Black Holes and Cosmic Snapshots 61
deeptrace writes "The New York Times reports that Andrew J. S. Hamilton, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado used video game technology and Einstein's equations for general relativity to calculate what it might look like to fly through a black hole." On a somewhat more tangible note bahstid writes "The Hubble Team has assembled the largest ever image of the Pinwheel Galaxy beyond Ursula Major from 51 Hubble shots and some terrestrial images. The final composition weighs in at 12392x15852 pixels - just over 10 light years per pixel. In an effort to burn out their server properly their European page is making the 450Mb file available for download, along with some slightly more manageable sizes."
The increases in technology are amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The increases in technology are amazing (Score:2)
Re:The increases in technology are amazing (Score:1)
I have pictures too! Head over to: http://www.ussamazon.com/live/hawaii/telescopes.J
I think I just might have spotted no less than three small planets in your picture. Isn't astronomy fantastic!?
450 megabytes? (Score:2)
(Here's my attempt at some humour, so hopefully I don't get modded down if someone takes me seriously.) I wonder what that's going to be like on their servers. Posting a story like this on slashdot linking to a place where there's a 450 megabyte file.
Re:450 megabytes? (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Thats astronomical!
They do actually have a zoomable version for folks who don't want or need the entire thing. Thats available Here [spacetelescope.org]
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Ursula Major? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ursula Major? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ursula Major? (Score:2)
And in other news ... (Score:4, Funny)
bittorrent (Score:1)
Re:bittorrent (Score:2)
Admitting Knowledge of Bittorrent = Theft.
This is far from the first time a big file has been stupidly distributed when bittorent would be the obvious solution, but it is, as always, quite disappointing.
(I suppose there's a possibility that NO ONE associated with this knows about bittorrent, but that strikes me as quite unlikely.)
Thru a black hole (Score:2)
Re:Thru a black hole (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect, though, that the video is done from the point of vie
Re:Thru a black hole (Score:3, Interesting)
Added to that, there is the fact that as the observer is accelerated towards the singularity, reletavistic effects kick in and time passes more slowly for them. Given a big enough black hole, it's possible that the observer may not notice they've indeed crossed an event horizon.
Re:Thru a black hole (Score:2)
It's not really quite right to say that time passes more slowly for the observer going into the black hole. There is a ti
TORRENT!!! (Score:2)
Re:TORRENT!!! (Score:2)
Two things to remember:
1) this isn't on the front page, little summary link notwithstanding
2) if slashdot can survive the slashdot effect, so can other sites; this is apparently one of them
Re:TORRENT!!! (Score:2)
a thought (Score:1)
I helped design an astronomy exhibit for a local science museum, and the process you go through in order to make it accessible to the public is mind boggling. Especially when you try to show more than just pretty pictures, but the science behind those pictures.
One question though, does anyone know what variable the simulation was using colors for? Was it temperature (most likely), or something more exo
Flying through a black hole, eh? (Score:2)
In an effort to burn out their server properly
Okay, that was funny.
Re:Flying through a black hole, eh? (Score:2)
Or, you would have if you'd said "Cygnus" instead of "Nostromo". (The Nostromo [wikipedia.org] was the cargo ship that most of Alien [wikipedia.org] took place on. I mean, it was a good movie and all, but it didn't have much to do with black holes.)
Re:Flying through a black hole, eh? (Score:2)
holy big file batman!! (Score:1)
Where's the movie? (Score:1)
Re:Where's the movie? (Score:1)
I haven't been able to find it either, unfortunately. In the mean time, you might wanna have a look at the guy's webpage [colorado.edu] which has interesting info on general relativity. There is for example a guide [colorado.edu] to what a trip (fall) down into a black hole would look like with explaining text along with images and animations.
Re:Where's the movie? (Score:1)
Here's a trailer (Score:1)
Re:Here's a trailer (Score:1)
Viewing large images (Score:2)
Finally a nice hi-res wallpaper... (Score:1)
No more comments? (Score:2)
Black holes were one of my favorite subjects. Say, for exemple, that you would fall into a blac
Re:No more comments? (Score:2)
It is interesting to think about black hole intyeriors yes (BTW how can something with zero volume have an interior?), but is it useful? It may be defeatest to say no, but then again it may be the truth...
On the otherhand, I believe that in the last couple of years string theory made
Re:No more comments? (Score:3, Informative)
You're confusing the singularity at the center of the black hole with the hole itself. The hole itself is the volume inside the Schwartzchild Radius, which is where the escape velocity equals the speed of light. Only the singularity has no volume of its own.
Crossing the event horizon is undefined (Score:2)
I Am No An Astrophysicist either, or any kind of physicist, for that matter, but...
At the center of the galaxy there is a black hole (in theory) that is large enough that the tidal forces would not rip you to your component particles as you approach the event horizon. So lets say that you decide that you have nothing left to live for in this universe and decide to journey to another something by traveling into this massive black hole.
By definition when you reach the event horizon, you will be travel
Hawking radiation makes a difference (Score:1)
This raises the question of what happens when someone falls into a nice big black hole where the tidal forces at the horizon are small and you might think you could just cruise on through and down into the interior. However, from the point of view of an external observer no one ever gets there they just g
Light Speed! (Score:1)
It shows how an object's appearance changes when it travels near light speed.
Text version (Score:2)
w0000t
Whoa....
aaaaaa
*SPLAT*
(static)
THE END
Re:Question (Score:1)
That's not to say that individual, very bright objects can't be seen in the image, however they'll wash out everything else in the 10-light-year space around them, appearing (at their absolute best resolution) as a single pixel. If they're too bright, they'll wash out neighboring pixels, too.
Re:Question (Score:2)
Impossible? (Score:1)
Re:Impossible? (Score:2)
Wow! The resolution is so incredibly high, (Score:2)
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Drivel (Score:2)
Um...no. They both might benefit from number crunching. What's unlikely about that?
Big deal. Go see a movie and you'll see thousands of individual frames that take days to render (adding up everything from simulation, 3D rendering and compositing).
Language?
Re:Drivel (Score:2)
Would you rather they were writing stories about how boring it is? They may not always get their facts right, if indeed they ever do, but they may be sparking an interest in kids young enough that they haven't decided what to study yet.
Azathoth (Score:1)
Azathoth!!!!
(you might put carmina burana (O Fortuna) music here)