Black Hole Blasts Neighbor Galaxy with Deadly Jet

butterwise writes to mention that astronomers have, for the first time, witnessed a super-massive black hole hitting a nearby galaxy with a "death-star-like" beam of energy. The story also has a video with simulations, pictures, and explanations. "The 'death star galaxy,' as NASA astronomers called it, could obliterate the atmospheres of planets but also trigger the birth of stars in the wake of its destructive beam. Fortunately, the cosmic violence is a safe distance from our own neck of the cosmos."

Wrong, astronomers use fiction all the time ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

If you want to be taken seriously as an astronomer then might I suggest not comparing your research to fictional works

Your suggestion is laughable, astronomers use fiction all the time. Consider the names of the planets, some constellations, etc. I apologize if you believe in the greek/roman gods, you have to consider that most of us consider them fictional. ;-)

Re:No anomalies detected

[magarity]

sufficiently advanced life that would detect, and try to protect itself, or stop, said "death ray"
 
If there's a civilization that can shut down supermassive black holes at will then we'd know about it by now. Either because we're on the menu or we're needed to help clean the sewer mains on the black-hole-shutting-down supership.

the universe could get caught in a drive-by

[mrpeebles]

The space age is great. It lets us all see that we live on the same small world. One that could, in princple, be accidently blown up by a careless, nearby black hole.

Alternative viewpoint.

[palegray.net]

If you want to relate to the masses, instead of assuming everyone who might be interested in your work has a degree in astrophysics, you might compare your research to fictional works easily recognized in society.

Possible names for the galaxies?

[bark76]

Terrence and Phillip?

Re:No anomalies detected

[Chris Burke]

That would indirectly suggest that in this galaxy there was no sufficiently advanced life that would detect, and try to protect itself, or stop, said "death ray".

Um, dude? That "death ray" has a significant scale relative to the size of a galaxy, all of it traveling at (x-rays, gamma rays) or close to (electrons) the speed of light. For one any species caught in its path wouldn't see it until it hit them, and two even if they knew about the beam it isn't clear that they could do anything about it except hide underground for thousands of years or bug out to another part of the galaxy, which itself would require faster-than-light travel. To actually redirect or shield themselves from the beam at a degree that would be visible in our telescopes would require technology on a scale that we can't even dream of.

I find it highly odd that you would be skeptical of the existence of life arising elsewhere in the universe (which while we have no idea what exactly it takes, we know is possible because it has happened at least once), because of the apparent lack of faster than light travel (which according to our current theories is impossible) or even more miraculous feats of what amount to complete science fiction. We can't say that it could ever even be theoretically possible to be "sufficiently advanced" to pull off what you propose, much less if humanity could ever attain it.

Have you seen the Hubble Deep Field [hubblesite.org]? That's an extremely narrow view of the sky, and it's completely stuffed with galaxies. And because this one particular galaxy has not, as far as we can tell, birthed a civilization with Q-like [wikipedia.org] powers, you're questioning whether there could be life anywhere else out there at all? That's literally the oddest form of skepticism I've ever heard.

Unless this is just dead-pan humor. I'll admit that I have problems detecting it when done with subtlety.

Re:Way to be taken seriously..

[Roger W Moore]

Well I'm a particle physics professor and the overwhelmingly common pronunciation is 'kwark'. Although I have heard the occasional 'kwork' but only from US people and that only rarely....so now that re-education campaign has worked we just need to get them to pronounce the name of the Z ('zed') boson correctly! :-)

Re:No anomalies detected

[graffix_jones]

That deep field photo is humbling beyond words. It really gives you perspective on just how insignificant we are, in the philosophical grand scheme of things.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan's Contact, if there isn't any intelligent life out there, it sure would be an awful big waste of space.

Re:No anomalies detected

[Just Some Guy]

If there's a civilization that can shut down supermassive black holes at will then we'd know about it by now.

"If you'd quit giving our transmitters dumb names like "pulsar" and instead listen to the dang things, you might learn a thing or two."