Posted on 12/07/2017 2:52:50 PM PST by LibWhacker
Black holes are famous for their muscle: an intense gravitational pull known to gobble up entire stars and launch streams of matter into space at almost the speed of light.
It turns out the reality may not live up to the hype.
In a paper published today in the journal Science, University of Florida scientists have discovered these tears in the fabric of the universe have significantly weaker magnetic fields than previously thought.
A 40-mile-wide black hole 8,000 light years from Earth named V404 Cygni yielded the first precise measurements of the magnetic field that surrounds the deepest wells of gravity in the universe. Study authors found the magnetic energy around the black hole is about 400 times lower than previous crude estimates.
The measurements bring scientists closer to understanding how black holes' magnetism works, deepening our knowledge of how matter behaves under the most extreme conditions -- knowledge that could broaden the limits of nuclear fusion power and GPS systems.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
When you’ve got gravitational pull like nobody’s business, who needs magnetism?.................
How can a magnetic field escape a black hole if light cannot?
Thought you were talking’ bout’ women.
If you have a black hole that is strong enough so that light cannot escape, can magnetism escape ?
May the force be with you...
A black hole can have mass, spin and charge, that’s it. All are measureable from the “point of no return”.
A moving charge creates a current which creates a magnetic field. I suppose that is the magnetic field they measured but I don’t have access to the paper.
Gravity escapes. But I’ve been wondering about that, too. Magnetic field lines: Can they escape? If not, then what’s the big problem here; if magnetic field lines can’t escape, then we shouldn’t be surprised that the magnetic field of a black hole is wimpy, right? But then, I’m not a physicist, as should be obvious to any such person reading about my total state of confusion!
Well, that's unsettling science.
According to General Relativity gravity is a curvature of spacetime so it has nothing to escape. It’s simply there.
You may be thinking about particle creation at the black hole horizon when an anti-particle is launched outside the hole. The significance has to do with whether or not information can escape a black hole.
“Gravity escapes.”
You’re saying gravity escapes gravity. Are you sure you want to go on record with that? And gravity doesn’t affect magnetic fields. But magnetism affects measurements of gravity (a little).
Well, I guess that with “tears in the fabric of the universe” and all, perhaps the magnetism is leaking out. SciFi baloney
. Why don’t these”scientist just say they don’t know?
I would expect reduced magnetism. Given the immense density combined with incredible gravity, I would expect little movement inside the mass of the black hole.
I didn’t stay in physics long enough to understand fields, that’s for sure. But in my undergrad mind I had to deal with them in some way and finally just decided they were nothing more than a set of measurements made, or inferred to exist, at every point in space around some object that gave you the strength and direction of some force, a vector field, in other words. But there was no mass there or ever necessarily passing through that point. It was just some kind of influence on the fabric of space that emanated from an object and gave you a vector field at each point. And then the thought immediately pops up: like gravity, you mean? But, I understand: I’m definitely confused and things just aren’t very clear to me. My problem, not yours. Thanks!
“According to General Relativity gravity is a curvature of spacetime so it has nothing to escape. Its simply there.”
Well said...
(.... if I understand the whole concept correctly.)
It’s equivalent to saying “Objects and locations on the equator can’t escape being on the equator, and return to the way they should be at the the poles of the Earth.”
Things on the equator, like phenomena in a black hole (including gravity), can’t, don’t, won’t and shouldn’t “escape” from being where and what they are.
I love FreeRepublic!
I learn so much.
(For another example, just look up the Oroville Dam “Emergency” thread.)
John Wheeler: “Mass tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells mass how to move.”
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