Astronomy fans, astrophysicists: how do you keep your heads from not exploding?

brentspeak

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Wed Dec-19-07 06:51 PM
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Astronomy fans, astrophysicists: how do you keep your heads from not exploding?

Reading about astronomy, with the vast distances of space, the unbelievable masses of entities, the indescribable sizes of things, the absurd energies of galactic objects -- brain-stretching, scary stuff:

Example (from today's article on black holes): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121701266.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Jet From Supermassive Black Hole Seen Blasting Neighboring Galaxy

A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before...

The smaller galaxy is being transformed by the radiation and the jet is being bent before shooting millions of light-years farther in a new direction.

"What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire," said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet's radiation transformed the planets' atmosphere.

Jets of radiation that shoot out for millions of light-years? Energy that's tearing apart a neighboring galaxy? This is a little more powerful than a BB-gun! :scared:

Distance of just one light-year: 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.461 Pm). :crazy:

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Faygo Kid

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:13 PM
Response to Original message

1. Easier to be a FReeper, and reject that Copernicus Earth-around-the-sun junk

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redqueen

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:15 PM
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2. I don't get where the exploding heads would come from.

:shrug:

To me it's just fascinating stuff... it's fun to imagine the vast distances and immense amounts of energy involved.

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brentspeak

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:19 PM
Response to Reply #2

4. I mean, attempting to grasp the staggering size of these enormous distances and numbers

within our human minds.

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redqueen

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:20 PM
Response to Reply #4

6. IMO our minds are capable of imagining that and much more (nt)

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GreenPartyVoter

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Wed Dec-19-07 08:46 PM
Response to Reply #6

8. Not mine. My brain hurts when I try to consider an expanding universe.

I mean, I know it is, but it's just mind boggling to me. :P

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Fire Walk With Me

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:16 PM
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3. I'm bored with Earth; I want to know about Everything Else.

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Bucky

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Wed Dec-19-07 07:20 PM
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5. Here's another picture of that Black Hole taken from a different angle

A little more flattering, don'tcha think?

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brentspeak

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Wed Dec-19-07 08:44 PM
Response to Original message

7. kick

:kick:

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supernova

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Wed Dec-19-07 09:02 PM
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9. It's totally fun!

the mind bendy part of it, that is. :crazy:

And yeah, I'm glad I'm not in that target galaxy. :-( (If there are any "people" there, are they aware of what's happening? )

Do you realize that our own Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will collide eventually? One day, 20 billion years from now, we could have two suns?

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brentspeak

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Wed Dec-19-07 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #9

10. Now that would be freaky

I suppose, though, that the galaxy collision itself would mean the end of all life on the planet Earth.

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supernova

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Wed Dec-19-07 09:13 PM
Response to Reply #10

11. Not necessarily

depends on where the two black holes are and whether or not they match up and just create one big mega galaxy.

We are stardust and we will return to stardust. ;-)

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brentspeak

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Wed Dec-19-07 09:26 PM
Response to Reply #11

12. You mean, not even a small tremor and the house shaking to let us know?

Sheesh, how anti-climatic. ;)

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supernova

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Wed Dec-19-07 09:29 PM
Response to Reply #12

13. Hey, it's gonna happen over billions of years

So it'll be a very slowwwwww mooottttioooonnnn event.

I'm sure we'll have time to acclimate.

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