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Scientists detect biggest explosion since Big Bang - BBC News


paulsutton

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Scientists detect biggest explosion since Big Bang - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51669384

This sounds interesting,   i am guessing this is being observed from the Southern Hemisphere.  I am trying to find the paper this BBC article has mentioned on

https://iopscience.iop.org

But am unsure exactly what to search for.   So I would be grateful for any help please.  Granted these science  papers are not really for the layman, as such, as they are somewhat complex. It would be good to try and read the actual paper rather than just the report written for everyone else. 

However doing searches for Ophiuchus  yields a few papers that suggest this region is a really interesting area of space, 

I am currently undertaking an OU Open Learn course on Orion which is also covering the lifespan of stars,  very interesting as a topic, I need to crack on with it though, but OpenLearn is open ended so I just login and do a little bit more when I have some time. 

 

thanks

 

Paul

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Also, note that the headline writer (who is probably not the same person who wrote the article) is engaging in hyperbole: it may be the largest explosion observed, but not necessarily the largest ever. Also, the explosion was not observed, just the effects resulting from it.

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1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

https://www.icrar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2002.01291.pdf

This paper was mentioned in the BBC article, so I'm not sure why you're looking elsewhere. It mentions the "explosion", but doesn't relate it to the Big Bang (since that wasn't an explosion). The pop-sci terms may be foiling your searches.

Thanks this is what I am looking for, so I can read the proper report / paper  on this, not a bbc interpretation of it.  the title of the above paper is "DISCOVERY OF A GIANT RADIO FOSSIL IN THE OPHIUCHUS GALAXY CLUSTER" which is a big difference,   I have seen other references that seem to suggest this is the biggest since the big bang, and bigger than the big bang,  so yeah finding the proper paper also cuts through all this. 

I did a search for Astrophysical Journal and found the site I posted earlier when asking,

That area of space seems rather interesting but we could probably say that about other regions of space for different reasons.

Thanks,

 

Paul, 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, paulsutton said:

 I have seen other references that seem to suggest this is the biggest since the big bang, and bigger than the big bang, 

Biggest what? Bigger what than the BB? Again, the BB was not an explosion into anything, it was an expansion of everything. I haven't read through the paper yet, but I don't see how the BB relates to this at all.

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28 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Biggest what? Bigger what than the BB? Again, the BB was not an explosion into anything, it was an expansion of everything. I haven't read through the paper yet, but I don't see how the BB relates to this at all.

Well the BBC article headline is "Scientists detect biggest explosion since Big Bang - BBC News" which like people, here have pointed out, wasn't even an explosion as such.    Which is why I was looking for a more scientific source of information.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51669384

Even in the BBC article the first few paragraphs seem to mention

"The huge release of energy"

then

"eruption"

then the co-author

"I've tried to put this explosion into human terms"

So yeah no wonder the headline is how it is,  "explosion" sounds more dramatic than science.

 

Even the dailymail made it out to be a explosion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8051079/Biggest-explosion-Universe-Big-Bang-detected.html

Mind you given their doom laden coverage of Corona virus, it does not come as a surprise to me that.

I will try and make sense of the paper, even if it is more complex.

Paul

 

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2 hours ago, paulsutton said:

Even in the BBC article the first few paragraphs seem to mention

"The huge release of energy"

then

"eruption"

then the co-author

"I've tried to put this explosion into human terms"

So yeah no wonder the headline is how it is,  "explosion" sounds more dramatic than science

They mention it because "explosion" is an accurate way to describe what was detected. What's NOT accurate is to describe it that way in relation to the BB, because the BB was an expansion from a previously hot, dense state, NOT an explosion. Does that make sense?

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3 hours ago, paulsutton said:

Well the BBC article headline is "Scientists detect biggest explosion since Big Bang - BBC News" which like people, here have pointed out, wasn't even an explosion as such.    Which is why I was looking for a more scientific source of information.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51669384

Even in the BBC article the first few paragraphs seem to mention

"The huge release of energy"

then

"eruption"

then the co-author

"I've tried to put this explosion into human terms"

So yeah no wonder the headline is how it is,  "explosion" sounds more dramatic than science.

 

Even the dailymail made it out to be a explosion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8051079/Biggest-explosion-Universe-Big-Bang-detected.html

Mind you given their doom laden coverage of Corona virus, it does not come as a surprise to me that.

I will try and make sense of the paper, even if it is more complex.

Paul

 

These links are to GIFS

Explosion - note there is a wavefront and it is expanding into pre-existing space:

https://giphy.com/gifs/animation-space-explosion-l41JS0g6UPOoKV7Z6

Expansion - The image represents the 2D curved surface of a sphere that is expanding. Space is being created between the moving objects which represent photons and the static yellow dots which represent galaxies . Picture that separation as universal expansion and note that it is not expanding into pre-existing space but is actually created between the galaxies; it is necessary to ignore the area outside the sphere to get the concept:

https://giphy.com/gifs/a-teoria-do-big-bang-10JybSDlaS6aOc

First link corrected

Edited by StringJunky
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10 hours ago, Phi for All said:

They mention it because "explosion" is an accurate way to describe what was detected. What's NOT accurate is to describe it that way in relation to the BB, because the BB was an expansion from a previously hot, dense state, NOT an explosion. Does that make sense?

Yes i have a poster that explains about  the expansion (and cooling) of the universe here from an Open University course and an updated standard model poster from a more recent open learn course. 

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