In Space...

[Odds]

...they can hear you scream
NASA have released the sound emanating from the enormous black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster, more than 200m miles away.
Gave me the heebie-jeebies.

 

[Pat ex]

If light can't escape, how come sound does?

 

[Justin Passing]

Saw this a day or two ago, haven't delved. My take - It's not exactly from the BH, but all the stuff round it, which isn't falling in. Sound waves being vibrations in particles (put simply - people will argue about that) there are just enough particles to convey the vibrations to other particles.

When they say mixed with other sounds that covers a multitude. They'll be shifted frequency , like a bat detector moves the sound freq so you can hear something. You aren't hearing what the bat hears. Same way a radio works - look up superheterodyne...

There are many astronomical resonances, so if you shift frequencies you can hear "something". The tides are in resonance for eg, the water isn't 't simply pulled about by the moon.

 

[IT Minion]

If light can't escape, how come sound does?

If you're really close to a black hole the gravity will pull on you so hard even light can't escape it. If you're a bit further away then the pull is less. The point where light cannot escape is called the event horizon.

Theres a cloud of gas spinning around the black hole quite a long way up where the gravitational pull is significant, way above the event horizon so it's closer to earth's gravity than that of the black hole or a sun. The cloud is spinning around the hole and is more or less in orbit. At that point the cloud is thick enough that sound can travel through it just like our atmosphere.

 

[Ihavenojob]

If you listen carefully, you can just make out the words "Come to the Dark Side".

 

[Odds]

If you listen carefully, you can just make out the words "Come to the Dark Side".

I was hoping for evidence of Hawkwind travelling through with a faint refrain of 'Space is Deep', but that noise sounds like the contents of Darth Vader's oubliette. Eerie.

 

[Ihavenojob]

I was hoping for evidence of Hawkwind travelling through

You would need a Silver Machine for that.

 

[Dork Lard]

I wonder if it smells?

Do black holes have an aroma???

 

[Odds]

I wonder if it smells?

Do black holes have an aroma???

I'd say it Smells like Teen Spirit but that'd be Nirvana, not space.
I'm still trying to get my head around Dark Matter and reading about Quantum makes my mind gibber with confusion - it's there, but it's not there, 'til you look for it....then it's there.
Space is weird.
If Artificial Intelligence is ever achieved then surely that's the job for them: humanity is just too squishy for deep space.