Comments on: Gamma rays from monster stars

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:30:25 +0000

With a separation of about 0.25 AU, I would expect that the stars would cook off in quick succession. The first supernova would blow off a large portion of the outer layers of the second, thus dramatically changing the balance between the pressure at the center of the star from fusion) and the weight of the layers above it. Removing the outer layers would allow the core to expand QUICKLY.

By: John Castner

John Castner — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:09:33 +0000

For those asking about the maximum energy of a photon and speculating about a pixel size to the universe, note that some current theories claim that information cannot be destroyed, even by a black hole (just scrambled quite effectively). This in turn means that the black hole carries that information somehow, apparently encoded in its “interface” with the rest of the universe, the event horizon (EH). This leads us to conclude that as the mass of a black hole increases, its EH increases in area at least enough to contain _all_ the information that the increase in mass contained (down to the last quantum number of the last electron), and that all information is somehow encoded in surfaces, not volumes. I may be horribly mangling the science on this one, but look to the cover article in an issue of Scientific American from about 2 years ago, saying “ARE YOU A HOLOGRAM? Quantum physics says the entire universe may be”. That article puts a “pixel size” on the universe. A black hole would have to have an EH with at least that much area, and perhaps a photon cannot get more energetic than its E=mc^2 equivalent of that corresponding mass. I’d love to see responses at @$tr0_jp

By: Calos R

Calos R — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:27:56 +0000

Here is a visual of what a this sun would look like against our own. I think I did it right, I’m kind of tired so don’t hate me if I screw up.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/facecrunch/536021503/

By: Astrolink [Global Edition] » Astronomers find most massive star ever discovered | Latest astronomy news in 11 languages

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:47:05 +0000

[...] speculation. Are the stars blowing off a vast wind of material? Are they emitting gamma rays, like the scary massive binary in the cluster Westerlund 2? How long before these stars explode (and man, when they eventually explode, they’ll [...]

By: Samba

Samba — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:40:05 +0000

What are the size of the stars?

By: Alex Whiteside

Alex Whiteside — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:00:17 +0000

IIRC when a photon (or anything else you’re using to make a measurement) reaches a high enough energy, it collapses the space around it into a black hole and it shuts itself out of the universe, meaning you lose whatever information it carried. Therefore there’s a lower limit (the Planck length) to the wavelengths we can use to make measurements, and therefore a “pixel size” to the universe. Which is utterly cool in itself.

I’m not sure how that works though, as I always thought photons were massless and here they seem to have a gravity associated with them.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:18:54 +0000

Yeah, Buzz, this does sound like a good question for the QBA. As I recall, the minimum size of a quantum black hole is dependent on the Plank length so the maximum frequency of light should be dependent upon the minimum Plank time? That should set the energy min/maximums for quanta and black holes. But then, I’m still just getting over being sick so maybe I’m just having fever dreams,,,

Gary 7