Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Black hole moon

A cosmic ray hits the dense surface of the atmosphere-less moon to form a mini black hole, which grows to gobble up the whole moon, a scenario that crackpot LHC opponents should examine.

If the moon were replaced by a black hole of identical mass (plus the mass-energy of the one cosmic ray that triggered the transition :-) what would it look like from earth? I predict a series of concentric rings as sunlight loops a quantized number of times around the moon, then finally "reflecting" back to earth. What colors would the rings be? How bright and how big? How does the angular momentum of the moon (one revolution per month), now compressed into a black hole, affect things? Will tides on earth be affected?

What will the tranformation from moon to black hole be like? I assume it will be asymmetric, starting from the point of impact of the cosmic ray on the surface of the moon. What kind of gravitational radiation, and will we be able to see or feel it on earth? What kind of radiation, and how much, from the heat of the collapse? How long will it take?

What do "solar eclipses" look like?

No comments :