The spiral galaxy M91
Click for full release image.
Cool image time! The image to the right, reduced to post here, was released today by the Space Telescope Science Institute as part of a regular program using the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph galaxies.
This observation is part of an effort to build a treasure trove of astronomical data exploring the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. To do this, astronomers used Hubble to obtain ultraviolet and visible observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths by the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
The galaxy is estimated to be about 55 million light years away, and is thought to have a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass somewhere between 9 and 38 million times the mass of the Sun.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Click for full release image.
Cool image time! The image to the right, reduced to post here, was released today by the Space Telescope Science Institute as part of a regular program using the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph galaxies.
This observation is part of an effort to build a treasure trove of astronomical data exploring the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. To do this, astronomers used Hubble to obtain ultraviolet and visible observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths by the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
The galaxy is estimated to be about 55 million light years away, and is thought to have a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass somewhere between 9 and 38 million times the mass of the Sun.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Typo alert: last sentence: “… is thought to have a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass somewhere between 9 and 38” — presumably: million — “times the mass of the Sun.” [probably not billion]
Michael McNeil: Yup, I forgot to type “million.” Fixed.
If rotation is a fundamental organizing principle of 4-dimensional space-time, what can we infer from speculations about its equivalent in higher dimensional places, like those of 10- or 11- dimensional String theories. Just a lessor variation of vibratory behavior?
Why do black holes seem to rotate if they are outside the normal 4-D space-time environment? Lipstick on a pig?
GaryMike asked: “Why do black holes seem to rotate if they are outside the normal 4-D space-time environment?”
Perhaps they don’t. It may be that our 4D perception ‘sees’ rotation. And maybe the Universe is rotating around the black hole. Eye of the beholder, and all.
GaryMike–
check this (first one) out– some great factoids.
(For our black hole, Sagittarius A*, the event horizon is spinning at about 30% the speed of light.)
Black Hole Spin
The Science Asylum (2019)
https://youtu.be/mF0-CKXUktU
7:42
More to your point, explore the Kerr Metric.
Kerr Metric Video 1,
Tensor Calculus Robert Davie
https://youtu.be/7hUSWwTg-VM
20:13
GaryMike–
This Guy addresses some of what you might be getting at. Upper-level undergrad & heavy on math, he has literally hundreds of hours available, but you should be able to zero in to some, just on the titled topics.
https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexFlournoyTeacher/videos
“My background is in string theory and I teach both particle physics and general relativity…”
Wayne,
Thank you. Finally, some stimulation.
No, this is not a date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3bPUKo5zc
Perhaps oddly, I came to understand the underlying conceptual frameworks without knowing any of the math. I’ve spent 40 years trying to learn Spanish (family pressures) without much success. Math, for me and a lot of others, has always been a foreign language. In fact, it is.
The coursework linked above, I don’t really use it to understand the work of the course. I actually get quite a lot of it (even earned income explicating for paying students).
I use the coursework to backwards engineer the math I never understood up front because my teachers/professors either didn’t know the material themselves, or weren’t able to communicate the material in understandable ways.
Thank you for pointing me to additional material.
I know that I don’t know enough.
–Gary
Again, at risk of aggrandizing by quoting myself: “Why do black holes seem to rotate if they are outside the normal 4-D space-time environment?”
It was an imprecise expression of my intended question.
Do black hole singularities rotate? Would they have to, since they’re no longer actual participants in our own 4-D reality?
If they do rotate, do they rotate the same way 4-D objects outside the event horizon(s) do, or chaotically as they rotate in multiple higher than 4-D dimensions simultaneously, not sharing the same coordinate system origins?
How fast could they “chaotically” spin before overcoming structurally coherent gravitational compression, assuming that they are still subject to gravitational compression?
Why won’t the Simulation allow us to see inside event horizons?