Supermassive Black Hole Sings for Its Supper (BHs Make Sound Waves)

[Khephra]

Astronomers have discovered the longest-running symphony in a cluster of galaxies more than 250 million light-years from Earth. Results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory announced yesterday indicate sound waves are emanating from a supermassive black hole located at the center of the Perseus Cluster. It is impossible to hear the black hole's song, however, because its pitch is more than a million, billion times lower than the limit of human hearing.

Previous investigations of the Perseus Cluster using Chandra determined that there are two vast, bubble-shaped cavities in the gas cluster that extend away from the central black hole. The new observations, performed by Andrew Fabian of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England and his colleagues, reveal the presence of ripples, spaced 30,000 light-years apart, that emanated from the cavities. The distance between each ripple allowed the scientists to calculate the frequency of the sound waves and the pitch, which corresponds to a B-flat 57 octaves below middle C on a piano. The black hole has been playing this "lowest note in the universe" for about 2.5 billion years, the scientists say.

more..........

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0009748F-3954-1F5E-905980A84189EEDF

[teryang]

1. I thought the black hole was in Switzerland

The place where all the defense appropriations end up.

[punpirate]

2. Good thing...

... they're propagating slowly and are 250 million light-years away. There's probably enough energy in those waves to make the entire solar system seasick....

[AlienGirl]

3. The musc of the spheres...

That's really cool!

Tucker

[Khephra]

17. Actually, I was thinking Lovecraft when I read this

Doesn't that sound like a certain mad, nuclear god at the heart of it all, surrounded by pipers?

:evilgrin:

[sprockets]

18. Yog Sothoth and the Swingin' UnNameables! n/t

n/t

[emad]

4. It must be Elvis!!!

Always suspected he'd be 'up in the stars'.....

[0007]

5. Far out!

^

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. So is a black hole

a giant asshole and the sound they are hearing, nothing more than a major fart? Hence the reason for the low pitch of the sound?

[iam]

7. And...

the entire universe is someones butt.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Wll maybe not the entire universe

We do have Orian's Belt, so we know we still have a waistline.

[TacticalPeek]

9. And its B-flat, the quintessential warm-up note,

Like the big tune is just about to start.

[emad]

10. As in 'it ain't over till the fat lady sings?

????Cosmic warning or premonition about downloading illegal internet music sites????

[dbt]

11. B-Flat! Damn!!!

Of all the hard-to-play-in keys (speaking from a string perspective), this Black Hole picks (pun fully intended) B-Flat! Then, it's like 57 octaves down from low B-Flat on a piano.

However, it is too early to become seriously discouraged by this development. We must first find out whether the BH tunes down a half-step and plays in B or whether it capos on the first fret and plays in A.

Stay tuned!

:evilgrin:
dbt

[papau]

12. Smile :-)

:-)

thanks for the smile!

:-)

[TrogL]

19. symphony orchestras warm up to A

440

[hippiechick]

13. Siren song

"come into my den, said the spider to the fly" ....

snap.
burp.
oops.


:hippie:

[dusty64]

14. Interesting stuff.

x

[bobthedrummer]

15. Light cannot escape the event horizon but sound can?

Wow.

[seventhson]

16. The Cosmic Om. B Flat Hmmmm or should I say OOOOMMMMMMMMMM

the ancients told us

[GAspnes]

20. so, the Universe is a bass player

Stanley Clarke, take a bow. (pun intended)

This will give the 'vibration' crazies in sci.astro a whole thousand new threads. But it's cool, nonetheless. I'm still trying to comprehend a 120,000 year 4/4 measure (assuming this is a quarter note and not an eighth or sixteenth).