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Space Science

Pattern Found In Galactic X-ray Light Emissions 16

Posted by timothy from the toast-to-cool-science dept.
Crixus writes "It seems that a mathematical pattern has been found in the X-Ray light emitted by star systems." This is a really intriguing scientific detective story, too -- it took several years of analyzing numerous sources of X-ray flicker to find this pattern.
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Pattern Found In Galactic X-ray Light Emissions More

Pattern Found In Galactic X-ray Light Emissions

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  • There goes my changes of using those rays to generate PGP keys. Stupid computers.



    ---
    ticks = jiffies;
    while (ticks == jiffies);
    ticks = jiffies;

  • Finally! (Score:3)

    by msouth ( 10321 ) on Tuesday June 05, 2001 @12:19PM (#174093) Homepage Journal
    We got smart enough for God to deem us worthy to talk to...

    Oh, wait, that happened when we discovered abstract algebra.
    --

  • Re:Text link (Score:4)

    by pubudu ( 67714 ) on Tuesday June 05, 2001 @05:34PM (#174094)
    Since this seems to be the only post by someone who's read the article, I'll ask this question here.

    It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.

    The example of Cygnus X-2 given in the article listed the constant by which the whole number is multiplied as 9.8 days, equal to its orbital period, which would suggest that it is tied to a certain spot in its orbit. The possible reason offered, a "clump" in a tilted accretion disk, seems to suggest the same thing.

    Yet nowhere do they say that the constant for Cygnus X-3 and LMC X-3 is equal to their orbital period: indeed they seem to actively avoid saying it ("Long term variations in LMC X-3 and Cygnus X-3 follow the same general rule: the lengths of the variations are always a whole number multiplied by a constant", immediately after linking Cygnus X-2's constant to its orbital period). Does anyone have any information on this? Do we know the orbital periods for these? This bears directly on whether the possible explanation is convincing (3/3 is one thing, 1/1 is something else).

  • Thanks for the link.
    This seems to say that the x-ray bursts are integer multiples of the orbital period of the system; What would it look like to us on earth if the matter stream from the gas-supply star played across a planet that was in orbit of one or the other?
    I bet it would look like an extremely bright burst of (insert name of favorite photon/high-energy particle here).
    At almost relativistic velocities of the infalling matter, how long would such a planet last, before being blown away like a snowball in a blowtorch?
    Although a Jupiter type planet with a large magnetic field might last quite some time, maybe even steal enough matter to become a star, eventually.
  • It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.
    He he! We must think along the same lines. I actually posted my stupid reply about the Sun (see later) before I'd read your post!
    --
  • Don't call me Danny. Whatever you do - don't call me Danny. I go funny when people call me Danny. Just don't do it - OK?
    --
  • and a bottle of rum.
    --
  • Yo? Ho? After a bottle of rum who's checking?
    --

  • Scientists announce a mathematical pattern... (Score:4)

    by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Wednesday June 06, 2001 @07:39AM (#174100) Homepage
    ...has been discovered in the movements of the Sun.

    Dr. Smith at Berkeley U., CA explains "We've noticed that the Sun's motion appears to have a large periodic component. Typically we see it rise in the morning and set in the evening. But the truly amazing thing is that it seems to do this once per day. Exactly."

    Dr. Jones at Brigham Young U. is more sceptical "I've looked at Smith's data and see no evidence of a periodic pattern. I've been tracking sunrises now for the last year and the rising of the sun has fluctuated back and forth by several hours over this time. If the Sun's motion were truly periodic don't you think it would rise at the same time every morning?"

    Still, Smith's team are unperturbed. "There's a definite pattern here although it might not be as simple as we thought".

    Smith also rules out the possibility that intelleigence may be invokved in the patterning. Jones, on the other hand, wasn't so quick to dismiss such a hypothesis...

    --
  • From the abstract [aas.org]:
    We have found that the excursion times between X-ray minima in Cyg X-2 can be characterized as a series of integer multiples of the 9.8 binary orbital period... In the black hole candidate system LMC X-3, the excursion times are shown to be related to each other by rational fractions. We find that the long term light curve of the unusual galactic X-ray jet source Cyg X-3 can also be described as a series of intensity excursions related to each other by integer multiples of a fundamental underlying clock. In the latter cases, the clock is apparently not related to the known binary periods.

    But that doesn't mean that the model is wrong. Their model involves a third object with its own orbital period that disturbs the disk, causing the flares. This would have a period unrelated to the orbital period of the binary, and the multipliers would not be completely random but would have a predictable propability distribution.

  • It keeps saying "Eat at Joe's. Eat at Joe's. Eat at Joe's."

  • What's it say? (Score:3)

    by The Gline ( 173269 ) on Tuesday June 05, 2001 @01:13PM (#174103) Homepage
    "All your X-rays are belong to us..." Great, looks like aliens have the same stupid humor we do.

  • The pattern probably translates to... (Score:3)

    by krystal_blade ( 188089 ) on Tuesday June 05, 2001 @12:54PM (#174104)
    F34R D4 31337 H4X0R Sk1||Z.

    Th3 D4rK $1DE H4X0R 6R0Up 0WnZ J00!

    T311 NASA t0 qUiT A11 J0uR L4uN(H3S 0r W3 (r4$h M0r3 of J0uR $H1T.

    411 J0uR B4S3 4rE L4m3R$!!!

    $n0rK $n0rK.

    Translated, it means script kiddies have been around for millenia.

    For entertainment purposes only. Don't launch probes with "fix worms" at these things.

    krystal_blade. Damn, that was hard.

  • I can't seem to get to that press release. (Slashdotted with 7 posts? What server are they running?)

    Here [nasa.gov] is a text version of the article.

    Too bad it doesn't look like anyone's actually trying to communicate here. It's a little like observing that the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening everyday.

    Dancin Santa
  • Ho Ho Ho

    Dancin Santa
  • Wouldn't that be "Yo ho ho"?

    Yo ho ho... It's a pilot's wife for me...

    Dancin Santa

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