Sunday, February 11, 2007

Jefferson Starship Flies Again

My boring abstract (P18.1) from the GLAST Symposium:

The puzzle of supermassive Black Holes may be answered by new (GLAST) observations. Discovery by Mobasher et al. from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field indicates that the central Black Hole in galaxy HUDF-2 reached a mass greater than the Milky Way only 800 million years after the Big Bang. The object is considered too massive to have formed from mergers of smaller objects. This adds to discoveries by Romani and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey of SDSSp J1306, SDSS J1030, and Q0906+6930; supermassive objects also formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Since mass of a primordial Black Hole is dependent upon horizon distance, discovery of these objects indicates whether physical values are truly constant. Future gamma ray observations will shed futher light on Black Hole formation.

Something more fun: These performers were part of a concert this week by Jefferson Starship. The classic band from the 1960's was called Jefferson Airplane before they upgraded. Recently they have reformed and gone on tour sponsored by Windows Vista. Sponsorship has not kept them from dissing Microsoft. Rockers must be rebellious, but they love Space exploration!

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