Black Holes locked in death dance?

[Brian McMalley]

CNN article

I keep up with CNN articles like this from time to time. I've tended to notice NASA notices things like this all the time, get people riled up about it, then do something along the lines of "Well, really it's nothing to worry about, we still have millions of years."

They've said catastrophic things about the sun exploding soon (even though it's still only a middle sized star). I also remember reading an article in Science and Tech about five years ago about a meteor coming to collide with earth, and they were building some supermassive 300 ton copper ball on a satellite that they were talking about sending to collide with the meteor. The result for us in the collision would just be a pretty star shower. I tried checking into it recently and you know what I found? Absolutely nothing. I think it's quite strange.

[Raptor]

New asteroids on a possible collision path with Earth are always found (normally with a 1 in 50,000+ chance of actually hitting), and as time goes on and scientists recalculate the path of the asteroids, many of them are no longer deemed as a risk and are removed from the threat list. I know that there's a list somewhere with all asteroids that have a chance of hitting the Earth based on the Torino Scale

It's a shame we won't be around to see the Black Holes merging, I wonder what would happen?

[Master Sage]

Somthing specatcular.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

CNN article

I keep up with CNN articles like this from time to time. I've tended to notice NASA notices things like this all the time, get people riled up about it, then do something along the lines of "Well, really it's nothing to worry about, we still have millions of years."

They've said catastrophic things about the sun exploding soon (even though it's still only a middle sized star). I also remember reading an article in Science and Tech about five years ago about a meteor coming to collide with earth, and they were building some supermassive 300 ton copper ball on a satellite that they were talking about sending to collide with the meteor. The result for us in the collision would just be a pretty star shower. I tried checking into it recently and you know what I found? Absolutely nothing. I think it's quite strange.

It's not NASA that gets people riled up, it's people reading the popular press. The popular press like to blow things out of all proportion and a large number of the people reading the article don't understand it well enough to have an informed opinion. Hence we get all the doomsday asteroid stories.

For example, you read an article in Science and Tech but point the finger at NASA.

Having read the CNN article I'd like to know why you are then going on about NASA getting people riled. There is not a single sentence in the story claiming there is any danger to the earth or mankind.

Edited May 31, 2006 by Waspie_Dwarf

[Brian McMalley]

Well, they did mention right off the bat that when they merge, it will be capable of swallowing material equal to billions of stars. To me that sounds like a threat to mankind. I know there are nearly an infinite amount of stars out there, but with a power like that you'd think it would get to us eventually. I may have been out of hand by pointing the finger at NASA based off of a CNN article. I do admit that. I just didn't like how they composed the article. They start off by telling it's capabilities when merged, and draw out the tension by explaining black holes. Then, at the very end of the article, they say that it'll take millions of years. That's bad journalism. From their point of view it's good because it keeps the reader drawn in, but only by making them think that it's something important.

Anyway, about the asteroids. Calculations are interesting aren't they? Perhaps they're too anxious about things like that? Then again, it would be good to know if a meteor would actually collide with Earth while we still had time to safely do something about it.

[Raptor]

Well, they did mention right off the bat that when they merge, it will be capable of swallowing material equal to billions of stars. To me that sounds like a threat to mankind. I know there are nearly an infinite amount of stars out there, but with a power like that you'd think it would get to us eventually

It may have the capability to devour that much material, but it still has to be nearby to stars to do so, it's not going to just begin sucking in hundreds of stars from the moment it forms.

Plus these black holes aren't even in our own galaxy cluster, if it's going to take them millions of years just to travel 7,500 LY to merge, and considering that just our galaxy is 90,000 LY and the distance between the two galaxy clusters is much larger than that; they won't be affecting us any time soon.

Anyway, there are far too many other things waiting to destroy the Earth to be worrying about just this.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

They start off by telling it's capabilities when merged, and draw out the tension by explaining black holes. Then, at the very end of the article, they say that it'll take millions of years. That's bad journalism.

No, that's quoting the facts. If the readers of the article do not have a basic knowledge of astronomy (particularly in respect to the vast distances involved) then the journalist can hardly be blamed.

Anyway, about the asteroids. Calculations are interesting aren't they? Perhaps they're too anxious about things like that? Then again, it would be good to know if a meteor would actually collide with Earth while we still had time to safely do something about it.

In respect to asteroids, the press does frequently go for sensationalist headlines on these. When an asteroid or comet is first discovered it's orbit is not known with a high degree of certainty. As a result there is frequently a mathematical chance of a collision with earth. This fact needs to be released so that astronomers can make more observations to refine the orbit (or look back through old images. Some times pre-discovery observations can be found which are extremely helpful). Ususlly once the orbit is known accurately the risk to the earth disappears.

It is not just NASA that carries out this work (in fact usually they have little or nothing to do with it) but astronomers from all around the world.

[Carey Reagan]

Well, they did mention right off the bat that when they merge, it will be capable of swallowing material equal to billions of stars. To me that sounds like a threat to mankind. I know there are nearly an infinite amount of stars out there, but with a power like that you'd think it would get to us eventually. I may have been out of hand by pointing the finger at NASA based off of a CNN article. I do admit that. I just didn't like how they composed the article. They start off by telling it's capabilities when merged, and draw out the tension by explaining black holes. Then, at the very end of the article, they say that it'll take millions of years. That's bad journalism. From their point of view it's good because it keeps the reader drawn in, but only by making them think that it's something important.

Anyway, about the asteroids. Calculations are interesting aren't they? Perhaps they're too anxious about things like that? Then again, it would be good to know if a meteor would actually collide with Earth while we still had time to safely do something about it.

In my brief experience, more often than not, it's the journalist her/himself who inevitably pulls themselves out of the article at the very end in order to maintain a certain 'dignity', let's call it.

Everyone's looking for a story to conjure up, run through and print by the end of the week, but no one wants to look like a conspiring lunatic with nothing better to do than to spread news of doom to us all, either.

As for black holes themselves, I'm not understanding the chatter about it. It seems to me that humans as a whole have a tendency to stick ourselves into useless debates, that really have nothing to do with our own fate (unless that is the human's karma, which wouldn't at all surprise me).

Perhaps our best course of action at this point is to start looking for the reasons on a more metaphysical level, if you're into that kinda thing.

Carey.

[Brian McMalley]

In my brief experience, more often than not, it's the journalist her/himself who inevitably pulls themselves out of the article at the very end in order to maintain a certain 'dignity', let's call it.

Everyone's looking for a story to conjure up, run through and print by the end of the week, but no one wants to look like a conspiring lunatic with nothing better to do than to spread news of doom to us all, either.

That is exactly why I dislike a lot of journalists. Also, why I only read the news from time to time. Some of the people I work with are such worry warts about everything. They read the news and believe every single article whole heartedly simply because it's printed.

As for black holes themselves, I'm not understanding the chatter about it. It seems to me that humans as a whole have a tendency to stick ourselves into useless debates, that really have nothing to do with our own fate (unless that is the human's karma, which wouldn't at all surprise me).

Perhaps our best course of action at this point is to start looking for the reasons on a more metaphysical level, if you're into that kinda thing.

Carey.

That's quite an interesting way to look at it. I've never dealt with karma too deeply, but I believe in it to an extent.

[Carey Reagan]

That's quite an interesting way to look at it. I've never dealt with karma too deeply, but I believe in it to an extent.

It's all in the symbology, and there is more research to be done than I even care to explain.

The human race has evidently made plenty of mistakes (granted, these 'mistakes' are all up to your perception), and if fortune has a vengefulness about her, I wouldn't put it past her to fight back, at least once in a while.

Carey.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Please keep to the subject. If you wish to discuss metaphysics or Karma please do so in the correct forum.

Thank you.