Petition to name black hole after “Black Hole Sun” writer

By mbrooks on April 13, 2019
This image released Wednesday, April 10, 2019, by Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole. Scientists revealed the first image ever made of a black hole after assembling data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP)

Black holes captured the attention of millions recently. The first-ever image of a black hole was produced by an international telescope group.

Soundgarden’s song, “Black Hole Sun,” is at the center of a petition to rename the recently photographed black hole.

A petition on Change.org is aiming to name the phenomenon. The black hole would be named after “Black Hole Sun” writer and lead singer for Soundgarden, Chris Cornell.

Cornell died in 2017.

The petition was created by a fan in Ecuador. Clearly, the band has worldwide popularity with the possibility of having an interstellar reach.

The petition has garnered more than 20,000 signatures with a goal of 25,000.

The current name for the black hole is Powehi (poe-vay-hee). The name means “the adorned fathomless dark creation.” The name was presented by a language professor, Larry Kimura, with the University of Hawaii-Hilo. The word comes from the Kumupilo, an 18th century Hawaiian creation chant.

The black hole’s connection to Soundgarden was not missed by the band.

The photograph was captured by linking eight radio telescopes. The combination is called the Event Horizon Telescope Array.

A black hole is a region of space that has a huge amount of matter packed into a very small area. The extreme denseness causes such a strong gravitational pull that not even light can escape from the black hole.

The black hole is 55 million light years away from the Earth. It is 6.5 billion times more massive than the sun. It has a diameter of 24 billion miles.

 

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