4 ms·
NASA just captured an incredible look at a black hole eating a star
- jessriedel 10y agoWhen I read an article like this, the immediate question is "Where is the picture?" It sounds like they don't have one, because this observations is made well outside the ability to resolve an image, and is really a description of a flare of light with certain spectral properties and time dependence. OK, that's fine, but why does the author not explain any of that? Why do they use words like "an incredible look" and "a team of researchers has captured how the dust surrounding black holes absorbs and reflects the flares produced by a tidal disruption" and "This is the first time we have clearly seen the infrared light echoes from multiple tidal disruption events" without saying that, well, you know, there's actually no picture. Am I the only one who find this weird?
- happyslobro 10y ago> NASA captures change in temperature of dust around a singularity, finds additional evidence in support of dust hypothesis. > Photo: before / after. Notice center pixel value changing from #030202 to #020203 as dust warms. Yep, that headline and image will get lots of shares on Facebook. Let's just roll with it, and skip the A/B test.
- jessriedel 10y agoThe author doesn't have to explain this in the headline, or make the main picture the pixel under discussion. But you'd think they would address this somewhere in the article to be intellectually honest.