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Blog 'seti' » Black Holes Sing Bass, But Humans Can't Hear Them

Big black holes sing bass, and one particularly monstrous black hole has probably been humming B flat for billions of years, but at a pitch no human could hear, let alone sing, astronomers said on Tuesday.

Story at Yahoo! News
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Liontaur
Lets Get Boincing Already

join:2001-11-03
Salmon Arm, BC

Liontaur

How does anything escape from a black hole?

said by yahoo news:
Fabian said the ripples were caused by the rhythmic squeezing and heating of the cosmic gas by the intense gravitational pressure of the jumble of galaxies packed together in the cluster. As the black hole pulls material in, he said, it also creates jets of material shooting out above and below it, and it is these powerful jets that create the pressure that creates the sound waves.
So light can't escape from a black hole but these jets of material can? I thought nothing could escape from a black hole so maybe these jets aren't close enough to get sucked in? But the jets are created by material being sucked in so you'd think they'd be close enough to be sucked in too... Ow, my brain hurts

2kmaro
Think

join:2000-07-11
Oklahoma City, OK

2kmaro

Re: How does anything escape from a black hole?

Check out this page: »archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cy ··· nat.html
Basically it boils down to this: there is a point at which you cannot escape from the gravitational pull of a black hole. That point is variable depending on the mass of the hole. Now, beyond that point the gravity of the black hole can affect other things with "visible" effect - and I suspect that these ripples may be the results of the effect at a distance of that black hole.

Other examples of action at a distance with no apparent physical connection: watch a compass needle swing in response to the pull of the magnetic poles. Gravity in general: all objects exert a gravitational pull on all other objects. In theory this extends across the entire universe and seems to be instantaneous (faster than light?). Given this, one might think that eventually the whole expanding mess, black holes included, will fall back together to create a single mega-black-hole and go through the whole Big Bang thing again. BUT recent information has shown that the universe is actually expanding faster than it may have shortly after the Big Bang and that the expansion may continue to accelerate, meaning that there will never be a second Big Bang because everything is going to fly off in every direction forever!

Einstein actually came close to predicting this, but it was one area that he was unable to overcome his upbringing and rural thought patterns about. He found it impossible to accept the fact that the universe would be either expanding or contracting and tried very hard to find a mathmatical solution to the problem that would provide for a "stable state universe". He actually found that value, but then determined that the least little change in anything (like the flapping of a butterfly's wings at the wrong moment) would bring utter chaos to his formula. He never published his findings on the matter, and thus probably missed out on another Nobel Prize.

FutureMon
Dude Whats mine say?

join:2000-10-05
Marina, CA

FutureMon to Liontaur

to Liontaur
Actually, I would consider the fact that these "jets" of material are basically exploding at their critical mass. The force of the explosion may be enough to project this "material" up or out of the black holes center, but not enough to propel it outside of the gravitational force of the black hole. Just long enough for it to be "visible" by us.

Consider you are driving a car at 60MPH down the road. Say you throw a rock in front of you out of the window. It will surely get in front of the car, but will undoubtedly lose it's forward motion and you will overtake it as it loses its velocity. That's sort of how I see gravity in the black-hole sense. The initial force is strong enough to propel this material forward (and create a visible signature), but cannot sustain itself long enough to escape completely.

- FM

Liontaur
Lets Get Boincing Already

join:2001-11-03
Salmon Arm, BC

Liontaur

Re: How does anything escape from a black hole?

Good points, both of ya.

The article leaves me with the impression that the black hole is squeezing the material with such force that some "spurts" out. An analogy that I can think of is if you're holding something in your hand and squeeze it hard enough then it will force it's way out between your fingers. This leaves me with the impression (wrong or not) that the material escapes from the black hole after being past the event horizon but I can't see how that is possible.

First off, a black hole is slightly more powerful than my hand and would be able to compress matter with much more ease. Also it uses gravity to do it which makes it harder for me to understand.

I'm still going to leave the Einstein stuff alone though as i'm not that awake yet but i'm going to have to do some reading as this is pretty interesting stuff!

pleekmo
Triptoe Through The Tulips
Premium Member
join:2001-09-14
Manchester, CT

pleekmo

Premium Member

Stellar Bass Players

If I recall correctly, the area around a black hole (and around pulsars and magnetars) is highly magnetized and that this material is ions escaping along unbound magnetic field lines emanating from the stellar poles.