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Astronomer says aliens might zap black holes with lasers to travel the galaxy
nbc ^ | 03/15/2019 | Rafi Letzter, Live Science

Posted on 03/18/2019 9:02:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin

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To: BenLurkin
If you don't poke a bear with a stick, I wouldn't poke a black hole with a laser.


21 posted on 03/18/2019 9:44:41 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Moonman62
Wouldn’t increased energy mean a shorter wavelength?

Yes - I noticed that too.

22 posted on 03/18/2019 9:53:11 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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The Universe rejoiced for the discovery of ludicrous speed transport, but for the fact that travellers were left resembling the offspring of Nancy Pelosy

23 posted on 03/18/2019 10:04:11 AM PDT by red flanker
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To: JohnBovenmyer

I wonder if there is a little doppler-effect rainbow around a black hole?


24 posted on 03/18/2019 10:25:19 AM PDT by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare itself.)
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To: BenLurkin

Picture if you will a scientist plying his trade at one Columbia University. One David Kipping, astronomer.

A sparse little bush league man who feeds off his self delusions and finds himself perpetually hungry for want of greatness in his diet.

He searches for something to explain his hunger and to rationalize why a world passes him by without saluting.

The something he looks for and finds is in a remote corner of the cosmos, known as a black hole.

If given the chance he, aboard an interstellar spacecraft, points a laser at a gravity mirror aiming at a fast-moving black hole in a binary black hole system.

But with a surprised look on his face he finds himself pulled by the light of his own laser and into the black hole itself.

In his own twisted and distorted lexicon he calls it fate, strength, truth.

But in just a moment this scientist will ply his trade on another kind of corner.

A strange intersection in a shadowland called the Twilight Zone.


25 posted on 03/18/2019 10:30:50 AM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: Fido969

All of this pre supposes we have already travelled to the nearest black hole, and since the nearest one is 3000 light years away...


26 posted on 03/18/2019 10:52:57 AM PDT by mwilli20 (DJT, let's MAGA!)
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To: BenLurkin

How does a spacecraft traveling 186,000 miles/sec slow down? Would that require a massive fuel source?


27 posted on 03/18/2019 11:01:28 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Beowulf9

You called this con artist playing astrophysicist out and well. Reading this article on Binary Black Holes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_black_hole

leads me to believe if you aren’t there at the exact moment of convergence you’re out of luck. Not only would you have to be on station for that moment you’d need computational power and fantastically more durable materials than we can even envision at this time. But without ideas and imagination we don’t progress.


28 posted on 03/18/2019 11:36:22 AM PDT by MikelTackNailer (NRT, New Rome Tacitus, just don't call me late to)
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To: BenLurkin

What does that do to carbon emissions and global warming?


29 posted on 03/18/2019 11:42:04 AM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: carriage_hill
How does a spacecraft traveling 186,000 miles/sec slow down? Would that require a massive fuel source?
Nah - the aliens simply turn around, and aim their laser at a black hole in the opposite direction. Of course, you have to figure the round-trip time of the laser directed at your initial black hole. If the black hole starts out close to you - say, about 2 light-years distant - your laser-generated thruster only starts pushing you when the laser light returns a mere four years after you turned it on.

. . . and say your destination isn’t far away from your starting point - maybe five light years away. You need to operate at max thrust accelerating forward for perhaps five years, you need your forward thrust to stop - which happens at a time years after you turned your laser off - and then you need to to have started your retrograde laser long enough ago that your retrograde thrust goes to maximum when your forward thrust stops.

Depending on how far away the second black hole is, you might have to fire lasers at max power in both forward and retrograde directions simultaneously.

Piece of cake.


30 posted on 03/18/2019 11:58:17 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
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To: BenLurkin

Wouldn’t you be crushed by G-forces?


31 posted on 03/18/2019 12:14:14 PM PDT by gundog ( Hail to the Chief, bitches!)
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To: BenLurkin

Or, Lash LaRue said,

“Whip it. Whip it good.”


32 posted on 03/18/2019 2:23:26 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: Moonman62

Yes, I thought that, too.


33 posted on 03/18/2019 2:24:55 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: Mr. K
I wonder if there is a little doppler-effect rainbow around a black hole?

Yes, there is.  But you have to get up real close to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttt!!!

Oh, wooooow...

34 posted on 03/18/2019 2:38:38 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: BenLurkin

...Or they might not.


35 posted on 03/18/2019 3:42:37 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: BenLurkin
Astronomer says aliens might zap black holes with lasers to travel the galaxy

No we wouldn't.

36 posted on 03/18/2019 3:46:24 PM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: BenLurkin

NASA hasn’t had a man-rated space system in use flying since 2011, so maybe it’s a bit premature for anyone to be looking at using black holes for propulsion?

Maybe once we can get a spacecraft out of LEO (again, after 40+ years) this is something to be looked at WA-A-AY down the road...

Interesting theory, but...Cart before horse...


37 posted on 03/18/2019 4:31:44 PM PDT by elteemike (Light travels faster than sound...That's why so many people appear bright until you hear them speak)
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To: elteemike

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
else what’s a heaven for?”


38 posted on 03/18/2019 5:02:20 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: SunkenCiv

39 posted on 03/18/2019 11:32:36 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj ("It's Slappin' Time !")
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To: fieldmarshaldj; 6SJ7; AdmSmith; AFPhys; Arkinsaw; allmost; aristotleman; autumnraine; bajabaja; ...
Even if zappin' black holes with lasers doesn't result in travel across the galaxy, **** black holes! :^) Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

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40 posted on 03/18/2019 11:44:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (this tagline space is now available)
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