A survey of more than 170,000 supermassive black holes, using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has astronomers reexamining a decades-old theory about the varying appearances of these interstellar objects. The unified theory of active, supermassive black holes, first developed in the late 1970s, was created to explain why black holes, though similar in nature, can look completely different. Some appear to be shrouded in dust, while others are exposed and easy to see. The unified model answers this question by proposing that every black hole is surrounded by a dusty, doughnut-shaped structure called a torus. Depending on how these "doughnuts" are oriented in space, the black holes will take on various appearances. For example, if the doughnut is positioned so that we see it edge-on, the black hole is hidden from view. If the doughnut is observed from above or below, face-on, the black hole is clearly visible.
However, the new WISE results do not corroborate this theory. The researchers found evidence that something other than a doughnut structure may, in some circumstances, determine whether a black hole is visible or hidden. The team has not yet determined what this may be, but the results suggest the unified, or doughnut, model does not have all the answers.
The referenced article has a nice infographic which explains the unified theory, the expected results, and the unexpected WISE results.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday May 26 2014, @06:30AM
Bad astrophysicist! No donut!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 26 2014, @07:43AM
For being rocket scientists, their theories reflect two-dimensional thinking.
Should not black holes suck equally in all directions? And even if they were to spin, would not the gravity be greater on the axis of rotation as opposed to along it? Besides, anyone who can just say "see a black hole" in an article if probably not a real scientist, anyway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @08:15AM
They are not rocket scientists, they are astronomers. Rocket scientists build rockets, astronomers study stars and other astronomical objects.
No, because the dust around black holes normally rotates. It's actually the same reason as why the planets are roughly in a plane, instead of orbiting in arbitrary directions around the sun (as you might naively expect, given that the gravitational potential of the sun is spherically symmetric), why the earth's moon doesn't have a polar orbit but a roughly equatorial one, and why galaxies are not spherical.
They do spin. However, the more important thing is: The matter around them does.
What you see when you "see a black hole" is indeed the emissions of the matter around the black hole, and the gravitational effects of the black hole on the matter around it. However, there's nothing wrong with replacing the more appropriate "observe" with "see" in a popular science article.
Anyway, if you don't even know the difference between a rocket scientist and an astronomer, you are clearly not qualified to judge scientists.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 26 2014, @08:35AM
Silly AC! Rocket engineers build rockets, not rocket scientists! The spinning matter still makes no sense. Yes, the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces should slow the ingress of "stuff" into the black hole, which is why there is nothing above or below the axis of rotation, since it would have long ago be devoured. That is why planets are (roughly) on a plane and Saturn has rings, because of the Aurora Borealis and Australis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @04:22PM
I'm pretty sure the first rockets were built by rocket scientists, not by rocket engineers. Anyway, rocket scientists and rocket engineers are much closer than rocket scientists and astronomers.
And the rest of the comment also just serves to show that you have no clue. Saturn has rings because of the Aurora Borealis and Australis? [wikipedia.org] Seriously?
Or maybe you're just trolling?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 26 2014, @04:28PM
You just don't get it, do you! Donuts, torus? I am just amazed how much astrophysics is done on computer models, and how little by actual astronomers (whether they are rocket scientists or not).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 26 2014, @07:55PM
I'm pretty sure that bit about the auroras is a sort of joke. It's hardly trolling.
The first rockets were built in China so long ago that nobody knows much about their invention. Probably by someone working for a Mandarin, though. If you mean liquid fueled rockets, that was done as a hobby by Robert Goddard. You could call him a rocket scientist, but though he wrote some papers, that's stretching a point...though not by much as he was a physics professor who created some patentable inventions on rocket design.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 26 2014, @02:38PM
"...and why galaxies are not spherical."
You do understand there are spherical galaxies, correct? They're classified as:
ES1
SB0
E0
S0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @04:13PM
s/are not/are generally not/
Happy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @08:11PM
Well, you're a bit of a bellend, aren't you? Didn't take long for Soylent's interest/bullshit ratio to plunge way below even that of Slashdot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @07:55AM
The "summary" is just the beginning of the article. It doesn't summarize the article, it just contains introductory stuff.
Here's an actual summary of the article (most of it is also copy&paste from the article, but more selective, and a bit shortened):
A survey of more than 170,000 supermassive black holes, using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has astronomers reexamining a theory from the 1970s which was created to explain why black holes, though similar in nature, can look completely different: Some appear to be shrouded in dust, while others are exposed and easy to see. The so-called unified model of active, supermassive black holes answers this question by proposing that every black hole is surrounded by a torus of dust, where the orientation of that torus relative to us determines the appearance of the black hole.
If the unified model was true, and the hidden black holes are simply blocked from view by doughnuts in the edge-on configuration, then researchers would expect them to cluster in the same way as the exposed ones. According to theory, since the doughnut structures would take on random orientations, the black holes should also be distributed randomly. But the results showed the galaxies with hidden black holes are more clumped together than those of the exposed black holes. If these findings are confirmed, scientists will have to adjust the unified model and come up with new ways to explain why some black holes appear hidden.
(Score: 1) by hellcat on Monday May 26 2014, @08:07AM
It's better to read the very end of TFA.
Hidden black holes were not evenly distributed as they should be if they were doughnuts (it doesn't seem to say this explicitly). And galaxies with hidden black holes were clumpier - whatever that means.
And to top it all off, they threw in the dark matter angle just to get us excited. Absolutely nothing to go on, however.