Saturday, August 23, 2008

"Black hole" mystery solved

There was a piece on the BBC.com science site focusing on the mystery of the black hole. Scientists have focused, discussed and analyzed the black hole mystery for a long time. Now they think they have an answer:

"Astronomers have shed light on how stars can form around a massive black hole, defying conventional wisdom.

Scientists have long wondered how stars develop in such extreme conditions. Molecular clouds - the normal birth places of stars - would be ripped apart by the immense gravity, a team explains in Science magazine. But the researchers say stars can form from elliptical discs - the relics of giant gas clouds torn apart by encounters with black holes. They made the discovery after developing computer simulations of giant gas clouds being sucked into black holes like water spiralling down a plughole."


While this is very good news for people who devote their lives in this scientific sphere, we "dull normals" have had the answer to this enigma since the birth of the automatic clothes washing machine.

Black holes are the place where one-socks from a pair disappear and are never seen again. It's so simple and logical one wonders why scientists have never considered this possibility. Although they may be loathe to admit it, probably every household all over the world has a collection of one-sies that could date back possibly to the turn of the century, even!

"Their findings are in accordance with actual observations in our Milky Way galaxy that indicate the presence of a massive black hole, surrounded by huge stars with eccentric orbits. "

It would have to be eccentric orbits in order to transfer so many socks from point 'A' being a house to point 'B', being the aforementioned hole in space. Somehow, perhaps through molecular breakdown of sock fibres in the clothes dryer, socks end up in said black hole. Of course it's only a theory and definitely not scientific in nature but then what is?

Read the entire story and decide for yourselves here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7574255.stm

Now you know.

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