Black Hole Caught Eating a Star

www.cnn.com...

Not sure if I linked it correctly, one of my first post on here, the last one was a long time ago. Anywho, I was scanning the news and the Science section on CNN caught my eye.

The Galaxy this happened in is roughly 700 million light years away and the Black Hole believed caught eating a Star like our Sun weighed around 100 million Solar Masses (The size of our Sun) It was interesting on how they said the matter being ate by the black hole was brought to near light speed, and only actual 1% of the star was eaten. They mentioned it's the first solid proof Black Holes will eat Stars.

The most interesting thing I saw on this was how bright the flash was from the hole eatin the Star. The peak of the flash while it was being eaten was brighter then all the stars in the Galaxy combined. Also, it mentioned some stars may be able to be eaten whole and if they are barley out of reach, can be spun to 60 times their normal rotation speed.

Scary stuff . seems like our universe will just be a supersupermassive blackhole eating itself in the future.

It says in that article that "just before material is eaten by a black hole, it is accelerated to near light speed"

Now, I was thinking, (I'm definately not a professional, and am just wondering) I was thinking, if we could somehow harness the energy that a black hole creates, since it accelerates to near light speed, if we COULD harness this energy, could we somehow use it to propel space exploration ships? So that we could go deep-space human exploring?

I see it as logical, I mean, in order to accelerate it to near light speed, it must have something inside (besides gravity) that would do this, so if we could somehow make anti-gravity probes or something to get into black-holes, could we somehow "mine" this energy out? Yeah, it is far-fetched, but would it be possible in the next hundred years? Tech has improved alot in the past hundred?

-wD

That's essentially what's being proposed in the anti-matter reactors if I'm not mistaken...(which I very well could be, hehe....)

Is there a Physicist in the house?

I read somewhere (I think it was an article in a Penthouse magizine, don't ask) talking about a particle in space that can not travel any slower than the speed of light. Which would eventually lead to using these particles to travel at the speed of light. Anyone else read something like this?...

I've seen one of those pictures before and it looks pretty cool.
Kinda scary too because not even light can escape them.

WebDevil, I have a question your what you said. Even if we could make some way to mine this energy and let it be sucked into a black hole. There's several questions just off the bet that I see that would arise or problems that could occur.

1.) How would we keep this device from being ripped to shreds? If a star itself can be ripped apart, what type of metal/alloy/minreal could withstand the intense pressure. Let's face it, I believe our own Milky Way's Black Hole is 1 million + Solar Masses, that's an intensity in gravity I can't even comprehend. Something has to be able to withstand that type of ripping force.

2.) The energy itself. How would we harness energy from it? This is the most major issue I see itself. Light itself doesn't have the capability to leave, so wouldn't the energy that would be harnessed, be lost because it couldn't escape the gravity.

The one way I could see to harness the energy is by heat absorption. As the article said and several other things, black holes put off IMMENSE heat when eating. If we had the capability of flying the stars and such, wouldn't we have the ability to use a type of tractor beam, well reverse tractor beam. I know this is far fetched but let's so millinia's down the road. Could we shove stars into Black Holes and capture the heat it put off and use it as energy? Doesn't sound to good for me but it's the only way I could ever see us using energy from a Black Hole.

i posted this on ATSNN last night also....it does spark some interesting thoughts as to what could happen if man could somehow harness this power...or even a portion of this power. Probably impossible...but if it was possible....imagine the things we could accomplish: space travel beyond our galaxy comes to mind immediately.

heres the link to my atsnn post...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 2-19-2004 by Garon]

Originally posted by Garon
i posted this on ATSNN last night also....it does spark some interesting thoughts as to what could happen if man could somehow harness this power...or even a portion of this power. Probably impossible...but if it was possible....imagine the things we could accomplish: space travel beyond our galaxy comes to mind immediately.

heres the link to my atsnn post...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 2-19-2004 by Garon]

I don't know what's scarier. The power, or humans harnissing it. Kinda scary to think humans will one day be cruising through deep space in search of other worlds to screw up...

fascinating stuff, this is great.

as to harnassing the energy, heres two threads on using new, heavy elements, usign gravity A waves to create antigravity. the only other source is black holes.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by RabidGoose
WebDevil, I have a question your what you said. Even if we could make some way to mine this energy and let it be sucked into a black hole. There's several questions just off the bet that I see that would arise or problems that could occur.

1.) How would we keep this device from being ripped to shreds? If a star itself can be ripped apart, what type of metal/alloy/minreal could withstand the intense pressure. Let's face it, I believe our own Milky Way's Black Hole is 1 million + Solar Masses, that's an intensity in gravity I can't even comprehend. Something has to be able to withstand that type of ripping force.

2.) The energy itself. How would we harness energy from it? This is the most major issue I see itself. Light itself doesn't have the capability to leave, so wouldn't the energy that would be harnessed, be lost because it couldn't escape the gravity.

The one way I could see to harness the energy is by heat absorption. As the article said and several other things, black holes put off IMMENSE heat when eating. If we had the capability of flying the stars and such, wouldn't we have the ability to use a type of tractor beam, well reverse tractor beam. I know this is far fetched but let's so millinia's down the road. Could we shove stars into Black Holes and capture the heat it put off and use it as energy? Doesn't sound to good for me but it's the only way I could ever see us using energy from a Black Hole.

Another factor is whether the human body would be able to withstand the force of traveling at light speed.

I'm not worried too much on the fact that how the human body would handle light speed, I'm worried more on how we would attain that speed. I believe if we could somehow reach the speed, we would already have measures to have the pressure reduced.

But as someone said, imagine if humans could harness energy, or if any creation/being, whatever you believe in other then us, could harness it. Anything with that much power would be absurd. It's not harnessing the energy I'm worried about, it's whatever could use that much energy that worrys me.

But I know I'm far, far far far, from the generation that might see the glimpse of that day.

knowing the human race we will harness that energy and rather using it for something good, like powering the worlds electricity or exploring deep space...we'll end up creating some kind of weapon so we can dominate.

Sad.

The Galaxy this happened in is roughly 700 million light years away


This happened 700 million years ago (the time it would take the light to reach us). I wonder how big the black hole is now?

Originally posted by Garon
knowing the human race we will harness that energy and rather using it for something good, like powering the worlds electricity or exploring deep space...we'll end up creating some kind of weapon so we can dominate.

Sad.

That's what i'm saying. Humans are inherently stupid beings.

Every time I think of Aliens coming to earth, I think of the scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still. when Klaatu was shot by the giddy soldier, destroying the gift for the president...

Originally posted by 10DeadInside10
Another factor is whether the human body would be able to withstand the force of traveling at light speed.

Didn't Einstein conclude that if a human traveled at the speed of light he would expand until his body filled the universe?

Originally posted by MacMerdin

The Galaxy this happened in is roughly 700 million light years away


This happened 700 million years ago (the time it would take the light to reach us). I wonder how big the black hole is now?

The blackhole may not even be there anymore.

This whole time difference things really interests and confuses me. I get time zones here on earth screwed up, muchless a 700million year time change...

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
Every time I think of Aliens coming to earth, I think of the scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still. when Klaatu was shot by the giddy soldier, destroying the gift for the president...

Completely off topic, but Klaatu was the name of the alien??? I guess that is where it came from as it is also the name of a Star Wars character as well as part of a chant in the Evil Dead series. Just useless info.

Originally posted by Jonna

Originally posted by Thorfinn Skullsplitter
Every time I think of Aliens coming to earth, I think of the scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still. when Klaatu was shot by the giddy soldier, destroying the gift for the president...

Completely off topic, but Klaatu was the name of the alien??? I guess that is where it came from as it is also the name of a Star Wars character as well as part of a chant in the Evil Dead series. Just useless info.

I'm pretty sure it is, anyways. I like useless info. Hell, most of the info I possess is useless...

when that last particle or (neutrino) is pulled into that last black hole ...so many years in the future ...
BANG...another day of brahma is created .....to last another billions of years ....it is an endless cycle in the endless phantasmagoric material mundane universe.
light and shadow played out on the back drop of space and time
Aum
Amen
Om
Amin