Black Hole

[Sardauker-Kirov]

http://english.pravda.ru/society/2002/12/02/40259.html

*Shivers*

[IxianMace]

The black hole won't arrive until 6,000+ years, according to that article. I hope humanity will have developed sufficient technology to account for our survival, if the end is certainly at hand. That is of course, if humanity manages to survive itself. ::)

[Mahdi]

Too bad it didn't say when it was going to eat Earth.

[emprworm]

wow, its gonna put us out of our misery.

[Mahdi]

Not really. I'm pretty sure the theory is that if a black hole eats you your alst second of life will last an eternity.

[Sardauker-Kirov]

We will barely notice it, you'll just blink when the air begins to show strange signs and suddenly... whoooooosh... you're dead.

[IxianMace]

The white hole theory is interesting however. I read somewhere some time ago, that anything that is consumed by a black hole is "crushed into infinity". However if the white hole theory is true, or could be possible, then perhaps Earth will not be destroyed/crushed, and we won't all die. Perhaps we'll fall through the black hole and emerge in an alternate universe, which is inverted. (Black holes are white holes that spew material out instead of consume them, stars are black masses that suck energy instead of radiate them, etc etc). Of course, without a source of light and heat as abundant as the sun, the life processes/cycles on Earth (i.e. photosynthesis, etc etc) would break down and stop, and the Earth would freeze in deep space (or perhaps it would boil in an alternate universe)? Lol, either way, we still die. The only way the human race could survive would probably be by mass exodus of the Earth before it's too late, and colonize some planets in a galaxy far far away... ;D :D 8) :-* ::) :P

Or perhaps we'll just become wanderers in space. Who knows? 6+ millenia is a long time to wait to find out, and hopefully by then we'll have matured as a species and we'll already be exploring the stars. :)

[Sardauker-Kirov]

A black hole is basicly a dead star trying to feed on other stars, but ofcourse that's a theory.

And I'm not sure about that white hole thing, it sounds very unlogical. This is reality, not a game. In a game they always create sci-fi things with black holes for example; using the holes for space travel which 'can' be possible. But that'll be very difficult.

If something is pulled towards the black hole and the object manages to escape the grip of the suction. The ship or object might be thrown away like a boulder on a catapult.

[Vanguard3000]

Whoa! While I was reading that article, I was listening to some sort of ominous music, which gave a really neat effect.

Anyway, I watched this thing about Professor Hawking, that said that, if you were to "fall" into a black hole, you would see millenia pass by in seconds, until you died (which they described as feeling like falling asleep). In other words, to the onlooker, you'd sit at the edge for millenia (like in Andromeda, I guess).

[VigilVirus]

Ummm, how did they discover that black hole if it is like they say "completely invisible"? ::). I'm sure they could not measure it by gravity since it's thousands of light years away.

[IxianMace]

They probably detected it by the material that was rushing into it. Wouldn't you be curious if something invisible was causing light, gas, etc etc to rush into the same point then disappear? ;) :O

[exatreide]

lets see 400,000 kilimoiters a hour?

and thats 6,000 light years...Light travels at 300,000 kilomiters a hour lets do the math...

so thats 16 and a half million years for the black whole to arive on in are system, and thats just a rough estimate as i double check it. It keeps getting bigger... so dont worry about it.

that is if it dosnt die out or change direction. or if are sun dosnt go nova. or we dont kill each other.

[Vanguard3000]

Belziel: Think of a black hole as a drain. Matter swirls around it as it rushes in, forming a disc of matter. That's what people can see.

[Acriku]

They don't see it because light cannot escape it, so they look at the effects of it. Like we can't see cold, but we look at the effects of it. But then again there are images of black holes using some sort of scope, but I forget.

[exatreide]

No we can idetenfy the event horizon, and the light that is being consumed by the black hole. but we can not actully see the black hole itslef.

And the images that we see on the event horizion have actully been there for thousands of years

[Acriku]

The event horizon made by the black hole, the effect. :P Ok play on words.

[VigilVirus]

[quote author=ExAtreides

[Gobalopper]

The speed of light isn't constant.

[IxianMace]

You mean it travels at a different speed through a different medium? (i.e. light travels at different speed while it is travelling through air, compared to while it is travelling through water, glass, etc etc). I'm not sure, but I think light travels fastest in space. Does anyone know the exact speed of light in a vacuum?

[Acriku]

Just a thought (provoked by the watching black hole coming), if the big bang theory is correct, then we would never know when it happened because we see millions of years in the past through the telescope, things already done, so if something like collapsing the universe to one infinite point happens we would have no idea. Well it's good we wouldn't know atleast :)

[Gobalopper]

Under different temperatures it goes at different speeds. There was a test done where they either stopped the light or came very close to stopping it at almost absolute zero temperatues.

[Vanguard3000]

Speed of light in a vacuum = 2.998E8 (that is, 3 times ten to-the-power-of-8)

[IxianMace]

That is how many what per what? (i.e. kilometres/miles per sec/hour)? What units are you using?

[Vanguard3000]

Whoops! Sorry, I knew I left something out. It's kimometres per second.

[emprworm]

The speed of light isn't constant.

and not only is the speed of light not constant accross different mediums, but there is no proof that it is even constant through time within those same mediums. There are theories that, as everything else in the universe winds down, so does the speed of light...evidence exists that it may be slowing down.