Posted on 09/22/2015 9:34:46 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The apocalypse is still on, apparently — at least in a galaxy about 3.5 billion light-years from here.
Last winter, a team of Caltech astronomers reported that two supermassive black holes appeared to be spiraling together toward a cataclysmic collision that could bring down the curtains in that galaxy.
The evidence was a rhythmic flickering from the galaxy’s nucleus, a quasar known as PG 1302-102, which Matthew Graham and his colleagues interpreted as the fatal mating dance of a pair of black holes with a total mass of more than a billion suns. Their merger, the astronomers calculated, could release as much energy as 100 million supernova explosions, mostly in the form of violent ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves that would blow the stars out of that hapless galaxy like leaves off a roof.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Considering the distance from our little near empty spiral arm outskirts location in our galaxy the collision already happened, about 3.5 billion years ago. The news (light) is just reaching us now. It will interesting to see if there’s a resulting visible-with-the-naked-human-eye light show from that other galaxy having gone phtttt-kaboom!!! Based on what was observed when light from the Crab Nebula explosion reached Earth, it might be quite spectacular.
Space, ostensibly a very light and ethereal thing, is very, very difficult to bend or get waving.
It’s all relative.
Yup that was mentioned in the article.
Oh no, run!
Bitchin’.
Too bad we cannot figure how to surf those waves.
Hadn’t even thought of it that way.......but I’m sure the lefties would agree with you.......
So this happened as long ago as 3.5 billion years?
Correct.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.