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From a NASA press release:
NASA’s Swift, Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to study one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts yet observed. More than a week later, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location.
Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long-lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours.
Although research is ongoing, astronomers say that the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to its galaxy’s central black hole. Intense tidal forces tore the star apart, and the infalling gas continues to stream toward the hole. According to this model, the spinning black hole formed an outflowing jet along its rotational axis. A powerful blast of X- and gamma rays is seen if this jet is pointed in our direction.
On March 28, Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope discovered the source in the constellation Draco when it erupted with the first in a series of powerful X-ray blasts. The satellite determined a position for the explosion, now cataloged as gamma-ray burst (GRB) 110328A, and informed astronomers worldwide.
As dozens of telescopes turned to study the spot, astronomers quickly noticed that a small, distant galaxy appeared very near the Swift position. A deep image taken by Hubble on April 4 pinpoints the source of the explosion at the center of this galaxy, which lies 3.8 billion light-years away.
That same day, astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to make a four-hour-long exposure of the puzzling source. The image, which locates the object 10 times more precisely than Swift can, shows that it lies at the center of the galaxy Hubble imaged.
“We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary,” said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
“We have been eagerly awaiting the Hubble observation,” said Neil Gehrels, the lead scientist for Swift at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The fact that the explosion occurred in the center of a galaxy tells us it is most likely associated with a massive black hole. This solves a key question about the mysterious event.”
Most galaxies, including our own, contain central black holes with millions of times the sun’s mass; those in the largest galaxies can be a thousand times larger. The disrupted star probably succumbed to a black hole less massive than the Milky Way’s, which has a mass four million times that of our sun
Astronomers previously have detected stars disrupted by supermassive black holes, but none have shown the X-ray brightness and variability seen in GRB 110328A. The source has repeatedly flared. Since April 3, for example, it has brightened by more than five times.
Scientists think that the X-rays may be coming from matter moving near the speed of light in a particle jet that forms as the star’s gas falls toward the black hole.
“The best explanation at the moment is that we happen to be looking down the barrel of this jet,” said Andrew Levan at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, who led the Chandra observations. “When we look straight down these jets, a brightness boost lets us view details we might otherwise miss.”
This brightness increase, which is called relativistic beaming, occurs when matter moving close to the speed of light is viewed nearly head on.
Astronomers plan additional Hubble observations to see if the galaxy’s core changes brightness.
If a supernova is the death scream of a star, what was observed here amounts to pure torture.
Poor little star.
Which would have been fun, if not the thread was already filled with our own prolonged torture. My excuses for not updating and adding hurt to harm! :-/
At least, this was a short kind of torture. Galactic X-ray binaries, like the famous Cygnus X-1, contain lightweight black holes that only suck on the star like on a straw. It’s the very same process but much slower.. THAT’S what I call torture. š
The ray-like structures remind me a bit of the filamentation in the Glowing Eye Nebula nebulae and the Cartwheel Nebula, see: (http://) goo.gl/VQa6z which in turn reminds me of a dense plasma focus, noted by others, see the peer-reviewed paper:
Milanese, M.M.; et al, “Filaments in the Sheath Evolution of the Dense Plasma Focus as Applied to Intense Auroral Observations”, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, (Aug. 2007), Volume: 35 Issue:4, page(s): 808 – 812. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2007.897483
Sigh. Even more gobbledygook by the master of the irrelevant.
Great. Here we have an unrelated IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science is NOT a proper astrophysical paper!!!!
Peer review by electricians is like comparing fish riding bicycles. I.e. Aurora and supernovae, eh? Now, really. Stating a range of eighteen degrees of freedom is like believing in fairy-dust and Peter Pan! “I do believe in fairies. I do, I do”
It a’int even relevant to the science, sunshine! It complete and utter nonsense!
What’s worst, is that you already know it! Bah!
The way you put that it almost sounds like the old Firesign Theatre LP, “Waiting for the Electricianā¦ or Someone Like Him”. Maybe even the Sherlock Holmes parody “The Tail of the Giant Rat of Sumatra” which has “The Electrician” as one of the staring characters. If these references do not sound like anything you have heard then you are to be envied friend, because Dear Friends you get to hear all these for the First Time.
Mike C
More like a Anton Chekov play, methinks. To quote Chekov;
“No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand… Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.”
Seems like he’s got it in one. Ich sterbeā¦ (I really wish this guy would!)
The image actually looks like something like what a kindergarden child might draw for a star, or one of those star knives like Japanese ninjas use, It could also be manufactured by the telescope spider or even perhaps a new trendy corporate logo.
I know! I know! You are absolutely right! It looks like ray-structure from some dense plasma focus! Quick throw out all your now antiquated physics, astronomy and astrophysics books; plasma cosmology and the electric universe now rules. Make sure all you lost astronomers and astrophysicists from now on subscribe to the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, and dump all those other tawdry publications. All the answers are there.
We have all be so foolish not to realise the truth! How silly were we! Master electrician iantresman has shown us our wrong ways. He has made us see the light and the way of the future! All hail our next brilliant Einstein!
Sound ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet we really expected to take you equally seriously here?
Folks. Now where is my clown suit when you need it?
“The ray-like structures….”
I could be wrong (please let me know if so) but I think the ray-like structures in the top image are instrumental artifacts from the imager on Swift. Calling Don Alexander……:)
That was my first thought, except that in the article, Andrew Levan at the University of Warwick said that “The best explanation at the moment is that we happen to be looking down the barrel of this jetā. But another view would be useful.
You called?? ^^
Jon is completely right.
all we are seeing is the special PSF-shape of the Swift XRT in a case where it has observed large amounts of X-rays in so-called Photon Counting mode.
Anyone who has ever seen the optical image of a bright, possibly saturated star should know that the optics tent to spread out the light, possibly create cross-shaped beams (resulting from the bars that hold the secondary mirror), or other diffraction artifacts or even CCD blooming if “the cup runneth over”. All this stuff has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the actual shape or extent of the star, which is still a milliarcsecond point source!!
And pretty much exactly the same is occurring here. It’s just the optics of a Wolter-style X-ray telescope.
And before anyone gets more crazy ideas, the circle + box + larger circle shape of the brighter stars is a similar artifact for the UVOT telescope.
I think Jon had wrote this at the same time as I was writing my text below; (April 7, 2011 at 5:31 pm)
I.e. āOptical Design & Engineering : Advances in ray-tracing techniques for multiple-aperture telescopesā http://spie.org/x23643.xml?ArticleID=x23643
It shows the generation of a similar PSF-shapes.
Just saying.
Thanks for the reply Don. The artifact sure looked familiar (see my Google Image link below).
Sal, right indeed, I missed your post (& thanks for the SPIE link, enjoyed the read on x-ray optics).
As for the event itself, I’ll be interested to see a writeup on these observations once they’re analyzed. Neat stuff!
I would tend to agree. This looks like some sort of aperature effect.
LC
That was what I surmised, but I believe my will to live on (in the comments) got an electric shock and fled to an alternate plasma universe. :-/
And the eternal question lurked, “if a troll comments on the web and no one is around to reply, does it make a wave?”
Glad you guys fight for science though!
Do I note a tinge of sarcasm. No surprise when other scientists are equally puzzled. Of course plasma scientists have nothing useful to add. Why should a paper published in a peer-reviewed plasma science journal have any relevance to a universe where 99.999% of what’s visible is made of plasma.
Where else can you look down the barrel of a [particle] jet? A plasma gun of course, another name for the dense plasma focus.
Do I expect you to take me seriously? Of course not, how should I expect an anonymous individual who claims to put science first, to behave. It means you don’t have to (or are unable to) bother with any science.
Sarcasm? What! Your kidding me.
Also my expensive big plasma TV has heaps of plasma in it I hear, but it doesn’t produce patterns like your are currently imagining.
Our visible universe is 99.999% plasma. Wow! Well that might just explain why at night the sky appears so darn dark. As there seems so much space in the entire universe, where there is no bright plasma or plasma at all, then all this plasma must make only a very tiny fraction compared to the volume of the entire universe? Now I’m puzzled!
That is all sorts of fallacies round up in one, but mostly begging the question.
The question is if plasma is relevant to parts of the universe, and the claim here is based on the assumption that it is relevant to parts of the universe.
This is setting aside the point that we may be discussing different parts of the universe. It is also setting aside the not small point that we already have the prediction from properties of astronomical observatories, tested many times over.
Also, it is using argument from repetition, since the unwarranted assumption has been raised in about every PU thread to date.
Also, it is special pleading in the form of “appeal to inflation” which, if it isn’t instituted as a fallacy I now do. Analogously to appeal to probability a quantity is inflated. The universe is ~ 75 % energy (DE), 25 % matter (DM + LM), 4 % bosonic matter (LM) that can make plasma. So what if “99.999 %” of LM is plasma?
And indeed the standard cosmology is driven by everything _but_ LM. LM, whether plasma or not, is merely sprinkled as gravitationally formed gas aggregations around the place. The architect and the decorator was general relativity.
Actually, EESE’s comment on the visible universe puts the same inflation and irrelevancy of plasma for cosmology in a more basic box. Nice!
No, you āsummisedā the conclusion based on the word āarenātā. People can judge other statements for themselves, referring to the peer-reviewed citations I gave.
Where exactly is this 99.999% plasma located?
You even fail to grasp this concept of what the original claim of 99.999% really means.
Then please explain, I am sure others are interested.
If you can’t even explain it, then how the hell do you expect everyone else?
Dud science, is exactly that, dud science! You’ve got it wrapped up in spades, brother!
I stand by the statement that our visible universe is 99.999% plasma. If you agree with Olaf, then why not add something constructive, and explain what you think the “original claim” means. I do not know what Olaf is criticising. I’m not going to guess when you can both just state it. I might even agree with you.
Hey resident expert iantresman! Do you know how X-ray telescopes work and what kinds of diffraction patterns they produce?
I hear you are a chemist, so I’d properly assume you know something about X-ray diffraction techniques that can be applied in chemistry for detecting atomic crystalline lattices by crystallography.
Perhaps you could enlighten us on their observed ray-like structures? Do these, too, remind you of some dense plasma focus, too?
Do you want a peer-reviewed reference for this too to prove my point?
Let’s see. How about this article “Optical Design & Engineering : Advances in ray-tracing techniques for multiple-aperture telescopes” http://spie.org/x23643.xml?ArticleID=x23643
Look at the image of the so-called polychromatic point-spread function (PSF). Does this remind you of anything, too?
According to this article; “We have successfully implemented a flexible and efficient ray-trace approach for multiple-aperture telescopes and have shown that the computed PSFs agree with experimental results.”
Is not an X-ray telescope, at least by its design, a multiple-aperture telescope?
Could this be the source of such “a dense plasma focus” too?
Please tell us more. We certainly like to hear about other personal theories and speculations! Pray do tell!
As Isaac Asimov said;”The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That’s funnyā¦” (I don’t think he meant it so literally though!)
Diffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescope, while they may superficially look like a rayed object, aren’t. By the say, I am neither a chemist, nor an electrician. What qualifications contribute to your expertise?
Personal theories are not allowed here. But I note another paper which suggest that astrophysical jets may have something to do with the physics of plasma guns, see:
Contopoulos, J., “A Simple Type of Magnetically Driven Jets: an Astrophysical Plasma Gun“, Astrophysical Journal v.450, p.616 (available online in full).
But wait, there must be a mistake. It’s authored by a NASA researcher, and published in an astrophysics journal. And then there is:
Bostick, W. H., “Simulation of Astrophysical Processes in the Laboratory”, Nature 179, 214 – 215 (26 January 1957); doi: (http://) dx.doi.org/10.1038/179214a0
Published in Nature no less, but you have a simple get-out clause, it’s more than 6-months old, so obviously the laws of physics have expired in that time.
“By the say, I am neither a chemist, nor an electrician.”
You are either a liar or con artist aren’t you?
Your linked site, says; “…I also have a B.Sc (Hons) in Chemistry from the University of East Anglia,ā¦” http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/User:Iantresman
That would make you a chemist, don’t you think?
If you can’t even admit that as a decent person, then everything else you say here is really quite irrelevant.
I never denied a degree in chemistry. That doesn’t make me a chemist. On the other hand, if you’re suggesting that I need only a degree in astronomy to become an astronomer, then I might be tempted.
Do you have any qualifications to speak of?
What? I have a degree (that is to say two – a B.Sc. and a M.Sc.) in Astrophysics, so, yeah, I consider myself an Astrophysicist, especially since I had to do one research each (both dealing with radiation spectra of blazars, which is also the topic of my Ph.D. work I’ve begun last year).
How did you get a degree in Chemistry without doing any form of research? Or is the university system of your country (I assume America) so much different from the German system?
Wow. Now you want to rely on some 1957 Bostick paper to prove some phenomena observed in 2011! All this is some divine unquestionable proof. Frankly, what you say is all quite ludicrous and irrelevant if you ask me.
As for the diffractions produced by X-ray telescopes, you’re reply here means we can only surmise you don’t know. (Just saying “aren’t” really proves my point.)
You do realise this object is 3.8 billion light years away? Clearly the source of the emissions at this distance is just an unresolvable point source. (How big do you reckon the ‘spikes’ are in arc seconds.)
As we always seem to be able to show, again and again, you’re quite out of your depth!
Correction: As for the diffractions produced by X-ray telescopes, your reply here means we can only surmise you donāt know. (Just saying āarenātā really proves my point.)
(Disclaimer: If anyone does not get the irony of the following, he/she shouldn’t read it. Just sayin’.)
Oh, Salacious, how dare you? We all know that redshift has nothing to do with distance, so how can we know it is 3.8 billion ly away? Could also be just on our doorstep. What about a death-ray-plasma-gun from some freakin’ aliens trying to destroy the earth?
I made no such claim, but thatās funny, like quoting the Bible and suggesting that it proves the existence of a deity.
Actually your promotion of EU is exactly the same way how creationists are trying to push their ideas. Quote mining is one such an example.
You are the scientific equivalent as the creationist.
These rays are just an artifact of the telescope. The jet is too bright, causing these artifacts. Like these 4-rayed stars on Hubble images. Nothing to worry about.
Well, I seem to remember other imagery from the Swift XRT (generated by GRBs, not nuclear jets in galaxies) that appear similar:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=FBueTd2gN4XWgQeqt4jMDw&ved=0CDMQBSgA&q=grb+swift+x+ray&spell=1&biw=1000&bih=478
(also no sign of ‘rays’ in the higher-res image taken by CXO a few days after the initial Swift detection on 28 March. Too late? Wrong wavelength?) š
I have no problem if the ray-like spokes turn out to be artifacts, though their absence does not disprove the dense plasma focus model.
You can’t wiggle out of this one this timeā¦
All you just prove your initial argument was to create a very deliberate and fraudulent premise to fool others.
Also using your own specious argumentsā¦ It also does not prove “the dense plasma model” either.
As we all know; a half-truth by you is no better than a lie.
Let’s see; You say “By the say, I am neither a chemist, nor an electrician.ā Then you say; “I never denied a degree in chemistry. That doesnāt make me a chemist.”
No. You are absolutely right. It just makes you look like a bloody fool!
Do you really understand proof in science, or do you deliberately misapply it to anything I write? I have nothing to worry about if your best argument is claim people are lying and call them names.
>You are only doing this to avoiding scrutiny
I gave up chemistry after finishing my degree. I am not a chemist. Just like yourself, anybody can check my background on the web, it is not hidden.
But thank you for continuing to feel the need to insult me, it can’t be easy hiding behind an inscrutable pseudonym from an inscrutable ivory tower. Who’s avoiding scrutiny?
It is not me making the unfounded comments. You actually made the assertion, it was not me. Also who here is feeding out all this EU/PC garbage. Again, it is not me, now is it? If you cannot defend your own written words, that isn’t my problem.
As for the chemistry stuff, all I said; “I hear you are a chemist, so Iād properly assume you know something about X-ray diffraction techniques that can be applied in chemistry for detecting atomic crystalline lattices by crystallography.” I then said “Perhaps you could enlighten us on their observed ray-like structures? Do these, too, remind you of some dense plasma focus, too?”
If you has done chemistry, as you say, your surely would have studied it? So if you did this degree, anyone with half a brain would immediately comprehend that the actual comment is on “X-ray diffraction techniques” and spoke to nothing at all here about “your degree” here. [It would have been discussed generally in Physical Chemistry and specifically in Polymer and Material Chemistry in most degree courses. It is near impossible to avoid.] Logically, if you studied it, you likely say something about it.
Funny, too. You did this exact same thing when we were taking about mythical nucleosynthesis in the solar magnetic fields, lithium spallation and spallation using neutron sources in chemistry. Like now, you don’t seem to know much about it or are quite reticent to talk about it.
Why, I wonder?
Again from your very own words, Letās see; You say ;
āBy the say, I am neither a chemist, nor an electrician.ā
Then you say; āI never denied a degree in chemistry. That doesnāt make me a chemist.ā and yet you now also say;
“Yes there was research in my British chemistry degree.”
To deny you are a chemist when you have been trained in chemistry proves either that you are quite deluded or a liar.
I was actually saying. If you have a degree in chemistry, you should know something about X-ray diffraction. Why therefore would any sane person avoid it, eh?
You are only doing this to avoiding scrutiny for your deliberate purpose of tricking others to your unsubstantiated electric universe nonsense. You are just using unnecessary semantics to pretend otherwise just to avoid exposing your deliberate deceptive tactics. Except this time, you won’t be getting away with it!
>You are only doing this to avoiding scrutiny
I gave up chemistry after finishing my degree. I am not a chemist. Just like yourself, anybody can check my background on the web, it is not hidden.
But thank you for continuing to feel the need to insult me, it canāt be easy hiding behind an inscrutable pseudonym from an inscrutable ivory tower. Whoās avoiding scrutiny?
@ Mr. iantresman’s first comment;
Actually,, according to the NASA source, the rays are 1 arcsec long (1/60th of one degree). At 3.8 billion light years, how long are the rays do you think?
The answer is about 1 million light years. Using the diameter of the rays, the object would have to be 2 to 4 million light years across. The Milky Way is only just 100,000 light years across.
This object would then have to be the size of the some known galaxy clusters! Again. If the object were this size, then how does “events never lasts more than a few hours.” I.e. It is totally impossible for an object or explosion this size appear a couple of million light-years across. Therefore we can only conclude the ‘explosion’ or ‘or your plasma source’ can only be a point source to have such variations, don’t you think?
Using your words of your own website and your explanation of the phenomena of “Dense Plasma Forces”, absolutely proves this is totally unrelated to this story of a cosmic ‘explosion’.
Attempting to associate this event with dense plasma as an explanation of some “dense plasma focus” is disingenuous at best.
You would be foolish to pretend anything else. Pity.
“Actually,, according to the NASA source, the rays are 1 arcsec long (1/60th of one degree).”
That’s completely wrong…
Though, if I may correct it, it just proves your point even more. A single PIXEL of XRT is already 2.36 arcseconds large (http://www.swift.psu.edu/xrt/techDescription.html), so obviously, those rays are like 100 arcseconds long…
My error. i meant 1 arcmin NOT 1 arcsec.
The point was that the rays could not be part of object at that large distant and show phenomena changing over several hours.
The length of the bar in the NASA figure is 1 arcmin. By eye, I simply adjudged the rough size of each ray.
And even further supporting the point, I assumed that the rays were not radial, but angled towards the viewer and parallel with the jet (which would be odd because the ray width appears constant)
Crumb wrote: “You would be foolish to pretend anything else.”
I think you’ll find that an arcsec is 1/3600th of a degree.
But thank you for a fairly sensible response, which I will graciously note, was probably a typo on your behalf; the article image is labelled 1 arcmin, and you have correctly used 1/60th of a degree in your calculations.
Don Alexander has confirmed above that the ray-like spokes are artifacts of the image. While they still remind me of a dense plasma focus, they clearly have nothing to with the device, and nothing can be inferred from them, or the dense plasma focus.
And just to repeat this in case someone missed it above:
All we are seeing is the special PSF-shape of the Swift XRT in a case where it has observed large amounts of X-rays in so-called Photon Counting mode.
Anyone who has ever seen the optical image of a bright, possibly saturated star should know that the optics tent to spread out the light, possibly create cross-shaped beams (resulting from the bars that hold the secondary mirror), or other diffraction artifacts or even CCD blooming if āthe cup runneth overā. All this stuff has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the actual shape or extent of the star, which is still a milliarcsecond point source!!
And pretty much exactly the same is occurring here. Itās just the optics of a Wolter-style X-ray telescope.
And before anyone gets more crazy ideas, the circle + box + larger circle shape of the brighter stars is a similar artifact for the UVOT telescope.
This story has to be a UT record.
Fifty-one (51) comments in a little less than 4.5 hours!!
(Nancy. I’d probably delete the lot, except for perhaps Don’s and Jon Hanford contributions! Thankx!)
Mano man… I’d really have to be bored stiff to read all these comments. You guys are too much!
Meanwhile…. that’s a pretty zingy firecracker to be seen at 3.8 billion light-years away!
While most of the researchers commenting on the origin of this outburst discuss a stellar disruption by a SMBH at the center of this galaxy (or a smaller BH near the galaxy’s nucleus), Stan Woosley (UCSC) has another alternative.
According to Dr. Woosley “…the event might be explained by the gravitational collapse of a giant star into a black hole, a scaled-up version of the process that usually produces a gamma-ray burst. In [his] scenario, the core of the giant star collapses to form a black hole but it takes days for the outer layers to fall in and emit radiation, accounting for the unusually long duration of the observed explosion.”
I’ve heard this mechanism invoked before to explain a few GRBs (‘long-duration’ GRBs IIRC). I curious how likely this is wrt GRB 110328A, given its extreme duration/light curve?
(SN article w-Woosley quote: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/72398/title/Baffling_blowup_in_distant_galaxy )
“You are witnessing a birth. Birth of a spiral galaxy.”
Um, how can you tell this is (or will be) a spiral galaxy? I can’t really make out much structure from the Hubble image above. Also, SMBHs, if they are involved with this event, occur in both spiral and elliptical galaxies.
Wow, so this is a star being swallowed up by a singularity or a function of a galaxy we have yet to theorize upon. I look forward to the theoretical conjectures that are sure to follow these observations. Considering the size and variability of the universe we can observe I often wonder that we don’t see unique events more often. But then it does rather bring into focus the immense scale and distance in time that we are dealing with. 3.8 billion light-years is a LONG time ago.
When this explosion happened, the earth was being pounded by what is refereed to as the late heavy bombardment. Defining the landscapes of our solar systems planets and moons.
I wonder if the galaxy this originates from has grow since then.
All of the conclusions are fallacious. How do you account for the fluctuation in the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Is that a European or an African swallow? š
Giggle!
@ Catamarion
— (if you need any of the TLA explained just ask) —
Do you really want all of us reading here to take your words at face value? Are you sure of what you say?
So, BHs “generate energy & matter; they are downsteppers of higher dimensional energy” greater than 3D energy I guess is what you imply here, or tell me I am wrong in that assumption. I’ll call that >3D->EM to make word management a tad easier herein.
Any energy ‘generated” inside a BH stays there, any energy generating mass falling past the EH will have the energy also falling past the EH. The only things able to escape the infall of a BH are those things on “our side” of the EH. This is also expressed as HR or Bekenstein-Hawking radiation for those special little critters which do not fall in past the BHs EH. But still it is not the BH which is generating this HR/BHR radiation. The BH swollowed the other particle of the pair.
What we see in these events pictured and discussed here are the impact of the massive magnetic and gravitational fields generated by the material around the BH, and in some cases the frame dragging the BH causes to the local ST by nature of the BHs spin speed.
The term downstepper (DnStp) implies some form of EM energy, I guess. Do you want that higher dimensional energy to be DC or AC, phased or multi-phased or un-phased; does that >3D->EM energy ever affect matter in your idea of a DnStp-ing BH? Ok, now what matter and energy, space-time, will that energy affect, LM, HM, DM, DE?
What does your DnStp do to downstep energy, are there fields as we have calculated for EM energy. Does the density of the DnStp-ed energy change into current?
I could go on but right now I need to replace my keyboard and wipe the monitor yet again.
Mike C
Lars, thanks for the giggle.
Do you have any source for what you said above? And I demand a source that contains clear calculations on a clear basis and that makes predictions that the source is, indeed, “electrical” in nature.
Since you are attacking “MA” it is YOU who needs to prove his point. So do it! Just by making long statements you prove nothing!
Btw: Magnetic and electric fields behave according to Maxwell’s equations. I think you won’t dispute that. And these equations permit that the source terms on the right hand side can be zero (the charge density, the current density and the displacement current can, of course, be zero!). Therefore we can build an equation like: curl (B) = 0. This is a valid equation (one would say: “in vacuum”). And this equation has at least one solution! for example: B=constant. This also obeys div (B) = 0. Therefore B=constant is permitted by Maxwell’s equations and a possible configuration of a magnetic field without ANY current (remember we set j and dE/dt equal to zero).
This may seem unrealistic. But it obeys Maxwell’s equations and is therefore a valid solution.
What does it show us? Magnetic fields CAN exist without an underlying current. That’s what the physics says.
Now, prove your other points!
Good point. And this is needed, because otherwise you couldn’t have intrinsic magnetic moments of elementary particles (electrons, say).
Apparently in PU physics there are very few of the Standard model particles we see – and specifically no particles of electric charge or current!
What a wondrous universe indeed. But not ours.
I think the intellectual content of these discussions suffers when we get into these flame wars. I do think the UT writers of these blog entries should remove comment posts that are theory mongering, such as the EU/PC stuff. Recent entries by the wag promoting āpan-theoryā and other such nonstandard and substandard conjectures should be removed. Unfortunately UT seems to be a main target of the plasma mongers, where BTW it is my experience these guys often have little actual knowledge of basic electromagnetism and less on plasma physics, and that this stuff is a quirky phys-ideology based loosely on physics that is largely wrong and outdated.
LC
I half agree with you. But there is nothing wrong with healthy discussion. It’s just that a lot of it is not healthy. I think it was useful and constructive to learn, for example, that the “spokes” in the image were due to artifacts in the imaging system.
I think you will also find that not just those interested in plasma physics, but many of the astronomers have a poor basic knowledge of standard physics. So what a great opportunity to learn.
Of course people will “theory monger”, sometimes because there is no generally accepted theory. This should be another great opportunity to learn by argument, rather than ridicule. And you can always ignore a post.
All the more reason, then, for those interested to start – and engage in – a proper discussion, at the BAUT Forum!
In hindsight, do you now think that your first comment on this story might have been somewhat better worded? More along the lines of asking what the spokes were, perhaps? After all, you of all people Ian should know when it’s reasonable to provide links to (or citations of) published papers and when it’s not, in comments on UT stories.
If we all had 20-20 hindsight, we’d never make any mistakes, so of course I would have phrased the question differently, or not at all. Nevertheless, the image still reminds me, as I stated, and the responses were completely out of proportion.
But more than anything, I’d like to see the comment policy enforced, and the link therein to “powerful (but fair) rules” corrected. There are still posts here calling me a “liar or con artist”, and that looks bad on Universe Today. I also have posts withdrawn which have absolutely nothing to do with fringe theories.
@ Ian Tresman
Actually Ian, we all do have this hindsight, if what you really mean is having the same advantage before the event, as in foresight, then I agree, there would be many fewer mistakes and much of what is put off to mistakes on the part of a person would be seen as what it truly is, provocation by that person. Several posts herein fit both of these situations wouldn’t you say?
To remain on topic now, the next post — in case this one is in need of deletion for moderation, will be a non-rebuttal, a non-agressively, non-provokingly worded simple little post I hope.
Mike C
The comments policy could, indeed, be better enforced.
However, it would be nice if the regulars – many of whose comments I removed a short time ago – would show a little more self-discipline, and so reduce the need for enforcement actions. If you (anyone, not just Ian) think a comment is way beyond the pale, please contact me (via my BAUT account), and I’ll try to respond within 24 hours.
I’m curious though Ian: is this the first time you’ve seen a Swift image with its eight spikes? A quick search through past UT stories turned up two with similar images (perhaps you didn’t read those).
Jean Tate wrote: Iām curious though Ian: is this the first time youāve seen a Swift image with its eight spikes?
As far as I know . But it did cross my mind that it could have been due to an artifact of the imagery, but I’ve not seen artifacts that look like this anywhere, but had seen other astronomical objects (and physics phenomena) that did look like this.
A search of other images might have resolved the issue sooner, but it didn’t occur to me that I needed to. It seems that other regulars were also not 100% sure, and clarification was sought.
I’m sure there is something wrong with the commenting system, which are regularly occurring in the wrong place. My last post was in response to Jean Tate here.
Ian Tresman:
You mean like Plasma Cosmology theory?
Funny, I had other examples in mind.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t comment as much as I used to do! š
P.S. My comment above was intended as a reply to Jean Tate’s comment .
EU/PC is mostly and effectively banned by the BAUT Forum, and the moderators actively will delete any such material. (This is the reason why these guys do not appear within the BAUT forum.)
Frankly, these EU/PC guys have a known agenda which is aimed to bring their unfounded and rejected ideas into the main stream. They are collectively using agreed ‘advertising’ methods in using sites like Universe Today. The same individual has been doing this for years and has met the same responses.
The first comment in this thread was mostly to create doubt and swing the conversation to their nonsensical theories instead of the main story. He will avoid any scrutiny and is not interested in being corrected but to highjack the story away from it.
When I asked about him being a chemist, knowing he had a chemistry background. That is why I said; “I hear you are a chemist, so Iād properly assume you know something about X-ray diffraction techniques that can be applied in chemistry for detecting atomic crystalline lattices by crystallography.”
This individual never responded to the question, deliberately I fear. I asked about X-ray diffraction techniques because I thought he was thinking about the (GRB) 110328A source as being like a beam (the article refers to a relativistic beam.) Images produced by X-ray diffraction on materials look very much like the ray structure seen in the image, where the materials examined have an X-ray beam directed towards, which are scattered by the positions of atoms in the material. In turn, the examination of the pattern (it is actually (approximately) an electromagnetic interaction with the charges of protons and electrons within the atoms.)
Now anyone who has studied chemistry as a B.Sc. (Hons.) would have at least some idea of the use of X-ray diffraction of materials. [I did!].
What I don’t understand is there is no logical reason not to answer it. All I was questioning was the interpretation of the first comment, and his subsequent ones.
As to this statement;
“Still. It doesnāt let you get away with the deliberate statements to try and fool others to believe your EU/PC nonsense.
Also you said; āDiffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescope, while they may superficially look like a rayed object, arenāt.ā
Even I have shown you this was wrong, not just Don, here.”
Why did you delete this?
In fact the “Diffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescope” are the source of the rays seen by the telescope, and are an artefact of the focussing of X-rays into an image. (They appear far more pronounced by the luminosity of the object and by the image being magnified to a field size of about 4 to 5 arcmin.)
The object imaged is from the distance a point source, whose central round disk is a product of the limited resolution of the X-ray telescope.
The central problem is understanding how a X-ray telescope works and produces images. Even basic astronomy knows the X-ray telescopes focus X-rays using multiple nested grazing incident mirrors. The outer rings are parabolic, the inner rings are hyperbolic. At the focus some 10 meters away, a system akin to a photoelectric system produces the image that is about half of a degree across. (The Chandra X-ray Observatory is exactly like this, though other X-ray telescopes do have slight different designs and sensitivities .)
The series of mirrors are from 0.6 to 1.2 metres in aperture.
The image presented in the lead of this story would normally look like a faint round star, but as the intensity increase of the source, so rays are produced. (Similar to what is seen through optical telescopes.) I suggest you read the NASA page; http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l1/xray_detectors.html
Chandra X-ray Observatory [Much of this information is available on the NASA Chandra Site.]
Finally, if you must impose rules, why are you allowing nearly all those below? they too, defeat you comment rules, too?
Note: UT should really do a general story on X-ray telescopes.
@HSBCās post
I am not answerable to someone who hides behind an anonymous alias making disrespectful comments about me.
>āEU/PC is mostly and effectively bannedā
That is not correct, as described here on BAUT, not that I consider this a justification for promoting these theories.
@ LBC
I totally agree, I had wished I could remove much of what I snidely wrote about 1 hr after but, alas, no cancel is available.
As to the reason for the posts from the PU/EU crowd — it might be they are attempting to gain visits to the sites that are in the ‘profile’ for their account here, I can think of no other reason.
If someone were to blast me in a similar way I might feel the need to outlive them but I would still avoid them not repost again, and again… in a place where I was clearly a sore spot, a thorn in the bed. But that is me and mine, not they and err, them — well, it is correct if ungainly in simple fact.
Mike C
Rather than speculate, you only need to ask why motivates someone to post. Unfortunately whatever I may give as a reason, others here believe they know better.
If I thought that removing the link to my site would make any difference, I would do so. But I also believe that I should be transparent in providing a link that shows my interests. So I’m dammed if I do, dammed if I don’t.
Regarding motives, I simply have an interest in plasma astrophysics, so I can’t help whether my questions are plasma related, nor whether they fall into an unwelcome category.
@ Ian
You do mean that your intended posts are indeed mainstream astrophysics related expressions of a plasma like nature that you post as questions or post what you have observed in a lab, seen papers related to such, correct, do I have that right, is what you are saying and I am reading the same?
As to transparency and purpose you say it is your belief that your interests need to be seen so as to understand your posts, this is what I hear you say.
As to damned if you do or you do not I can not answer, but I do see no other reason which you have given which is more compelling than the reason I posited apriori. If indeed your wish is to be seen as a mainstream poster with slightly un-mainstream views then your site or link belies that. If you wished what I said you would not have that link as it is more proration and provocative than simply motivated as you say.
Please join in the commonly ‘sensed’ commonality — we may need to change, indeed we have as a group over time changed much of what has been posited in prior times, but it will not be here or at your instigation or oration.
Paraphrasing now, the quote is not mine even if the memory makes it seem that way.
:Mr Mike. Somewhow my reply to you appears up here.
I’ve removed a dozen or three comments on this story for pretty clear violations of the comments policy.
This is a fascinating astronomical event; it should surely be possible to discuss it – and Nancy’s story on it – in a way that is nice, brief, and doesn’t promote personal alternative astrophysics ideas.
@ J Tate
Feel free to delete any of mine you care to delete, I have a thick skin — and a quick temper from time to time. This leads me to make nasty posts which are clearly off topic or if on topic still nasty. I would delete them but I do not have that option, nor an edit option, but Oh Well, bother.
Mike C
For starters the universe contains only 5% ordinary matter. About 90% of that ordinary matter is in an ionized or plasma state.
Alfven laid down the plasma physics to work out phenomenology of solar flares and hot structures that exist in various configurations. Plasmas do not constitute 99.999% of astrophysics. This is a plain nonsense statement.
You plasma universe guys do not do any actual plasma physics. This is more of a temple of worship, where your āgodā is plasma physics. Plasma physics is hard stuff actually, and largely it is worked out on computers. Big mag-hydro codes are developed and used to work out these problems. I am not that experienced with this area of work, so to be honest I canāt comment a whole lot on this. However, this EU community is more of a phys-cult than anything to do with research.
LC
>You plasma universe guys do not do any actual plasma physics
I bet there are few people here that have done (a) any plasma physics (b) any courses specifically on plasma physics. I bet some have done astrophysics courses that have included some plasma physics.
And of course plasmas do not constitute 99.999% of astrophysics.
iantresman, please do yourself a flavour: seek out and join an astronomy club. Do you own a telescope? If you don’t, let the club members educate you on what would be a good choice for you. If I may be so bold, may I suggest a refractor – no support vanes, no secondary mirror and no diffraction spikes on any astrophotos you may endeavour to shoot in the (probably not so near) future:)
Your universe awaits you!
OK, so I look through said telescope and see neat images of the universe. What are you hoping I might learn?
Of course, unless you used a camera you wouldn’t be seeing “images”, you would be observing wonderful celestial objects with your own eyes. I would hope you could learn about the beauty of the universe, and a little bit about astronomy. At the very least, you would have first hand knowledge of things like diffraction spikes.
Ah, now I see where you’re going. Thank you for the suggestion. Of course if I were to use a refractor, then I wouldn’t benefit from first hand knowledge of things like diffraction spikes, as you noted.
The length of time or duration for this event as we see it to occur seems out of profile for a nominally disruptive SMBH event as we have posited them to occur; even if the event is aggressively profiled to be along the model of a super large star at very high velocity and near centered penetration of the BHs EH –and very little left over to affect the accretion disk in the short term, although that is surely a possible result.
In fact unless the speed of the impactor is an incredibly large value the AD will be affected greatly as the AD tears and strips the slow star’s outer shell as the slow star gradually passes through the huge dense field of debris, additionally the slow star itself will have an impact on that AD as the slow star would effect the AC tidally; this will be reflected by other phenomena — which we will not be able to use as a test due to the distance involved. Any gravity waves might tell us more if we could ever nail down the resolution needed for a specific distance and/or could fine tune the ‘scope’ or scopes if using a very broad baseline of scopes.
If a massive star enters into this dance with the SMBH via the ecliptic, rather than the plane of the AD, there is still the tremendous force of the impact which is not in-falling. The splash which will not be in-falling for some time to come will interact with the AD, become a part of the AD in fact. This force will affect the AD and environ for much time to come if this model is more plausible.
If the massive star were to be penetrating from the quadrant opposite our viewpoint, and the polar axis of both bodies were aligned at 90Ā° the magnetic fields might be in positions which would conserve MM — it then follows that what we are seeing might be all there is to this show, all EM effects for a long time to come. There will be EM field disruptions — gravitational excursions of the AD and stellar shell. A minor if long lived dance to the death of it all in any case. But we will not be able to ‘see’ any of that due to the great distance and the resolving power we currently have to hand. It would be like looking at a stellar object’s disk from too close a perspective — which we see illustrated with the images taken to date; too intense for our optics of choice and too far for other optics to hand. If we detuned the instruments to lessen and broaden the image and then subtracted the intensity would the resultant data paint a different story of what is happening at this juncture.
However, it is a pretty show for all to see, if you like lethal amounts of radiation that is. I am glad we are far away but wish something would happen in a similar fashion nearby, in terms of a safe distance for us of course. We might be able to tease something out of that nearby event which would help to explain what we are seeing with this event.
Mike C
(Last reply @Mike C, to his second to last post). Darn the comment system sometimes.
It might be the moderation numbering sequence as someone suggested on a different forum a while back. You think you have posted a reply to the correct post but it shows up in a different area of the thread or indeed in another thread.
For example this is a reply to your 7:28pm posting.
I think you’re right, but only just noticed it happening. Earlier moderated posts have appeared in the right place.
@ Ian Tresman
The problem, Sir, is not what you ask in these days. The problem is your record. I mean, there is enough evidence only on UT that shows that you consider Electric Universe, Plasma Universe, and/or Plasma Cosmology as a more valid idea than the “mainstream theory”.
And, although, we have shown time in time again that those ideas do not hold anymore to newer data, you still keep them and you still have a website that promotes exactly these ideas. So, for whatever reasons, it seems that you don’t want to learn although you keep asking questions. So, naturally, we wonder.
And I wonder, why you wonder that we wonder.
You may not have a direct connection to that other site (thunder….), but that site has a clear agenda. And since you still hold up to (say) similar ideas, and that although they’ve been disproved time in time again, it is only natural to think that you also try to promote something here.
And btw: Plasma astrophysics is part of the “mainstream” (which is not an ivory tower!). For instance, the institute I’m working for has a large group working on it. They calculate instabilities in the solar wind, or the structure of the magnetic field of the heliosphere, and other things. My roommate is hopefully beginning his PhD theses soon and his topic will be the results of the IBEX mission.
So, yeah, plasmas are highly considered in astrophysics. And yes, even the ideas of EU, PU or PC have been considered in the past. But nor anymore, and that is because they couldn’t explain the new data.
It’s true, new and fresh ideas are always welcome, if they can explain new results at least as good as the older theories. But EU, PU or PC is not among them. Otherwise tons of papers would be published with these ideas. But they are not. And in this case I don’t need to wonder, it is obvious (and no, they are not suppressed).
DrFlimmer wrote: “The problem, Sir, is not what you ask in these days. The problem is your record.”
It’s a good thing I don’t ask questions about my record then.
>”it seems that you donāt want to learn although you keep asking questions”
One asks questions to learn.
“You do mean that your intended posts are indeed mainstream astrophysics related expressions of a plasma like nature that you post as questions or post what you have observed in a lab, seen papers related to such, correct, do I have that right, is what you are saying and I am reading the same?”
My interest in plasma physics begun when someone recommend that I read Hannes AlfvĆ©n, so I read Cosmic Plasma, and then Cosmical Electrodynamics. However, it became apparent that he wasn’t appreciated by the astronomy community, and he was politely considered a maverick. I don’t consider his work to be infallible, but much is incorporated in standard mainstream astrophysics.
I don’t seek to enact change. As Max Planck said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
@ Iantresman
Please, check this comment.
AlfvĆØn was a great scientist. No question about that. But his time was the 70ties and the 80ties. His ideas concerning some aspects of astrophysics and cosmology might have seem to be good ideas during his time. But it is only since the 90ties or even since “now” that we have telescopes in all wavelengths that we can draw better conclusions from the data. The error bars have shrunk a lot in the last decade.
And with this shrinking it became more and more obvious that some ideas fit data better than others. And some of AlfvĆØn’s ideas are among the latter. And right now, it seems unlikely that they make a comeback. And that is due to the shrunken error bars.
And btw: There are also other great scientists, like AlfvĆØn, with great ideas and big achievements on one side, but also with a record of failures on the other side. And that is only natural and human. Even Einstein erred. And I don’t refer to the Cosmological Constant, but to his resentments against Quantum Mechanics.
Indeed, and thanks for that. My post was actually intended for Mr Mike’s below.
EU/PC is mostly and effectively banned by the BAUT Forum, and the moderators actively will delete any such material. (This is the reason why these guys do not appear within the BAUT forum.)
Frankly, these EU/PC guys have a known agenda which is aimed to bring their unfounded and rejected ideas into the main stream. They are collectively using agreed āadvertisingā methods in using sites like Universe Today. The same individual has been doing this for years and has met the same responses.
The first comment in this thread was mostly to create doubt and swing the conversation to their nonsensical theories instead of the main story. He will avoid any scrutiny and is not interested in being corrected but to highjack the story away from it.
When I asked about him being a chemist, knowing he had a chemistry background. That is why I said; āI hear you are a chemist, so Iād properly assume you know something about X-ray diffraction techniques that can be applied in chemistry for detecting atomic crystalline lattices by crystallography.ā
This individual never responded to the question, deliberately I fear. I asked about X-ray diffraction techniques because I thought he was thinking about the (GRB) 110328A source as being like a beam (the article refers to a relativistic beam.) Images produced by X-ray diffraction on materials look very much like the ray structure seen in the image, where the materials examined have an X-ray beam directed towards, which are scattered by the positions of atoms in the material. In turn, the examination of the pattern (it is actually (approximately) an electromagnetic interaction with the charges of protons and electrons within the atoms.)
Now anyone who has studied chemistry as a B.Sc. (Hons.) would have at least some idea of the use of X-ray diffraction of materials. [I did!].
What I donāt understand is there is no logical reason not to answer it. All I was questioning was the interpretation of the first comment, and his subsequent ones.
As to this statement;
āStill. It doesnāt let you get away with the deliberate statements to try and fool others to believe your EU/PC nonsense.
Also you said; āDiffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescope, while they may superficially look like a rayed object, arenāt.ā
Even I have shown you this was wrong, not just Don, here.ā
Why did you delete this?
In fact the āDiffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescopeā are the source of the rays seen by the telescope, and are an artefact of the focussing of X-rays into an image. (They appear far more pronounced by the luminosity of the object and by the image being magnified to a field size of about 4 to 5 arcmin.)
The object imaged is from the distance a point source, whose central round disk is a product of the limited resolution of the X-ray telescope.
The central problem is understanding how a X-ray telescope works and produces images. Even basic astronomy knows the X-ray telescopes focus X-rays using multiple nested grazing incident mirrors. The outer rings are parabolic, the inner rings are hyperbolic. At the focus some 10 meters away, a system akin to a photoelectric system produces the image that is about half of a degree across. (The Chandra X-ray Observatory is exactly like this, though other X-ray telescopes do have slight different designs and sensitivities .)
The series of mirrors are from 0.6 to 1.2 metres in aperture.
The image presented in the lead of this story would normally look like a faint round star, but as the intensity increase of the source, so rays are produced. (Similar to what is seen through optical telescopes.) I suggest you read the NASA page; http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l1/xray_detectors.html
Chandra X-ray Observatory [Much of this information is available on the NASA Chandra Site.]
Finally, if you must impose rules, why are you allowing nearly all those below? they too, defeat you comment rules, too?
Note: UT should really do a general story on X-ray telescopes.
@ Jean Tate and Nancy Aitkinson
EU/PC is mostly and effectively banned by the BAUT Forum, and the moderators actively will delete any such material. (This is the reason why these guys do not appear within the BAUT forum.)
Frankly, these EU/PC guys have a known agenda which is aimed to bring their unfounded and rejected ideas into the main stream. They are collectively using agreed āadvertisingā methods in using sites like Universe Today. The same individual has been doing this for years and has met the same responses.
The first comment in this thread was mostly to create doubt and swing the conversation to their nonsensical theories instead of the main story. He will avoid any scrutiny and is not interested in being corrected but to highjack the story away from it.
When I asked about him being a chemist, knowing he had a chemistry background. That is why I said; āI hear you are a chemist, so Iād properly assume you know something about X-ray diffraction techniques that can be applied in chemistry for detecting atomic crystalline lattices by crystallography.ā
This individual never responded to the question, deliberately I fear. I asked about X-ray diffraction techniques because I thought he was thinking about the (GRB) 110328A source as being like a beam (the article refers to a relativistic beam.) Images produced by X-ray diffraction on materials look very much like the ray structure seen in the image, where the materials examined have an X-ray beam directed towards, which are scattered by the positions of atoms in the material. In turn, the examination of the pattern (it is actually (approximately) an electromagnetic interaction with the charges of protons and electrons within the atoms.)
Now anyone who has studied chemistry as a B.Sc. (Hons.) would have at least some idea of the use of X-ray diffraction of materials. [I did!].
What I donāt understand is there is no logical reason not to answer it. All I was questioning was the interpretation of the first comment, and his subsequent ones.
As to this statement;
āStill. It doesnāt let you get away with the deliberate statements to try and fool others to believe your EU/PC nonsense.
Also you said; āDiffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescope, while they may superficially look like a rayed object, arenāt.ā
Even I have shown you this was wrong, not just Don, here.ā
Why did you delete this?
In fact the āDiffraction patterns produced by an x-ray telescopeā are the source of the rays seen by the telescope, and are an artefact of the focussing of X-rays into an image. (They appear far more pronounced by the luminosity of the object and by the image being magnified to a field size of about 4 to 5 arcmin.)
The object imaged is from the distance a point source, whose central round disk is a product of the limited resolution of the X-ray telescope.
The central problem is understanding how a X-ray telescope works and produces images. Even basic astronomy knows the X-ray telescopes focus X-rays using multiple nested grazing incident mirrors. The outer rings are parabolic, the inner rings are hyperbolic. At the focus some 10 meters away, a system akin to a photoelectric system produces the image that is about half of a degree across. (The Chandra X-ray Observatory is exactly like this, though other X-ray telescopes do have slight different designs and sensitivities .)
The series of mirrors are from 0.6 to 1.2 metres in aperture.
The image presented in the lead of this story would normally look like a faint round star, but as the intensity increase of the source, so rays are produced. (Similar to what is seen through optical telescopes.) I suggest you read the NASA page; http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/how_l1/xray_detectors.html
Chandra X-ray Observatory [Much of this information is available on the NASA Chandra Site.]
Finally, if you must impose rules, why are you allowing nearly all those below? they too, defeat you comment rules, too?
Note: UT should really do a general story on X-ray telescopes.
@Jean
I posted a thread that has been moved to the centre of the text and not address your comment. Jean Tate April 9, 2011 at 3:12 pm
What is going on?
HSBC asks: What’s going on?
(others have asked this too; why do replies appear in unexpected places?)
I don’t know. However, my hunch is that the comments that were removed have messed up the links that tie comments to their parents.
iantresman, something for you to think about: the spokes in the Swift image are ~an arcminute in size, and the time scale of the reported event is ~days. How close to us would the object causing this event be – approximately – to produce something an arcminute across in a week, even at highly relativistic speeds (or even as light, as in a light echo)? This is the sort of question I – and no doubt others – would think it entirely reasonable for someone with a science degree and a multi-year fascination with astronomy to have at least considered. Further, if you post a full reference to a technical paper that would seem to be completely irrelevant (per this simple calculation), do you appreciate why your comment might receive the hostile responses it did?
Probably, it would be more useful not to delete the entire post but to remove the text only with a message like: “conflict with comment policy: text deleted”. Then these problems could be avoided.
DrFlimmer suggested: “it would be more useful not to delete the entire post but to remove the text only with a message like: āconflict with comment policy: text deletedā. Then these problems could be avoided.”
That’s a good suggestion! I’ll keep that in mind (but hopefully I won’t need to remove any comments in future).
iantresman said: “I did not think that the spokes were jets that had formed in a week flat. I assumed that only the brightness of the source had changed.” If the source is ~<1 arcsec in apparent size, no matter how quickly - or by how much - it brightened, in a week, it could not produce extremely luminous spokes, could it? Unless the emission from the source was highly anisotropic, illuminating the spokes first (some time in the past), then beaming exactly in our direction, so the spokes and source became visible (to us) simultaneously (not a scenario consistent with the paper you cited, I imagine).
@Jean Tate
If the spokes were not artifacts, but hidden jets, they are clearly too long to have been illuminated by the source in the available time. But they could have been illuminated in the past, not only by the central source, but they could also be self-illuminating. If the hypothetical jets were illuminated by the variable source, then one might expect the jet to have variable brightness along its length, if the resolution were available.
I had cited the paper (I can’t tell whether it has been removed, or is just not appearing), because it had mentioned (a) the “plasma-focus experiment, which reproduces some astrophysical phenomena”, (b) “filaments are observed in many astrophysical phenomena (by example [..] the Cat Eye nebula” (c) “several phenomena registered in plasma-focus discharges seem to be a reproduction of astrophysical observations”. (d) emission of hard and soft X-ray.
In the article, I felt that the spokes (mistaken as filaments) together with the jet, x-rays, and relativistic beams, together with the comments from the authors, were not completely irrelevant.
@Jean Tate’s post.
A lightweek is 1.8E14m, so the distance to an object appearing an arcmin across would be 1.8E14/(tan (1/60/2))/2 = 6.2E17m (~65 lightyears), compared to the galaxy being 3.8E9 lightyears away.
This back of an envelope calculation is all well and good, but I did not think that the spokes were jets that had formed in a week flat. I assumed that only the brightness of the source had changed.
“do you appreciate why your comment might receive the hostile responses it did?”
No. There is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. It looks bad on Universe Today, and it looks bad on science.
Ohā¦ but it justifiably murders all the pseudoscience and the mumbo-jumbo. Quite simply. Act honestly and you haven’t a worry in the world. Act dishonestly and you get exactly what you give out.
As for “This back of an envelope calculation is all well and good, but I did not think that the spokes were jets that had formed in a week flat. I assumed that only the brightness of the source had changed.”
Then why didn’t you say that in the first place?
Also the very first post of yours points out the shape of the rays and then directly refers to an IEEE paper. Jon Hanford then said “…but I think the ray-like structures in the top image are instrumental artifacts from the imager.ā and you replied; “That was my first thought, except that in the article, Andrew Levan at the University of Warwick said that āThe best explanation at the moment is that we happen to be looking down the barrel of this jetā.”
Therefore, we can only conclude that you thought that the jet included the spokes. Logic says that you “I did not think that the spokes were jets…” is therefore false. (No one with a university education in science would likely make such a simple mistake.)
Bottom line : You were hoping in all hope that this might be direct evidence of some known plasma universe or plasma physics phenomena. It is not, nor is there any supporting for it. Even the NASA scientists say “…one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts yet observed.” We can only deduce things from the available observation of the phenomena.
If that is so, then and they are unsure, then how do you have the means or capability to claim otherwise?
It’s just wild speculation on you behalf and just personal theory — and that right or wrong is against the UT rules.
Finally, you may be interested in plasma physics, you may even know more than most of us, but if you must argue that it is a known and established plasma physics then make sure the observational evidence and the theory behind it is damn well overwhelming in regards its explanation of the phenomena. (Saying something in a plasma physics experiment that is observed on Earth explains some distant astronomical or astrophysical is quite untenable if no observed data supports it. As we have said to you again and again; just because it might look like something doesn’t mean that IS that phenomena. It could be something quite different. I.e. A Dense Plasma Focus, when it could look like a X-ray diffraction image, an artificial artefact, or even none of the above explanations.
[I read not once but twice for beginning to end the Milanese, M.M.; et al, article. It had some interesting ideas on aurorae, but it had nothing to do with this story at all. It also had absolutely nothing to do with the Glowing Eye Nebula nebulae and the Cartwheel Nebula.]
Now. Let’s end this useless bitterness and get on to the next story. In future, if you must come up with these alternative theories do so from the standard theory and not something plucked from the air. If you don’t know ask, as there are a dozen posters here that know far better than you or me.
[If it makes you happy, I’ll unreservedly withdraw my accusations that you either lied or acted as a con artist. All I ask in return is you act upfront and honestly, and you’ll have no real problems with me! That’s the best i can do.]
@HSBC “I’ll unreservedly withdraw my accusations that you either lied or acted as a con artist”
Thank you. I never try to be anything less than upfront and honest, not to be confused with misunderstanding and inaccuracies which are quite different.
I hope you will consider the same, and not lump all plasma physics under the umbrella of the “plasma universe”, as there is overlap.
Agreed.
It was looking at some of the other articles published on this story today, and it dawned on me is it at all possible this object might be an inactive or semi-active quasar or one just to turn turned on?
Quasars have the noted properties of being variable in brightness and expel prodigious energies from their centres. They also are likely attached to the centre of galaxies and lie from us around the same extragalactic distances. The closest, is 3C 273 that lies 2.44 billion light years away. The furthest is 28 billion light years away. About a quarter of a million are known. Many are also known X-ray sources.
Oh, I think my joke disappeared. Good, it was a poor one. š