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Gigantic jet spied from black hole in early universe
- z3ncyberpunk 6y agoQuasar!
- ddeyar 6y agoWhen i read about observations like this, it makes me realize what a small jewel our planet is.
- herodoturtle 6y agoAnd HN an even smaller jewel within it ^_^
- jb1991 6y agoAnd this comment an even smaller jewel within HN.
- throwaway53453 6y agoEverything is a jewel if you look hard enough.
- KoftaBob 6y agoThe real jewels were the friends we made along the way.
- loloquwowndueo 6y agoJewels all the way down.
- wiz21c 6y agodunno why you're downvoted : I thought about eh very same sentence :-) https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/9kexqp/in-a-rebours-a-turtle-becomes-the-ultimate-objet-dart https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/9kexqp/in-a-rebours-a-...
- pvaldes 6y ago> Everything is a jewel if you look hard enough #rub touchstone damn... another worthless piece of green glass
- gigatexal 6y agoThe universe is super fascinating. In another life I want to be a theoretical physicist studying black-holes etc. I find them and the universe super interesting just I could never get past Calculus II.
- ddeyar 6y agoSome years ago i was thinking about the idea to study astronomy. I read an article back then in which it was told that most astronomy students end up beeing a computer scientist. I don't know if thats true. But I took it as an advice to study computer science :) and I'm pretty happy with that.
- joshocar 6y agoI think this is pretty true. I think almost all of the hard science researchers are part software developers. Pretty much every professor I had in mechanical engineering was doing some type of programming or had graduate students/post docs doing it. My masters in oceanography was almost entirely built in Matlab and Python. One of the physics professors was studying black holes and their work revolved around making a cheap super computer with PS4s and running his black holes merger simulations on it.
- meibo 6y agoI think that there's an inherent connection to this - code is an incredible tool that can take scientific research, not just in "traditional" natural sciences, but also in fields like sociology. It has revolutionized all the other parts of our lives, so it makes sense that an inherent programming skill, if you're working in academic research, would follow.
- cgriswald 6y agoWe were strongly encouraged by both physics and astronomy professors to major in physics rather than astronomy if we wanted to work in astronomy. We were told (by the astronomers) that although an astronomy major has more of the needed skills, the physics majors were seen as better hires. We were told by the physicists that of course physics majors had those skills (that seemingly weren’t anywhere in the curriculum). :)
- Razengan 6y agoImagine what else must be there. And all the other jewels that must have already gone extinct without anyone ever knowing about them.
- hasa 6y agoHow can the jet length to be determined? In my very limited understanding jet is a continuous stream of particles/radiation. Doesn't it continue forever, unless the flow hits some barrier?
- joemag 6y agoIt gets diffused to the point where it’s no longer distinguishable from the background.
- est31 6y agoI guess it's similar to determining where the sun's atmosphere ends and the solar system begins, or where earth's atmosphere ends. You have to draw a line somewhere.
- Keysh 6y agoIf the jet only turned on a finite time ago, then it will only have gotten so far in that time, so it will have a length = (jet velocity) * (time jet has been active).
- wideareanetwork 6y agoThe fact that we can see back in time ..... to the early universe no less... is really one of the most underrated and miraculous things humans have achieved. When you think about it, it’s truly astounding.
- gbrown 6y agoWell anyone can see a few million years back in time just by going outside on a dark night and looking at one of the nearby visible galaxies with their eyes. Knowing that this is what is happening is indeed a great achievement.
- inetknght 6y agoUnfortunately, that's not quite true in many populated cities. Light pollution means the night sky is starless.
- gbrown 6y agoNot starless, surely. Stars like Sirius and Betelgeuse should be visible just about anywhere, and that gets you 8-500ish years back at least.
- cgriswald 6y agoWell, it’s sort of true. There are places within cities where you can’t see the Andromeda Galaxy, but you don’t have to leave those cities entirely in order to see it to some degree.
- Keysh 6y agoTo be a bit pedantic: that’s only true for the Andromeda Galaxy (distance ~ 2,4 million light years), which is very hard to see with the naked eye. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are easy to see (from the Southern Hemisphere), but are only about 150,000-200,000 light years away.
- polishdude20 6y ago
- user101hk 6y agoHow are supermassive black holes able to grow so quickly to reach such an enormous mass in this early epoch of the Universe? >>> That simpley means that, matter was already there before the Big Bang isn't it?
- gbrown 6y agoNo, it means what it says - the growth rate is too high for known mechanisms, so they’re looking for explanations. The mass in the universe isn’t the issue, it’s that there are limits on the growth rate of black holes which grow through accreting matter.
- hinkley 6y agoThe article opines that the accretion disk converts velocity of particles around the black hole into the jet, causing more matter to fall in.
- gbrown 6y agoThat misses the point - jets are one mechanism whereby the matter can lose some energy and fall in, but they occur due to the high energy of accreting matter, and their existance does not solve the problem of the growth rate of these things. We are able to detect and characterize this object in part thanks to the jets, but the problem of mass remains.
- simonh 6y agoThere wasn't anywhere for the matter to be yet. The big bang didn't just create matter and energy, it created spacetime as well. That's just a footnote though, gbrown's is the right answer.
- andrewflnr 6y agoI gather this is somewhat disputed. In particular, spacetime already exists in some capacity in eternal inflation models.
- 6y ago
- dboreham 6y ago...after 10 seconds...ok this isn't about the A380.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoMaybe it is too early, but I envisioned some ancient alien civilization’s jet plane spied in a black hole. Quite the observation indeed.
- schrectacular 6y agoJeez I hope it's not a 737...
- posterboy 6y agois this the same as the 8 billion light year void that was posted yesterday? It made me think of blackholes, but I didn't read up to put the dimensions of these things into scale. FYI: Sagittarius A*, the Quasar at the center of the Via Galaxis, is ca. 20 Mio. km wide; It's not a Jet, and far from 8 Bio. LY, lol.