Black Hole B-Flat

Here's your weird space news for the day:

Astronomers have detected the deepest note ever generated in the cosmos, a B-flat flying through space like a ripple on an invisible pond. No human will actually hear the note, because it is 57 octaves below the keys in the middle of a piano.

Comments

[Paul]

"B-flat flying through space like a ripple on an invisible pond."

A sound flying through space? Some reporter needs to go back to physics class.

[Jayson Gilligan]

Beethoven's 4th symphony is in B-flat as well.

[dude]

B-flat = best key evar

(horn player bias)

[Matt Welch]

As the saying goes, no B-flat (minor), no "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree."

[Sean]

Paul,

Actually, the whole idea of space being empty of matter and therefore incapable of carrying soundwaves is a bit outdated and oversimplified. Here's a bit from space.com (linked in the article).

"Astronomers have known for some time that they can see only a fraction of the matter that must exist in the universe. New observations with NASA?s Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected at least the shadows of some of the rest, astronomers announced today.

Four separate research groups used Chandra to detect hot intergalactic gas that connects galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Astronomers described the filamentary structures as being like fog in river channels, and the gas is thought to represent more matter than all the stars of the universe combined."

It is through this hot, intergalactic gas that the soundwave is carried.

[junyo]

Oh please, oh please, oh please tell me that tax dollars didn't go toward detecting a fact that is, at best, a halfway decent Final Jeopardy question.

Reads story...

Damn it.

[EgoLadenDilettanteGuy]

Is my math correct? Is this B flat 1 cycle per 20 million years?

[Warren]

"...bubble-shaped cavities that extend away from a central black hole. The cavities are formed by jets of material ejected from the black hole's surroundings..."

You know what this is? It's one effen humungous dog whistle. Buddha help us all when Fido comes running.

[Warren]

Ego,
Given that this is 57 octive below a 233Hz B-flat. I calculate one cycle per 19.6 Megayears.

What I'd like to know is, what is the wavelength? They claim the gas is "hot" but that could still be less than 100 degrees Kelvin. The question is, how dense is it?

[dhex]

actually it's the mother of all dub basslines.

maybe the orb were right after all?

[joe]

I always suspected Gorillaz disappeared into a black hole.

[dhex]

i can only fucking hope so. 🙂

along with that terrible unkle project. and peaches.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Haven't read all the comments yet, so it's possible somebody has already made this point:

Nooooooo, It is not a note, it is not 57 octaves below the keys in the middle of a piano, and while it's true no human will never hear it, it's not because it's too low.

No human will ever hear it because it's not noise.

Noise is vibrations in physical matter. There is no physical matter in space. Therefore there is no noise.

Read NASA's propaganda carefully and they say it's merely like noise. Sort of.

I like NASA but this is a transparent attempt to change the subject from the recent scathing report that was just issued in response to the latest Shuttle problem.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Clarification: Of course there's physical matter in space. For example, I'm right now typing on some of it.

Does the report say that this bass line is being slapped out in a localized blob of interstellar gas? If so, then no human will hear that note because none of use live in that pocket of gas. Regardless, that groove wouldn't reach us here at home because the intervening miles are almost entirely made up of empty space (containing virtually no conventional matter).

[Sean]

No one will hear this sound because it is below the threshold of our hearing. As for the localized pocket of gas this vibration is travelling through, it was described,not as interstellar, but as inter-galactic or inter-galactic cluster. Whether or not our galaxy is one of the ones in proximity to this gas would matter when determining whether or not the vibration would ever reach us. as for whether or not this vibration is able to travel through as yet to be determine dark matter between here and there, I don't have any idea.

[Ken Layne]

Jeff Tweedy seemed to enjoy this news, too. Tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, Wilco did some song or another (can't remember; drunk) and Tweedy ended it with the claim that the piano player, Leroy, had played a note 57 octaves below Middle C, but it was actually a B flat, and we would all hear it the next day. I wondered what the hell he was talking about, and then I had another drink.

[mooserack]

basicaly people are getting excited that someone squeezed out an airbiscuit in space. good thing we don't have the smell-o-scope from futurama...

how much you wanna bet it was during former Senator Glenn's second time up there?

time for more coffee.

[Muckenhoupt Carl]

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DATE: 01/26/2004 08:01:49
Without hope, the rest is nothing.