Tuesday, January 24, 2006

This day in Space- Scorpius Returns

NASA

Black Hole Puts Dent in Space-Time, via our friends at space.com.

A spinning black hole in the constellation Scorpius has created a stable dent in the fabric of spacetime, scientists say.

The dent is the sort of thing predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It affects the movement of matter falling into the black hole.

The spacetime-dent is invisible, but scientists deduced its existence after detecting two X-ray frequencies from the black hole that were identical to emissions noted nine years ago. The finding will allow scientists to calculate the black hole’s spin, a crucial measurement necessary for describing the object’s behavior.

Go read the whole thing. It's fascinating. And it solves the mystery of what happened to Scorpius after Farscape was canceled.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. Thanks for the link!

-mismn