Friday, August 13, 2021

This way to the next galaxy

 

One of the out-there theories on black holes is that if it were possible to dive into one and survive (which is pretty darned unlikely), then the diver would end up somewhere else in the Universe -- i.e., a black hole is the doorway to a wormhole through some higher dimensions that ends a long way (lots of light years) from the starting point.

It's unlikely, REALLY REALLY unlikely.  But if you'd care to give it a try, here's a place you could start.  (But it is 7800 light years away, so you'd better get going.)








The blue rings are seen as X-ray emitters from ionized dust clouds spinning around a black hole.  Read more about that here:

Chandra X-ray Observatory Photo Album: V404 Cygni: Huge Rings Around a Black Hole   

"On June 5, 2015, Swift [the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory] discovered a burst of X-rays from V404 Cygni. The burst created the high-energy rings from a phenomenon known as light echoes. Instead of sound waves bouncing off a canyon wall, the light echoes around V404 Cygni were produced when a burst of X-rays from the black hole system bounced off of dust clouds between V404 Cygni and Earth. Cosmic dust is not like household dust but is more like smoke, and consists of tiny, solid particles.

In this composite image, X-rays from Chandra (light blue) were combined with optical data from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii that show the stars in the field of view. The image contains eight separate concentric rings. Each ring is created by X-rays from V404 Cygni flares observed in 2015 that reflect off different dust clouds. (An artist's illustration explains how the rings seen by Chandra and Swift were produced. To simplify the graphic, the illustration shows only four rings instead of eight.)"


See you on the other side!




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