American astronomers claim that black holes may not exist

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1832896,00.html

They swallow everything that comes their way and exercise the world's finest minds, but the portrayal of black holes as awe-inspiring celestial menaces may be woefully inaccurate, a team of scientists claim. Indeed, they might not exist at all.

According to the researchers, the traditional astronomers' view of a universe liberally sprinkled with invisible, all-consuming black holes should be replaced with an alternative that sees strange, magnetic balls of plasma floating in their place. If the finding is verified - an event some scientists do not see on the horizon - it would dramatically overturn a theory that emerged from an English geologist's calculations in 1784, was verified by Einstein and confined by four laws drawn up by Professor Stephen Hawking.

The scientists, lead by Rudy Schild at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, spotted what they claim to be the death knell for black hole theory while observing a quasar, lurking nine billion light years from Earth. Quasars are believed to have black holes at their centres, but to test this assumption, the scientists set up 14 telescopes to keep an unprecedented watch on the object. By analysing the gentle flickering of the quasar, the team were able to probe the structure of its interior.

They discovered a gaping hole in a disc of material surrounding the centre of the quasar, as wide as 4,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun. The hole, they believe, could only be caused by a vast ejection of material propelled by a strong magnetic field.

[izzie]

1. I am sure they are their. one is working at 1600 Penn Ave, DC

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[unblock]

2. don't spinning black holes have magnetic fields and emit particles?

i thought that energy near the event horizon spontaneously converts to matter/anti-matter pairs, then sometimes one gets sucked in while the other escapes.

:shrug:

[Dudley_DUright]

4. You are thinking of Hawking radiation, which has never been experimentally

detected and is only important for smaller black holes that are "evaporating". The radiation they are detecting here comes from the hot and radiating accretion disk of in-falling matter around the black hole. However, black holes can indeed have strong magnetic fields surrounding them.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020604073033.htm

The evidence for black holes is very strong, and extraordinary claims to the contrary would take extraordinarily strong evidence.

[mccoyn]

6. The only thing that escapes black holes is gravity.

Magnetic fields are right there with matter and light. Nothing inside the event horizon can affect anything outside of the event horizon. The only exception is gravity. So, a black hole by itself has not magnetic field. The gravity can induce a magnetic field in the material that is outside of the event horizon. Also the material outside of the event horizon might just miss getting sucked in and end up escaping at the poles. The key is that all this happens outside of the black hole, driven by gravity.

My guess is that these scientists calculated that the magnetic field is too strong to be from material outside of the black hole, which means there can't be an event horizon.

Its an extrodinary claim and they still have to answer the observations that there is a very massive invisible thing at the center of our galaxy.

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Occam's razor would suggest...

...That black holes do exist, and they've found something new and interesting happening to the accretion material. There's quite a lot of observational evidence that supports the theory of black holes, all of which would have to be explained by other means if they actually don't...

We can't say they definitely exist, but they probably do.

[sam sarrha]

3. this verifies the 'Hot Lump' theory.... why do Ostriches lay their eggs in

the air..?? ..No Bozo's

are there any old hippies that know where i can get a copy of that, what was the whole Title... if you have one, can you tape it for me..?

[Bruce McAuley]

5. Firesign Theatre?

No Bozos on this bus? Just a guess.
I don't have a copy, wish I did. Great classic comedy.

Bruce