# BBC Radio New Reports dust particles travailing at twice the speed of light around bl **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 24, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633 "2008-04-24T02:11:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bat312](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c77e96/32.png) [@bat312](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bat312)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/1 "2008-04-24T02:11:50Z")
black holes! Alien planets here I come… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/2 "2008-04-24T02:13:45Z")
Got link? ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/3 "2008-04-24T02:18:02Z")
[QUOTE=bat312] Alien planets here I come [/QUOTE] Details man! Don’t you know the fate of the future of the human race is in the balance? Spill it!! The power of Christ compels you! …or as Master Shake says: “I command it.” ---
**Author:** ![bat312](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c77e96/32.png) [@bat312](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bat312)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/4 "2008-04-24T02:18:18Z")
Yeah, I will try and link to my radio… World View NPR/NCR ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/5 "2008-04-24T02:28:27Z")
[QUOTE=bat312] Yeah, I will try and link to my radio… World View NPR/NCR [/QUOTE] It [appears](http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/worldview_ra1.asp) the show has archives of its broadcasts, but only up to March 2007. Anyone know if they’ve made the last 12 months available elsewhere somehow? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/6 "2008-04-24T02:29:49Z")
**Bat312** , can you remember no other details from the story? The name of a research institution or scientist involved? Or something? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![bat312](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c77e96/32.png) [@bat312](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bat312)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/7 "2008-04-24T02:40:04Z")
Please move this MPSIMS I am working on work stuff and just heard it on the radio…but believe me if it is on the radio it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/8 "2008-04-24T02:48:13Z")
[QUOTE=bat312] …believe me if it is on the radio it must be true. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that Martian invasion that began in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey was terrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/9 "2008-04-24T03:17:32Z")
This is big news if it’s true. A big if in my opinion. I’m expecting to read (or hear) that the discovery is theoretical, or for some reason the experiment is unable to be duplicated, you know, something [Steornish](http://www.steorn.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/10 "2008-04-24T03:25:06Z")
I’ll move this. I hope we can find some verification, because I’d really like to know what the discovery is and what it means. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/11 "2008-04-24T03:33:10Z")
Shows good sense, if you ask me. I’ll bet if you had a black hole threatening to swallow your poor pink body, you’d be moving pretty damn fast yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/12 "2008-04-24T03:45:26Z")
Here’s a [Scientific American](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=black-hole-plasma-jets-trace-corkscrew-path) story (just a few hours old) with a really cool pic that says: > [@](#): > > Among the consequences of these near light-speed or relativistic jets are flashlightlike beams of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays as well as the illusion of superluminal (faster-than-light) speeds when viewed straight on … ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/13 "2008-04-24T03:49:59Z")
Illusion? Sigh. I feel like someone just took away the Maserati I was going to have owned in the fyoochah. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbc-radio-new-reports-dust-particles-travailing-at-twice-the-speed-of-light-around-bl/446633/14 "2008-04-24T12:10:11Z")
Yeah, the super-luminal beams are illusory and down to projection effects; basically, the angle that the jet makes with the line of sight is unknown (though can be inferred if other things are known), and so when you look at the jet, flattened onto the plane of the sky, the jet can appear to be going faster than light due to the effects of projecting a 3-D jet onto a 2-D sky – its a well known phenomenon in radio galaxies.