[HN Gopher] Bizarre space circle captured in unprecedented detail
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Bizarre space circle captured in unprecedented detail
Author : gmays
Score : 117 points
Date : 2022-03-28 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| ericHosick wrote:
| Anton Petrov has a great video on this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRaQj_IMAjY.
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| Anton always presents great videos, but my guess is that it
| _could_ also be bubbles from the breath of Great A 'Tuin, the
| celestial turtle, as it swims through the cosmic ocean. /s
| squarefoot wrote:
| That picture gives off so many Star Trek TOS vibes.
| erickhill wrote:
| We definitely appear to be approaching a spatial anomaly.
| swamp40 wrote:
| They should run it thru Google Brain's SR3 image enhancer.
|
| Or maybe that would give it a face?
| dylan604 wrote:
| But will it be Ryan Gosling's face?
| karmakaze wrote:
| Two things immediately popped to mind. (1) 'con display' from
| Star Trek (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction. The
| latter doesn't make sense though, seems that many single spheres
| would be simpler unless it was to be concealed: (3) sub-galactic
| Great Wall?
|
| Can we detect single-star Dyson spheres as the disappearance of
| stars before their expected end?
| ianai wrote:
| If it's a Dyson-anything, it's way bigger than a single star:
|
| "The new MeerKAT radio data shows that the ORC's large outer
| circle is possibly more than a million light years across, ten
| times the diameter of the Milky Way, with a series of smaller
| rings inside"
|
| It actually sounds more like the wisps of gas seen jetting
| through the Milky Way and being irradiated by something. That
| alone, I think, isn't too unnatural of a thing to see out
| there.
|
| Maybe someday this sort of thing will enlighten us on how
| matter dispersed in the early universe i.e. when these galaxies
| were forming out of still larger areas of matter. Who knows,
| maybe there's some dark energy/matter information to be gleaned
| in there, too.
| ianai wrote:
| Replying to myself to avoid an edit -
|
| You know, if I was a hairbrained, mega-structure scientist
| from some future, highly advanced civilization that otherwise
| couldn't study or explain dark energy/matter, one way to
| simply gather data would be to fill huge regions of space
| with matter and watch how my known input evolves and changes
| over time. If science up to that point can explain 100% of
| the movements of the matter from then on, then I know my
| theories and data are widely in agreement. If I know nothing
| else has perturbed that matter and the data are off, then the
| disagreement tells me something about how physics works at
| super large scale. [If I know physics with plenty of
| certainty at those scales and something changes outside of my
| expectation then something/someone new to the scene perturbed
| that matter.]
|
| Which is to say, I wonder if there isn't a way to turn these
| oddballs into very valuable scientific data. Build radio-
| telescopes large enough to gather as fine grained data about
| these ORCs as possible and model away. Maybe something in
| there does translate to physics which explain dark
| energy/matter.
| ianai wrote:
| Another hairbrained idea:
|
| This is just a region of the universe that started out with
| a smattering of mass-energy in the early universe. What
| we're seeing now is the residue around the edges after
| gravity has merged the denser lumps of mass-energy into
| galaxies, black holes, stars, planets, etc. Subtracting out
| the initial mass-energy, but missing certain regions of
| sparse mass-energy due to relative gravitational isolation.
| Throw in whatever topological changes in spacetime due to
| inflation, perhaps, if so affected.
| finnh wrote:
| FYI just because you seem to like it: "harebrained", like
| having a rabbit's brain
| ianai wrote:
| Thanks! Dictionary.com at least says hairbrained is just
| a variation on the spelling.
| vikingerik wrote:
| We could, if we happen to be looking at that star, but we'd
| have to catch them in the act. Remember how vast these time
| scales are, and consequently how improbable it is that any
| other civilization would be doing it in the same decade or
| century as we exist.
|
| We've had the ability to detect and track such changes in star
| radiation for roughly a century. The potential scale of
| intelligent life is on the order of ten billion years and
| counting. That's a 1 in 10^8 chance that they're doing it at
| the same time as we happen to be looking.
|
| Also, a Dyson sphere isn't invisible - the star doesn't exactly
| disappear. The material will absorb some radiation, heat up,
| and glow in the infrared. We've calculated what such a heat
| signature would look like, and haven't found any such thing
| yet.
| ianai wrote:
| It's also ten times the size of the Milky Way.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| And things ten times the size of the Milky Way are likely
| to last a while.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| *possibly
| tshaddox wrote:
| > (2) multi-star Dyson sphere under construction.
|
| We have a dozen or so stars within 10 light years. This circle
| is a million light years across. So I'm guessing it would be a
| ludicrous number of Dyson spheres.
| deviantbit wrote:
| Why can't it ever be aliens?
| barkingcat wrote:
| It's always aliens.
| kreeben wrote:
| Having looked at this picture for a good ten minutes it still
| feels alien.
| throwaway71271 wrote:
| true! but looking at some zoomed spiders and they also feel
| alien, so what do i know..
| dylan604 wrote:
| How do you schedule a zoom call with a spider?
| mypalmike wrote:
| Send it an invite.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Via a web app.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Come on in said the spider to the fly kind of invite?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's why we rely on empirical observation: our subjective
| intuitions suck.
| h2odragon wrote:
| "Space circle" could describe pretty much everything and anything
| outside the atmosphere, no? "Sphere" was probably too technical.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This article cites a paper. I was looking at one of the papers
| they cite in _that_ paper, and they had a nice explanation in
| the introductory paragraph.
|
| > Circular features are well-known in radio astronomical
| images, and usually represent a spherical object such as a
| supernova remnant, a planetary nebula, a circumstellar shell,
| or a face-on disc such as a protoplanetary disc or a star-
| forming galaxy.
|
| They describe these things as circles because that's how they
| show up on the radio telescopes. They are being precise about
| what they detected, I think. These are hard signals to even
| pick up, after all, no need to introduce a made up
| interpretation to further confuse things.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Good point. Why is so much in gravityless, directionless (i.e.,
| no up and down) space shaped like a disc rather than a sphere?
| Look at the orbits of planets around the Sun - why are they
| mostly in the same plane? Look at galaxies.
| nawgz wrote:
| Spin
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| A sphere spins in a circle <- probably the most abstract
| answer possible, but correct as I see it.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Ah, you mean that spin is (two-dimensional?), and that
| these things form along the 'equator' of the spin? That is,
| spin creates an 'equator', and the equator is a circle not
| a sphere, and the orbiting objects align with the equator?
| Are our solar system's planets aligned with our sun's
| equator? (Sorry, the mathematical/physical terms are
| escaping me.)
| inamberclad wrote:
| Generally anything acting under a force causing it to be pulled
| together and possibly another force causing it to be pushed
| apart.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Who says it's spherical?
| h2odragon wrote:
| Good point! Astronomy is the study of "Space Blobs"
| mabbo wrote:
| There's something great about physics and astronomy when it comes
| to naming things.
|
| What is it? An odd circle of radio waves. What are we going to
| call it? Well, if we call it an "odd radio circle" the
| initialization is the same as the monstrous bad guys from a
| classic fantasy novel.
|
| ORCs it is then!
| the_snooze wrote:
| My favorite one of those is "Hanny's Voorwerp," discovered by a
| Dutch woman named Hanny, and "voorwerp" just means "object."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanny%27s_Voorwerp
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| There is also plenty of bad names in physics, the "colour
| charge" and all other colour related names in quantum
| chromodynamics would be a very notable example.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| An hypothesis based on subjective experience:
|
| In the post-modern era (roughly 1945-20??) people were highly
| skeptical of their egos and of power, advertised humility, and
| consequently had a sense of humor about themselves and the
| world. Thus you get names like _quark_ and _Google_.
|
| Now in the newly-born (reactionary?) era, ego is our God, and
| we get names like _Uber_. Physics perhaps hasn 't quite joined
| the new era, yet.
| erdos4d wrote:
| > Physics perhaps hasn't quite joined the new era, yet.
|
| I dunno, I've noticed that most physicists I've met have the
| "ego is God" vibe pretty well cooked in, and they will
| definitely let you know it.
| dddw wrote:
| Interesting take. Might have something to do with the culture
| of science, which still adheres more to values like
| collaboration.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Also, the culture of science is inescapably post-modern.
| The new era aggressively rejects the Enlightenment bases of
| science such as the supremacy of fact, the weakness of
| subjectivity, resolving issues by reason, empowerment by
| our intellects, etc.
| [deleted]
| pandoro wrote:
| "Of the three stars, one was missing. There was a white cloud of
| dust in its place, like the feces of an abyss whale.
|
| It's already been cleansed. Nothing more to do."
|
| - Death's End, Liu Cixin
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I'll make my pointless comment over here with the downvoted,
| when I saw it I thought of the 4chan troll face
| stadium wrote:
| Gravitational lensing can make the same star appear in a circular
| pattern, could the same happen for these radio wave patterns?
| firebaze wrote:
| This isn't meant to sound dismissive, but do you really assume
| the experts in this field didn't consider this, and didn't deem
| it (ir-)relevant enough to (not) mention in their paper?
|
| Genuinely interested what is the reason behind questions like
| that. In general, it's definitely cool and understandable to me
| to question the competency of anyone, but if (as in this case)
| a researcher researches a quite deep detail of a very specific
| field, using a very rare resource (a space telescope, which I
| assume requires some credibility to even ask for observation
| time) how do you assume they didn't check all boxes before
| writing a paper?
| throwoutway wrote:
| OP has a legitimate inquiry, but you dismiss it with an
| appeal to authority? Researchers miss things all the time.
| But if they considered it and rejected it, then it still
| makes it a valid question doesn't it?
| firebaze wrote:
| My question was equally valid to me. I didn't understand
| the GP's question to be dismissive or ignorant, I just want
| to learn where they're coming from.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... I just want to learn where they're coming from.
|
| Ignorance is all it is - and not in a bad way. They don't
| know something, they're curious about it, so they're
| asking. It's legitimately as simple as that.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is a valid criticism in general, but I think in this
| case, user was asking for instruction. "You say this is
| strange, but this other simple explanation would explain it
| to my knowledge. Why is this different?" is intended in this
| case to be "Instruct me so that I may detect my error and
| update" rather than "Have you considered X?"
|
| Since I believe you are also asking genuinely, I will attempt
| to disambiguate the two cases with illustrations:
|
| 1. OP states the question as "Could this be the same?". This
| expresses uncertainty of the form "Is this possible?" and
| "Are these simpler explanations still on the table?"
|
| 2. OP may have stated the question as "Did they consider X?".
| I think this moves closer to the idiot advice that is often
| of the form "Did they consider correlation is not causation?"
| etc. etc.
|
| 3. OP may have stated opinion directly: "They did not
| consider X". In this case, lacking knowledge of OP expertise,
| you may safely conclude that this is a statement from an
| armchair expert.
|
| Of course there are an infinitude of statements and
| responses. But hopefully these 3 examples will help.
| FredPret wrote:
| OP is inquiring to learn more. I think it's a good question
| and would also like to know.
|
| No need to for you to be defensive on the scientist's behalf.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This attitude discourages question-asking.
|
| Edit: To be more clear, I mean the implication (no matter how
| qualified) that it is _remarkable to even ask a question_
| based on how likely it is that experts have already answered
| the question. That premise doesn 't seem to make any sense:
| First, non-experts have no context for knowing what experts
| have likely ruled out and what they haven't, by definition.
| Second, if experts have ruled it out, the answer to the
| question is still valuable (how/why did they rule it out).
| kaashif wrote:
| I wonder how it's possible for people to read a comment so
| differently. Like others have said, I read the comment as
| more of a "Why is this wrong?" than "Why are they idiots and
| didn't think of this?" which isn't an interpretation that
| would have occurred to me.
|
| I could parrot your own comment back to you and say, do you
| really assume that the person didn't realise that only
| experts use giant telescopes and know what they're doing?
| Maybe they're hoping one of those experts will somehow come
| up with a good explanation and maybe some links to further
| reading.
|
| Sometimes people read an aggressive or condescending tone
| into perfectly neutral comments and it really confuses me.
| firebaze wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand you. We're talking of an analysis
| of a very specific, very rare (1 of 5) occurrence of an as
| of now unresolved physical phenomenon. I think to get into
| the position to research phenomena like that, you need to
| prove your worth a bit. I'm not referring to meritocracy
| but to money, since that's what observation time comes down
| to.
|
| So, to me it boils down to: is there's something about the
| GP's question I missed, which is what I'd like to learn
| about? If not all is fine. If so, I'd like to learn the
| reason behind it.
|
| I'm not a native english speaker.
| legohead wrote:
| > could the same happen for these radio wave patterns
|
| Perhaps he was just seeking knowledge. There may be an
| interesting reason why these radio wave patterns may or may
| not be affected by lensing.
|
| Also, if you have been around as long as I have, it is not
| that uncommon for experts to be missing something obvious, or
| for science articles to exclude certain details in order to
| appear more fascinating.
| firebaze wrote:
| But what would be an appropriate answer? Yes probably, this
| would mean they were wrong. No would be quite complex, I
| suppose.
|
| I didn't assume the GP to be ignorant or distrusting the
| credibility of the researcher, and the question was valid
| in my point of view as well from that perspective.
| derekp7 wrote:
| The answer to your question is simply linguistic
| shortcuts. That is, the question could have been phrased
| such as this:
|
| "I am but a casual reader with an interest in this topic.
| I have read about Gravitational Lensing, and the pattern
| matching algorithm in my brain finds a loose match
| between that an this phenomenon. I am curious as to the
| particulars of this that makes it different from what
| I've read before, such that this requires a different
| explanation".
|
| Of course, that is way to many words, an the shortcut of
| "Why isn't this Gravitational Lensing" is a more succinct
| way of asking the question. Which is a major reason why
| HN has as one of their guidelines "Please respond to the
| strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says,
| not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good
| faith. "
| bee_rider wrote:
| They go into a bit more detail about possible explanations here
| (this is cited in the paper that the article talks about).
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.14805
|
| They talk about your option in 5.11, "Einstein rings." For
| reasons that I don't understand (but I don't understand
| anything about optics) they come to the conclusion that the
| gravitational lens would have to be really large, and it is
| unlikely that such a large, well-structured lens would exist.
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