Monster Black Hole Busts Theory

Genocaust writes "A stellar black hole much more massive than theory predicts is possible has astronomers puzzled. Stellar black holes form when stars with masses around 20 times that of the sun collapse under the weight of their own gravity at the ends of their lives. Most stellar black holes weigh in at around 10 solar masses when the smoke blows away, and computer models of star evolution have difficulty producing black holes more massive than this. The newly weighed black hole is 16 solar masses. It orbits a companion star in the spiral galaxy Messier 33, located 2.7 million light-years from Earth. Together they make up the system known as M33 X-7."

Re:black holes

[Cassius Corodes]

Yes - 1's should always appear after the exclamation mark not in the middle.

A giant black hole?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should name it Goatse.

sturgeon's law redux

[Speare]

Sturgeon's Law (paraphrased): 90% of everything sucks.

Just goes to show, that when you think it can't suck any worse, you find it can suck a LOT worse.

Residents of companion star get bad rap....

[robinsonne]

It orbits a companion star in the spiral galaxy Messier 33

It's not messy, it's got a lived-in, homey feel to it you insensitive clod!!!

Re:In the Dark

[value_added]

It amazes me at how much we DON'T know.

The following may help to explain things (taken from an Slashdot post):

Indeed. In fact there is no light either. The Sun sucks dark. In fact it
sucks dark so hard that the friction of the dark moving to the Sun
causes the Sun to be very hot. The flow of dark towards the Sun
interrupted by the Earth causes the side of the Earth away from the Sun
to accumulate dark, thus causing Night. As the Earth rotates the dark
caught on the night side can then be pulled off, this causing the
absence of dark known as Day.

What we call light bulbs are truly dark suckers as well. That is why
light bulbs are hot, just like the Sun. When a light bulb is full of
dark and won't suck dark any more, it cools off. If you look in old
light bulbs you can even seen the accumulation of dark.

Dark is also heavier than water. This can be seen in the oceans where
the deeper you go the darker it gets.

The internet has ruined my mind.

[game kid]

Never mind things like Goatse. Thanks to the internet, the only word in the title that doesn't yet have dirty connotations to me is "theory".

Heck, some are working to change that too [wikipedia.org].

So much for science!

[__aailob1448]

Well, science has been vainquished, therefore proving the existence of God once and for all.

  But...

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

monster dong

[Asshat_Nazi]

Imagine a giant penis flying towards your mouth, and there's nothing you can do about it. And you're like "Oh man, I'm gonna have to suck this thing", and you brace yourself to suck this giant penis. But then, at the last moment, it changes trajectory and hits you in the eye. You think to yourself "Well, at least I got that out of the way", but then the giant penis rears back and stabs your eye again, and again, and again. Eventually, this giant penis is penetrating your gray matter, and you begin to lose control of your motor skills. That's when the giant penis slaps you across the cheek, causing you to fall out of your chair. Unable to move and at your most vulnerable, the giant penis finally lodges itself in your anus, where it rests uncomfortably for 4, maybe 5 hours. That's what using slashdot is like.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[nospam007]

Just like us, stellar black holes are getting fatter, they need a diet.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[dwater]

> their are

you misspelled 'arse'.

Beautiful Katamari

[Osty]

I blame the King of All Cosmos and his damned tennis racquet. Time to start rolling up all your junk.

Upgrade computer used for models...

[fahrbot-bot]

...computer models of star evolution have difficulty producing black holes more massive than this...

Perhaps they need to upgrade to another OS [slashdot.org] better optimized for modeling black holes... Unless they're saving this for modeling those super-massive ones.

Re:hmm

[Kingrames]

your black hole theory sucks.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[chthon]

Wouldn't it be : In Soviet Russia, you eat black holes ?

Supermassive gaseous layers exploding softly

[bombastinator]

Could someone else here who also knows nothing about stellar physics read this thread and tell me it does not all sound like some weird double entendre fart joke?

Re:Supermassive black holes

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

Perhaps because the mass of our Sun is a variable, as is the mass of other stars. Matter falls in, matter gets expelled. Today a star might be 3 solar masses, tomorrow it might be 2.999999999999999999999999999999999976 solar masses. That sort of wild, erratic variation is no good in the exact world of astronomy.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[Oktober Sunset]

No, if they were making a joke, they would have mentioned the supermassive black hole shown at goatse.cx, which is far bigger than most nerds thought possible.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[ultranova]

Wouldn't it be : In Soviet Russia, you eat black holes ?

Well, seeing how both people and goods had a habit of disappearing and never being seen again in Soviet Russia, I'd say that both forms are correct. I wonder if that reflects some deep, underlaying symmetry in the Laws of Politics ?

As an interesting aside, the light emitted near the event horizon of a black hole experiences red shift as it climbs up the gravitational field, and the Soviet Russia's flag is... red. Does that mean that Soviet Russia was a black hole, eating both people and material, and has now evaporated ?

Re:Supermassive gaseous layers exploding softly

[gomiam]

That would be expected when talking about black holes and explosions.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[digitig]

Isn't it funny how we don't even capitalize "black hole?"

Why would we? I can't think of any of the standard capitalisation rules that would apply. Unless your name happens to be Black Holes.

Re:Supermassive gaseous layers exploding softly

[bombastinator]

Thank you. It's good that someone understands.

Re:Supermassive black holes

[Chapter80]

Just FYI: after binary comes TERNARY, not trinary

Regarding base-2, I've seen posts that don't talk about it, and posts that contain the term "binary".

Regarding base-3, I've seen posts that don't talk about it, and posts that use the term "trinary", and posts that use the term "ternary".

Seems about right...

Re:Supermassive black holes

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, you eat black holes

In Russia, black holes are referred to as 'frozen stars', because 'black hole' in Russian is a slang term referring to the anus. Which leads to a rather unintentional interpretation of your post.

I noticed the oldnews tag attached...

[mark-t]

... to this story and I couldn't help but agree.

After all, with it being 2.7 million light years away, we certainly know that this story couldn't have been breaking news any later than the end of the last great ice age.