[blackhole]

Here's an interesting factoid:

If a pair of black holes ever hit Earth, you would literally hear them coming: not by sound, which cannot cross the vacuum of space, but by waves of gravitational force, which, as the holes approached, would knead the bones of your inner ear by a perceptible amount, producing a whine like a camera flash charging up.

So now we can HEAR our inevitable demise! Cool!

[Dark Hunter]

Yeah, cause it's real likely that a black hole will pass anywhere near the Sun's orbit around the galaxy...

Still, that is interesting.

[Nuke]

i could imagine the sound being so annoying that most humans would sooner kill themselves just to make it stop long before the holes get close enough to cause any real damage.

[jr2]

I imagine you'd stop hearing it... how many ppl here can hear an old tube TV when it's running with the volume off?  It produces that kind of whine.

[blackhole]

Actually the whine would slowly grow in intensity. Because of this it would be increasingly difficult to discount. Each morning you'd wake up and it'd be just a liiiittle bit louder, forcing your brain to go through the entire "ignore sound" process again.

The fact that the entire human was would be ****ing screwed would probably contribute to the sudden suicide rate increase.

[karajorma]

Here's an interesting factoid:

If a pair of black holes ever hit Earth, you would literally hear them coming: not by sound, which cannot cross the vacuum of space, but by waves of gravitational force, which, as the holes approached, would knead the bones of your inner ear by a perceptible amount, producing a whine like a camera flash charging up.

So now we can HEAR our inevitable demise! Cool!

Racist!

Black Holes Renamed 'Super High Gravity Locations'
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - The International Space Nomenclature Council today adopted the term 'emplacements de hauts gravité super' - or 'super high gravity locations' - as the official replacement name for black holes. Originally named in reference to the fact that light cannot escape their intense gravity, the term 'black hole' was increasingly criticized as being insensitive to African-Americans and African-Europeans.

Super High Gravity Location"We're glad the council finally took action on this issue." said Isaiah Herman, Chairman of the National African-American Coalition of People. "The unimaginable destructive power of these super high gravity locations was giving the word 'black' a negative connotation throughout the universe."

Super high gravity locations are the remnants of giant stars that collapse into a substance so dense that it has a gravitational pull that consumes all matter that comes near it. "They're the bad boys of the cosmos." says Nokidi Imsure, Professor of Astronomic Anthropology at Howyflyl University. "You would definitely want to cross the street if you saw one coming."

I guess you have to change your username then.

I notice that no one cares about offending African-Africans too.

Note, yes I know that this isn't a serious website. But the joke was too good to pass up.

[Scuddie]

...For a minute there, I thought that was real.  It was unexpected, but not far fetched.

[Alikchi]

I'm sure it would be such a slow and imperceptible thing that it might not even be noticeably different except over a period of lifetimes.

[blackhole]

Unless it wasn't slow. Stellar objects can travel at insane speeds when propelled by large gravitational fields like the one generated by the gigantic black hole in the middle of our galaxy. By the time a black hole came close enough for us to hear it, it would take mere minutes for it to reach us and subsequently crush us all into our component subatomic particles.

[Alikchi]

Unless it wasn't slow. Stellar objects can travel at insane speeds when propelled by large gravitational fields like the one generated by the gigantic black hole in the middle of our galaxy. By the time a black hole came close enough for us to hear it, it would take mere minutes for it to reach us and subsequently crush us all into our component subatomic particles.

 

[Flipside]

I used to wonder when I was younger whether Spiral Galaxies were the shape they were because they all had massive black holes in the centre

[IceFire]

Unless it wasn't slow. Stellar objects can travel at insane speeds when propelled by large gravitational fields like the one generated by the gigantic black hole in the middle of our galaxy. By the time a black hole came close enough for us to hear it, it would take mere minutes for it to reach us and subsequently crush us all into our component subatomic particles.

 

I wouldn't worry too much...the chances are slim to nil.

[Flipside]

Besides, the gravitational tides created would have ripped the planet to pieces long before it came in audio range anyway, I would have thought.

[Goober5000]

A pair of black holes?  What if only one hit Earth?

And as an aside, if anyone feels like doing some fine reading at their local library, I highly recommend the short story "How We Lost the Moon" by Paul McAuley on this very subject.

[Agent_Koopa]

I imagine you'd stop hearing it... how many ppl here can hear an old tube TV when it's running with the volume off?  It produces that kind of whine.

Me. So, only the children are going to realize what's going on,  and all the other people will ridicule them, and too late will they figure out it's not just their imaginations? LIFE IS TURNING INTO A HORROR MOVIE!

[jr2]

Ya... my siblings can hear them, but my parents can't, except my mom sometimes... (she has sharp hearing!)

[Colonol Dekker]

[Master] Do heear it? the beating of the drums? [/Master]
[music] BABY BABY BABY !!!![/music]

[Ashrak]

there are a whole lot of black holes out there, only a few have been discovered, but if you consider how long the galaxy has been arround and how many stars (of a sufficient weight) have blinked out of excistence then you get a disturbingly high number of black holes that can hit you at any godgiven second.

[IceFire]

Well then there is the talk about the blackholes that form and close within a second and that are apparently happening all the time.

Still...space is big.  REALLY big.

[TrashMan]

Me. So, only the children are going to realize what's going on,  and all the other people will ridicule them, and too late will they figure out it's not just their imaginations? LIFE IS TURNING INTO A HORROR MOVIE!

Meh..life allways WAS a horror movie..