Astronomers Solve the Mystery of 'Hanny's Voorwerp' 123
KentuckyFC writes "In 2007, a Dutch school teacher named Hanny van Arkel discovered a huge blob of green-glowing gas while combing though images to classify galaxies. Hanny's Voorwerp (meaning Hanny's object in Dutch) is astounding because astronomers have never seen anything like it. Although galactic in scale, it is clearly not a galaxy because it does not contain any stars. That raises an obvious question: what is causing the gas to glow? Now a new survey of the region of sky seems to have solved the problem. The Voorwerp lies close to a spiral galaxy which astronomers now say hides a massive black hole at its center. The infall of matter into the black hole generates a cone of radiation emitted in a specific direction. The great cloud of gas that is Hanny's Voorwerp just happens to be in the firing line, ionizing the gas and causing it to glow green. That lays to rest an earlier theory that the cloud was reflecting an echo of light from a short galactic flare up that occurred 10,000 years ago. It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare: these radiation cones are highly directional so only occasionally do unlucky gas clouds get caught in the crossfire."
Re:What doea a voorwerp look like? (Score:2, Funny)
Unlucky? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What does a voorwerp look like? (Score:5, Funny)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0806/hannysvoorwerp_wht_big.jpg [nasa.gov]
Kermit the frog . . . is that you?
Re:Unlucky? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Science! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What doea a voorwerp look like? (Score:1, Funny)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Re:Science! (Score:5, Funny)
Ob Dave Barry (Score:4, Funny)
"Hanny's Voorwerp" would be a great name for a Rock Band.
Re:Voorwerpen (Score:5, Funny)
This is English. We make our own rules and other languages learn to live by them.
Just be glad we didn't make it Veerworp.
Re:Voorwerp (Score:4, Funny)
When you know Dutch, the summary sounds really strange:
It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare
Really? Objects are rare?
Re:Voorwerp (Score:0, Funny)
Yeah, the plural of voorwerp is voorwerpen. Only Americans can find Voorwerps.
Re:Ob Dave Barry (Score:1, Funny)
With significant sexual connotations
Re:What doea a voorwerp look like? (Score:3, Funny)
Fluorescent light is so not-flattering for us here on Earth.
Voorwerp Voorwerp Voorwerp (Score:4, Funny)
What mystery? We hear that Voorwerp Voorwerp Voorwerp sound whenever that stupid police box appears. There's no mystery except nobody knows what the owner's name is.
Re:What does a voorwerp look like? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Science! (Score:3, Funny)
But, to play purely devil's advocate -- if there truly was a creator-being...
I don't think you're advocating the devil in this particular case. :D
Re:Astounding? (Score:4, Funny)
Astronomer returns home from day at work
Astronomer: Hi, Honey!
Astronomer's wife: Hello dear, how was work?
Astronomer: Oh, the usual. An astounding object we've never seen before, and a couple of amazing discoveries, and this morning was a mad house, there was a huge batch of surprising observations waiting for me when I got in. I was swamped for hours.
Astronomer's wife: That's nice, dear.