NASA detects 'heartbeat' of pint-sized star-sucker
In what is turning out to be one of the best months ever for black-hole fanbois, a team of Dutch, Italian, and US space boffins has detected the "heartbeat" of what appears to be teensiest, weensiest black hole ever discovered. "Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant's, the heartbeat signals from these …
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Seriously? Friction? Seems more likely that the x-ray output would be produced by the
same thing that produced the narrow beam gamma radiation in the old synchrotrons.
Just a guess on my part...
A spectrum easily differentiates between astronomical X-rays produced by synchrotron radiation and hot material. Since matter falling into a black hole can potentially convert a significant fraction of its mass to energy (by friction, tidal and other effects), there's plenty available to heat it to the point where thermal X-rays will be produced.
Launched in 1995 ?
Designed for a 2-year lifespan, STILL WORKING TODAY ?
If only cars could be made like that.
To heck with cars, make a bloody printer like that !
Printer !!!
HP Laserjet 4 When Hp Made stuff that lasted than the Warranty ...
Printers built ok, just need support
I've seen perfectly good printers (and other peripherals) be replace due to nothing more than lack driver support on current operating systems.
Hey, they're halfway there
you know, designed with a 2-year lifespan...
You want the old HP LJ II and III, and in the case of large volume, the IIIsi and 4si...
I can't see the............
...............attraction myself.
close to the theoretical "mass boundary" at which the formation of a black hole becomes possible.
Well maybe it was larger before and evaporated.
Nope - a solar mass black hole takes ~2x10^67 years to evaporate completely (and it's an exponential runaway effect, so for the first 10^67 years not much mass is lost), bigger ones correspondingly slower. And with a radiation temperature of 10^-7 K, it would (for the 'foreseeable' future) actually gain mass from the cosmic microwave background.
RE:close to the theoretical "mass boundary" at which the formation of a black hole becomes possible
Wouldn't that make it older than the age of the universe though?
I thought evaporation took a very long time - even on cosmic scales - related to it's mass.
Nope
The power in the Hawking radiation from a solar mass black hole turns out to be a minuscule 9 × 10E−29 watts. Bigger bodies radiate less than smaller, so a 3 solar mass black hole wouldn't lose any appreciable amount of mass over the lifetime of the galaxy.
The only blackholes that could have shrunk appreciably are those that were created in the big bang itself and started off much smaller than any blackhole created by a supernova could be.
How so, "pint-sized"?
More like a few km across, right?
At 3 solar masses, the radius would be ~10 km
"pint-sized"
It's a figure of speech, meaning small.
For example jockeys are larger than a pint but referred to as pint-sized.
New Rules
The only acceptable use of the word 'fanbois' is to refer to Apple supporters.
Black hole fanboi? Guilty as charged, though I don't feel the need to attack, say, pulsars and quasars in internet fora.
@Nicho
I dunno, I'm quite happy to be known as a science fanboi.
You mean you can't see the relation between Apple and black holes?
Are you trying to say that the top of Steve Jobs polo neck was actually an event horizon?
D'oh!
This headline got me confused with the Foo Fighters seismograph thang - who was that pint-sized star-sucker?
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