Two Supermassive Black Holes About To Embrace 171
Taco Cowboy writes "NASA's WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) satellite was looking at a distant galaxy, some 3.8 billion light-years away, and saw something rather unusual. At first they thought that they saw a galaxy was forming new stars at a furious rate, but upon closer checking, they found that they were seeing two supermassive black holes spiraling closer and closer to each other. The dance of this black hole duo started out slowly, with the objects circling each other at a distance of about a few thousand light-years. As the black holes continued to spiral in toward each other, they were separated by just a few light-years. Supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies typically shoot out pencil-straight jets, but in this case, the jet showed a zig-zag pattern. According to the scientists, a second massive black hole could, in essence, be pushing its weight around to change the shape of the other black hole's jet. Visible-light spectral data from the Gemini South telescope in Chile showed similar signs of abnormalities, thought to be the result of one black hole causing disk material surrounding the other black hole to clump. Together, these and other signs point to what is probably a fairly close-knit set of circling black holes, though the scientists can't say for sure how much distance separates them."
Old news (Score:5, Funny)
Happened over two billion years ago and we're just hearing about it now!? Typical.
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Two Supermassive Black Holes About To Embrace
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old news (Score:5, Funny)
Happened over two billion years ago and we're just hearing about it now!? Typical.
Its Slashdot ... You'll hear about it next week, too!
Re: FSVO "about" (Score:1, Funny)
It does when your wife says she's three month pregnant, and you were on a business trip three months ago.
Re:FSVO "about" (Score:5, Funny)
The speed of light is also by definition the fastest information can travel.
No, it's not.
Sorry, Opportunist, it looks like this eloquent and reasoned rebuttal has not only completely defeated your argument but also dealt a death blow to that silly Special Relativity baloney.
Re:FSVO "about" (Score:4, Funny)
Are you suggesting, perhaps, that Stupid travels faster than light? You may have a point.