Posted on 01/19/2005 2:34:16 PM PST by billorites
SAN DIEGO -- If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second.
But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.
Nothing we know of zips along more quickly than light. Einstein, nearly 100 years ago, said it's not possible. For us, the speed limit makes strange sense: Go faster than light, and you could return before you've left, become your own grandpa, or perform other leaps of cosmic logic.
Fast forward a century. Astronomers are now measuring stuff -- material, matter, things -- that moves at so close to the speed of light you might think it'd make Einstein a bit nervous. His theory of relativity appears not to be endangered by the blazing speeds, though.
Among thee speed demons of the universe are Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars. Last week at a meeting here of the American Astronomical Society, scientists announced they had measured blobs in blazar jets screaming through space at 99.9 percent of light-speed.
"This tells us that the physical processes at the cores of these galaxies … are extremely energetic and are capable of propelling matter very close to the absolute cosmic speed limit," said Glenn Piner of Whittier College in Whittier, California.
Ponder the power of the fast moving superheated gas, known as plasma:
"To accelerate a bowling ball to the speed newly measured in these blazars would require all the energy produced in the world for an entire week," Piner said. "And the blobs of plasma in these jets are at least as massive as a large planet."
The blazar jets are running around the universe in some fast company. Slightly faster, in fact.
In another study presented at the meeting, ultra high-energy cosmic rays thought to originate in a collision of galaxy clusters are slamming into Earth's atmosphere at more than 99.9 percent of the speed of light. Measurements put the number at 99.9 followed by 19 more nines -- about as close to light-speed as you can get without splitting hairs.
The particles are not light, but actual matter. They are tiny, thought to be mostly protons, but the energy that motivates them is similarly fantastic, and the mechanisms may be intertwined.
Scientists still don't know the exact mechanisms involved in accelerating matter to such high speeds, however. In the case of a blazars, it appears a black hole is involved. Anchoring an active galaxy, a supermassive black hole draws gas inward. Some is swallowed, yet some is simply accelerated and then ejected in high-speed jets along the galaxy's axis of rotation. Intense, twisted magnetic fields may play a role.
Some ultra high-energy cosmic rays might originate in blazar jets, Piner told SPACE.com. But other phenomena may serve as particle accelerators in space, such as merging galaxies or colliding black holes.
Piner and his colleagues observed three blazars, known from previous observations to be super speedy, using the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array radio observatory.
The results confirm the previous work and pin down the speeds with greater accuracy. The phenomenal pace of the plasma blobs looks to have reached a limit.
"All the results from blazar jet observations are in agreement with Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity," Piner said. "The jets are accelerated right up to the edge of the speed-of-light barrier but not beyond, even though these are some of the most efficient accelerators in the universe."
This still does not answer my age old question. If you drive faster than the speed of light are you over driving your headlights? That will smash you Blazar for sure!
I've often wondered whether science will ever discover something that moves faster than the speed of light.
Absolutely amazing. How fast IS the speed of dark? I think I approached it once listening to one of Barbara Boxers speeches but I was unable to prove it.
I wish I had my old wide-lapel blue blazar. But, I guess it ain't coming back either
If something was moving faster than the speed of light, could we see it?
Not if you blinked.
Or maybe buckyballs. I dunno.
LOL! Actually, it was an Oldsmobile, and Chappaquiddick is an island surrounded by the sea, and "the blob" sneaked off in the middle of the night under the cover of darkness and wasn't "discovered" until it had sobered up and, with "a little help from some friends," had fabricated a good story. But your point is well taken.
The function never really said that, even in 1850. Yes, it assumes the functions are correct but I further assume that were it possible to travel faster that the speed of light, we'd notice something doing it. Or, put another way, if the energy and conditions required to teleport or travel faster than the speed of light are so rare and extreme that they don't occur naturally, I don't hold out any great hopes of humans ever travelling FTL. Even in 1850, there were things going faster than the speed of sound. We've searched many more corners of the universe since then and still can't find anything going faster than light. Possible? Yes. Am I holding my breath waiting for it? No.
I do not understand why we cannot appear to be in one place when we are actually just a few seconds from there just as we can be heard somewhere when we are actually just a few seconds from there. Please enlighten me.
Going faster than the speed of light, assume that all of the current physics equations are correct, makes it possible to violate causality. Do some google searches on "light cone" and "causality". Violating causality is a bad thing. That's when you get to kill your own grandfather before your father is born and the universe goes, "OK, now what do I do?"
Great. Something else I can worry about...
got me.......never studies physics past basic stuff but I love watching astro physics and crap on tv.......quantum mechanics is just a "cool" title if anything else......LOL
lolol. good one. proves the whole point. In a dave Barry sort of way.
What if one is traveling at Ludicrous Speed?
That is not inconsistent with my remarks. I did not say you could get there - I said you can't come back. Or, at least, the probability is infinately small...
Would a hypothetical someone floating in one of those gobs of gas measure the approaching gob at 2 x 99.9%C: i.e., at 199.8%C--nearly twice the speed of light?
ROFLMAO!!! Thanks for the great laugh.
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