Black Holes And Breakfast

by Lon S. Cohen

In an interesting play of physics and puns, Astronomy.com ran a story about a Black Hole being ejected by its parent galaxy. Amazingly the Black Hole was “propelled the monster at a speed of thousands of kilometers per second” by a “gravitational rocket.” Meaning that the when two Black Holes merged they formed a new Black Hole that was then ejected by the force out of the center of the host galaxy.

The article goes on to say, “this extreme ejection event, which had been predicted by theorists, has now been observed in nature for the first time.”

What’s more amazing is the accompanying artist’s illustration that was featured with the article. Apparently this artist thinks that a Black Hole looks like an inverse colored sunny side up egg! While sunny side up eggs can be related to a Black Hole in that a Black Hole is the singularity that remains after an appropriately sized sun collapses, I have a feeling that this artist either took liberties with the illustration or has a great sense of humor. Perhaps he worked at a diner and is used to seeing sunny side up eggs flying across the room.

In any case, either this is a case of pure comic genius or one very bad artist’s representation.

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