Astronomers detect sound waves from black hole

Yaho! News ^ | 9/9/03 | AFP - Washington,DC

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - For the first time ever, astronomers have detected sound waves coming from a massive black hole in space -- and believe the discovery may help resolve a major mystery, the US space agency said.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the Chandra X-ray Observatory had monitored for 53 hours noise coming from the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster.

The pitch of the sound waves, equivalent to a B-flat -- 57 octaves lower than a middle-C and at a frequency far deeper than the limits of human hearing -- is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the universe, researchers said.

Bruce Margon, associate director at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland described the sound at a press conference here as being "a million, billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing."

Scientists believe the sound waves are produced by explosions occurring around a supermassive black hole in Perseus A, the huge galaxy at the center of the cluster.

"These sound waves may be the key in figuring out how galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe, grow," said researcher Steve Allen of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England.

A long standing mystery has been why hot gas in the central regions of the Perseus cluster has not cooled off over the past 10 billion years to bring a drop in pressure that would draw gas in towards the galaxy to form trillions of stars.

The researchers suggest that as the sound waves move through gas, they are eventually absorbed and their energy converted to heat. This means that sound waves from the black hole in Perseus A may keep the cluster gas hot.

[NormsRevenge]

This Chandra X-ray Observatory image released by NASA (news - web sites) is a spectrum of a black hole, which is similar to the colorful spectrum of sunlight produced by a prism. For the first time ever, astronomers have detected sound waves coming from a massive black hole in space -- and believe the discovery may help resolve a major mystery.(AFP-NASA/File)

[Monty22]

So George Lucas got it right with the roaring and booming of ships in space afterall!

[js1138]

PLACEMARKER

[Dialup Llama]

But I thought in space no one could hear you scream. How does a scientist on Earth detect a SOUND wave? I presume they don't mean an ultralow frequency EM wave, but an actual sound wave.

[per loin]

Perhaps someone is stuck in there, and calling for help?

[NautiNurse]

...the sounds of extraterrestrial bickering...

Amazing!

[tubebender]

I really doubt this story if I can't hear my wife when I'm driving...

[Deb]

Monica?

[auboy]

Have they determined if it's Kerry or Edwards?

[ellery]

I don't know much about this...how does sound escape a black hole?

[Steely Tom]

Maybe I'm slow, but I don't see how one can collect in 53 hours enough data to pin down the frequency of a periodic signal lower than middle C by a factor of 2 to the 57th power. But then I'm not a rocket scientist.

(steely)

[JSteff]

I bet elephants could hear it.

[Abynormal]

It was the Rev Sharpton

[Senator Pardek]

For the newbies - LINK (read the whole article).

[LPM1888]

Bump For Later

[Prof Engineer]

...don't mean an ultralow frequency EM wave, but an actual sound wave.

If you mean the actual transmission medium, there is likely enough dust and such, relative to the wavelength, in interstellar space to carry an ultralow frequency wave.

[Moonmad27]

No kidding. I just forwarded this to a great bass player I know. Talk about the Music of the Spheres!

[Deb]

NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!!!!

Not the whole article. Please. My brain will get full and squishy.

[Highway55]

"Can you hear me now?"