And now a Black Hole is apparently "Spewing Water Vapour".

[neilwilkes]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8012501.stm
Oh, Good Grief.
Now things are really getting absurd. The same article also seems to imply the date so beloved by the "Bangers" of 15 Billion Years for the Universe is wrong.

"However, because the Universe has expanded like an inflating balloon in that time, stretching out the distances between points, the galaxy in which the water was detected is about 19.8 billion light years away."

How can an object that is allegedly 19.8 billion light years away be visible?

[nick c]

Do these people actually get paid to come up with stuff like this?
What a racket!

nick c

[earls]

Wow, what a joke. That's about all I have to say about that. And the article says they predicted this effect? Orry?

[solrey]

Agree with all of the above! LOL

neilwilkes, I believe they detect it in radio frequencies, not in optical.

Water must be some mighty powerful stuff to escape the clutches of that black hole. At least they didn't say it was crying.

From Wiki:
A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification due to stimulated emission.

From the Radio Astronomy Dept. Moscow University:
Masers are found in regions of active star formation, near protostellar or young stellar objects, as well as in gas-and-dust envelopes of late-type variable stars (Mira Ceti-type and semiregulars). Most widespread are masers on molecules of hydroxyl (OH), water vapour (H2O), methanol (CH3OH), silicon monoxide (SiO); rarer objects are masers on formaldehyde (H2CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Hydroxyl, water-vapour and fomaldehyde masers are encountered both in star-forming regions and late-type stars; SiO and HCN masers are found in envelopes of late-type stars; while methanol masers exist only in star-forming regions.

Now where do ya suppose all that energy comes from? And do those big 'ole transmitters have any good stations? That would be useful, cruising the cosmos, surfing the radio dial, finding some groovy jams from NGC1287 QuadFM.
This one, though, would appear to be an "oldies" station.

[davesmith_au]

Don't you guys all know, there's NOTHING that a black hole can't do.

Cheers, Dave.

[earls]

Except be seen.

[hyper.real]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8012501.stm
The same article also seems to imply the date so beloved by the "Bangers" of 15 Billion Years for the Universe is wrong.

"However, because the Universe has expanded like an inflating balloon in that time, stretching out the distances between points, the galaxy in which the water was detected is about 19.8 billion light years away."

How can an object that is allegedly 19.8 billion light years away be visible?

Basically, according to the standard model, because the universe is not standing still but expanding. So when light is detected today that is described as has having travelled for say 10 billion years, the emitting object has in the meantime moved further off. So while the age of the universe is reputedly around 14 billion years, its size is given as about 90 billion light years across.

The word "size" is used advisedly. Typically it refers to an "in-principle observable" universe perceived from Earth. The word "observable" is used advisedly Wikipedia's entry on the Observable Universe is useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe, and shows that even in the standard model, the universe is not a one-size-fits-all entity.

[n8allan]

Basically, according to the standard model, because the universe is not standing still but expanding. So when light is detected today that is described as has having travelled for say 10 billion years, the emitting object has in the meantime moved further off. So while the age of the universe is reputedly around 14 billion years, its size is given as about 90 billion light years across.

The word "size" is used advisedly. Typically it refers to an "in-principle observable" universe perceived from Earth. The word "observable" is used advisedly Wikipedia's entry on the Observable Universe is useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe, and shows that even in the standard model, the universe is not a one-size-fits-all entity.

Yikes, that Wikipedia article asserts astronomical theory as fact in a most brazen manner.

[url2=http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m ... 40524.html]Here[/url2] is an article that asserts that the universe is at least 156 LY "wide" and attempts to justify this.

"All the distance covered by the light in the early universe gets increased by the expansion of the universe," explains Neil Cornish, an astrophysicist at Montana State University. "Think of it like compound interest."

Need a visual? Imagine the universe just a million years after it was born, Cornish suggests. A batch of light travels for a year, covering one light-year. "At that time, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is today," he said. "Thus, that one light-year has now stretched to become 1,000 light-years."

...but I thought that the speed of light was supposedly constant. Doesn't this theory contradict the constancy of light speed by asserting that the speed of light is essentially relative to the location within the universe?

-Nate

[mharratsc]

I'm a lit-tle tea pot!

Short and stout!

Here is my Black Hole!

Here is my spout!

XD

[SpaceTravellor]

What comes in, must go out . . .
How is that?

The cosmic creation of Galaxies:

1. Cosmic rays electrifies a molecular cloud of gas and dust
2. The cloud begins to accelerate and swirl
3. Gas and dust heats up in the swirling vortex
4. The vortex assembles to a swirling supermassive globular formation
5. The swirling globular formation reaches the critical melting point
6. An explosion takes place horizontally of the swirling plane
7. Large spheres of gas and matter are spewed out in the surroundings

This description tells of a total movement of an ingoing and an outgoing formation. In the first stage "gravity" concentrates gas and dust around a swirling center and in the later stage "gravity" is "spewing it all out", but now in larger spheres, which becomes Stars, Planets, Moons and other minor objects.

So "gravity" goes both ways. A black hole is nothing but a hole with a black background. But on the inside of such a swirling hole, there is an enormous force moving "up and down" or "in and out", depending of the point of observation.

Getting to the grasps of galaxy formation, one have to look beyond the actual state of an observed galaxy and try to imagine in which creative state this galaxy is, comparing to the above description. Is it in the concentration phase? Or in the "spewing out" phase?

In our own Milky Way galaxy, the movement is going out from the center. The barred structure tells clearly of a suddenly outgoing movement and because of the still swirling effect, the arms in our galaxy takes an abrupt 90 degree turn comparing to the end of the bars. Such a movement is only possible in a suddenly outburst of an still swirling structure. New stars are still born our galaxy. There is NO suction here, but a still outgoing movement of creation.

In mythology, 2 important lights is mentioned and many times these 2 lights is confused with another. Myths from all over the world tells of this outgoing creation from a Primordial Mound, from where the First Light came, whereas the the light of our Sun is called the Second Light.

Our common mythological stories of Creation all tell the very same cosmological knowledge of our galaxy. Even the Bible tells of the "Garden of Eden", i.e. the center of our galaxy, from where all life was/is created and expelled away from, i.e. "driven out from".

Or "spewed out from" like the water spewed out from a "black hole" in this thread.

All the Best from Ivar (nielsen.ivar@gmail.com)

[SpaceTravellor]

New stars are still born our galaxy.

Should of course be: New stars are still born in the center of our galaxy.

[mharratsc]

Umm... Space?

How do you explain that the majority of the star-forming regions are actually out in the arms?

I think you're missing the point that 'black holes' are supposed to be these points of infinite density that suck all matter in (even light), yet now they're saying that it's a great, honking-big, cosmic water pistol?? o.O

[SpaceTravellor]

@mharratsc,
According to my idea and description, the original movement from within our galaxy and outwards creates the stars and planets on the ends of the barrred structure, going further out in the spiralling arms.
But of course, the creation goes on further out in the arms because of the interaction from everything that once was "spewed out" from the center of our galaxy.

[mharratsc]

How do you figure the star-forming regions in globular clusters get cranking then?

[SpaceTravellor]

@mharratsc,

In my opinion, these clusters must once have been one superlarge sphere of gas that once was spewed out from the center of our galaxy, and later on exploded into several minor spheres or stars.