Researchers find 'structure' in black hole accretion disk

I thought it was supposed to be impossible to actually observe a black hole. Aren't all black holes theorized, and a mathematical solution to the current universe theory? There is great math to support their existence and I'm not arguing against it. I thought the closest we have come to verifying there existence is a lensing effect created when observing distant galaxy on the edge of their event horizon??????

reply to post by Hijinx


I think we can only 'see' them by observing effects on surrounding material, like dust and gas being sucked into it and in this case, material from an orbiting star which makes the accretion disk.
I could be mistaken though. I'm sure someone will correct me.

Originally posted by SilentE
reply to post by Hijinx

 

I think we can only 'see' them by observing effects on surrounding material, like dust and gas being sucked into it and in this case, material from an orbiting star which makes the accretion disk.
I could be mistaken though. I'm sure someone will correct me.

I was doing some reading after I did that post. So far we have no directly observed a black hole, so you are right. We basically look for anomalies in space. An Area where the temperature varies slightly from the background, the before mentioned lensing effect has not been observed in correlation with a black hole. The best and most current supporting evidence for black holes outside of mathematical theory lies in accretion disks and galaxies. A large dense mass at the middle of a disk, or galaxy explains the interaction of the surrounding objects orbiting said mass. A black holes gravity field is so intense anything beyond it's event horizon is non observable. How ever due to the extreme gravity, we can witness activity with in an accretion disk that can only be explained thus far with the presence of an extreme gravity anomaly or black hole.

The OP actually makes sense. Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole but they don't know what would happen if done so. When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass. Both of those theories counteract themselves. You cant pass through mass like it doesn't exist, so it would only make more sense to believe that after a star turns supernova causing a black hole and a possible rip through time and space, that it would be more or less the absence of matter and or space and possibly disc like, being plausible to be able to pass though dimensions in theory.

Just my uneducated opinion, I know no more than the next average person about the topic.

reply to post by XxkingofosirisxX2014

Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole

That's news to me. Can you provide some sources?

When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass.

A black hole would be spherical for the same reason that stars and planets are. The force of gravity makes objects take on a shape which contains the greatest volume for the least surface area.

Originally posted by XxkingofosirisxX2014
The OP actually makes sense. Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole but they don't know what would happen if done so. When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass. Both of those theories counteract themselves. You cant pass through mass like it doesn't exist, so it would only make more sense to believe that after a star turns supernova causing a black hole and a possible rip through time and space, that it would be more or less the absence of matter and or space and possibly disc like, being plausible to be able to pass though dimensions in theory.

Just my uneducated opinion, I know no more than the next average person about the topic.

SOME scientists speculate it could be possible to pass through a black hole. It's not a universal belief, but more of a thought. We really know absolutely nothing about black holes, aside from the mathematical formulas written to suggest their existence. There is to date no definitive proof they exist, but there are anomalies in space that are best explained by the black hole theory.

Black holes are really complicated, to explain. The are not disk shaped, they are spheroids. To try to paint this picture let's take a sphere, say a baseball. The star is the baseball. Once a star has reached it's critical state, where it no longer has enough fuel to support it's fusion process, if the conditions and mass of the star are correct it will super nova, casting off it's outer most layer.

Now, here it gets kind of weird and hard to imagine. The remaining sphere becomes so dense, that it collapses with in itself. There is still matter present, how ever this star has become much more dense and smaller than it's original self in such a way that it has fallen through itself. The sphere still exists, but in another dimension with in itself. I really don't even know how to put it into words. It's moved from a three dimensional object, into a more complex shape. A sphere with in a sphere I suppose. I do not possess the words to paint this image for you I'm sorry. There is matter with mass with in a black hole. With out either of those things the gravity anomaly would not exist. The event horizon is the very edge of the gravitational influence of that mass where anything that enters can do nothing but move towards the core(the sphere with in the sphere) Appearing to disappear from existence in this dimension.( 3 dimensional universe to 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th, not sure what that sphere with in a sphere shape would fall under.)


What happens when you cross the event horizon has enormous amounts of speculation. I was reading up on black holes earlier on, and it was said it takes a finite( or set amount of time, found from speed and distance from event horizon) to reach the event horizon, how ever once you crossed that point there would be an absolute absence of time as we perceive it here, or else where in space. So for those of us observing the cross outside the black hole the object,(dust, rocks, planet, star, person.) would appear to be gone in a fraction of a second, where as the object entering would be locked in a timeless environment unaware of it's crossing into the black hole. It's really bizarre and a whole lot of these concepts and theories are hard to digest and visualize. Sure I can read them and regurgitate it. I could repeat the math, so could you but actually imagining these things is a really fantastical thought.

Any deeper than this and it's above me.

reply to post by Phage


You beat me to it once again, and with so much fewer words.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by XxkingofosirisxX2014

 

Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole

That's news to me. Can you provide some sources?

No, did a little bit of searching found out I was wrong sorry. I just tend to think of them as sort of wormholes.

When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass.

A black hole would be spherical for the same reason that stars and planets are. The force of gravity makes objects take on a shape which contains the greatest volume for the least surface area.

But when stars go supernova, wouldn't that be a form of explosion or implosion? If in theory it's actually exploding/imploding, an explosion/implosion with as immense power as scientists claim supernovas to have, wouldn't there be nothing left for them to measure mass, instead of being an extremely powerful condensed form of matter? Idk I tend to think outside the box when it comes to black holes since very little is known about them.

edit on 2-3-2013 by XxkingofosirisxX2014 because: missing quote

Originally posted by XxkingofosirisxX2014

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by XxkingofosirisxX2014

 

Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole

That's news to me. Can you provide some sources?

No, did a little bit of searching found out I was wrong sorry. I just tend to think of them as sort of wormholes.

When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass.

A black hole would be spherical for the same reason that stars and planets are. The force of gravity makes objects take on a shape which contains the greatest volume for the least surface area.

But when stars go supernova, wouldn't that be a form of explosion or implosion? If in theory it's actually exploding/imploding, an explosion/implosion with as immense power as scientists claim supernovas to have, wouldn't there be nothing left for them to measure mass, instead of being an extremely powerful condensed form of matter? Idk I tend to think outside the box when it comes to black holes since very little is known about them.

edit on 2-3-2013 by XxkingofosirisxX2014 because: missing quote

Supernovas are equally as complex as the black holes they sometimes form. A supernova is unlike any explosion witnessed here on Earth. A star doesn't "burn" in the conventional sense, it's fusing matter, to create denser matter. As a star moves through it's life cycle it creates heavier and heavier elements as it uses up it's fuel. When a super nova occurs, it has reached it's critical state. There is not enough fuel to maintain it's fusion process in stability, so rather than a long continuous "burn" the remaining fuel is consumed all at once in a monstrous energetic explosion! Releasing all the energy outwards in a brilliant event then heavier fusion byproducts collapse towards the center with the remaining mass. This is helped along by the explosion itself, the force is directed in all directions so to speak, and because of it's spherical shape the compressed further. In some stars this process kicks off Heavy element fusion stars if the mass is not sufficient enough for the formation of a black hole. It's really complicated and much of the process is above me, so this is the simplified version i can give.

edit on 2-3-2013 by Hijinx because: (no reason given)

reply to post by XxkingofosirisxX2014

But when stars go supernova, wouldn't that be a form of explosion or implosion?

It's complicated and there are several types of supernova, but in general a supernova is an explosion of the outer portions of the star while the interior collapses into a black hole. It is the formation of the black hole which causes the explosion.

Originally posted by Hijinx
I thought it was supposed to be impossible to actually observe a black hole. Aren't all black holes theorized, and a mathematical solution to the current universe theory? There is great math to support their existence and I'm not arguing against it. I thought the closest we have come to verifying there existence is a lensing effect created when observing distant galaxy on the edge of their event horizon??????

edit on 2-3-2013 by Hijinx because: (no reason given)

The article mentions a structure of the accretion disk. The accretion disk is not the black hole itself, but the stuff orbiting outside of a black hole. Matter in the accretion disk will not necessarily fall into the black hole.

Originally posted by Hijinx

Originally posted by XxkingofosirisxX2014
The OP actually makes sense. Scientist believe you could pass through a black hole but they don't know what would happen if done so. When they show pictures of animated black holes they're always spherical and depict them as being a solid mass. Both of those theories counteract themselves. You cant pass through mass like it doesn't exist, so it would only make more sense to believe that after a star turns supernova causing a black hole and a possible rip through time and space, that it would be more or less the absence of matter and or space and possibly disc like, being plausible to be able to pass though dimensions in theory.

Just my uneducated opinion, I know no more than the next average person about the topic.

SOME scientists speculate it could be possible to pass through a black hole. It's not a universal belief, but more of a thought. We really know absolutely nothing about black holes, aside from the mathematical formulas written to suggest their existence. There is to date no definitive proof they exist, but there are anomalies in space that are best explained by the black hole theory.

Black holes are really complicated, to explain. The are not disk shaped, they are spheroids. To try to paint this picture let's take a sphere, say a baseball. The star is the baseball. Once a star has reached it's critical state, where it no longer has enough fuel to support it's fusion process, if the conditions and mass of the star are correct it will super nova, casting off it's outer most layer.

Now, here it gets kind of weird and hard to imagine. The remaining sphere becomes so dense, that it collapses with in itself. There is still matter present, how ever this star has become much more dense and smaller than it's original self in such a way that it has fallen through itself. The sphere still exists, but in another dimension with in itself. I really don't even know how to put it into words. It's moved from a three dimensional object, into a more complex shape. A sphere with in a sphere I suppose. I do not possess the words to paint this image for you I'm sorry. There is matter with mass with in a black hole. With out either of those things the gravity anomaly would not exist. The event horizon is the very edge of the gravitational influence of that mass where anything that enters can do nothing but move towards the core(the sphere with in the sphere) Appearing to disappear from existence in this dimension.( 3 dimensional universe to 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th, not sure what that sphere with in a sphere shape would fall under.)


What happens when you cross the event horizon has enormous amounts of speculation. I was reading up on black holes earlier on, and it was said it takes a finite( or set amount of time, found from speed and distance from event horizon) to reach the event horizon, how ever once you crossed that point there would be an absolute absence of time as we perceive it here, or else where in space. So for those of us observing the cross outside the black hole the object,(dust, rocks, planet, star, person.) would appear to be gone in a fraction of a second, where as the object entering would be locked in a timeless environment unaware of it's crossing into the black hole. It's really bizarre and a whole lot of these concepts and theories are hard to digest and visualize. Sure I can read them and regurgitate it. I could repeat the math, so could you but actually imagining these things is a really fantastical thought.

Any deeper than this and it's above me.

edit on 2-3-2013 by Hijinx because: (no reason given)

Thanks for that, it was actually a really good description, better than others that I've read actually. Although like I said in my previous post, I figured supernova was a complete explosion/implosion leaving nothing behind.

Can you imagine one for the size of a black hole the size of 21 BILLION suns??? My brain just can't fathom this.

The Blackest Black Hole: Scientists Find a Monster the Size of 21 Billion Suns

But that's positively puny compared with the two new black holes, each about 330 million light-years away or so, just announced in the journal Nature. The smaller one, located inside a galaxy known as NGC 3842, is as massive as 9.7 billion suns, and the other, in a galaxy called NGC 4889, is more than twice as large: if you put it on a very large balance, it would take at least 21 billion stars to even things out.

Read more: www.time.com...

Originally posted by Gridrebel
Considering the size of some black holes, I don't know. A black hole the size of 21 BILLION suns???

My brain just can't fathom this.

The Blackest Black Hole: Scientists Find a Monster the Size of 21 Billion Suns

But that's positively puny compared with the two new black holes, each about 330 million light-years away or so, just announced in the journal Nature. The smaller one, located inside a galaxy known as NGC 3842, is as massive as 9.7 billion suns, and the other, in a galaxy called NGC 4889, is more than twice as large: if you put it on a very large balance, it would take at least 21 billion stars to even things out.

Read more: www.time.com...

Well considering Black holes are the Universes version of a ravenous insatiable great white shark, it's not that shocking. You can not destroy matter, so all the material that black holes vacuum up every second of every day has to go somewhere. I would assume, it would simply become part of the core, where ever that may be ha ha. IF it survives it's trip to the event horizon that is.


Edit to add, I believe that is referring to the "holes" mass though. So considering black holes are super condense, it's actual Size(area it takes up) might not be as large as you think.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Hijinx
I thought it was supposed to be impossible to actually observe a black hole. Aren't all black holes theorized, and a mathematical solution to the current universe theory? There is great math to support their existence and I'm not arguing against it. I thought the closest we have come to verifying there existence is a lensing effect created when observing distant galaxy on the edge of their event horizon??????

edit on 2-3-2013 by Hijinx because: (no reason given)

The article mentions a structure of the accretion disk. The accretion disk is not the black hole itself, but the stuff orbiting outside of a black hole. Matter in the accretion disk will not necessarily fall into the black hole.

HO HO!!! An ATS member caught my leap before completely reading the article I was waiting for someone to point it out to me, and was trying not to edit it out as it had already started a discussion. Thank you for pointing it out though, I don't mind being exposed for ATS posting faux pas.

reply to post by XxkingofosirisxX2014


A supernova is an energetic reaction. That Explosion you see is just the release of energy, some of which was trapped in the star, as well as formed by the final consumption of remaining fuel, and the extreme gravitational reaction taking place.

The xray, radio, light emissions we do see emanating from suspected black holes are actually caused by reactions of material with in a black holes extreme gravitational field. Either on their way to the event horizon or just before they cross( once they cross nothing gets out.) A trip into a black hole would likely be unsurvivable by any living thing we know of. The gravity alone would likely crush you to bits long before you got to the event horizon, let alone in the black hole itself. ( well some, not all I suppose. )

NASA measures ‘monster’ black hole’s spin for first time, clocks it at nearly 1.08 billion km/h

news.nationalpost.com...

"We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole," said the coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole's incredibly strong gravity."

- See more at: www.jpl.nasa.gov...

"These monsters, with masses from millions to billions of times that of the sun, are formed as small seeds in the early universe and grow by swallowing stars and gas in their host galaxies, merging with other giant black holes when galaxies collide, or both," said the study's lead author, Guido Risaliti of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.

Supermassive black holes are surrounded by pancake-like accretion disks, formed as their gravity pulls matter inward. Einstein's theory predicts the faster a black hole spins, the closer the accretion disk lies to the black hole. The closer the accretion disk is, the more gravity from the black hole will warp X-ray light streaming off the disk. - See more at: www.jpl.nasa.gov...

This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. (Smaller black holes also exist throughout galaxies.) In this illustration, the supermassive black hole at the center is surrounded by matter flowing onto the black hole in what is termed an accretion disk. This disk forms as the dust and gas in the galaxy falls onto the hole, attracted by its gravity.

reply to post by Hijinx


Thanks for all of this, really. It's never a good day unless you learn something new, and today I've learned quite a bit no thanks to you.

reply to post by Hijinx

The gravity alone would likely crush you to bits long before you got to the event horizon, let alone in the black hole itself.

Nope, no crushing. The opposite. Tidal forces would tear you apart (see "spaghettification").
But this applies to stellar sized black holes which would have an extreme gravity gradient outside the event horizon. Supermassive black holes are another story but you still would have to deal with all that accreted material doing nasty things all around you.

Originally posted by XxkingofosirisxX2014
reply to post by Hijinx

 

Thanks for all of this, really. It's never a good day unless you learn something new, and today I've learned quite a bit no thanks to you.

Absolutely, any time I can share my knowledge I am absolutely happy to do so. If you're interested in the subject I suggest doing your own research as I'm presenting the information I have absorbed, and the understanding I took from it. There is plenty of information about this subject I am unaware of, if you can struggle through some of the more complicated lingo I do suggest the read. Even if only a wiki page.