Posted on 03/17/2005 12:59:33 PM PST by flashbunny
A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.
It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together at near light speeds.
Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show that the core of the fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole.
His work has been published on the pre-print website arxiv.org and is reported in New Scientist magazine.
When the gold nuclei smash into each other they are broken down into particles called quarks and gluons.
These form a ball of plasma about 300 times hotter than the surface of the Sun. This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the beam collisions.
But Nastase, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says there is something unusual about it.
Ten times as many jets were being absorbed by the fireball as were predicted by calculations.
The Brown researcher thinks the particles are disappearing into the fireball's core and reappearing as thermal radiation, just as matter is thought to fall into a black hole and come out as "Hawking" radiation.
However, even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.
I wonder if they found my old army paperwork in it and some missing socks...
"However, even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.
Well, let's be careful anyway, guys. The world has lasted so long, it would be a pity.....
Maybe I read too much Sci-fi, but when those folks at CERN get their thingamajig fired up and running, I'll be a tad less certain that the sun will rise next morning...
Whew...had me worried there for a second. Glad to know people playing around with black holes aren't a threat.
"At these energies and distances"
What distance?
You do have an off switch right? Right?
Rev. Jesse and Kweise ( sp) must be chomping at the bit about this breaking news !
Use it to reverse global warming
Who ever thought of that experiment?
"This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second"
Shades of Dan Brown.
So this fireball last about 115 days??!!
Black hole? Reminds me of a bar I used to frequent.
Kind of makes you wonder about the cool toys they have and don't tell us about.
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