Scientists find monster black holes, biggest yet

Scientists find monster black holes, biggest yet

news.yahoo.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have found the biggest black holes known to exist — each one 10 billion times the mass of our sun.

"They are monstrous," Berkeley astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma told reporters. "We did not expect to find such massive black holes because they are more massive than indicated by their galaxy properties. They're kind of extraordinary."

(visit the link for the full news article)

The thought of these Black Holes are almost a little intimidating. Of course, they are about 300 MILLION light years away from us. However, according to these researchers they are ever-growing.

The main question they are asking now is: How large can a Black Hole grow?

I can't imagine why there would be a set limit to its growth, especially in an ever-growing Universe as well.

Thoughts?

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I also read this article, and I believe they say that the universe is 16 billion yrs old, maybe they think an object can only grow at a certain rate per yr? Hence giving it a limit as to how big it would be if the universe is 16 billion years old. I don't know, just giving my $.02

Learning new things everyday from earth like planets springing up all over the universe to super massive black holes. I guess the size of the black hole would determine on how much matter is available to consume? We still don't know that much about the phenomenon of black holes, and chances are this discovery is only the tip of the iceberg. This stuff is fascinating and even for a layman like myself. Great find!

Originally posted by jr11302
I also read this article, and I believe they say that the universe is 16 billion yrs old, maybe they think an object can only grow at a certain rate per yr? Hence giving it a limit as to how big it would be if the universe is 16 billion years old. I don't know, just giving my $.02

Hehe, that is an interesting theory indeed! However, I am kind of weary with the concept of time, I feel as if the Universe would not be confined to the limits of it, but then again, what do I know?

Originally posted by Jakes51
Learning new things everyday from earth like planets springing up all over the universe to super massive black holes. I guess the size of the black hole would determine on how much matter is available to consume? We still don't know that much about the phenomenon of black holes, and chances are this discovery is only the tip of the iceberg. This stuff is fascinating and even for a layman like myself. Great find!

Thank you! I have to relate to the fact that I am just a common man myself and really know nothing about quantum physics or black holes! All that aside, I am still extremely interested by then. I love it when something is so advanced that modern scientists have a hard time grasping the concept of it. Lets my imagination run wild.

Originally posted by jr11302
I also read this article, and I believe they say that the universe is 16 billion yrs old, maybe they think an object can only grow at a certain rate per yr? Hence giving it a limit as to how big it would be if the universe is 16 billion years old. I don't know, just giving my $.02

The current state of the CONTENTS of infinite space may be 16 billion years old. STATE OF THE CONTENTS. When science figures out what empty space is, then they can start theorizing on its characteriasrics and things like "age". Also what is time? What can withhold void space or time eternal or infinitesimal? What places restrictions upon either space or time?

The contents of spacetime (the entire known Universe) is infinitesimal compared to infinite space over the duration of infinite time. It is the only "finite" encased by aspects of infinite.

Are we getting closer to a forming black hole, maybe called nibiru or whatever they want to call it? www.youtu.be... Seems other artists have similar songs. Jon lenin even talked about it. I wonder, is his wife still alive? WHO KNOWS.

Originally posted by cloaked4u
Are we getting closer to a forming black hole, maybe called nibiru or whatever they want to call it? www.youtu.be... Seems other artists have similar songs. Jon lenin even talked about it. I wonder, is his wife still alive? WHO KNOWS.

The glasses on the one guy, looks like two time peices. Maybe suggesting time or running out of very soon. crazy.

Black holes highlight a situation, common today in astrophysics, where the object under investigation cannot be seen directly. This situation is pure heaven for the crowd of mathematical theorists who have hijacked physics from the natural philosophers and experimentalists. The sainted Einstein seems to have initiated the hijacking with that oxymoron, the “thought experiment.” But problems arise when thoughts are governed by a limited set of beliefs or dogmas and unchecked by direct observation or experiment. The result can be – and generally is – science fiction. University libraries and popular science magazines are full of it at the start of this new millennium.


The central dogma of astrophysics requires the puny force of gravity to generate stars and galaxies. So very small and powerful sources of radiation in deep space require almost infinite concentrations of mass to provide the gravitational force to drive them. The mathematics says so, so it must be true. But it is equivalent to the schoolboy howler of dividing by zero. A near infinite concentration of mass involves speculative physics that cannot be tested in the laboratory. Taken to its extreme — the black hole, which swallows even light — such a concentration swallows commonsense as well. Even Eddington, who produced the gravitational model of stars that inspired Chandrasekhar (who originated the black hole idea), could not swallow it. "A reductio ad absurdum,” he called it. "I think there should be a law of nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way." There is a law, but Eddington himself obscured the simple answer with his “dogmatically correct” gravitational model of stars.

In this situation, of course, guesswork has free reign. Research becomes purely theoretical, engaged in adjusting sacrosanct theory to accommodate anomalous findings, not experimental, seeking to discover patterns of order in the phenomena. And modern computing power encourages playing with theoretical models. But the success of this approach relies on the correct choice of physical model. The most stringent requirement of the model is that it suggest tests and successfully predict the outcomes. Also it is preferable to have one or more different models that are subject to falsification by observations. The black hole model fulfils neither of these criteria. It is a solitary, non-predictive model that has difficulty even explaining the jets emitted by black holes. After all, black holes are supposed to "suck," not "blow." The black hole model has always needed patching up, so it has always been "a topic of much research."

Now we have a report of rapidly flickering light from a black hole.

The simple mechanical lighthouse model, of something many times heavier than the Sun and rotating in milliseconds, is applied (and it isn't clear what generates the narrow beam of radiation). However, to put 450 flashes per second into perspective, that's a 27,000 rpm lighthouse! "I think there should be a law of nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way."

There is a kind of ridiculous inevitability about the progression of such an absurd idea as the black hole. As soon as you begin dealing with infinities you can "prove black is white and white is black and go out and get yourself killed on a pedestrian crossing," as Douglas Adams expressed it. And as if to parody a parody, the black hole has been variously described as black, white, or even pink. The truly mind boggling thing is that the numerous experts can't see the absurdity. And no investigative reporter has called attention to the fact that the emperors of science have no clothes.

Originally posted by CaptChaos
In this situation, of course, guesswork has free reign. Research becomes purely theoretical, engaged in adjusting sacrosanct theory to accommodate anomalous findings, not experimental, seeking to discover patterns of order in the phenomena.

Actually from my perspective it is your post that's guesswork, not black hole research.

Look at this animation of stars orbiting a point in where no star is seen:

Stellar Orbits in the Central Parsec

A 2.2 micron animation of the stellar orbits in the central parsec. Images taken from the years 1995 through 2011 are used to track specific stars orbiting the proposed black hole at the center of the Galaxy. These orbits, and a simple application of Kepler's Laws, provide the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole, which has a mass of 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Especially important are the stars S0-2, which has an orbital period of only 15.78 years, and S0-16, which comes a mere 90 astronomical units from the black hole.

That doesn't look like guesswork to me, but rather highly defined orbits of stars around some unseen object in space. Given that data we can calculate the objects mass, which is 4 million times the mass of the sun.

We don't have to see it to know something is there. You have to admit that doesn't look like "guesswork", and it really makes your rant about "guesswork" look pretty silly, doesn't it?

Something is there with a 4 million solar masses. If it's not a black hole, then what is it, and what is your evidence for your claim?

I like the idea that black holes are portals to alternative universes - or maybe they lead to star wombs. Either way, gravity doesn't explain much.

Could black holes be portals to other universes?

reply to post by cloaked4u


I would doubt that highly. Contrary to popular belief, Black Holes are quite detectable, and do emit a low amount of light despite their name. Such a black hole which could invade our portion of space would be able to be detected.

Remember, super massive black holes are thought to be the center of galaxies, the primary mass that planets and stars revolve around.

Originally posted by Shugo
reply to post by cloaked4u

 

I would doubt that highly. Contrary to popular belief, Black Holes are quite detectable, and do emit a low amount of light despite their name.

Not really. No light can escape from inside the event horizon.

What you are probably thinking of, is if a cloud of gas surrounds the black hole, the gas outside the event horizon is accelerated by the black hole, and gives off radiation which we can detect, though it may not even be visible light but some other form of electromagnetic radiation like gamma rays.

However the OP article says nothing of gas clouds, but rather it refers to stellar orbits in these other galaxies which presumably have a vague resemblance to the animation I posted a few posts up of the stellar orbits in our own galaxy. If there's no cloud of gas or other matter being sucked into the black hole, then the stellar orbits may be the only way we can find them.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Ah, I'm sorry. You are indeed correct.

I would proceed with this question then, would a black hole be able to be detected via an infrared telescope? Surely there has to be another method of detection other than stellar orbits?

reply to post by CaptChaos


The thought experiment is what I consider the basic concept of thought.

Anyone capable of it should also be capable of realizing that what they are doing amounts to guesswork and hinges on assumptions and presumptions. It's a tool to guide one's observations and laboratory experiments, not a working proof.

Hence, physicists are always looking to build a larger particle accelerator in order to look for smaller and more fundamental particles they speculate upon.

The "black hole" is a bit of an interesting concept.

One should be careful to differentiate between the "black hole" and the "gravitational singularity." The two are different - if only in semantics. A "black hole" is capable of being indirectly observed. There is, for whatever reason, some object, field, force... something that is causing those stars to behave as though there is an object with the mass of several million sols present. Exactly what it is - we can't tell, because there's not much there to see. It may be a tad presumptuous to believe it is an object with mass (it could be... well... anything, until we actually get to do direct observation of it and attempt to interact with it) - but we don't really have much reason to believe it is something radically different from a massive object.

A singularity is decidedly different. A singularity postulates that an object can achieve a density that is so great as to over-ride the natural repelling forces of subatomic particles and become a single point (or particle - depending upon how you want to look at it). The reason singularities throw such a huge curve-ball to physics is due to the fact that we simply don't know enough about the universe to begin really speculating on what such an extreme case entails. Quantum Mechanics has its own form of a singularity, and it works just fine - you just treat it like it's an irreducible particle and leave it at that. Relativity has its own singularity - space-time is stretched to infinity and you leave it at that. The problem is that quantum mechanics dictates there are energy minima and energy maxima with quantifiable states existing in between each, and Relativity has never been described according to Quantum Mechanics... not successfully and in a manner that can be verified through experimentation.

Relativity works fine in a world of pure numbers - where your digits are infinite. When you have to break it down into the "grid" of quantum mechanics, it doesn't really work out too well.

Which is why the singularity is such an interesting concept.

Personally, I don't really think the singularity exists - but that will become evident once we further refine quantum mechanics and can extrapolate relativistic phenomena from quantum mechanics (thus unifying the two).

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


If black holes are possibly wormholes to other places in space or different dimension, maybe that limits how much it can transport or how far it would take you... I don't know, just a theory.

reply to post by Shugo

I would proceed with this question then, would a black hole be able to be detected via an infrared telescope? Surely there has to be another method of detection other than stellar orbits?

In theory - they emit frequencies in the range of VLF. Smaller black holes may emit IR - but most of a singularity would be radiated back into the universe over the last 15% of its evaporation (presuming a standard cubic rate of evaporation - which is presumptuous to say the least; relativistic issues could complicate models of a black hole's evaporation - particularly in the final seconds).

Basically, the thing will erupt into showers of radiation above gamma with spontaneous formation of particles (many of which will likely be exotic) and hydrogen (with fusion taking place to produce heavier elements).

I, honestly, don't know if there is a "standard model" for the evaporation of a black hole, anywhere... but it's what makes sense when I think about what is going to happen (the event horizon is going to collapse with the shrinking mass - the surface-mass ratio is going to increase as evaporation continues, and the time-dilation is going to subside as mass is converted to photon/anti-photon pairs at the event horizon).

I actually entertained the idea that stars (or, at least, some of them) are not formed by spontaneously coalescing hydrogen and, instead, evaporating black holes (not necessarily singularities - but either will work if they mechanics of evaporation are similar).

It was mostly a "what if" sort of thought - not really meant to do anything other than be an exercise in lateral thought. But it is something I keep in the wings, in case it may offer some useful insight.

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan
The thought of these Black Holes are almost a little intimidating. Of course, they are about 300 MILLION light years away from us. However, according to these researchers they are ever-growing.
The main question they are asking now is: How large can a Black Hole grow?
I can't imagine why there would be a set limit to its growth, especially in an ever-growing Universe as well.
Thoughts?

Good ques. If the std model is breakin g down at these singularities, then imo it would be wise to adopt a different
approach.
IMO time compression generates gravity and may also generate mass.
So looking at unimaginable size of black holes, would be that these singularities have time compression
and gravity, but not necessarily any physical mass.
The universe may have an yet unknown way of compressinmg time.
Needless it say, it is the exact opp of Eintein's GR hypothesis.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Shugo
reply to post by cloaked4u

 

I would doubt that highly. Contrary to popular belief, Black Holes are quite detectable, and do emit a low amount of light despite their name.

Not really. No light can escape from inside the event horizon.

What you are probably thinking of, is if a cloud of gas surrounds the black hole, the gas outside the event horizon is accelerated by the black hole, and gives off radiation which we can detect, though it may not even be visible light but some other form of electromagnetic radiation like gamma rays.

All black holes have a secretion disc which is matter compressed around the event horizon. Super black holes are especially easy to spot because of this common feature.

The other thing to note is that large black holes are usually (if not always) found in the centre of spiral galaxies. This tends to make sense considering the direction of the spiral of both the galaxy and the black hole (a more pronounced spiral galaxy forms over time). I'm not sure if they've confirmed it yet, but theoretically our Milky Way is no different.

Cosmologically speaking, black holes are probably the most interesting thing out there for us to research. For those who don't know, black holes are the result of the supernova of a very large star. The resulting core is so dense that it compacts itself through space/time fabric itself. This very phenomenon proves that there is something the exists beyond our current comprehension of existence. The most ironic thing is that even though we can theoreticize about what is inside of the black hole itself, we would never be physically able to cross the event horizon.

So in other words, we need to experiment more with transcendence into the fourth dimension because no corporate/government rocket ship is going to get us into the next dimension, man