Jets From Black Holes Cause Stars To Explode, Hubble Reveals (gizmodo.com) 38
Black hole jets, which spew near-light-speed particle beams, can trigger nearby white dwarf stars to explode by igniting hydrogen layers on their surfaces. "We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," said Alec Lessing, an astrophysicist at Stanford University and lead author of a new study describing the phenomenon, in an ESA release. Gizmodo reports: In the recent work -- set to publish in The Astrophysical Journal and is currently hosted on the preprint server arXiv -- the team studied 135 novae in the galaxy M87, which hosts a supermassive black hole of the same name at its core. M87 is 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun and was the first black hole to be directly imaged, in work done in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The team found twice as many novae erupting near M87's 3,000 light-year-long plasma jet than elsewhere in the galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope also directly imaged M87's jet, which you can see below in luminous blue detail. Though it looks fairly calm in the image, the distance deceives you: this is a long tendril of superheated, near-light speed particles, somehow triggering stars to erupt.
Though previous researchers had suggested there was more activity in the jet's vicinity, new observations with Hubble's wider-view cameras revealed more of the novae brightening -- indicating they were blowing hydrogen up off their surface layers. "There's something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently," Lessing said in the release. "But it's not clear that it's a physical pushing. It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet. When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster." The new Hubble images of M87 are also the deepest yet taken, thanks to the newer cameras on Hubble. Though the team wrote in the paper that there's between a 0.1% to 1% chance that their observations can be chalked up to randomness, most signs point to the jet somehow catalyzing the stellar eruptions.
Though previous researchers had suggested there was more activity in the jet's vicinity, new observations with Hubble's wider-view cameras revealed more of the novae brightening -- indicating they were blowing hydrogen up off their surface layers. "There's something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently," Lessing said in the release. "But it's not clear that it's a physical pushing. It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet. When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster." The new Hubble images of M87 are also the deepest yet taken, thanks to the newer cameras on Hubble. Though the team wrote in the paper that there's between a 0.1% to 1% chance that their observations can be chalked up to randomness, most signs point to the jet somehow catalyzing the stellar eruptions.
Low Rent District (Score:3)
Who wants to live anywhere near neighbours like that?
Re: Low Rent District (Score:1)
Death Star (Score:3)
Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Battle Station!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7-tskP0OzI [youtube.com]
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Didn't follow the link, but that's sort of along the line of thought I had ...
its a super-weapon from some intergalactic super-civilization.
scary as f* (Score:2)
Ignition energy (Score:2)
Besides delivering fuel faster the velocity of the particles adds enough energy to kick off the reaction.
Missing option? (Score:2)
My first thought on reading the summary was that it might well be caused by (interactions with) the magnetic fields of the jets, rather than any direct physical interaction. Of course I'm not an astrophysicist, but I find it slightly odd that this wasn't mentioned as a possible explanation.
Re: Missing option? (Score:1)
How certain are you that any magnetic fields would be as weak as unicorn prevalence?
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By what mechanism?
Um, there's a stream of charged particles, millions of light years long, travelling at nearly the speed of light, and you're asking by what mechanism?
Any magnetic fields would be very weak.
Ah I see. You're an expert in the field...
Perhaps, then, you could quantify the strength of the magnetic field for the jets in the article for us, and explain why this wouldn't, at the very least, interfere with the magnetic fields of the stars in question?
great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:1)
Meanwhile, we spend billions on vanity science for upper class kids.
This isn't science, this is classism, corruption and economic exploitation.
Re: great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:3)
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It's not a zero-sum game. There are plenty of ways to help the needy.
Of course it's a zero sum game, poverty is exactly that a, "Zero Sum" and yes, it's a game; and the game is called monopoly, and most people are 'owned', as in economic slavery. This is classism without a doubt, just look around with honest eyes and you will see class structures in all our institutions, public and private. Most people are born into debt and remain so most of, if not all of, their lives.
When everyone has fair and equal access to capital, than you can talk, until then all the pseudo-conservat
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>We can't have capitalism when 85% of all capital is being hoarded by the upper class.
Actually, that's just the natural end state of capitalism. It can be delayed by heavy regulation but not stopped.
I've come to believe the only way to handle it is to accept that, and then add a wealth tax to start returning money to the poor whenever someone starts getting too many standard deviations beyond the average wealth.
Of course, it's already too late - too much wealth concentration already exists, wealth is po
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that's not capitalism, that's pseudo-capitalism, if our public institutions weren't corrupted by class influence we could start there
the public needs to reclaim its institutions non-violently, the problem is scale, decentralization is inevitable, the problem is this rarely happens non-violently as the powerful are loath to give power back to the people
people get the governance we deserve, greedy, selfish and irresponsible people get greedy, selfish and irresponsible governments and unethical and unrestraine
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'Class' is a synonym for 'power'. Money is an abstract measure of power. Capitalism is allowing people to own stuff and profit from it. Capitalism inevitably leads to fewer and fewer people owning more and more of the stuff that matters to society. More money. More power. Eventually you have a ruling class that owns everything, and a renting class of workers who survive at the whim of the ruling class.
Unfettered, capitalism is just as bad as communism for the average person, it just takes a bit longer
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the problem is scale, we need companies, we don't need corporations, nor do we need limited liability and incorporation
a corporation is a legal fiction and between this and or fiat currencies, not much is real anymore except the time we spend paying our bills because most of us live in real debt
Re: great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:1)
"We can't have capitalism when 85% of all capital is being hoarded by the upper class."
Why not print money faster than prices rise and distribute it equally via an indexed basic income (to avoid the Cantillon effect)?
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Because the wealth the rich have is not idle money, it's invested in growth mechanisms. So as more people have more money they spend more and this makes their investments grow in value, meanwhile the people on the bottom trying to save get their savings eaten by inflation which makes it harder for them to pull themselves out of their lower social class.
Wealth redistribution tends to create bulwarks around the social classes, free market tends to let people go from poor to middle to rich but it comes at the
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Because the wealth the rich have is not idle money, it's invested in growth mechanisms. So as more people have more money they spend more and this makes their investments grow in value, meanwhile the people on the bottom trying to save get their savings eaten by inflation which makes it harder for them to pull themselves out of their lower social class.
Wealth redistribution tends to create bulwarks around the social classes, free market tends to let people go from poor to middle to rich but it comes at the sizeable cost that a great many people will get left behind. A functioning society needs to balance the needs of the poor AND the needs of the rich, because if you don't help the poor they are fucked and will turn to crime and if you don't convince the rich they are benefiting from your society they will use their wealth to figure it out for themselves in a way you can't touch.
First off, yes, most of that capital is not 'reinvested' in the 'poor', if it was, the rest of us would have reasonable and affordable access to capital via decent pay and affordable credit. Clealry the opposite is true as the rich hoard wealth in offshore tax shelters and lavish lifestyles. Real conservatives live conservatively and invest in their communities. An entitled upper class seeks to hoard wealth and consolidate power, which leaves the rest of us broke and powerless, just look around, clearly thi
Re: great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:2)
Money represents stored work. You can't just print more money than the work represented in the economy, that's the very definition of inflation.
There's nothing wrong with people getting rich. The problem is inherited wealth (at least, for as long as death is inevitable).
Re: great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:3)
Re: great but meanwhile people are starving (Score:2)
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This. And add to it that the "starving people" you allude to are in a much better situation than their historical counterparts due to the technological progress brought about by science. Hate to ruin an emotional plea with facts, but according to the UN World Food Program [wfpusa.org] 37 million people out of 8 billion are actually starving or less than 0.5% of the population. While getting that number to zero is a laudable goal, let's recognize that 99.5% of the population is not starving.
actually it's worse because now we know better and we have the resources to address the systemic economic injustice but we don't
starving is starving and in absolute numbers, never have so many been improvised
nice spin tho, I bet it helps you feel better...
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no one is against 'science', people are rightly against vanity science, junk science, bureaucratic science and Big Science and the corruption and institutionalization of science, not to even mention corporate classism and elitism
science isn't some free pass nor is it immune from greed, arrogance and self-interest
nice upper middle class academics stab each other in the back for funding all the time, they have no problem do the same to poor lower class taxpayers and their own students. just like most institut
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So tell us. What you have done to feed the starving?
No? Just bullshit concern-trolling then?
Rather than wasting your energy shitting on others accomplishments, go do something useful.
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So tell us. What you have done to feed the starving?
No? Just bullshit concern-trolling then?
Rather than wasting your energy shitting on others accomplishments, go do something useful.
lots of us are doing plenty, however, for you to ask shows where you stand, just saying (deflection)
talking about it is a start, hopefully you and others won't continue to ignore the foundational issue of classism
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Why in the world would you imagine that if they weren't spending money on science that they'd use that money to help the poor? That's nonsense, the PTB are spending the maximum on the poor that they are going to spend, if it's not spent on science then either it won't be spent on anything or will go into the bottomless pit of waste and inefficiency of the MIC. For less than the cost of what we're spending on new F-35 purchases just this year we could feed every starving person on the planet and make the U
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we don't need to spend money on the poor, we need to start paying them fairly, stop taxing them unfairly and stop mistreating them and exploiting from them mostly we need to stop giving entitled people a free ride and a free pass
corruption and classism are destroying our societies from the top down
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None of which precludes using that money to advance science, so I don't see your point.
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it's not advancing science, it's being used to further rich people's lavish lifestyles while poor people starve to death
greedy selfish evil people, it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the gates of heaven
classism is evil
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You think that scientists are "rich people [with] lavish lifestyles"? You've never met any, I take it.
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I work with them all the timer, yah, compared to most people, a six figure salary is a wealth most will never obtain
and many entrenched academics come from privileged positions, that's called nepotism
a life time free ride playing with million dollar toys, yah, that's rich
typical pseudo-conservative misdirection
of course the 'education' system is corrupt, just like the rest of our society, evil people wrecking everything for everybody
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btw, pls, take you insult and put it where the sun don't shine
ever notice how abusive and violent people become when you show how unethical they really are?
Correlation might mean two kinds of causation (Score:2)