Do you develop on GitHub? You can keep using GitHub but automatically sync your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with this tool so your projects have a backup location, and get your project in front of SourceForge's nearly 20 million monthly users. It takes less than a minute. Get new users downloading your project releases today!
Posted
by
timothy
from the toast-to-cool-science dept.
Crixus writes "It seems that a mathematical pattern has been found in the X-Ray light emitted by star systems." This is a really intriguing scientific detective story, too -- it took several years of analyzing numerous sources of X-ray flicker to find this pattern.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Since this seems to be the only post by someone who's read the article, I'll ask this question here.
It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.
The example of Cygnus X-2 given in the article listed the constant by which the whole number is multiplied as 9.8 days, equal to its orbital period, which would suggest that it is tied to a certain spot in its orbit. The possible reason offered, a "clump" in a tilted accretion disk, seems to suggest the same thing.
Yet nowhere do they say that the constant for Cygnus X-3 and LMC X-3 is equal to their orbital period: indeed they seem to actively avoid saying it ("Long term variations in LMC X-3 and Cygnus X-3 follow the same general rule: the lengths of the variations are always a whole number multiplied by a constant", immediately after linking Cygnus X-2's constant to its orbital period). Does anyone have any information on this? Do we know the orbital periods for these? This bears directly on whether the possible explanation is convincing (3/3 is one thing, 1/1 is something else).
Thanks for the link.
This seems to say that the x-ray bursts are integer multiples of the orbital period of the system; What would it look like to us on earth if the matter stream from the gas-supply star played across a planet that was in orbit of one or the other?
I bet it would look like an extremely bright burst of (insert name of favorite photon/high-energy particle here).
At almost relativistic velocities of the infalling matter, how long would such a planet last, before being blown away like a snowball in a blowtorch?
Although a Jupiter type planet with a large magnetic field might last quite some time, maybe even steal enough matter to become a star, eventually.
...has been discovered in the movements of the Sun.
Dr. Smith at Berkeley U., CA explains "We've noticed that the Sun's motion appears to have a large periodic component. Typically we see it rise in the morning and set in the evening. But the truly amazing thing is that it seems to do this once per day. Exactly."
Dr. Jones at Brigham Young U. is more sceptical "I've looked at Smith's data and see no evidence of a periodic pattern. I've been tracking sunrises now for the last year and the rising of the sun has fluctuated back and forth by several hours over this time. If the Sun's motion were truly periodic don't you think it would rise at the same time every morning?"
Still, Smith's team are unperturbed. "There's a definite pattern here although it might not be as simple as we thought".
Smith also rules out the possibility that intelleigence may be invokved in the patterning. Jones, on the other hand, wasn't so quick to dismiss such a hypothesis...
We have found that the excursion
times between X-ray minima in Cyg X-2 can be characterized as a series of integer multiples of the 9.8 binary orbital period... In the black hole candidate system LMC X-3, the excursion times are shown to be related to each other by rational fractions. We find that the long
term light curve of the unusual galactic X-ray jet source Cyg X-3 can also be described as a series of intensity excursions related to each other by
integer multiples of a fundamental underlying clock. In the latter cases, the clock is apparently not related to the known binary periods.
But that doesn't mean that the model is wrong. Their model involves a third object with its own orbital period that disturbs the disk, causing the flares. This would have a period unrelated to the orbital period of the binary, and the multipliers would not be completely random but would have a predictable propability distribution.
Too bad it doesn't look like anyone's actually trying to communicate here. It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.
Random Key (Score:1)
There goes my changes of using those rays to generate PGP keys. Stupid computers.
---
ticks = jiffies;
while (ticks == jiffies);
ticks = jiffies;
Finally! (Score:3)
Oh, wait, that happened when we discovered abstract algebra.
--
Re:Text link (Score:4)
The example of Cygnus X-2 given in the article listed the constant by which the whole number is multiplied as 9.8 days, equal to its orbital period, which would suggest that it is tied to a certain spot in its orbit. The possible reason offered, a "clump" in a tilted accretion disk, seems to suggest the same thing.
Yet nowhere do they say that the constant for Cygnus X-3 and LMC X-3 is equal to their orbital period: indeed they seem to actively avoid saying it ("Long term variations in LMC X-3 and Cygnus X-3 follow the same general rule: the lengths of the variations are always a whole number multiplied by a constant", immediately after linking Cygnus X-2's constant to its orbital period). Does anyone have any information on this? Do we know the orbital periods for these? This bears directly on whether the possible explanation is convincing (3/3 is one thing, 1/1 is something else).
Re:Text link (Score:1)
This seems to say that the x-ray bursts are integer multiples of the orbital period of the system; What would it look like to us on earth if the matter stream from the gas-supply star played across a planet that was in orbit of one or the other?
I bet it would look like an extremely bright burst of (insert name of favorite photon/high-energy particle here).
At almost relativistic velocities of the infalling matter, how long would such a planet last, before being blown away like a snowball in a blowtorch?
Although a Jupiter type planet with a large magnetic field might last quite some time, maybe even steal enough matter to become a star, eventually.
Re:Text link (Score:1)
--
Re:Text link (Score:1)
--
Re:Text link (Score:1)
--
Re:Text link (Score:1)
--
Scientists announce a mathematical pattern... (Score:4)
Dr. Smith at Berkeley U., CA explains "We've noticed that the Sun's motion appears to have a large periodic component. Typically we see it rise in the morning and set in the evening. But the truly amazing thing is that it seems to do this once per day. Exactly."
Dr. Jones at Brigham Young U. is more sceptical "I've looked at Smith's data and see no evidence of a periodic pattern. I've been tracking sunrises now for the last year and the rising of the sun has fluctuated back and forth by several hours over this time. If the Sun's motion were truly periodic don't you think it would rise at the same time every morning?"
Still, Smith's team are unperturbed. "There's a definite pattern here although it might not be as simple as we thought".
Smith also rules out the possibility that intelleigence may be invokved in the patterning. Jones, on the other hand, wasn't so quick to dismiss such a hypothesis...
--Re:Text link (Score:1)
But that doesn't mean that the model is wrong. Their model involves a third object with its own orbital period that disturbs the disk, causing the flares. This would have a period unrelated to the orbital period of the binary, and the multipliers would not be completely random but would have a predictable propability distribution.
Breaking news: It's been decoded! (Score:2)
What's it say? (Score:3)
The pattern probably translates to... (Score:3)
Th3 D4rK $1DE H4X0R 6R0Up 0WnZ J00!
T311 NASA t0 qUiT A11 J0uR L4uN(H3S 0r W3 (r4$h M0r3 of J0uR $H1T.
411 J0uR B4S3 4rE L4m3R$!!!
$n0rK $n0rK.
Translated, it means script kiddies have been around for millenia.
For entertainment purposes only. Don't launch probes with "fix worms" at these things.
krystal_blade. Damn, that was hard.
Text link (Score:1)
Here [nasa.gov] is a text version of the article.
Too bad it doesn't look like anyone's actually trying to communicate here. It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.
Dancin Santa
Re:Text link (Score:1)
Dancin Santa
Re:Text link (Score:1)
Yo ho ho... It's a pilot's wife for me...
Dancin Santa