“Bathed in bright blue and fluorescent pink light, the galaxy cluster in this image is home to the most powerful explosion since the big bang.
What’s more, the explosion is ongoing and has been continuing for the last 100 million years, releasing as much energy as hundreds of millions of gamma ray bursts.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/most-powerful-explosion-since-big-bang-black-hole-galaxy/6879040

Really? Was the Big Bang an explosion? I don’t really understand the nature of the phenomena being reported, but is it valid to compare it to the Big Bang?

You would think the black hole would have a name by now.

Galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 is located 2.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis, the Giraffe.

pesce.del.giorno said:

“Bathed in bright blue and fluorescent pink light, the galaxy cluster in this image is home to the most powerful explosion since the big bang.
What’s more, the explosion is ongoing and has been continuing for the last 100 million years, releasing as much energy as hundreds of millions of gamma ray bursts.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/most-powerful-explosion-since-big-bang-black-hole-galaxy/6879040

Really? Was the Big Bang an explosion? I don’t really understand the nature of the phenomena being reported, but is it valid to compare it to the Big Bang?

> Really?
No.

> Was the Big Bang an explosion?
LOL. Yes, but MS 0735.6+7421 probably isn’t.

For an explosion you need hot fragments flying off in various directions. What we see here is just a collection of hot gas (blue) plus a pair of radio lobes (pink).

Aha, tracked down the original NASA press release. It uses the word “eruption” for MS 0735.6+7421, not “explosion”. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/jan/HQ_05004_chandra.html

Astronomers have found the most powerful eruption in the universe using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. A super massive black hole generated this eruption by growing at a remarkable rate. This discovery shows the enormous appetite of large black holes, and the profound impact they have on their surroundings.

The huge eruption was seen in a Chandra image of the hot, X-ray emitting gas of a galaxy cluster called MS 0735.6+7421. Two vast cavities extend away from the super massive black hole in the cluster’s central galaxy. The eruption, which has lasted for more than 100 million years, has generated energy equivalent to hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts.

This event was caused by gravitational energy release, as enormous amounts of matter fell toward a black hole. Most of the matter was swallowed, but some of it was violently ejected before being captured by the black hole. “I was stunned to find that a mass of about 300 million suns was swallowed” etc.

OK now I’m confused. I thought the “Big Bang” was a term coined derisively by those who sought to discredit it. (Yes, Fred Hoyle, I’m looking at you.) I did not think it was an explosion. An explosion is an abrupt expenditure of energy, with gases and particles expanding into space. The Big Bang, as I understood it, was the creation of the universe and the fabric of space-time from a singularity, prior to which there was no space. I would think the term “explosion” to be misleading here, suggesting that space-time was already in existence. If it was an explosion, would the energy expended be equal to the energy equivalent of the mass of the universe?

> I thought the “Big Bang” was a term coined derisively by those who sought to discredit it. (Yes, Fred Hoyle, I’m looking at you.) I did not think it was an explosion. An explosion is an abrupt expenditure of energy, with gases and particles expanding into space.

That’s a perfectly good attitude. The “big bang” is such a singular event that the meaning of the word “explosion” can be either expanded to include it or contracted to exclude it. Either attitude is fine.

I have produced some “Big Bangs” myself mostly into a toilet bowl.

bob(from black rock) said:

I have produced some “Big Bangs” myself mostly into a toilet bowl.

Qualified spray painter?

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

I have produced some “Big Bangs” myself mostly into a toilet bowl.

Qualified spray painter?

No more a splatterer.

bob(from black rock) said:

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

I have produced some “Big Bangs” myself mostly into a toilet bowl.

Qualified spray painter?

No more a splatterer.

Thickly abstract?

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

roughbarked said:

Qualified spray painter?

No more a splatterer.

Thickly abstract?

Plasterer

CrazyNeutrino said:

roughbarked said:

bob(from black rock) said:

No more a splatterer.

Thickly abstract?

Plasterer

More like cement renderer.

>of the universe and the fabric of space-time from a singularity

the singularity may’ve been infinitely dense
be so everythin’ this expandin’ universe isn’t
truth though I wasn’t there’n havin’ a guess
call it what you like sure was nothin’ like this

Scientists report a “big bang” 4.3 billion years ago. Chuck Norris shrugs it off as a “bad case of gas”.

mollwollfumble said:

> I thought the “Big Bang” was a term coined derisively by those who sought to discredit it. (Yes, Fred Hoyle, I’m looking at you.) I did not think it was an explosion. An explosion is an abrupt expenditure of energy, with gases and particles expanding into space.

That’s a perfectly good attitude. The “big bang” is such a singular event that the meaning of the word “explosion” can be either expanded to include it or contracted to exclude it. Either attitude is fine.

Continuing that thought. If there is only one “big bang” then the question is moot, becomes one of the precise definition of the word “explosion”. Consider the Oxford dictionary online.
1. “A violent shattering or blowing apart of something, as is caused by a bomb.” The Big Bang is not an explosion.
2. “A sudden outburst of something such as violent emotion, especially anger:” ditto
3. “A sudden increase in amount or extent:” The Big Bang is an explosion.

Also consider the variety of string theory in which the “big bang” was the result of two “branes” colliding. In this case “space” consists of 12-dimensional space-time. There are multiple big bangs. Our familiar 3 dimensions of space can be thought of as “exploding” within that 12-dimensional space-time. Even without string theory, multiple big bangs can happen when multiple bubbles of “inflation” occur in an infinite universe. It is difficult to understand how our present laws of of physics could have come into operation without some sort of evolutionary process involving multiple universes.

hoyles use of the term big bang wasn’t meant to be derogatory but as a quick and easy term for the listeners to the BBC, where it was first used, to understand. the derogatory myth has persisted though.