Exploding stars drive Galactic geysers The truly enormous jets of matter flung out from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy are not, as previously believed, the detritus of a supermassive black hole. Rather, the “galactic geysers” are caused by stars forming and exploding at the centre of the galaxy. The new study combined observations from NASA in 2010 with a …
Dr Wiebke Ebeling of Australia’s Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics told The Australian that even at our distance – 30,000 light years from the centre – the fields would be so strong that “every single atom in your body would start vibrating and generating such heat you’d melt in an instant.”
How is that even possible? That would be worse than sitting in an NMR scanner. Stars, planets and gas giants with their conductive cores would burst like oversized eggs in a microwave oven. Think of the currents needed to generate those fields. I suspect the energy density of space would tear reality itself apart!
I'm sure something has been lost in translation.
I think what the good doctor is saying is that if we were sitting directly in the jet at the same distance as we are now, those would be the (rather unpleasant) effects. As it is, there are no stars in the way of the jet. I'm not sure if this is because galactic interstellar matter funnels the jet into the harder vacuum outside the galaxy; or pure dumb luck; or because any stars in the way have already been fried.
Indeed, it would be like standing in the way of a microwave crowd disperser, set at the level "fry" (or should that be "melt"? I didn't know that humans were prone to melt.).
I like your comparison of planets with eggs, isn't earth a little crunchy on the outside, but yellow and runny on the inside? Never occurred to me before.
"Who uses ergs for anything measurable anyway?"
Well, the "foe", which is a conveniently-sized unit for describing the energy output of supernovae, is "ten to the Fifty One Ergs". Sure, it doesn't really *measure* that output, but it is still a useful unit, and its size is specified in ergs.
How many ergs does it take to make a cup of tea? How many joules to beat three eggs for an omelette? I have no clue.
Jack Russells is better - that's a unit of energy that is large enough to understand just how much energy it is, small enough to comprehend, and - most crucially of all - it would be a unit of energy understood by the layman and average joe.
Tell me what it is in Jack Russells. Then I and everyone else will understand.
It takes my 3kW kettle 2 minutes (that's 360kJ) to boil a litre of water, raising its temperature from 20 (say) to 100 Celsius. So it's 4.5J to heat a g of water by one degree, which matches the conversion factor for calories to joules ~4.2.
Boiling the same kettle requires 3.6 treeellion ergs.
The Nature abstract says the authors "conclude that the radio lobes originate in a biconical, star-formation-driven outflow..."
Is the shape down to the fortuitous positions of the stars that have been consumed to power it, or, given the relatively large magnetic field, is it shaped by magnetohydrodynamic processes? It will be interesting to see how this shaping is explained.
In the meantime, while waiting for the boffins to figure this out, perhaps those who believe in extra-terrestrial visitors should consider availing themselves of a large white flag.
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