Hubble Confirms Nature of Mysterious Green Blob 140
An anonymous reader writes "In 2007, Dutch secondary school biology teacher Hanny van Arkel spotted something mysterious in the night sky. Combing through Galaxy Zoo, an online database set up to enlist the public's help in classifying galaxies, she came across a glowing green smudge of light approximately 650 million light-years away. The object, which became known as Hanny's Voorwerp (Dutch for 'object'), is one of the most mysterious in the universe. Now, detailed Hubble Space Telescope images and new x-ray observations presented here today at the 217th meeting of the American Astronomical Society may finally confirm what it is."
And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Informative)
I think it wouldn't have been too much to add this to the entry.
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Funny)
I think it wouldn't have been too much to add this to the entry.
But unnecessary. Everyone on Slashdot would have read the entire article and found out anyway, right?
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... what? There are articles?
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:4, Funny)
I only read Slashdot for the articles - honest!
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:4, Funny)
I sure hope you aren't looking at slashdot for the nude photos.
Ewwwwww.
Remember that which has been seen cannot be unseen.
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I sure hope you aren't looking at slashdot for the nude photos.
Why not? [slashdot.org]
Darn, you beat me to it :(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Wait... what? There are articles?
I once saw this on Star Trek (TOS). We won.
Re: (Score:2)
It's news to me! I only read Slashdot for the pictures.
Re: (Score:2)
It's news to me! I only read Slashdot for the pictures.
You must mean the pictures of Hanny van Arkel [google.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Yep.
And this way it prevents anyone who wanted to pitch a few Galactic North jokes.
Some new kind of kink (Score:5, Funny)
.. a gas cloud who was irradiated until recently by a now dead quasar. The irradiation excited the oxygen atoms in the cloud, making it glow green.
Well, that certainly sounds like a kink that I have not heard of yet. Exciting irradiation? With a dead quasar? Hmm ... maybe the necrophilia gang ...
Re: (Score:2)
Which is so much better than boring irradiation from "living" quasars...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't want to make that cloud angry.
Anger = red glow, jealous = green glow. (Score:2)
Okay. Its green with jealousy (or envy.)
Or someone just got sick after drinking Chartreuse.
do not taunt happy green cloud? (Score:2)
> You don't want to make that cloud angry.
Do not taunt happy green cloud?
Re: (Score:2)
For those that don't get the joke:
The Incredible Hulk Opening Theme [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
What are you? A Microsoft Fanboy?
Huh?
What?
Bring it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you'd want to know how it's pronounced. The 'oo' part in 'Voorwerp' is pronounced like the one in 'door'. In fact, if you replace the 'd' with a 'v' it's just right. The 'e' is like the 'e' in 'help'. The 'r' should be a bit more rolling as the English 'r', but here in the Netherlands are plenty people using the (in my ears incredibly annoying when used in Dutch) English 'r', so when you take the first two hints it'll be good enough.
(En laat die Gooise kakkers eens een fatsoenlijke 'r' leren, in plaat
Ob Dave Barry (Score:2)
"Hanny's Voorwerp" would be a great name for a Rock Band.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really, as English speakers in general and US Americans in particular wouldn't be able to pronounce Voorwerp.
Case in point: Jason Voorhees
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Informative)
You can find out a bit more information here [discovermagazine.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Of Brian May, of course!
Brought to you by a proud owner of a Brian May Red Special Guitar.
Re: (Score:1)
... the blob is, according to observations, a gas cloud who was irradiated until recently by a now dead quasar. The irradiation excited the oxygen atoms in the cloud, making it glow green.
I think it wouldn't have been too much to add this to the entry.
... the blob is, according to observations, a gas cloud who was irradiated until recently by a now dead quasar. The irradiation excited the oxygen atoms in the cloud, making it glow green.
a gas cloud who was irradiated until recently by a now dead quasar
a gas cloud who was irradiated
a gas cloud who
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't you know this is the end of the world as we know it?
/shrug... I feel fine
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
They leave out such pertinent points intentionally to encourage you to fill them in and score some easy mod points, instead of "first post" every article.
I bet you'd find they even get removed if you submit with them included ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Sigh.
So little time to point to other green blobs [amazon.com].
Re: (Score:2)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/11/voorwerp/ [discovermagazine.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Sorry for being such a nitpicker. Actually, if the quasar that lit up the cloud died about 200.000 years ago, "
If the quasar died 200,000 years ago, how would we know this? If the quasar is 650 million LYs from Earth, wouldn't the evidence of its death take 650 million years to reach us?
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on what you mean by "now".
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on what you mean by "now".
*head explodes*
Re: (Score:2)
You're trying to be too clever, the lights travel time is irrelevant. When light from an event reaches us, that is when the event happened as far as we are concerned.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And for those not interested in reading TFA (Score:5, Interesting)
The Voorwerp and galaxy are both 650 million light years away from Earth, and they are about 200,000 light years away from each other.
I think this is the timeline ( I do a bit of galaxyzoo now and then):
So ( about 650 million ) + ( some millions ) of years ago the galaxy had a big ole black hole in the middle, which was gobbling up matter in the galaxy. The matter fell into the hole like water down a drain, spinning round the hole as it fell in. All this spinning matter creates enormous magnetic fields that create jets at the poles of the spinning matter. The matter in these jets blasted off at sub-light speeds and became the voorwerp cloud in space. There should be a cloud on the opposite side of the galaxy, but I havent seen any mention of this, so it entirely possible that the cloud was there anyway and was not shot out of the galaxy.
So we now have a galaxy and a cloud of gas nearby.
Then ( about 650 million ) + ( a few million ) years ago the galaxy is a Quasar, the black hole in the middle is powering a massive outpouring of light, the whole of the middle of the galaxy is glowing, and that light is running off into space and causing the voorwerp cloud to glow. Pressure from the light is also causing the cloud to collapse and start forming stars.
So we have a really bright galaxy (Quasar) and a glowing gas cloud.
Then ( about 650 million ) + ( about 200,000 ) years ago the black hole stops gobbling matter and can no longer power the Quasar. The galaxy stops glowing, but its massive light outpouring is still travelling through space and is still causing the Voorwerp cloud to glow.
Then ( about 650 million ) years ago is the picture we see today:
In the future the cloud will stop glowing as the wave of Quasar light passes through it and is gone. There will still be stars that we can view. The Voorwerp will become a dwarf galaxy orbiting the ex-quasar galaxy.
From the above time line, we infer these facts:
Notes:
Re: (Score:2)
It really is green, see http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/research/voorwerp.html [ua.edu]. Blue is
Re: (Score:3)
650 million years has nothing to do with anything, that's only the lights travel time. Ignore it. The quasar stopped 200,000 years ago from our frame of reference. The lights travel time to get to earth is irrelevant and seems to be only confusing you.
Re: (Score:2)
a gas cloud who was irradiated until recently by a now dead quasar.
a gas cloud who was irradiated until 650 million years ago by a now dead quasar.
That depends on the frame of reference of the observer. For example, from the point of view of the actual photons we're receiving (which travel at the speed of light), the same instant they get emitted from the gas cloud they slam into our telescopes. For them, there is no delay at all between the two events.
Misleading Title? (Score:2)
The summary leads me to believe that we've only gotten better images, and that we still have yet to confirm what it is. Am I right or wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
Title: "Hubble Confirms..."
Summary: "...may finally confirm..."
In the submitter's defense, the article is just as confused.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of a Star Trek quote (Score:5, Funny)
Kirk: Bones, there's a... voorwerp... out there.
Bones: Why is any object we don't understand always called "a voorwerp"?
Re: (Score:2)
Kirk: Bones, there's a... voorwerp... out there.
Bones: Why is any object we don't understand always called "a voorwerp"?
Kirk: Because Hanny is a hottie who found something any geek worth their salt thinks is cool, and she can call it anything she likes. Be thankful she didn't call it Hanny's BonesIsAPooHead. Now if only she were green...and had 3 breasts!
Re: (Score:2)
Kirk: Bones, there's a... voorwerp... out there.
Bones: Why is any object we don't understand always called "a voorwerp"?
Kirk: Because Hanny is a hottie who found something any geek worth their salt thinks is cool, and she can call it anything she likes. Be thankful she didn't call it Hanny's BonesIsAPooHead. Now if only she were green...and had 3 breasts!
Humble Telescope reveals all.
Obligatory (Score:1)
Kirk: What about the Quasar?
Bones: It's dead, Jim.
Re: (Score:2)
Only the Dutch could take a word like "object" and make it sound so..... naughty.
Re: (Score:2)
Only the Dutch could take a word like "object" and make it sound so..... naughty.
Hairsplitting ("mierenneuken") is even more psychically formidable in tje urginal Dertch (slapping down wooden alien hand).
Re: (Score:3)
Gratuitous black-belt hamster reference. (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
It also counts as physical evidence for black holes evaporating, which is good.
Re: (Score:2)
It also counts as physical evidence for black holes evaporating,
Or perhaps there isn't enough gas falling into it to excite it.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Black holes can "die extremely quickly." BIG ones can't.
Since we're striving for accuracy and all.
Re: (Score:1)
Heh - true.
It's interesting to note how small they have to be, though: according to wikipedia, to radiate more than the it absorbs from the cosmic miscrowave background, the BH would have to be lighter than the moon. In other words, since the microwave background is always decreasing, all stellar-remnant BHs in the universe have always been, and are still (and for the next N times the age of the universe, will remain) increasing in size.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, even then. You need to read up a little about the timeframes here.
The evaporation of black holes according to Hawking radiation is an unimaginably, incomprehensibly, comically slow process. So slow, that in this universe, the passive absorption of the cosmic microwave background is sufficient to render it irrelevant –the black hole still absorbs background photons at a greater rate than it generates radiation:
A stellar black hole of one solar mass has a Hawking temperature of about 100 nanokelvins. This is far less than the 2.7 K temperature of the cosmic microwave background. Stellar mass (and larger) black holes receive more mass from the cosmic microwave background than they emit through Hawking radiation and will thus grow instead of shrink. To have a Hawking temperature larger than 2.7 K (and be able to evaporate), a black hole needs to be lighter than the Moon (and therefore a diameter of less than a tenth of a millimeter). (wikipedia.org)
Elsewhere I have seen the figure of 10^61 times the age of the universe for the evaporation (and this is in a black-body condition: no matter absorbed whatsoever) of a BH of merely 30 solar masses. Recall we are talking about a Quasar: something hundreds of millions of solar masses and up. These things have lifetimes so vast as to render even the word "astronomical" meaninglessly trifling. Think numbers of years with more digits than you could write in your lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
The article on Bad Astronomy actually specifically mentions that the black hole is no longer consuming matter. The AC did not say the black hole evaporated, but that it is no longer consuming matter, therefore there are no jets. Perhaps you meant to respond to gman003?
Re: (Score:1)
I misunderstood the parent to my post –sorry. My response was elaborating on the first AC who pointed out gman003's misconception – trying to add some figures.
I think a lot of people have heard that "block holes gradually evaporate", without having read any further, making the erroneous assumption about the timeframes involved is understandable.
In fact:
Re: (Score:3)
Elsewhere I have seen the figure of 10^61 times the age of the universe for the evaporation (and this is in a black-body condition: no matter absorbed whatsoever) of a BH of merely 30 solar masses. Recall we are talking about a Quasar: something hundreds of millions of solar masses and up. These things have lifetimes so vast as to render even the word "astronomical" meaninglessly trifling. Think numbers of years with more digits than you could write in your lifetime.
Uh, no. The universe is about 13,750,000,000 years old. 10^61 times that is 137,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. Not so hard was it?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So what? Make it 10^100 then, it's only a few more digits and certainly not "more zeros than you could write in a lifetime". You're really nitpicking here...
Re: (Score:2)
So what? Make it 10^100 then, it's only a few more digits and certainly not "more zeros than you could write in a lifetime". You're really nitpicking here...
You're right. I don't know how blackhole lifespan would increase with time, but even with these extraordinary times, there's only so much mass-energy that they'll run into (especially in an expanding universe). Once that's gone, then it's just a matter of decay over long enough periods of time. And you don't have to add zeroes for long before you reach those times.
Re: (Score:2)
Googol timescales are sufficient to disintegrate every proton and neutron in the universe. Only radiation remains.
Blackholes aren't protons or neutrons. A black hole that has a significant portion of the mass of the observable universe is going to be around for a while. And this says nothing about protons and neutrons created later. Vacuum particle pair creation will still result in a small number of protons and other complex quark-based particles.
Re: (Score:2)
I am so spending this weekend making a Black Hole Evaporation Time Estimator app.
No pressure or anything, but this is probably the project with the longest deadline ever.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh my apologies. To be fair, your post was ambiguous. I thought you were saying the black hole isn't consuming matter, therefore it was evaporating faster. In fact you were suggesting it is merely inactive, which is another reason the OP’s conclusion is erroneous. I hope the OP found what I wrote informative, anyway.
What is that green smudge? (Score:2)
Initial imaging of Hanny's Voorwerp by a wide range of telescopes on the ground and in space indicated that it was a giant cloud of hot gas.
Excuse me! I had chili for lunch. Extra beans. Thanks I'll be here all week. Tip your waitstaff.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks I'll be here all week. Tip your waitstaff.
Try the waitress, tip the veal. Tastes better; lasts longer.
Intergalactic snot. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Cthulhu does not get a cold. A cold gets a Cthulhu. In this way, Cthulhu is sort of like Chuck Norris. Now don't even get me started on the terror known as Cthulhuck Norris
Re: (Score:2)
At last, conclusive evidence that the Great Green Arkleseizure is the creator (or at least, the origin) of the universe. Now we just have to worry about the Coming of the Great White Hanky.
not just here vs there (Score:3)
I'm used to thinking about the fact that objects "out there" are mind-bogglingly far away from us, such that their light takes eons to reach us. This is a reminder that they are also mind-bogglingly far away from each other.
This was identified in the 70s. (Score:5, Funny)
Green blob in the sky? Hanny van Arkel?
Is it not exceedingly obvious what it is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Arkleseizure#Great_Green_Arkleseizure [wikipedia.org]
I, for one, welcome the coming of the Great White Handkerchief.
This was identified in Futurama (Score:5, Funny)
He is Melvar! Seer of the Tapes, Knower of the Episodes. Tremble before his encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek.
Re: (Score:2)
Star Trek?! Hand over your geek card, now!
Re: (Score:2)
Star Trek?! Hand over your geek card, now!
*whoosh*
Maybe you should hand over yours? [wikipedia.org]
Re:This was identified in Futurama (Score:4, Informative)
Shouldn't that read.... (Score:2)
Shouldn't that read "Hubble telescope allows astronomers to confirm nature of mysterious green blob?" Unless, that is, there was a really big upgrade to the telescope that has been kept secret!
Re: (Score:2)
Or Hubble came back from the dead to confirm it.
Detailed Explanation (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
hmm... (Score:2)
looks like a Vorlon ship to me...
DeCloaking Romulan WarFrog? (Score:1)
These are commonly found in the home. (Score:1)
Hanny's voorwerp is made of people! (Score:2)
Oh, the humanity!
Image Search (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm just going to float this out there. It's not really relevant to the article, nor is it particularly valuable to any discussion, but the discoverer of the Voorwerp, Hanny Van Arkely, is absolutely lovely. Many 'dotters could probably kill an hour or two sifting through her images on Google.
Not to mention, she's an amateur sterrenkundige [flickr.com]. If that doesn't get a nerd hot and bothered, I don't know what will.
Obvious (Score:1)
This is obvious to anyone who has ever been around kids. A large green blob, it's obviously snot.
Does anyone else see a bunch of errors.... (Score:2)
How Has This Not Appeared on Futurama? (Score:2)
Okay only discovered in 2007, but the latest batch of episodes were done after that time.
I imagine the Professor proposing to enter "Hanny's Voorwerp", which is treated as an off-color remark.
Re: (Score:2)
The stuff that's emitted isn't actually coming from the black hole, it comes from the accretion disk around the black hole. Do some reading on quasars for more information.
Re: (Score:3)
It's actually emitted by the disk of material that is in the process of being sucked into the black hole, which is spinning extremely fast and becomes extremely hot. Some of it ends up getting spewed out from the poles. So it's a byproduct of the process by which the black hole eats things.