If you’ve read my book (and doing the math from the number of my readers versus number of books sold, I’m guessing some of you aren’t pulling your weight here) then you know I love me some death by black hole. Fun! Get fried, get sucked down, get smashed, get… spaghettified?
Yeah, you heard me. If you don’t know about spaghettification, then I suggest you sit back, relax, and enjoy my bud Neil Tyson as he explains all.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
 | ||
 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. | |
 | Open Lab 2008 is a collection of the best blog posts of the year, all in one place. Are you a science junkie? Yeah, you want it. |
 |
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
January 13th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Why am i not significantly (or slightly) lighter on an international 40 thousand foot plane trip?
January 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am
You are.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am
(slightly that is)
January 13th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Well Phil seeing as this thread is very slow, I guess that either most of your bloggees have read DFtS or that Neil was absolutely clear and to the point
January 13th, 2009 at 11:27 am
phil, you been reading my mail? i still haven’t ordered my copy of your book. it’s not like there isn’t an ad for it just to the right of this text box! i get paid tomorrow, so i can click on it!
oh, and you just *gotta* love tidal forces!
January 13th, 2009 at 11:31 am
What if I dove into a black hole doing a somersault?
January 13th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Magnus has a great question. Would your rate of rotation increase?
January 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Im not sure that it would u would think there would be no gravitational pull would you? if this hole is in the middle of space i would think that there would be no inertia and or gravity in this hole wouldnt you just keep spinning and doing repetitive summersaults?
January 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am
somersaults
January 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
That is GREAT! Nothing more to say
January 13th, 2009 at 11:48 am
@RL,
Thinking about it… the rate of rotation would probably slow down as you approached the event horizon. This is because all the atoms in the body would be approaching the speed of light and so any relative speed due to rotation would be eliminated.
BTW, I’m about halfway through Death From The Skies, and I’ve gotta say it’s an awesome book. Can’t recommend it enough. It’s entertaining and informative.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Wait until you get to the last chapter AndyN. The ultimate fate of the universe was fascinating. Too many zeros on those years for my brain to properly grok though…
-Ed
January 13th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Yet more proof that FSM is the supreme creator.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
@Magnus
You’d be rotinified.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Itzac’s explanation for Magnus’s question wins.
However, your rate of rotation would slow, due to the tidal forces from the black hole. It’s the same effect that put the moon in its tidally locked orbit and is slowing down Earth’s rotation.
Right?
January 13th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
If I had to choose a celestial body to get slammed into I’d go with a nice neutron star over a black hole. The impact would be like a multi-megaton bomb going off. That seems more fun that getting spaghettigated.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I preordered my copy of DFtS! and I passed it around at last month’s Vancouver Skeptics in the Pub.
When I checked their computer book search a few days ago, Death From the Skies! was sold out at all but one Chapters bookstore in Vancouver (that store had the last two copies in the city). I can’t remember exactly how many there were in early December, but I saw several in the two stores I checked. I even took photos of the bookshelves and sent them to Phil.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I own both Death books (from the Skies! and by Black Hole), so I’m getting a kick out of these replies.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“…and doing the math from the number of my readers versus number of books sold…”
Use your math carefully : many of us are using the (great) public libraries to read your book.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
@Cheyenne
Why go only halfway there, pick up a Magnetar
January 13th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Here is a link to another video on apophus
January 13th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
http://i.gizmodo.com/5130226/how-asteroid-apophis-could-destroy-the-us-west-coast-in-2029
sorry for double post forget the link =D
January 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
@ Mantiss
But leave your credit cards behind or they will be worthless before you even entered the fun part
January 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I don’t get the whole “gravity tractor beam” method for deflecting asteroids… Wouldn’t simply converting the chemical energy in the ship’s rockets into kinetic energy, and then transferring that kinetic energy into the asteroid via good ol’ fashioned IMPACT have the same effect, and be much easier and more predictable/reliable to boot?
January 13th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I love Tyson. He has great passion for his field and makes it fun to listen to. Oh, and uh, so do you Phil!
January 13th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I haven’t been able to find your book at a garage sale yet, Phil.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’m really sorry I haven’t been able to buy your book!
As an Australian, I asked at all my local bookstores and the cost to order it in with the Australian dollar the way it is (kaput) is prohibitive.
Do you know if there are any plans for the book to be released on Australian shelves? Otherwise it’ll be a long wait for the AU dollar to recover before I can get my paws on it.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
@ fastpathguru
If the asteroid is rotating, oddly shaped, varying density, and/or frangible, an impact is *not* at all predictable.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Madge, just order it from Amazon. Delivered to Oz at today’s exchange rate is about AU$39. That is about what you’d pay for a HC here anyway. Apparently Dymocks on-line have it for AU$39 too. There is up to a 6 week wait for it though and you’ve got to add about $6 delivery to that.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Neil Tyson is one of my favorite presenters. His enthusiasm for science and amazing ability to make things easy to understand for the uninitiated rival the BAs.
I was interested in what he was saying about planetariums though, it’s too bad the video ended in the middle of it.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
fastpathguru Says: “I don’t get the whole “gravity tractor beam” method for deflecting asteroids… Wouldn’t simply converting the chemical energy in the ship’s rockets into kinetic energy, and then transferring that kinetic energy into the asteroid via good ol’ fashioned IMPACT have the same effect, and be much easier and more predictable/reliable to boot?”
You are exactly right, if you’re thinking like washing down your driveway with a garden hose. Remember, though, that you are resisting the thrust from the hose jet with your hand which is transferred through your body to your feet and they have enough friction against the ground to keep you from moving. For this to work in space, you’d have to somehow hold the spacecraft in place over the asteroid. You could do it with another thruster aimed the opposite direction, but that would increase your propellant requirements 100% with no increase in performance. It would be better to just land the thing with the nozzle facing up and blast away.
A thruster on a spacecraft sitting on the surface will almost certainly not be aimed through the CG of the asteroid and would cause it to rotate if it isn’t doing so already (which is also the case for the hovering thruster blasting onto the surface). A gravity tug is much more elegant. First off, it attaches, by definition, directly to the CG so it doesn’t matter if the asteroid is rotating. Secondly, chemical thrusters just aren’t efficient enough. They can produce huge amounts of thrust, but only for a short time. The total amount of impulse (thrust x time) you get for each Kg of propellants is too low to get a meaningful amount up there. A better choice is an ion thruster. Even though they produce only microscopic amounts of thrust, they are incredibly efficient, and the energy to operate them can come from solar panels or an RTG (nuclear generator), so you can carry much more reaction mass that isn’t chemically reactive.
Of course it’s still not that straightforward. If the gravity tug spacecraft had only one thruster and it was aimed directly at the asteroid (a requirement if there’s only one) and that 100% of the reaction mass impinges and sticks (plastic collision) with the asteroid then the effect cancels out.
What you need to do is put two or more thrusters at an angle like the Apollo escape tower system so that the combined thrust vector is directly away from the asteroid, but the individual jets/beams are aimed to completely miss the asteroid. With an asteroid the size that Tyson described you’d only need a few Newtons of thrust so this is a perfect job for an ion thruster that can operate continuously for a few years.
- Jack
January 13th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Remember, if the black hole is massive enough, you can fall through the event horizon with absoloutly no ill effects (well, I guess moving past the point where escape is possible could be considered an “ill effect”) for quite some time.
Eventually, of course, spaghettification ensues.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I thought that was just to an outside observer? Anyway, I think being in the immediate vicinity of any black hole would have plenty of ill effects, regardless of its size
January 14th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Jack Hagerty, thanks. I was also wondering why pulling is better than pushing.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Right, that’s it decided. In bleaker moments I’ve often pondered how I’d like to die if I ended up with some terminal, wasting disease and now I know - launch me into a black hole baby! I ain’t goin’ out like no punk, lying in bed and gasping for air. I’m going for the full-on cosmic gorefest!
And I will buy your book, just got three and a half more on the bedside to get through, promised I wouldn’t buy a new one till they’re done. Well, maybe just one more…
January 14th, 2009 at 2:06 am
“Remember, if the black hole is massive enough, you can fall through the event horizon with absoloutly no ill effects .”
a question. How big has to be a black hole to kill you by blueshifted infalling starlight and background radiation just before you will be spaghettified
January 14th, 2009 at 3:08 am
I absolutely love this man ha, I see him a lot on other various tv shows/sites. Perfect blend of comedy and science.
January 14th, 2009 at 5:47 am
a quick search in the net points to the fact that astronomers are not at all (or very very little) woried with Apophis.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:41 am
@Mantiss and Et Al…
Magnetar….hmmm… that might be cooler. But I do have one question about that (please remember, I’m deciding which celestial body to be chucked into so I do care about this answer).
Well, this might be the dumbest question EVA but, we have a small amount of iron in our blood right? Iron is magnetic (I think). A Magnetar has a mag field that is, well, utterly epic right? So I guess my question is, utterly suspending all disbelief of the associated problems with me flying into a Magnetar, do I also have to worry that the iron in my blood will be ripped out from the horrendous magnetic field lines of a star like that?
January 14th, 2009 at 7:46 am
By the way, who ask questions like that?! Oh right, somebody that is a huge fan of Death From the Skies!
January 14th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Having the iron ripped from your body would be the least of your worries but only 0.004 percent of a person is iron. If it was a problem you wouldn’t be able to use a MRI.
I learned that little factoid from one of my new favourite science based TV dramas, Breaking Bad.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:58 am
@Cheyenne
I think pure iron or some iron alloys are magnetic. Chemical compounds with iron aren’t necessary. I don’t think that iron compounds in our blood are magnetic.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Breaking Bad is good stuff. Got it on DVD.
On a side note - Obama might soon be announcing Gration as the head NASA chief. That decision is more epically painful than the thought exercise of having one’s iron ripped out from a Magnetar.
Fighter jock. No space experience at all. UGH UGH. Obama is basically sitting science on the kitchen bar stool and patting it on the head. And then promoting moon exploration boy to class prez.
Obama has stepped up and knocked homer after homer off the plate with science picks for his lead agencies. Then he goes with this dude? WTPH?
January 14th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Have to nitpick with Neil, but a) getting an object to Earth’s escape velocity wouldn’t send it to the edge of the universe…you’d still have to escape the sun’s gravity. b), you could tell people about how you die by spagettification because IIRC this all occurs before you hit the event horizon.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I just came here for the FSM reference, and am leaving satisfied.
/is spaghettification the state of being touched by His Noodly Appendages?
//LOVE your book, Phil. I’m taking my time with this one.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I’m pulling my weight Dr. P! I just finished reading my personally autographed (by you) copy I got from the JREF and oddly enough I don’t fear the sky as much as I used to. You clearly explain how the odds for most of the scenarios in your book actually happening are exceedingly low. You almost make spaghettification sound yummy though. Thanks for a fun(?) read.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Great video - gotta love NDT….I just got his book, and am 1/8 of way through looking fwd to the rest.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:23 am
[…] Bad Astronomy. Even een korte dienstmededeling: ik krijg straks een wagonlading visite over de vloer. Schijnt dat […]