NASA finds ‘bonanza’ of millions of new black holes

[Playinghardball]

NASA said Wednesday they’d discovered a “bonanza” of new black holes, possibly up to 2.5 million of them, using the new Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope.

“WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects,” Hashima Hasan, WISE program scientist, said in a media advisory. “We’ve found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of dust.”

The telescope twice scanned the night sky in infrared light, and astronomers have been pouring through its data ever since.

They said about two-thirds of the objects revealed by the WISE telescope had never been seen before due to space dust making the light impossible to detect.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/30/nasa-finds-bonanza-of-millions-of-new-black-holes/

[Baitball Blogger]

1. And this is a good thing?

[drm604]

2. Gaining new knowledge about our universe is good.

Why would you think this isn't good?

[Baitball Blogger]

3. The act of discovery is not the issue.

It's the fact that anyone would find it "a good thing" that there are millions more blackholes than we realized, because, blackholes are like the universe's swishy, swirly toilet water, taking everything down with it.

[drm604]

6. Gaining knowledge is good. The existence of black holes is neither good nor bad.

Those black holes are no threat to us, and we already know that the universe is a dangerous place.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Maybe not in my lifetime, but someday we'll learn that this huge vaccum space between the planets,

actually provides the best conduit of travel. We just haven't figured out what components are safe enough to exploit it.

[drm604]

9. Maybe it will and maybe it won't.

Odds are that we're limited by light speed and will never get near those black holes. If we do find a way around that, there's no way to know currently whether those black holes would be a hindrance or a help.

In the vastness of space, most places aren't anywhere near enough to those holes for them to be a threat.

[ZombieHorde]

4. "Preferable" is probably a better word than "good." nt

[drm604]

7. So scientific knowledge is "preferable" rather than "good"?

Certainly it's preferable to a lack of knowledge, but I don't see how it's not also good.

[ZombieHorde]

10. The good comes from the perceiver, and the knowledge itself.

When we say something is good, we are really saying we like it. It is more of a statement about the speaker, as opposed to the subject.

[CrispyQ]

5. This stuff is so fascinating!

K&R

[Silent3]

11. Maybe soon they'll find enough of 'em so everyone can have one!

I'm going to start saving up now to buy a really big one myself.

[lastlib]

12. I want to buy one that'll suck up all the right-wingers and their lies!

Do they have 'em in that size? I think that'd be about XXXXXX....XXL, extra dark with extra gravity.