Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The Universe is Sherwood Forest

So Yahoo news had this cool story about "rogue black holes" on the web today. Check it out here.

This is one of those instances when a phrase sends my imagination off into Neverland. Imagine, rogue black holes, roaming our galaxy in search of stars and planets to gobble up. Suddenly, our universe seems like a vast jungle where polite, civilized stars and planetary systems are quietly making their way down the path, minding their own business, when they are suddenly jumped by an outlaw black hole. Once inside that rogue's event horizon, you're doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

What if the black holes got together and ganged up on all the stars, nebulae, and planets, and quasars? Would they form one gigando black hole that sucked in all matter and obliterated the known universe?

What if one black hole turned Robin Hood and started spewing the stars he'd eaten back out into the dark space between galaxies, stealing from the matter-rich parts of the galaxy and giving back to the impoverished?

What if, like giant, light-sucking tigers, black holes stalked and pounced upon unsuspecting white dwarves and red giants?

I mean, seriously. The universe is just like some Tolkein rip-off fantasy novel.

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