back to article Dark HEAVY METAL star fires up jets, vomits hot ROCK into space

A black hole has been spotted spurting out streams of iron and nickel, seeding the universe with heavy atoms that are part of the building blocks of planets, asteroids and stars. Black hole First I pull it in, then I spit it out ... Artist's impression of the hole in action Typically, black holes put out jets of charged …

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  1. Martin Budden Silver badge

    nickel-56, amirite?

    Nickel-56 is the last thing a star makes before dying, and the nickel-56 decays to iron... so as far as I can tell the stuff jetting out of the black hole is left over from the big star which went bang-crunch to make the black hole. So that's where the nickel and iron came from, but why does it jet out like that?

    1. mIRCat
      Coat

      Re: nickel-56, amirite?

      "but why does it jet out like that?"

      Maybe it couldn't afford to pay it's bill.

      I know I left my wallet in here somewhere.

    2. Grikath

      Re: nickel-56, amirite?

      Same as any other ion that jets out from there.. Magnetism, Baby!

    3. Joe User

      Re: nickel-56, amirite?

      "but why does it jet out like that?"

      Maybe it's doing a Mister Creosote impersonation: "I need a bucket!"

  2. Purlieu

    huh

    what's "nickle" ?

    1. Bunbury

      Re: huh

      Small amount of Nickel?

    2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: huh (what's "nickle"?)

      1/20th of a $US

      or the act of giving someone's nipple a tickle.

  3. SBU

    Nickel Jets

    "So we want to understand better the impact jets have on their environment."

    Just in case they cause anthropological global warming and we have to ban them.

  4. Caff

    mining

    So when we spread ourselves out over the universe some enterprising types could just set up a mine out near the top of the stream and collect the iron and nickle. No need for a refinery!

    1. The First Dave

      Re: mining

      If this really is coming out at two-thirds of the speed of light, then the last thing you want to do is get anywhere near one of these jets, they would make a plasma cutter look like an airline plastic knife.

      1. Number6

        Re: mining

        Bringing a coil of wire nearby could provide quite a bit of power. However, it would be a bit of a bugger getting it back to Earth.

        1. Crisp

          Re: mining

          I don't know. Get a tight beam microwave transmitter, aim it at Earth and in a few thousand years, free electricity for all!

  5. Tim Parker

    FLHC

    Ooooo - this sounds like fun.. maybe point two of them at each other (or big bendy magnets to cross the stream from one) and put the detectors where the beams meet. Ta-da ! Alternatively put your target on the end of the really long stick, lash the detectors to it and pop it in the beam (Careful : wear protection on your forearms just in case).

  6. Paul Smith

    Lots of it about

    I have always wondered how there got to be so much Iron around if it could only be distributed by Super-novas. Now I kow :)

    1. The last doughnut

      Re: Lots of it about

      It still bothers me that its around in big hard lumps. How does a stream of particles become big hard Chelyabinsk-style lumps?

      1. MonkeyCee

        Re: Lots of it about

        Gravity.

      2. Bunbury

        Re: Lots of it about

        It's a force vs velocity thing. Lumps are there because the attraction of the atoms in the lump is sufficient to overcome the relative velocity of each individual atom. As a lump is formed the relative velocity each of the atoms within it to the others effectively becomes zero.

        Each atom/nucleus in this jet will have to shed an awful lot of their velocity before they would lump up with the much slower moving stuff in our galaxy. Gravity from the galaxy will slow them a little but not much. What you really need is a handily placed gas/dust cloud for them to whack into.

        Presumably there'll be a bunch of Nickel atoms that didn't find the escape hatch and have gone through the event horizon - the gravitational force will overcome their velocity. They'll be forming a nice, increasingly dense, hot rock while their mates zoom off.

  7. Ginolard

    Yes I know he's dead

    A small heavy metal star vomiting out rock?

    Can't help but feel that NASA have missed an opportunity to call it "DIO-1"

  8. Stevie

    Bah!

    F*cking ASBO stellar object, irresponsibly chucking around mid-table transition metals with no regard for the universe at large.

  9. WalterAlter

    Black holes have no basis in General Relativity

    Black holes have no basis in General Relativity or in Newton's theory.

    All alleged black hole solutions to Einstein's field equations

    actually contain no mass. A mass is simply inserted post hoc into the

    alleged solutions by sticking in Newton's expression for escape

    velocity. But this is entirely arbitrary and is done to satisfy

    Einstein's false claim that Ric = 0 describes his gravitational field

    "outside" a body such as a star. Newton's expression for escape

    velocity is an implicit two-body relation, but all alleged black hole

    'solutions' contain only one mass, the mass "outside" of which the

    gravitational allegedly exists. Einstein removes all material sources

    at the outset by setting his energy-momentum tensor to zero to get Ric

    = 0. In the next breath he reinstates the presence of a material

    source (a mass) by the deceitful words "outside a body such as a star,

    because he must have a mass to be the source, to be the star. But all

    the equations of Ric = 0 contain no material source terms. Not only

    that, de Sitter's cosmological static solution is acknowledged by

    Einstein and his followers to be entirely empty, hence de Sitter's

    'empty universe'. But de Sitter's static solution is for Ric = lambda

    g_{ij} where lambda is the so-called 'cosmological constant'. The

    energy-momentum tensor is zero here too. Thus a zero energy-momentum

    tensor both precludes and includes a material source (mass). This is

    impossible. Ric = 0 contains no matter by mathematical construction.

    de Sitter's empty universe contains no matter by mathematical

    construction. Thus General Relativity does not even predict the black

    hole at all. Newton's theory does not predict black holes either.

    Einstein's "outside" a body such as a star is doubletalk - utter

    nonsense.

    -Stephen Crothers

    1. lunatik96

      Re: Black holes have no basis in General Relativity

      How did Hawking support his "black hole" assertions?

      It has been decades since I studied quantum mechanics and Einstein's equations, but I do recall that Einstein's equations predicted gravitational lenses which has been substantiated. Tensors were not available at my schools when I got my degrees so I will not argue ur assertions in that respect.

      My big question is has anyone tried to compute how much mass is necessary to form a black hole (this has been answered) however, what would be the critical mass before the reversal (bang, if you will forgive the inaccurate reference).

  10. Mr.Mischief

    It's just spewing its Nickel-back

    Ah-thank-you-very-much.

  11. Mr. Peterson

    gotta luv the British sense of humor

    said w/a straight face: "A black hole has been spotted..."

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A heavy metal black hole is quite appropriate:

    'How much more black could this be? The answer is none, none more black'.

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