Fireball generated in U.S. laboratory resembles black hole
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March 18, 2005
The Relativistic Heavy Ion ColliderBrown University professor
Horatiu Nastase has written a paper detailing calculations that
suggest that a fireball created in the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, may
have been a black hole.
The fireball occurred as scientists conducted experiments involving
the smashing of streams of gold nuclei together in the RHIC and is
reported to have been three hundred times hotter than the sun. It
absorbed more than ten times the predicted amount of energy and
radiated it as heat, a behavior characteristic of black
holes.
Scientists have reassured the public that this phenomenon does not
pose a threat; the fireball existed for one millionth of one
billionth of one billionth of one second (one second divided by 10
septillion — a 1 followed by 25 zeroes) and was not dominated by
gravity as previously observed black holes have been, providing the
energy for their cataclysmic appetites.
