Not an ordinary vacuum

May 3rd, 2012

For a change, today we look at a different sort of vacuum. Not a Hoover, nor a Dyson, but the vacuum that is space.

The giant leap from an appliance to empty matter comes as a 1 in 10,000 year occurrence involving a vacuum has been witnessed.

There has been a flurry of activity this week among astronomers after a team of professional star gasers in Hawaii found a black hole ripping a star to shreds (pictured right).

Black holes are generally regarded as the universe’s ultimate sucking devices (sorry, Dyson) but this week’s stellar spectacle has challenged astronomers about the nature of a black hole.

As one science reporter put it:

They aren’t enormous vacuum cleaners that suck up and destroy everything around them, or sharks that seek out and consume their victims. Instead, like Venus Fly Traps, they wait for objects to come to them.

Thus the voracious appetite of black holes has been questioned.

Ryan Chornock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics provides another comforting thought:

Black holes, like sharks, suffer from a popular misconception that they are perpetual killing machines. Actually, they’re quiet for most of their lives. Occasionally a star wanders too close, and that’s when a feeding frenzy begins.

Sheesh, and we thought vacuum cleaners were scary.

This sort of chore doesn't seem so scary now does it!?

The black hole reported this week began its ‘feeding frenzy’ May 2010. By July of the same year the feast was flaring at it’s brightest.

It is the first time scientists have witnessed the demise of a star to a black hole, from entre to dessert.

At Appliances Online we have wondered about space before. Remember this post, about appliances one might find useful while on a trip to outer space?

However, I’m afraid we haven’t thought of any household appliances that could come in handy in case you happen by one of these black holes.

Keri Algar

Having once had to sit on the washing machine to stop it from bouncing into oblivion, Keri is today delighted with the new (smoother running) technologies that make housework easier every day. A self-confessed lazy-bones, Keri seeks out quirky inventions that ease the human workload, such as the robotic vacuum cleaner (wow). And as soon as someone figures out a Jetsons-like self-cleaning house, she will happily lay her pen to rest and retire from appliance journalism. Until then, her pick is a fridge that will tell her smartphone when it's time to pick up more beer on the way home. Magic.