Maximizing Survival Time Inside the Event Horizon of a Black Hole


Here's a scenario that will face many of us in the far future. You're hurtling through the cosmos at nearly the speed of light in your spaceship when you take a wrong turn and pass into the event horizon of a black hole. Uh oh, you're dead - not yet, but it's inevitable. Since nothing, not even light can escape the pull from a black hole once it passes into the event horizon, what can you do to maximize your existence before you join the singularity as a smear of particles?

Maximizing Survival Time Inside the Event Horizon of a Black Hole

universetoday.com

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Cosmologists Predict A Static Universe In 3 Trillion Years


Now, physicists Lawrence Krauss from Case Western Reserve University and Robert J. Scherrer from Vanderbilt University predict that trillions of years into the future, the information that currently allows us to understand how the universe expands will have disappeared over the visible horizon. What remains will be "an island universe" made from the Milky Way and its nearby galactic Local Group neighbors in an overwhelmingly dark void.

A Snapshot of the Universe 3 Trillion Years From Now

sciencedaily.com

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Huge star explodes in brightest supernova yet seen


A gargantuan explosion ripped apart a star perhaps 150 times more massive than our sun in a relatively nearby galaxy in the most powerful and brightest supernova ever observed, astronomers said on Monday.

And there is one such star in our own Milky Way galaxy that appears to be on the brink of dying in just such a supernova.

The exploding star's dramatic death may have come in a rare type of supernova reserved for "freakishly massive" stars that astronomers had speculated about but never previously witnessed.

Huge star explodes in brightest supernova yet seen

yahoo.com

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Water detected on distant planet


Water has been detected for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System.

The planet, known as HD 209458b, is a Jupiter-like gas giant located 150 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

bbc.co.uk

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Nikon's Universcale


gorgeous flash piece giving you a feel for how tiny or gigantic we are in the grand scheme of things... great use of silhouettes

Nikon's Universcale

nikon.co.jp

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$60,000 to view the heavens


If you have a serious interest in astronomy and would not mind spending a precious chunk of your hard-earned money on garnering your interest further then this heavenly priced $60,000 Steady Stargazer from Meade is meant just for you! This robotic Max Mount RCX400 includes extensions that allow the scope to be remotely controlled from any web browser without software installation on the remote PC, MAC, PDA or even a cell phone. The telescope costs $40,000 and the mount alone is another $20,000.

$60,000 Steady Stargazer For Amateur Astronomers

crave.cnet.com Meade RCX400

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Hubble snaps death throes of sun-like star


Our sun will probably look very much the same for the next few billion years, plodding happily along the main sequence, bathing our solar system in its friendly yellow rays. All very nice for us living on Earth, of course, but not terribly exciting.

Hubble snaps death throes of sun-like star

theregister.co.uk

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Photo of 450 million light-years from Earth


This stunning group of galaxies is far, far away - about 450 million light-years from planet Earth - cataloged as galaxy cluster Abell S0740.

nasa.gov Observable universe [Wikipedia] The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken [YouTube]

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Eavesdropping on the Universe


Astronomers have proposed an improved method of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life using instruments like one now under construction in Australia. The Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA), a facility for radio astronomy, theoretically could detect Earth-like civilizations around any of the 1,000 nearest stars.

Eavesdropping on the Universe

physorg.com

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Vast halo extends galaxy's size


Astronomers have found an enormous halo of stars around the Andromeda galaxy.

The discovery suggests the nearby spiral galaxy, also known as M31, is as much as five times bigger than astronomers had previously thought.

In fact, Andromeda's "suburbs" are so vast that they nearly overlap with those of our own Milky Way galaxy.

bbc.co.uk

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The Universe within 1 billion Light Years


Galaxies and clusters of galaxies are not uniformly distributed in the Universe, instead they collect into vast clusters and sheets and walls of galaxies interspersed with large voids in which very few galaxies seem to exist. The map above shows many of these superclusters including the Virgo supercluster - the minor supercluster of which our galaxy is just a minor member. The entire map is approximately 7 percent of the diameter of the entire visible Universe.

anzwers.org

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Planets Have Decided - Kerry Will Win


While surveys in the US are showing the presidential race to be closer than ever, top Indian astrologers are saying that the planets have already decided who is going to win the election - John Kerry.

yahoo

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