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posted by mrpg on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-out-the-dust-buster dept.

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

[...] A new analysis by researchers at UC Santa Cruz, published June 14 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, explains these and other puzzling features of active galactic nuclei as the result of small clouds of dust that can partially obscure the innermost regions of AGNs.

[...] The findings have important implications because researchers use the optical emissions from the broad-line region to make inferences about the behavior of the gases in the inner regions around a supermassive black hole.

[...] "Once the dust crosses a certain threshold it is subjected to the strong radiation from the accretion disk," said Harrington. "This radiation is so intense that it blows the dust away from the disk, resulting in a clumpy outflow of dust clouds starting at the outer edge of the broad-line region."

The effect of the dust clouds on the light emitted is to make the light coming from behind them look fainter and redder, just as Earth's atmosphere makes the sun look fainter and redder at sunset. In their paper, Gaskell and Harrington present several lines of observational evidence supporting the existence of such dust clouds in the inner regions of active galactic nuclei. They developed a computer code to model the effects of dust clouds on observations of the broad-line region.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180614213615.htm


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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:16PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:16PM (#694275)

    A computer "code"? What is this, the 1960s?

    Anyway, the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid [youtu.be], not a black hole.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:24PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:24PM (#694278)

      Why use a link shortener if you are going to go through the trouble of making a hyperlink?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:37PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:37PM (#694282)

        I just use it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:47PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:47PM (#694313)

          What country are you form?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @02:33AM (#694398)

            Pretty sure he's from Anarchocapitalatopia. It's like Best Libertopia over there.

    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:59PM (6 children)

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:59PM (#694320) Journal

      A computer "code"? What is this, the 1960s?

      The authors themselves speak of it this way. I don't know what decade that they believe it to be, if not the current one. From TFA:

      We've written the code so we can adjust parameters like the distribution of gas in the broad-line region, how fast it's moving, and the orientation of the system

      So there's that.

      the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid [According to these guys on Youtube], not a black hole.

      That there are a small few on the fringes who suggest that the universe is totally made of electric strings, does not make them "probably" right. There exists a chance, of course, but it's less than the 50% of "probably" fame. In fact, it's probably something more like this:

      Let n = number of scientists who think it's not electric strings
      Let s = number of scientists who think it's totally electric strings

      The likelihood you are seeking is more like ~= 100 * ( s / (n + s) ) %.

      Score: -1, Redundant

      On the Gamma Ray Burst article, you double posted. On this one, you double posted--twice. Either you or some aspect of your workflow should put down the Internet and back slowly away for a time. Happens to all of us.

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @08:08PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @08:08PM (#694335)

        I suggest some others of you back away from the downmod labels.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Sunday June 17 2018, @08:34PM (4 children)

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 17 2018, @08:34PM (#694343) Journal

          Anyone who repeatedly spams the same post repeatedly in a repeated manner should be modded into oblivion, as a public service to others.

          As for "when legit posts downmodded", the remedy is to wait patiently for someone to mod the "legit" post up, which counteracts the downmod. If someone's otherwise "legit" post is repeated multiple times, that actually confirms what the original downmodder was saying.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:56PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:56PM (#694358)

            That's the deal.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @10:31PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @10:31PM (#694361)

              Why?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:51AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:51AM (#694434)
              Fuck you. We will mod your garbage as it deserves.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 18 2018, @12:46PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 18 2018, @12:46PM (#694499) Journal

              Don't downmod my comment; I won't repost.

              I have a solution to that - don't care. You're self-signaling that you're not worth reading. Why would I take that away from you?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @12:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @12:36PM (#694492)

      Programmers still write code. And those people have no intention of selling that code, so they don't need to use any hipster terms to refer to it.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 18 2018, @01:00PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 18 2018, @01:00PM (#694500) Journal

      Anyway, the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid

      Gravity has a way of making small perturbations in a near uniform distribution of mass bigger and hence, triggering galaxy formation in the early universe. Electromagnetism does not. For example, note how this site [plasma-universe.com] describes "plasmoids":

      It is relatively easy to generate a plasmoid using a microwave and a medium that will initiate the formation of a plasmoid

      In other words, a huge, relatively coherent energy input and a medium. We have the medium, we don't have the coherent energy input.

  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:40PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:40PM (#694283)

    A computer "code"? What is this, the 1960s?

    Anyway, the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid [youtu.be], not a black hole.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:41AM (#694432)

      It's not the 1960's where I am, but you may still be stuck in a GOTO loop

  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:20PM (#694292)

    A computer "code"? What is this, the 1960s?

    Anyway, the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid [youtu.be], not a black hole.

  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:56PM (#694305)

    A computer "code"? What is this, the 1960s?

    Anyway, the center of the Galaxy is likely a plasmoid [youtu.be], not a black hole.

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