Black Holes

[knlwtchr 0]

I was watching a TV show on the History Channel this morning about Black Holes. It seems to me that scientists are jumping the gun a bit about their theories of space. Maybe I am too ignorant of scientific data, but the Hubble is not a running video, right? It only takes photos now and then of space, ours and the outer. So, if it captures a photo of some blob out in space, how does a scientist decide that its a Black Hole?

 

Now, lets apply this Black Hole theory to Star Trek. If thousands of Black Holes are supposed to be all around us and you cant really see them and their event horizons are a toilet bowl of suction for anything closer than the distance between us and the Sun, how is it that a Starship can fly in a straight line at any speed and not be sucked into one of them or at least skim across one and effect that part of space in some fashion?

[LoAmi 0]

The Hubble captures still images -- although a couple of still images of the same region of space taken a few days, months, or years apart could look an awful lot like a video if whatever you're looking at doesn't change much over those periods of time. Not everything in the universe changes significantly at 30 frames per second!

 

As for how to find black holes, Wikipedia has a good summary. (The nutshell: You may not be able to see a black hole directly, but you can see its effects on surrounding objects).

 

They shouldn't cause much of a problem for starships because space is huge, and most of it is empty. Those black holes that do exist could be mapped, just like the stars are mapped, and you would steer a ship around them, just like you wouldn't go in a straight line through a star.

 

The detection methods used in Star Trek would likely be different, because they seem to be able to scan gravitational waves directly with normal sensors.

[knlwtchr 0]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that term, "Gravitational waves"

 

Is it really possible that space doesn't change over days, months, or even years?

[Tachyon 0]

Is it really possible that space doesn't change over days, months, or even years?

That depends on where you're looking and how far away it is. Some regions of space are volatile and change rapidly. The surface of the sun is this way. The sun itself, however, has been relatively stable for the past few billion years. And that's the timescale generally applicable here--stars take millions of years to fully form, and usually last for billions of years. To a species with a relatively short lifetime, such a timescale is very hard to fully comprehend. Since our solar system is a very active region of space (compared to the empty space beyond the solar system), it's easy to take a look at our neighbourhood and imagine that everywhere in the universe is similar. Lots of space is empty or so close to being empty, however, that it's hard to detect any minute changes therein.

 

A region of the space that's mostly empty, or home to a smattering of stars, isn't going to change much over the course of time, especially not in the spectrum of light we can see. Keep in mind as well that the Hubble takes photos of extremely distant regions of space. At that distance, resolution becomes a problem, so we can only see objects that are really big and bright. So while that region of space may be quite active, from our perspective, it hasn't changed too much.

 

There's also the fact that everything is in motion relative to everything else. I.e., the Milky Way galaxy isn't just sitting "somewhere" in the universe, happily rotating about. It's actually moving at a very fast speed--right toward the Andromeda galaxy, in fact. They'll collide in a couple of billion years or so; if you haven't purchased "galaxy collision insurance", now might be the time to do so.

 

I imagine that ships in the Starfleet universe have a considerable advantage over our current technology. Firstly, the sensors on a starship are much more precise than our best instruments, and they have better range. Secondly, most of Federation space probably has comm relays or sensor buoys (not to mention all those starbases) deployed throughout. These can feed telemetry back to ships via subspace. So for all intents and purposes, starships can get real-time or close to real-time updates on whatever region of space they are about to enter and navigate accordingly. We, on the other hand, are stuck with photos that are out of date the moment we take them.

[knlwtchr 0]

There's also the fact that everything is in motion relative to everything else. I.e., the Milky Way galaxy isn't just sitting "somewhere" in the universe, happily rotating about. It's actually moving at a very fast speed--right toward the Andromeda galaxy, in fact. They'll collide in a couple of billion years or so; if you haven't purchased "galaxy collision insurance", now might be the time to do so.

 

Oooo, I've got to get on that right away. I wonder if they can bundle it with my car insurance?

 

I imagine that ships in the Starfleet universe have a considerable advantage over our current technology. Firstly, the sensors on a starship are much more precise than our best instruments, and they have better range. Secondly, most of Federation space probably has comm relays or sensor buoys (not to mention all those starbases) deployed throughout. These can feed telemetry back to ships via subspace. So for all intents and purposes, starships can get real-time or close to real-time updates on whatever region of space they are about to enter and navigate accordingly. We, on the other hand, are stuck with photos that are out of date the moment we take them.

 

Interesting points, Tach. I was also wondering about Black Hole activity. For example, do they continually spin? If so, is it a fast rotation? Or, is it slow, or slower, like the Earth? Does it collect material quickly? Is it actually a hole in space or is it like a tornado? Are they miles across or as big as our galaxy? See? These are the weird things that pop in my head when I watch these science shows. But, at least it doesn't keep me up at night...yet. =0]

[Col. C.E. Harper 0]

Interesting points, Tach. I was also wondering about Black Hole activity. For example, do they continually spin? If so, is it a fast rotation? Or, is it slow, or slower, like the Earth? Does it collect material quickly? Is it actually a hole in space or is it like a tornado? Are they miles across or as big as our galaxy? See? These are the weird things that pop in my head when I watch these science shows. But, at least it doesn't keep me up at night...yet. =0]

 

Rate of spin varies, as does material collection. It has to do with how fast things were moving and how close they were when the black hole formed. It's not a hole in space the way there's a hole in paper; it's more like a tornado but a ball-shaped tornado, if you can picture that. You can't come up under the 'tip' of the tornado - gravity operates in all directions. Size, again, varies. The event horizon is what you're really talking about when you talk about the "size" of a black hole; the hole itself (that is, the mass creating the phenomenon) is teeeny tiny, theoretically only a point. The event horizon is determined by the mass of the black hole. The smallest known is about 24 km/15 miles. That's smallest among stellar-mass black holes, by the way -- there's a theory about micro black holes but it makes my head hurt. I suspect it makes all but a few specialists' heads hurt.

[Alex Macen 0]

Black holes are detected with light now and satellites that use special equipment. They no longer use the Hubble since its made for seeing what we can see with eyes.

 

Seeing isn't believing in this case, rather the satellites they use blast light energy or certain wavelengths and they look for holes in the data. These are the black holes.

 

Thankfully however, our region is [for the most part] quiet with These bad ass Black Holes.

[WadeFKnight 0]

Black holes really aren't really what bothers me so much. What I have difficulty buying into is this whole idea of dark matter and dark energy. It just seems to me that our astronomers and physicists just couldn't find a way to fit the movement of galaxies into the standard model of gravity. So they pretty much just made something up that would fit and published it. And it became widely accepted practically overnight it seems without any real alternate theories to explain it or really without any peer review.

 

Nah, I think sometimes the issue here now is that scientists just aren't questioning themselves enough. We're too ready to accept whatever they have to say and start teaching it. A theory is a theory, but let's leave teaching it until there's sufficient evidence to back it up. That's just my two cents.

[Grom 0]

Black holes really aren't really what bothers me so much. What I have difficulty buying into is this whole idea of dark matter and dark energy. It just seems to me that our astronomers and physicists just couldn't find a way to fit the movement of galaxies into the standard model of gravity. So they pretty much just made something up that would fit and published it. And it became widely accepted practically overnight it seems without any real alternate theories to explain it or really without any peer review.

 

Nah, I think sometimes the issue here now is that scientists just aren't questioning themselves enough. We're too ready to accept whatever they have to say and start teaching it. A theory is a theory, but let's leave teaching it until there's sufficient evidence to back it up. That's just my two cents.

 

What? How dare you question the infallibility of science! ;)

 

The problem with science is not science, but the humans who practice it. ^_^

[Kansas 0]

How do we know that * everything * isn't imploded already?

 

Our current existence and the planet Earth might be gone for all we really do know, and our lives have already been done and over with as well as the existence of the planet itself.

 

If these universal and time changes occur so slowly, then why not the possibility that we are caught in some sort of delayed space/time lag bubble or loop that has not reached our point of *boom* yet?

 

Radio waves shot out in space exist for years and years, going further and further out in space - a time lag bubble could/might work on the same principle.

 

Example: You've all had feelings of Deju Vu, and you get that strong sensation that you've done something or been somewhere before. Well, you might very well have already done it before, as in a constant loop until the end of the Black Hole (s) implosion is reached.

 

I know, I know - science fiction show plot. Still makes me wonder though.

[knlwtchr 0]

Black holes really aren't really what bothers me so much. What I have difficulty buying into is this whole idea of dark matter and dark energy. It just seems to me that our astronomers and physicists just couldn't find a way to fit the movement of galaxies into the standard model of gravity. So they pretty much just made something up that would fit and published it. And it became widely accepted practically overnight it seems without any real alternate theories to explain it or really without any peer review.

 

Nah, I think sometimes the issue here now is that scientists just aren't questioning themselves enough. We're too ready to accept whatever they have to say and start teaching it. A theory is a theory, but let's leave teaching it until there's sufficient evidence to back it up. That's just my two cents.

 

Yes, my thoughts exactly! People are so interested in what a scientist might say and they just readily believe whatever they "prove" out of a petri dish or think they're seeing through a microscope. Jim Garrison said that, "Scientists can prove that an elephant can hang from a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy. But, use your eyes, common sense." Of course, he was referring to ballistics, but the same can be said about any scientist. They'll keep shoveling us bull until we say, "Would ya shut up, already? PROVE IT."

[Tom Servo 0]

How do we know that * everything * isn't imploded already?

 

thats what i think about. how do we know we have not already passed into a black hole, and although slightly differently than kansas, we are in the singularity of a black hole that we know to be our 'universe'?

 

how would we be able to detect past the event horizon to see that there is more out there, if we cannot look through it?

 

 

oh yes, and i switched my auto/home/galaxy collision insurance to geico and saved a bundle! i'm thinking of getting volcano insurance next week.

[will_marx 0]

oh yes, and i switched my auto/home/galaxy collision insurance to geico and saved a bundle! i'm thinking of getting volcano insurance next week.

 

Ya know, Progressive's got a great deal on Tsunami Insurance for the East Coast. ;)