Real-Life Halo?

[Toddums]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4423975.stm

Now don't read this wrong. It's not 20 Light-years away - it's 20 light-years across. This thing is frikkin huge.

Astronomers have discovered a loop-like structure some 20 light-years across close to the centre of the Milky Way.

And the team that found it believes the vast, bizarre structure could be some form of cosmic particle accelerator.

The loop may produce sub-atomic particles with a thousand times more energy than those in man-made accelerators.

Details were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham.

The loop was seen using the European space telescope XMM-Newton to study it in X-ray wavelengths.

The galactic centre can only be observed at certain wavelengths - such as X-rays - because large amounts of dust lie in our line of sight, blocking out optical light.

"The X-ray spectrum of the loop is extraordinary," said Dr Masaaki Sakano of the University of Leicester.

Most diffuse X-ray sources in the Universe have a characteristic temperature because they represent the residual radiation from an event, such as a supernova.

"The loop has no characteristic temperature, so there is probably some ongoing process in there - that is our interpretation," Dr Sakano told the BBC News website.

"There are large amounts of high energy particles, so we interpret that they are being accelerated at the moment."

If this is so, the loop could be generating high-energy particles with an energy of up to one thousand trillion electron volts.

Particles such as these have been detected previously in supernova remnants and pulsar nebulae.

But they have never been detected in star-forming regions of the Universe.

The researchers saw the loop when looking at the Arches Cluster, a star-forming region close to the Milky Way's centre.

But it is not known whether the loop structure is physically associated with the Arches Cluster or just happens to be in the same line of sight.

Does the fact that they found this mean that there is ET life? This was found in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, where things generally are younger.

[Sebboh]

did anyone ever read the book "ringworld" which is what halo was based off of? Pretty cool book.

But yeah, that'd be pretty fucking cool.

[Aurica]

The particle accelerator theory is well and good on a macro scale, but I'll be interested to see what quantum theorists have to say about this in terms of the Dirac Sea and those variations of Schrodinger's equation...

[Tache]

The particle accelerator theory is well and good on a macro scale, but I'll be interested to see what quantum theorists have to say about this in terms of the Dirac Sea and those variations of Schrodinger's equation...

[Aurica]

Well, several decades ago there was a theory formed that all empty space has to balance filled space...i.e. positive matter/energy continuua. This led by corrolary to the formulation of the idea antimatter. But the important point was the concept of Zero-Point Energy, i.e. negatively charged antiparticles that appear in any vaccuum from the quantum ether.

Essentially, any point not filled with a positive charge would have to create a negative charge, creating an unlimited source of energy equal to the positive energy in the universe. For every proton there must be a positron, etc. Except that in most places this energy would be the anti-particle of photons or, better, a sort of universal antiparticle that's been dubbed in some circles "dark energy".

Switching gears, we have the idea of a White Hole, a point of absolute "creation" as black hole singularities are points of absolute negation. It's been a cosmological paradox for a long while that singularities can exist as infinitely heavy and infinitely dense objects yet still have a measureably non-infinite impact on the universe. One possible reason for this is a white hole point that creates new force or matter for every particle negated in a singularity. Because of the orientation of the universe, it would have to exist at the absolute center of everything.

So the macro-scale, relativistic argument for balance is the white hole, whereas quantum physicists use the Dirac Sea. Now, for a particle accelerator of this magnitude to exist, you would need a theoretically limitless source of energy to motivate it, because the third law of thermodynamics mandates a diminishing returns effect on any energy you could recapture by colliding fundamental quanta. Which means that unless we've missed some principle of fusion or another ultrapowerful form of energy production, it would have to be one of the two effects above.

[Toddums]

Interesting enough is that it is 50,000 Light years away.. so wouldn't that mean that we're seeing it 50,000 years ago or something of that sort? If they had that sort of technology back then imagine the technology leap they would have made since then.

[Leica]

Interesting enough is that it is 50,000 Light years away.. so wouldn't that mean that we're seeing it 50,000 years ago or something of that sort? If they had that sort of technology back then imagine the technology leap they would have made since then.

Oh my god. They're here.

[Archis]

Well, several decades ago there was a theory formed that all empty space has to balance filled space...i.e. positive matter/energy continuua. This led by corrolary to the formulation of the idea antimatter. But the important point was the concept of Zero-Point Energy, i.e. negatively charged antiparticles that appear in any vaccuum from the quantum ether.

Essentially, any point not filled with a positive charge would have to create a negative charge, creating an unlimited source of energy equal to the positive energy in the universe. For every proton there must be a positron, etc. Except that in most places this energy would be the anti-particle of photons or, better, a sort of universal antiparticle that's been dubbed in some circles "dark energy".

Switching gears, we have the idea of a White Hole, a point of absolute "creation" as black hole singularities are points of absolute negation. It's been a cosmological paradox for a long while that singularities can exist as infinitely heavy and infinitely dense objects yet still have a measureably non-infinite impact on the universe. One possible reason for this is a white hole point that creates new force or matter for every particle negated in a singularity. Because of the orientation of the universe, it would have to exist at the absolute center of everything.

So the macro-scale, relativistic argument for balance is the white hole, whereas quantum physicists use the Dirac Sea. Now, for a particle accelerator of this magnitude to exist, you would need a theoretically limitless source of energy to motivate it, because the third law of thermodynamics mandates a diminishing returns effect on any energy you could recapture by colliding fundamental quanta. Which means that unless we've missed some principle of fusion or another ultrapowerful form of energy production, it would have to be one of the two effects above.

I think the guy next door was watching that episode of star trek yesterday... WTF is all that?

[Aurica]

I think the guy next door was watching that episode of star trek yesterday... WTF is all that?

Theoretical physics ftw? That was my major before I switched to something equally useless.

[Wintermute]

This was found in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, where things generally are younger.

Actually, the closer you get to the core of our galaxy the older things get.

Also, you are missinformed as to the workings of ZPE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

[Aurica]

This was found in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, where things generally are younger.

Actually, the closer you get to the core of our galaxy the older things get.

Also, you are missinformed as to the workings of ZPE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

I'm not going to pretend I paid enough attention to the class that included ZPE. I do recall the Dirac Sea being a source of it, though.

EDIT: Oh, duh. Yea, ok, not talking about ZPE at all -_-;;