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Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

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Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#161

Post by JackFr »

backpackviolet wrote: post #104
once_inc wrote: post #86

For those replying to this article with "imagine living there", please note that if life is a verdant, resilient and common as many of us hope it is, the universe might contain quite a number of insane places to live: - Near the center of a galaxy, where stars are so closely packed together that the night sky is filled with bright lights, perhaps illuminating their world to what we experience around twilight, or even…

What would it be like for civilization to have evolved on a world with a moon (or other large natural satellite) in geosynchronous orbit. There’s just this … thing, in the sky, hovering over one spot. How sacred would that spot be to those people

Imagine that life is universal and fairly common, but the notion of 'sacred' is rare.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#162

Post by throwthrowuknow »

darwinwhy wrote: post #49
andrewstuart wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so - in every direction we look things appear largely to be the same. It seems entirely reasonable that extends to life. The only limiting factor is we cannot see other planets to find out.

Is that a reasonable assumption to make? I don't think we have any evidence of other places we look being "largely the same" with respect to life conduciveness. It took billions of years for our own planet to achieve multicellular life, which is a significant fraction of our best estimate of the lifetime of the entire universe up to this point.

Given the Copernican principle, yes. I thought we gave up claiming our position as the centre of the universe long ago?

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#163

Post by cdelsolar »

lmm wrote: post #72
mach1ne wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard that book(series?) pop up quite a lot recently. Is it worth a read?

No. It's a tedious slog, devoid of interest on any axis: characters, plot, worldbuilding and science are all paper-thin. Its popularity baffles me.

Well, you know, that's just your opinion, man.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#164

Post by cdelsolar »

mach1ne wrote: post #52
Helmut10001 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an analogy to the Three Body Problem from Liu Cixin!

I’ve heard that book(series?) pop up quite a lot recently. Is it worth a read?

Books 2 and 3 were some of the best books I've _ever_ read.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#166

Post by junon »

nfriedly wrote: post #165

> ...located over halfway across the universe! Does that mean halfway across the known universe, or is it just a figure of speech for "a really long way away"? (Or is my assumption that the universe is infinite wrong?)

Since it's been located, it most likely refers to the "observable universe" - the sphere surrounding us (Earth) within which enough time has passed since the big bang that the EMR from the edge has reached Earth. Beyond that we have no idea what's there because that information hasn't travelled long and far enough to each us yet. It's kind of like a physics fog of war.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#167

Post by Zancarius »

gattr wrote: post #105
once_inc wrote: post #86

For those replying to this article with "imagine living there", please note that if life is a verdant, resilient and common as many of us hope it is, the universe might contain quite a number of insane places to live: - Near the center of a galaxy, where stars are so closely packed together that the night sky is filled with bright lights, perhaps illuminating their world to what we experience around twilight, or even…

> Inside a 'thick' nebula, obscuring all other entities in the sky except for their own star and planets. Similarly to the alien planet in Eric Flint's "Mother of Demons"; there was a permanent thick cloud cover, and the the slowly moving sky illumination due to the unseen sun was called "the mother of pearl" by the locals. I also like the idea of living in a dense globular cluster. Interstellar probes and, later, ma…

Oh my gosh, I loved that book! The creative depth with the native creatures there and their experiences with humans was captivating.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#168

Post by olddustytrail »

jzer0cool wrote: post #111

> barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes 14 minutes?

If you fired a high velocity rifle at the moon and nothing slowed the bullet down (no gravity, air resistance etc), it would hit the moon in about three and a half days.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#169

Post by wruza »

jzer0cool wrote: post #111

> barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes 14 minutes?

2x of the Sun going through galaxy, if my math is correct. And 15x of Earth’s orbital speed around the Sun.

Re: Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars

#170

Post by kuschku »

once_inc wrote: post #86

For those replying to this article with "imagine living there", please note that if life is a verdant, resilient and common as many of us hope it is, the universe might contain quite a number of insane places to live: - Near the center of a galaxy, where stars are so closely packed together that the night sky is filled with bright lights, perhaps illuminating their world to what we experience around twilight, or even…

A multi-star system where at least one star is almost always in the sky. They'd never see other stars, and their estimate for how many stars exist would be wildly off. And if there ever were a moment where all suns set together, they'd be overwhelmed. (There's a scifi story like this, I think it might have been from asimov, but I'm not sure)
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