Can someone research this and see if it's true:
http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/wwn/20050912/112653720010.html
I believe the story came from the Weekly World News which makes it
questionable, but perhaps someone can distinguish and explain fact
from fiction. Thanks.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 17 Sep 2005 20:15 PDT

citizena...

It DID come from the Weekly World News, which is listed
in Google news as:
"Weekly World News (subscription) (satire)"

...in a search for "chaos cloud" on Google news, which,
incidentally, turns up no corroborating stories. This,
in itself, is evidence enough for me that the story is
entirely made up.

While that answers your question to MY satisfaction,
I'll await your input before posting it as a definitive
Answer.

Let me know what else you might need to satisfy your
interests in asking this question.

sublime1-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 17 Sep 2005 21:11 PDT

It's B.S., of course, but beyond that...what would you really like a
researcher to tell you.  There's so little factual information in the
article, there's really nothing concrete to fact-check.

--There doesn't appear to be anyone in the astronomical community in
Cambridge named Albert Sherwinski.


--The article notes:  "A super-massive black hole lies about 28,000
light-years from Earth at the center of our galaxy," explained Dr.
Sherwinski.   Well...what of it?  If the acid-chaos-cloud-of-death
lies near this black hole, it's not reaching us anytime soon.  If it's
not near the black hole, why is it even relevant to the article?


--If the Chandra X Ray observatory has detected the cloud, then it's
here already!  The observatory can't 'see' things unless the energy
from them has already reached our area of space.

This last thing is key.  We can see things like asteroids on a
potential collision course with Earth, because the light from the
asteroids arrives long before the actual chunk of rock does.

But for a "cosmic cloud" moving at close to the speed of light to be
observed, it has to be here already.  At least I think it does (I'm
not an astrophysicist, after all).

And there's no way we could image a cloud dissolving a hapless
asteroid when the event happened light years away -- we can't even
image planets outside the solar system, much less teeny little
asteroids.

Anyway, it's all pretty silly.  sublime1-ga's mention of the news
falling under 'satire' probably says it all (Yahoo has it filed under
Entertainment and Gossip).

But again, what sort of information are you looking for from us?  Let
us know, and perhaps we can debunk the good Doctor (?) Sherwinski.

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by citizena-ga on 17 Sep 2005 23:51 PDT

Well, that's interesting. I figured it may not be true coming from
WWN, but the "quotes" looked genuine to me (but I'm not an
astrophysicist, either). But what of the quotes allegedly made by Dr
Hawking; can anyone find if he made reference to a "chaos cloud", what
that is, and what does it imply for Earth or our Solar System? Thanks.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 18 Sep 2005 00:19 PDT

citizena...

Of course it's hard to prove anything in the negative,
but a Google search for:

"chaos cloud" "Stephen Hawking"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22chaos+cloud%22+%22Stephen+Hawking%22

...only turns up links to the article in question.

It's quite safe to assume that the alleged quotes by
Dr. Hawking were entirely fabricated.

If that satisfies your interests in asking the question,
let me know so I can post an official Answer.

sublime1-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 18 Sep 2005 00:32 PDT

citizena...

Incidentally...there is such a thing as Hawking radiation,
but it has nothing to do with the fearful "chaos cloud".

A good description of it is given on Wikipedia, and the 
amount of energy it contains in the form of watts, is
described as follows:

"The power in the Hawking radiation from a solar mass
 black hole turns out to be a minuscule 10^?28 watts.
 It is indeed an extremely good approximation to call
 such an object 'black'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

sublime1-ga

Search on Google:

"Hawking radiation"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Hawking+radiation%22

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 18 Sep 2005 11:56 PDT

citizena-ga,

WHAT quotes from Dr. Hawking?

There are alusions to Hawking's theories, but nothing that directly
ties Hawking to this ridiculous story.

If they presented any quote from Hawking, we could perhaps track it
down.  But as written, there is so little of substance in the article,
that it's like trying to find a soap bubble after it's popped.

If you want the assistance of me or sublime1 or any of the Google
Answer researchers, that's fine.  But please do let us know -- clearly
-- how we can help you.  Up to now, it's been hard to tell what you'd
like from us.

Thanks,

paf

---

Clarification of Question by citizena-ga on 19 Sep 2005 02:12 PDT

You are right, upon my re-reading. I originally thought that
"Sherwinsky" was quoting Hawking, but the statements are evidently
entirely unsupportable, unless you can find something that defines a
"chaos cloud". I was looking to see if such a thing exists. If you are
confident you have checked all the sources available at your
fingertips, and this is a fictitious notion, then I will abide by your
research and close the question. Thanks for your time.

citizena...

I appreciate your willingness to accept negative results
for a fantastic topic as an answer.

I'll repeat my research here:

The article DID come from the Weekly World News, which
is listed in Google news as:
"Weekly World News (subscription) (satire)"

...in a search for "chaos cloud" on Google news, which,
incidentally, turns up no corroborating stories. This,
in itself, is evidence enough for me that the story is
entirely made up.

Google News search:

"chaos cloud"
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22chaos+cloud%22


Of course it's hard to prove anything in the negative,
but a Google search for:

"chaos cloud" "Stephen Hawking"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22chaos+cloud%22+%22Stephen+Hawking%22

...only turns up links to the article in question.

It's quite safe to assume that the alleged quotes by
Dr. Hawking were entirely fabricated.

It's simply unheard of for a major scientific discovery,
especially involving a serious threat to the planet, to
lack intensive coverage on the world wide web, which would
produce numerous links in searches on both Google and Google
News. 


Incidentally...there is such a thing as Hawking radiation,
but it has nothing to do with the fearful "chaos cloud".

A good description of it is given on Wikipedia, and the 
amount of energy it contains in the form of watts, is
described as follows:

"The power in the Hawking radiation from a solar mass
 black hole turns out to be a minuscule 10^?28 watts.
 It is indeed an extremely good approximation to call
 such an object 'black'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

This essentially means that the amount of power released
from a black hole in the form of Hawking radiation would
be considerably less than the amount needed to power a 
blow dryer, much less consume the solar system.


Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that  
the answer cannot be improved upon by way of a dialog  
established through the "Request for Clarification" process. 

sublime1-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by citizena-ga on 19 Sep 2005 12:13 PDT

Thank you for your research. This story does seems to be a fabrication
as even I myself cannot come up with any other info on the topic, but
I really only have access to Google searching. If you see anything
else from another source, please post it. If not please accept my
thanks for your work and we can close the question.

---

Clarification of Answer by sublime1-ga on 19 Sep 2005 13:20 PDT

citizena...

I'll certainly be happy to update you if I learn of any
new information in regards to this interesting topic.

Best regards...

sublime1-ga

Answered as best as possible given the resources available; was hoping
he would have had access to more research tools, but still a concise
and logical answer.

Warning, Warning! People of Earth-2, a chaos cloud was rejected by
some guys from our planet (Earth-1) and that created chaos to the
manipulators of the said chaos cloud. Apparently, after some chaotic
conference, they decided to enter the big black hole that they were
skirting on their way to our Earth-1.
I don't know how many years from now when this chaos cloud will be
spewed out to your side of the big black hole, but be forwarned,
people of Earth-2!!!
Superman, son of Jor-el, should be contacted. By any of you. Before
this chaos cloud hit you. Hurry!

BTW, is the length of your one year the same as the length of our one
year here also?

If, by mistake, I got the wrong Earth, if it is not your Earth-2 that
is on the other side of this big black hole, please alert Earth-3,
Earth-4, ....!!! They may be in trouble! Find them black holes that
leads to our sister- (brother-?) planets and spread the bad news.

To know that something is coming towards us it must relay information
such as light waves or radio waves etc. The fastest that anything can
move is the speed of light. So if it's moving at or near the speed of
light we wouldn't know about it or see it until it has hit us.

Quote:From: darrenw-ga on 26 Sep 2005 03:16 PDT     
To know that something is coming towards us it must relay information
such as light waves or radio waves etc. The fastest that anything can
move is the speed of light. So if it's moving at or near the speed of
light we wouldn't know about it or see it until it has hit us.
 
But if the object was traveling just 1% slower than the spead of light
then for every light year of distance travelled, the opject would fall
1% behind or 3.65 days.  So as the article claims the object comes
from a black hole 28 thousand light years away, this 1% slower speed
would mean the light waves would start reaching us 280 years before
the object does.

having said that, it is full of holes, but not this one.

Do The Math!  I am no mathmatician but I like to solve problems, in
particular math problems.  I calculated the speed of the cloud based
on the available information.  The speed of light is 299,792,458
Meters/Second.  The speed of the cloud appears to be
299,792,457.9996860 Meters/Second.  Pretty darn close to the speed of
light.  See my late night rough Calculations below.

Speed Of Light                         299,792,458 Meters/Second
Seconds In One Year	               31,536,000 Seconds/Year
Distance Light Travels In One Year     9,454,254,955,488,000 Meters/Light Year
Distance To Black Hole	               28,000 Light Years
Distance From Earth To Black Hole      264,719,138,753,664,000,000 Meters
Time From Earth To Black Hole
At The Speed Of Light	               264,719,138,753,664,000,000 Seconds

From 00:01 9/1/05 To 00:01 6/14/14     3208 Days
Hours In One Day                       24 Hours/Day
Total Hours In 3208 Days               76,992 Hours
From 00:01 6/14/14 To 09:01 6/14/14    9 Hours
Total Hours From 00:01 9/1/05 To
Arrival                                77,001 Hours
Total Minutes In One Hour              60 Minutes
Total Minutes In 77,001 Hours          4,620,060 Minutes
Total Minutes From 09:01 6/14/14
To 09:15 6/14/14                       14 Minutes
Total Minutes From 00:01 9/1/05
To Arrival                             4,620,074 Minutes
Total Seconds In One Minute            60 Seconds
Total Seconds From 00:01 9/1/05
To Arrival                             277,204,440 Seconds

Time For Cloud To Move From
Origin To Current Location             264,719,138,753,664,000,000 Seconds
Time Remaining From Current
Location To Earth                      277,204,440 Seconds
Total Time From Origin To Earth        264,719,138,753,941,000,000 Seconds

Speed Of Cloud                         .999999999998953 Speed Of Light
Speed Of Cloud                         299,792,457.9996860 Meters/Second

These Calculations are based on the premise that the cloud travels at
a constant rate of speed.  The cloud first became visible at 12:01am
on September 01, 2005 and that the date and time of 09:15am was
calculated at that moment.  My calculations were quick & rough.  I
have not spent the time to verify them as yet.  I may be way off.  If
I am, I am sure someone will let me, and everyone else that visits,
know.

Until next time...
Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...