fault -- see, we looked at the universe wrong, and now it has no choice but to eat itself. Still, this isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds. After all, every bit of destruction brings the opportunity for a new beginning. Just as the destruction of Alderaan perhaps gave the Rebel Alliance that extra push of motivation it needed to finally send the Empire spiraling into destruction, so too does this supermassive black hole of doom push researchers ever further in their examinations and discoveries of our universe.

"We've seen jets do pretty weird things to their environments, but a head-on collision is really rare and generates a [large] amount of information about physics that we can understand and use," Evans said. "For that galaxy to be looking right down ... the barrel of the gun of that jet is incredibly rare, so this makes it a really exciting discovery."



What's more, it is theorized that, even as the energy beam rips and tears at its subject, new constructs may be built from its ashes. Built on the shoulders of this destruction, torn off and invigorated with irradiated energy, there may come new stars or whole new galaxies.

Perhaps even, dare I say... a new hope?



_DictionaryGirl_ doffs her astronaut helmet at Tony_T for the story. 'Ta!

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Comments
Dr_Zoidberg

Dr_Zoidberg

Raymore, MO
June 2004

DEC 21, 2007 04:31 AM

Great article, except for all the star wars jargon. They even reference Star Wars in the original article...

Yet another important discovery. We really do need to fix Hubble. I can't believe people want to cut back our space budget. If anything, it needs to be much more.

SirLoins

sirloins

Huntington Beach, CA
October 2005

DEC 21, 2007 04:41 AM


lightning-fast beam of elections



My voter fraud sense is tingling. I have a lot of senses that tingle.

But wait, I thought black holes were designated as such because their gravity is so dense that light (or electromagnetic radiation) can't escape... so what energy is this that found a way to beat the system?

Where can I find these answers? Should I start with the old or the new testament?

HAL9000

HAL9000

Milwaukee, WI
November 2003

DEC 21, 2007 04:54 AM


I wonder if this is the Hawking radiation Stephen Hawking predicted in his last book.

Zarth

zarth

Seattle, WA
December 2004

DEC 21, 2007 05:32 AM

I love that you're on good enough terms with Governor Wilhuff Tarkin to call him "Wil."

Zarth

zarth

Seattle, WA
December 2004

DEC 21, 2007 05:32 AM

I don't love that the SG double-post virus is actually affecting me now, though.

CryingTree

CryingTree

Milwaukee, WI
January 2007

DEC 21, 2007 05:58 AM

SirLoins said:


lightning-fast beam of elections


But wait, I thought black holes were designated as such because their gravity is so dense that light (or electromagnetic radiation) can't escape... so what energy is this that found a way to beat the system?




i could be wrong, but if i recall, they said a while back that they have learned that certain forms of energy could escape a black hole. so, maybe it's not escaping, but collecting, then discharging when it's reached it's potential limit...

Zarth

zarth

Seattle, WA
December 2004

DEC 21, 2007 06:05 AM

CryingTree said:

SirLoins said:


lightning-fast beam of elections


But wait, I thought black holes were designated as such because their gravity is so dense that light (or electromagnetic radiation) can't escape... so what energy is this that found a way to beat the system?


i could be wrong, but if i recall, they said a while back that they have learned that certain forms of energy could escape a black hole. so, maybe it's not escaping, but collecting, then discharging when it's reached it's potential limit...


I also seem to recall hearing something to that effect, but this sounds to me like they're talking about an annihilation fountain here, which, as far as this layman can tell, is of as-yet undertermined origins but most likely expelled from masses accelerating into the black hole prior to crossing the event horizon.

MikeofEvil2

MikeofEvil2

United Kingdom
September 2003

DEC 21, 2007 09:37 AM

Annihilation Fountain would be an excellent name for a band.

scylis

scylis

USA
November 2004

DEC 21, 2007 09:59 AM

Zarth said:
I love that you're on good enough terms with Governor Wilhuff Tarkin to call him "Wil."



oh, flex them dork muscles! (you beat me to it, you bastard, so i'll have to flex non-Star Wars ones to compensate)

SirLoins said:


lightning-fast beam of elections



My voter fraud sense is tingling. I have a lot of senses that tingle.

But wait, I thought black holes were designated as such because their gravity is so dense that light (or electromagnetic radiation) can't escape... so what energy is this that found a way to beat the system?

Where can I find these answers? Should I start with the old or the new testament?



not everything gets sucked into the black hole. as matter gets broken apart and sped up to the speed of light, sometimes it gets sling-shotted out along the polar axis of the black hole in the form of x-ray and gamma-ray bursts of (especially this case) potentially massive size and power. this is usually thought to occur upon the initial collapse of the former star into its new black hole state, but already existing stellar (the smaller, "normal" ones) and supermassive black holes (the superfucking huge black holes found at the center of most galaxies) have (obviously) been observed letting off such emissions.

and science has no testaments.

HAL9000 said:

I wonder if this is the Hawking radiation Stephen Hawking predicted in his last book.



no, actually. Hawking radiation is the theoretical "glow" of photons, neutrinos, and to a lesser extent other massive particles that surrounds black holes. this glow has never been observed, due in no small part to the black holes we've observed so far are typically surrounded by disks of hot gas spiraling into the black hole, the radiation from which outshines the glow from Hawking radiation.

theoretically, Hawking radiation is created when the particle-antiparticle pairs believed to be formed near the horizon of black holes stop being a pair. normally, they annihilate each other, but it is possible for one of the pair to be pulled into the black hole, letting the other escape.

Hawking radiation is more sizable for much smaller black holes, ones which either lack a fuel source to absorb or are just too small to sustain themselves long enough to find a source. because particles are being given off, this means that black holes will actually radiate themselves away until it ends in a massive explosion of supermassive particles (theoretically like the Big Bang).

Kolic

Kolic

Broken Arrow, OK
July 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:08 AM

I can't belief I'm the first to say this....

That's no black hole...That's a space station.

Zarth

zarth

Seattle, WA
December 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:18 AM

scylis said:
and science has no testaments.


Maybe not, but it has awesome inventions!

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

The word for which you are groping is "WHOOSH."

You sure did explain all that sciencin' a lot better than I did, though.

scylis

scylis

USA
November 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:28 AM

Zarth said:

scylis said:
and science has no testaments.


Maybe not, but it has awesome inventions!

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

The word for which you are groping is "WHOOSH."

You sure did explain all that sciencin' a lot better than I did, though.



hah, jokes on you, bitch! well, actually all of us, too, because that was meant to be sarcastically overbearing in atheist smugness, but i was more concerned with the sciencin' to really put my all into that part.

it would have involved a Darwin-featuring macro, but i'm lazy. and by lazy i mean too concerned with sounding smart to bother.

dropped the ball on that one, sorry.

Zarth

zarth

Seattle, WA
December 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:41 AM

scylis said:
hah, jokes on you, bitch!


scylis

scylis

USA
November 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:47 AM

SirLoins said:


lightning-fast beam of elections



My voter fraud sense is tingling. I have a lot of senses that tingle.

But wait, I thought black holes were designated as such because their gravity is so dense that light (or electromagnetic radiation) can't escape... so what energy is this that found a way to beat the system?

Where can I find these answers? Should I start with the old or the new testament?



zoom image

how's that? better?

scylis

scylis

USA
November 2004

DEC 21, 2007 10:48 AM

Zarth said:

scylis said:
hah, jokes on you, bitch!




you know i love you, baby.
kiss

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