Recent comments in /f/space

jcampbelly t1_jeah0x6 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Gaia discovers a new family of black holes: astronomers studied the orbits of stars and noticed that some of them wobbled on the sky, as if they were gravitationally influenced by massive objects. No light could be found using telescopes, leaving only one possibility: black holes. by Andromeda321

What statements are you specifically referring to? Science is the practice of skepticism and doubt, especially of oneself. But the very measured and precise language of analysis is not friendly to presentation, hence journalism often translating it into something less measured and precise. Acknowledge that science journalism and science have very different goals and are not perfect translations. Consider whether your perceived issue is with the journalistic representation or the science itself. Click all the way through past the journalism into the research itself before presuming much about the claims or phrasing of the science based solely on the journalistic representation of it.

5

nichogenius t1_jeadg48 wrote

Reply to comment by aris_ada in The brightest gamma-ray in human history hit our planet this past Fall by PuzzleheadedOne1428

The first GRB was only detected in 1967. Assuming we have documented every GRB since (we certainly haven't), that means our observational history only covers 0.5% of that 10,000 year expected frequency of occurence.

Assuming our models are accurate, the odds we were just lucky to see this one in our limited observational history are roughly 0.5%. The odds that our models are underestimating the frequency of these events is quite a bit higher.

Time will tell.

3

Postnificent t1_jead2j1 wrote

Reply to comment by Adeldor in Scientists discover supermassive black hole that now faces Earth by x3Smiley

As I told him you can go do your own research. Space is dynamic in the fact that our understanding of it changes almost daily at this point. We are constantly learning new things. Just because you haven’t learned the new information doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Imagine the concept that we don’t know everything. Because we don’t. We think lots of things, doesn’t mean they are correct. I’ve been tired of this conversation. It’s obvious that I am not on the same wavelength as the rest of this thread. I learned a lot about this particular Reddit and the experience was the opposite of positive. Congratulations to everyone who participated, you definitely helped me formulate an opinion about this place.

0

Adeldor t1_jeac70g wrote

Reply to comment by Postnificent in Scientists discover supermassive black hole that now faces Earth by x3Smiley

Beyond the possibility of Hawking radiation, all current understanding has it that nothing can cross back out from a black hole's event horizon.

And /u/__Raptor__ is correct. Black holes certainly don't "spit stars out." In fact, large star life cycles end with black holes. If CNN said otherwise, they're quite wrong, perhaps misunderstanding orbital ejection of objects outside the event horizon - a phenomenon common to all multi-body orbiting systems, not just black holes.

1

bluesam3 t1_jeab7wk wrote

Reply to comment by jdragun2 in The brightest gamma-ray in human history hit our planet this past Fall by PuzzleheadedOne1428

Not an astophysicist, but I can give a lower bound: the lower limit limit on beam divergence angle is (wavelength) / (𝜋 × (initial diameter)). Wikipedia suggests a source diameter of ~60,000 km, and the peak photon energy for the event was 18 TeV, which translates to a wavelength of about 7×10^(-20)m, putting the lower limit on divergence (for a perfect laser) at 7×10^(-20)/(𝜋 × 60000000) = 372 nanoradians, which gives a final radius at that range of 60000km + 2 × sin(372 nanoradians) × (2.4 billion light years), which works out to somewhere in the region of 1,800 light years. This beam was presumably a very long way away from being a perfect laser, and most of the particles will have had lower energies, so that's probably an order of magnitude or several too low. However you slice it, though, that's a pretty wide end target, so it's probably more accurate to say it hit our vague region of the galaxy, rather than that it hit Earth. Certainly it wasn't at risk of hitting the wrong bit of the solar system.

5