lostcarpark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lostcarpark) wrote2006-06-04 03:45 am
lostcarpark) wrote2006-06-04 03:45 am
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The Beast Awakes!
Right then. Just coming down from another Doctor Who high. So I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts that I'll probably completly change my mind about when I've seen it again.
This isn't a review as such, so I don't need to mention the usual Doctor and Rose step out of the Tardis to be confronted by aliens who want to uat them, until we find out after the credits that it's just a translation error. Yada yada. I think it's a cool story, but if you want an outline, you'll have to look elsewhere.
So lets see, a planetorbiting a black hole. Impossible? Of course not. Let's suppose our sun collapsed into a black hole tomorrow (it won't, but let's suppose it did). Would we be sucked off the ground and pulled into space by its massive gravity? Would the Earth be yanked out of orbit and break up as it was pulled in behind us? Nope, none of these things would happen. The sun would collapse to about the size of a large marble, but it would still exert the same gravitational pull on the planets, and we'd continue to orbit as normal, albiet in darkness. Mind you, we'd all die in the massive gamma-ray burst, but that's just a minor side effect.
Don't worry, we're safe - our sun doesn't have nearly enough mass to collapse into a black hole, but this fate has befallen many larger stars when they've reached the end of their life and can no longer support their great mass. However, even these are relatively benign and will lie quite innocently in the darker reaches of our galaxy minding their own business. It's only occasionally that a star will wander into its field of influence that the black hole will feed and consume it. Objects outside that influence will continue, largely unaffected. There are probably hundreds of black holes in our galaxy, but it's very hard to spot them apard from during brief (in cosmological terms) periods when they're feeding.
Now tere are super-massive black holes, which occupy a special place at the centre of many galaxies, including our own, but even they feed relatively infrequently, and most of the time the galaxy just spins gently around it. The galaxy is really just a super-solar system, on a massive scale. In such a system, every star is a planet orbiting the supermassive black hole, and perhaps in some galactic astronomical institute, scientists are debating where poky little suns like ours should really be considered planets in the same way our scientists are arguing over Pluto, Ceres and Xena.
There's no reason a planet couldn't be orbiting a balck hole (and we should assume that if it was a supermassive one, it would have been worth mentioning). All it has to do is have a forward motion sufficient to counteract the gravitational pull of the body. I will confess my memory of the equations invloved is a little sketchy, but the general principal is that the closer to an object you are, the faster you have to be orbiting to overcome its gravitational pull. It was mentioned the planet was in geostationary orbit. This means that the planet would orbit at the same rate that the black hole rotates. As I recall, black holes have a very fast orbital period, in the order of several times per second. This would probably make sense for a planet so close to the black hole, as it would probably need to be moving at an extremely high rate, but it would make it a bugger to land on.
Before I leave the topic of black holes (one that you can tell is close to my heart), I have to say I was a little disappointed by the portrayal of the black hole. It was mentioned on DWC that they frist tried to base it on astronomical photos, but it didn't look like people would expect a black hole to be. Sorry, but I'm not convinced. They wanted a black void at the centre, which I don't see any problem with. The key feature they lost, which I think is vital, is that that matter dropping into the hole should swirl around it. I think they could have something a bit like Saturn with a black void at the centre, and more and more matter spiriling in to join the rings. If they were really feeling generous, perhaps they could have added x-ray plumes shooting out of the poles.
But, we're told, there's an anti-gravity beam that's keeping the planet out of harm, so it wouldn't need to be spinning so fast. I won't speculate on how such a beam might work, as all our current theories are a bit wacky, and there's little experimental evidence to back them up. However, they're such mainstay of science fiction, that it would be a real disappointment if we don't discover them some day. We're shown the anti-gravity beam on the screen. Why is it pulsing [i]away[/i] from the Black hole? That's not going to do much good. Perhaps the one pointing away is a convenient by-product of a second beam pointing at the black hole, a bit like the south pole of a magnet, but why not show both beams? The other problem is that if one isde of the beam is pointing towards the black hole, the other side will be pointing directly away from it. As the ship approaches, it will have to keep the planet between it and the black hole at all times. This would be a tricky act if the planet is indeed in geostationary orbit.
The ship was excellent. I loved the look of it, though I think it would have been better if the corridors were about 20% smaller and a little more clostrophic. I hope they had some serious radiation screening, otherwise they'd be fired by the radiation the black hole gives out.
Enough nit-picking, though, what about the Ood? What a great idea... a race of aliens who live out of a desire to serve. Isn't that a bit cnvenient? Who did they serve on their own planet? What if a long, long, long time ago someone or something creeated such a race of obedient servants. If you found them, you'd do the only humane thing and put them to work. Because they're so useful, the are bred and spread throughout civilisation, where sit, obediently untiil needed, Then, when the time is teach mankind who's boss, you flick a switch and have an instant army. Love the costumes!
I said this before, but David Tennant keeps getting better and better in this role. I love his ability to laugh in almost any situation. I could be tempting fate to say this, but I could see him sticking with the role for five or six years. he could be the new Tom Baker. I loved the little touches like hugging the captain.
Another great cliff-hanger. I can't wait to find out what happens, though I wish they didn't torture us with temptatino from next week. I was careful not to peek during the end credits, but can I hold out for a whole week?
Is it Cthulhu himself?
This isn't a review as such, so I don't need to mention the usual Doctor and Rose step out of the Tardis to be confronted by aliens who want to uat them, until we find out after the credits that it's just a translation error. Yada yada. I think it's a cool story, but if you want an outline, you'll have to look elsewhere.
So lets see, a planetorbiting a black hole. Impossible? Of course not. Let's suppose our sun collapsed into a black hole tomorrow (it won't, but let's suppose it did). Would we be sucked off the ground and pulled into space by its massive gravity? Would the Earth be yanked out of orbit and break up as it was pulled in behind us? Nope, none of these things would happen. The sun would collapse to about the size of a large marble, but it would still exert the same gravitational pull on the planets, and we'd continue to orbit as normal, albiet in darkness. Mind you, we'd all die in the massive gamma-ray burst, but that's just a minor side effect.
Don't worry, we're safe - our sun doesn't have nearly enough mass to collapse into a black hole, but this fate has befallen many larger stars when they've reached the end of their life and can no longer support their great mass. However, even these are relatively benign and will lie quite innocently in the darker reaches of our galaxy minding their own business. It's only occasionally that a star will wander into its field of influence that the black hole will feed and consume it. Objects outside that influence will continue, largely unaffected. There are probably hundreds of black holes in our galaxy, but it's very hard to spot them apard from during brief (in cosmological terms) periods when they're feeding.
Now tere are super-massive black holes, which occupy a special place at the centre of many galaxies, including our own, but even they feed relatively infrequently, and most of the time the galaxy just spins gently around it. The galaxy is really just a super-solar system, on a massive scale. In such a system, every star is a planet orbiting the supermassive black hole, and perhaps in some galactic astronomical institute, scientists are debating where poky little suns like ours should really be considered planets in the same way our scientists are arguing over Pluto, Ceres and Xena.
There's no reason a planet couldn't be orbiting a balck hole (and we should assume that if it was a supermassive one, it would have been worth mentioning). All it has to do is have a forward motion sufficient to counteract the gravitational pull of the body. I will confess my memory of the equations invloved is a little sketchy, but the general principal is that the closer to an object you are, the faster you have to be orbiting to overcome its gravitational pull. It was mentioned the planet was in geostationary orbit. This means that the planet would orbit at the same rate that the black hole rotates. As I recall, black holes have a very fast orbital period, in the order of several times per second. This would probably make sense for a planet so close to the black hole, as it would probably need to be moving at an extremely high rate, but it would make it a bugger to land on.
Before I leave the topic of black holes (one that you can tell is close to my heart), I have to say I was a little disappointed by the portrayal of the black hole. It was mentioned on DWC that they frist tried to base it on astronomical photos, but it didn't look like people would expect a black hole to be. Sorry, but I'm not convinced. They wanted a black void at the centre, which I don't see any problem with. The key feature they lost, which I think is vital, is that that matter dropping into the hole should swirl around it. I think they could have something a bit like Saturn with a black void at the centre, and more and more matter spiriling in to join the rings. If they were really feeling generous, perhaps they could have added x-ray plumes shooting out of the poles.
But, we're told, there's an anti-gravity beam that's keeping the planet out of harm, so it wouldn't need to be spinning so fast. I won't speculate on how such a beam might work, as all our current theories are a bit wacky, and there's little experimental evidence to back them up. However, they're such mainstay of science fiction, that it would be a real disappointment if we don't discover them some day. We're shown the anti-gravity beam on the screen. Why is it pulsing [i]away[/i] from the Black hole? That's not going to do much good. Perhaps the one pointing away is a convenient by-product of a second beam pointing at the black hole, a bit like the south pole of a magnet, but why not show both beams? The other problem is that if one isde of the beam is pointing towards the black hole, the other side will be pointing directly away from it. As the ship approaches, it will have to keep the planet between it and the black hole at all times. This would be a tricky act if the planet is indeed in geostationary orbit.
The ship was excellent. I loved the look of it, though I think it would have been better if the corridors were about 20% smaller and a little more clostrophic. I hope they had some serious radiation screening, otherwise they'd be fired by the radiation the black hole gives out.
Enough nit-picking, though, what about the Ood? What a great idea... a race of aliens who live out of a desire to serve. Isn't that a bit cnvenient? Who did they serve on their own planet? What if a long, long, long time ago someone or something creeated such a race of obedient servants. If you found them, you'd do the only humane thing and put them to work. Because they're so useful, the are bred and spread throughout civilisation, where sit, obediently untiil needed, Then, when the time is teach mankind who's boss, you flick a switch and have an instant army. Love the costumes!
I said this before, but David Tennant keeps getting better and better in this role. I love his ability to laugh in almost any situation. I could be tempting fate to say this, but I could see him sticking with the role for five or six years. he could be the new Tom Baker. I loved the little touches like hugging the captain.
Another great cliff-hanger. I can't wait to find out what happens, though I wish they didn't torture us with temptatino from next week. I was careful not to peek during the end credits, but can I hold out for a whole week?
Is it Cthulhu himself?