h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For anyone who lives in the U.K. they may be interested to know that on Thurday (30/11) night on BBC2 there is a Horizon programme on supermassive black holes at 9:00 pm. I will include here what my television guide says about it.

Horizon.
9:00pm BBC2
A supermassive black hole was the last thing astronomers expected to find at the centre of the Galaxy, but observation in July confirmed their suspicions. This fine film is guaranteed to put viewers in the wow zone alongside star-gazers themselves. In theory, this lastest report from the frontiers of cosmology tell us how stars are created, galaxies form and the ultimate fate of the Earth. It explains the phenomena with real clarity and confirms that astronomy has never been more exciting (thanks in part to the Hubble space telescope). That is why reports like this are currently among the brightest stars in the television universe. Forget science fiction, the truth is out there and it is reports of the quality that allow us to glimpse it.


Supermassive Black Holes. In June this year, the Hubble telescope helped solve one of the biggest cosmology problems - how and why galaxies are created. It revealed the existance of supermassive black holes in every galaxy so far observed, including the Milky Way. Scientists are starting to belive that these supermassive black holes help trigger the birth of galaxies and so lie at the heart of the creation of stars, planets and life itself.
Producer Zoe Heron; Series editor Bettina Lerner.
Subititles are avliable and it is in widescreen.
The video plus code is 143905.

I will include information about this programme next week after it has been on for those of you who don't have a television or cannot pick up U.K. television.

This TV guide looks exactly as NASA reports... So confident of their "discoveries"...
Actually, a supermassive black hole WAS expected to be at the center of every galaxy, and now they are being confirmed...or at least it seems so. The object known as Sagittarius A is a candidate black hole for at least 10 years... And it was not confirmed as such, neither any other black hole candidates...they are still candidates...
The presence of a supermassive black hole could be the seed needed to start forming galaxies...but where these black holes came from? The most natural way to create one is the supernova explosion of a massive star... But a supermassive one needs to be formed through mergers of "normal" a-few-solar-masses ones... And it simply takes too much time to do so...making difficult for them to play a significant part on the generation of galaxies...Thus NOT solving any cosmological problem, without adding much more questions...
That's why I'm interested in education of Astronomy...to avoid some stupid journalist/propagandist making statements so false as these...
I hope the actual film being better than this...Showing the different theories, and the problems typical of each one...That's the REAL scientific work.

So I mannaged to get to watched it (student so no TV), and did enjoy it. Though I wish they would stop with all the fancy graphics, whose only purpose is to fill in for when they have nothing interesting to say, and distracts when thay are saying things.

Couple of questions about it thought.
¬What is a lightwake? Some sort of distance I guess.
¬And what does the agc stand for in the galaxy agc1068?


They talked quite a bit about looking for the fast moving stars in the center of our galaxy, and could actually see them, which was impressive. Then a little later they showed us the same again after some sastronomer had seen the BH. They showed two shots of these stars at different times so we could see the stars moving fast and one that was stationary - the BH. The scary music was turned up and they started yabbering about how it has started 'feeding' again and how we will be suckd it - oh no!

My viewes:
>>So this stationary star that could be the the BH, but I am extreamy skeptical that we just happened to catch it just as it 'turned on', surly it's more likly it was blocked by something, or that turning off and on is frequent.

>>Anotherthing: they said 'just' turned on. Err no, light takes 300000 years to get to us from there, so not really 'just' by most peoples ideas (thought 'just' in astronomical terms)
>>Would a galaxy go throught cycles, it the BH feeds on the center and pushes outer material away, then runs out, stops. More material travels into the center and the BH feeds again, and this keeps on happening. Rather than just once like the program suggested.



Prof SB, it would be cool if you could do a quick write up of it for the site,

Nick

Hi,

In answere to your questions:

A lightweek is the distance light travels in a week (see lightyear)
I think you meant NGC which means New General Catalogue (I think) this is just a list of celestial objects.

My opinions:

I thought it was very interesting and I escpecialy liked the part about M31 and The Galaxy colliding! Does anyone know what will happen if the LMC or the SMC are inbetween us and M31?

I can see where your coming from on that cycle idea, that would help to explain why some BH are still feeding (other than the time lag due to the speed of light being finite [so the futher away the younger]).

Anyone else got any opinions on any of this?

Tango
(I doubt it!)

Ah, than it must have been my hearing going fuzzy.

Would the MC just get merged into the whole mess that is the new galaxy. Did really like that simulation though, so beautiful, but the power and size of the real event are uncomprehendeble (if you missed it it was like two whispy blobs of 0-g liquid colliding)

Sorry for not saying anything before but, if you missed it, there was a program on Black Holes on channel 4 this afternoon (Saturday).

It was quite good, they had Homer Simpson and co. falling down black holes and hypothetical space craft flying into black holes! Strange but fun to watch.

Did anyone else see this?

Tango

I remember the bit about Hormer Simpson from a programe a LONG time ago. I missed it. I just go back from walking to dog and looked through the Radio Times and saw it. The only thing was it was 7:05 which meant I'd missed almost all of it which annoyed me. Did it give a website address at the end?

Doh, I would like a tele. I do love that bit with Homer, it is cool.

If you could keep a look out for space programs to watch and post info about them here of to me it would be useful, so we can have a listing on the site.

What were your opinions on the prog SB?

Do you think Horizon have been scaremongering a bit? Recently they have made programs on:
Supermassive Black Holes
Mega-Tsunamis
Super-Volcanos
Meteorites

...any of which could destroy us all at any time! Aaagh!

Sorry, I really do like watching Horizon, it helps when I get into nonsensical debates about the Universe at school.

~~A~~

So it turned to be a desservice for Science again...
Well, maybe someday scientists will learn how to explain what they are doing in a meaningful way...
A supermassive BH can cycle "on" and "off". This was proposed to explain why there are not quasars in the near universe. It could be that earlier there were more matter in the center to feed the monster.
An "old" BH would have to be happy if it could capture a star passing too close. But there are more points to consider. And other theories, too.
The center of the Galaxy is 8,5 kpc from us, or about 28000 light-years.
NGC is THE catalogue of galaxies and Globular Clusters.

Yeap, my thoughts during the program that it would be just a little toooo lucky for us to have hapened to picture the exact moment when it spured into life for, as suggested by the program, the only time. I asked my astronomy lecturer and he confirmed that it would go through cycles of feeding and not.

Scaremongering is exactly the way to describe Horizons approach, and that of most programs, to anything astronomical. "If it's big and in space IT MUST BE SCARY!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES"
I really wish thougt

You really seam to be a critic. Why don't you tell us exactly what sould be in science.

You really seam to be a critic. Why don't you tell us exactly what sould be in science.

You really seam to be a critic. Why don't you tell us exactly what sould be in science.

Sorry, I only meant to send this in once. My computer's playing up.

I would like to see a program where the different views on the problem could be exposed to the public, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each one. The enphasis could be not on scaremongering, but on the research or "mistery" aspects, as if it was a detective story. It should be stressed that the results obtained are not final (in general), and maybe point to which means could be used to continue the research.
Would not be nice?

Exactly, they did seem to say that this was it, and everything that thay said was definitive.

I don't mean to sound to against the programs, because they are good, and can get people who arn't inteseted actually talking about these subjects, but they haven't got the combination of fact and effect quite right, there still just going for the effect to attract the viewing figures. I guess that's what it's all about though.

I have had some good discussions sinse them on the subject which has been interesting.

Nick
(must update the page. Tomorrow, yep thats it... (ahh this Uni work)

I am more critic of the scientific divulgation programs because of my nature, and also because they are talking about what I do. I feel embarrassed that we scientists are not able to explain clearly what we are doing, and how our work is affecting the society. Even with the help of journalists (or because of that, who knows...) the result is quite not what it was intended to be!
Programs like these mistify Science, and ultimately feeds a distrustful feeling against scientists, because it seems that they are "proving" certain things are one way today, just to change minds and "prove" the opposite nest year... The scientific work seems like a bunch of half-crazed people discussing their opinions with meaningless technical words (just to confuse the opponent and the public), and striving to prove that everyone else except themselves is wrong...
The situation is worse in Brazil, because there is an additional complication factor: we have to translate to the Portuguese. You probably can't imagine how poor are the translations done. The Hawking's book, "A Brief History of Time", is one of the best examples. A few professors of an University took the effort to produce a correction list of the errors. The result was 70 (!) pages of errors with corrections... I know, I do not write well in English, but I'm not a professional translator...
Carl Sagan's Cosmos was met with an equally horrible fate.
Nowadays, even "Calvin & Hobbes" comic strip was being an example of bad translation...
But these programs are what we have, and some science is better than none... i just feel sad to see science being consumed as freak show...
Marcelo - Astrônomo

This is so cool, proper discussions with real astronomers I'm so excited (I never thought this [AS] would turn into something good)

What sort of programs do you get in Brazil? and what's the level of general knowledge about astronomy?

I beg your pardon? I thought the whole point of the H2G2AS was to discuss astronomy to the limit of our knowledge...LOL
Ah, Brazil. Here we have the same TV programs you have, or at least those considered most succesfull in USA, from the point of view of "how many people were watching to it?". The program is ...hum...let's say "translated", and sometimes a speaker introduces the program, and makes silly comments on each part. If the program is too short, they will look for a brazilian scientist to say something about it, preferrably conducting a 30-minute interview and editing it to the point in which only 2 to 5 minutes are not cut, that in which the scientist (poor fellow) seems to agree totally with the main topic.
Once or twice an year some TV network dares to produce a "scientific divulgation" program, in general related to new advances on obesity treatment etc.
Oh, yes, we cannot forget the "science versus mysticism" program, where science is almost invariably ocuppying less than 20% of the total time, and often represented by an old man saying "this is not possible", "this is garbage" or the like...
The general knowledge about astronomy is restricted to "there are stars and planets", "the Sun is bright" and "the Moon is white". Not to say that a ever growing percentage of the population is convinced that nobody was on the Moon; the Moon can only be seen at night; astrology and astronomy are the same thing, and it helps to predict your future; that we are paying those scientists for them just to count the number of stars; scientists and government are keeping secret the aliens captured in several occasions (the most recent is the "ET from Varginha", 1996), as ordered by NASA and the USA government; the Sun is the sun - it's not a star, because it does not have points, is brighter, and is seen on the day, not on the night.
30% of the children never went to school.