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More Blackholes Discovered...

Lispy writes "Space.com has this story about the surprising finding of missing blackholes. There might be up to five times more blackholes in space than previously estimated. "The European Southern Observatory in Munich, Germany reports that the black holes were all in "active" galaxies, meaning they were actively consuming large quantities of galactic matter.""

15 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. there they are!! by SKPhoton · · Score: 4, Funny

    Black holes play hide and seek? I never saw that one coming.

  2. Kinesis 1.1-3 by nomannerofmanatall · · Score: 4, Funny

    "At the beginning there was
    nothing but a big ball of
    gases.
    For a long time it just sat there
    in the nothingness, getting hotter
    and hotter.
    Then it exploded."

    1. Re:Kinesis 1.1-3 by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 4, Funny

      "At the beginning there was
      nothing but a big ball of
      gases.
      For a long time it just sat there
      in the nothingness, getting hotter
      and hotter.
      Then it exploded."


      Are you saying the Creator of the Universe ate refried Mexican beans?

  3. What if by Progman3K · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What if there are black holes being formed constantly, appearing in pen space even WITHOUT there having been a star there?

    The universe could be collapsing, with black holes appearing faster and faster, exponentially more and more of them.

    Well, I for one welcome our new black hole overlords.

    --
    I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
    1. Re:What if by Mister+Transistor · · Score: 4, Informative

      As far as we know, black holes result from the collapse of a star. They don't just "appear" for no reason. The new ones discovered were obscured by their accretion disks and the torus of gas and matter surrounding them.

      That's like saying what if dead bodies suddenly started appearing everywhere - without there having been live people first. Corpses don't just "appear" out of nowhere, they have to be made :)

      --
      -- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
    2. Re:What if by shaitand · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes but we don't have any evidence or basis for believing their collapsed stars in the first place AFAIK. That's just a guess.

      AFAIK we've never actually seen a star collapse and a black hole appear... that wouldn't even be proof but it certainly would be the least of what we'd need to see before claiming that IS how they are formed. Rather, it's just our best guess of what could create this thing we call black hole.

      Again AFAIK, the closest thing to evidence we have of this are computer simulations which... assuming we haven't botched a variables and all other relevant GUESSES are correct shows that the collapse of a star COULD cause the formation of a black hole.

      That means it's theoretically possible... not that it's an exclusive contract or even that it's likely enough to actually happen in reality. Lot's of things are theoretically possible.

      For example, it's theoretically possible (and probably can be proven via a controled computer simulation designed for that purpose) a gust of wind could blow through a crack in your window. The gust could shift the air currents in such a way that it pins a paper on your desk against your monitor and rolls it up reasonably tightly. Then the wind shifts and pops the roll off your desk onto your chair standing upright on end. And then in the morning when still sleepy you sit down for your morning coffee without noticing and ream yourself.

      So you see damn near anything is theoretically possible. And if it's theoretically possible it can be proven via computer simulation, we control the initial variables. We set the computer to try different initial gusts until one works. But more importantly, our world works the way it really works, but in the simulation physics work the way WE THINK they work. Potentially a very big difference there.

  4. Wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Although some say that these black holes account for the "missing matter" that is needed for the universe to gravitationally collapse upon itself some hundreds of billions of years in the future, current analysis shows that the mass of all black holes are less than one trillionth of the mass of the universe.

    Even if there are a thousand more times the number of black holes out there, it still won't account for the so-called "missing mass".

    Of course, there could be many million times more black holes out there. Or some other large masses that we have yet to find. In any case, this 2-to-5 times the number of black holes isn't the (possible) mass we're looking for.

  5. Does this change anything? by stealth.c · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this make the theory of a "big crunch" any more likely than before? I'm guessing not.

    The theory which I understood to be most prominent at present was one of an accelerating, expanding galaxy. Eventually, all galaxies would be moving away from one another so swiftly it would be impossible to see one galaxy from another. Every galaxy would sputter and die in a universe its inhabitants would perceive as utterly empty.

    Does the discovery that black holes are more prominent than before just mean that the pace of destruction of said galaxies will only be any different? Or does it do anything to reverse the present theory? It's possible there's no change at all. Any galaxies like this that were seen (in the article) were behaving that way billions of years ago. Who knows what's going on now.

    Also, I wonder what could trigger the Milky Way's black hole into an "active" state. Heck, it may already have happened, but it would take about 50,000 years for us to see it.

  6. Remove "surprising" from story. by Chatmag · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can someone be surprised by this find? What we know about the universe is virtually nothing in comparison to what is out there.

    --
    Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
    1. Re:Remove "surprising" from story. by Epistax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      NEWS FLASH

      Toddler is amazed after opening smallest Russian doll yet found, only to find a smaller Russian doll inside. Baffled scientists cited saying yhat this must be the smallest Russian doll.

  7. Re:Just don't consider this as a fact by cozziewozzie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With all due respect to sir Occam, the solution which appears to be the simplest is not always the simplest, simply because there is so much we don't know. Especially about black holes, missing matter, unified field theory and such fundamental questions.

    I mean, a proton was such a lovely, simple thing, before they went ahead and turned it into a gazzilion complicated nonsensical sub-particles :-)

  8. either its... by 3seas · · Score: 4, Funny

    father physics and mother natures way of recycling or ....

    there is only so much space so every now and then things need to be archived compressed....or..

    astronomy is like the computer industry... where the user/observer can never get there from here... there is always something missing....or...

    we still don't know what gravity really is.... or... maybe MS has the answer... make people need you... again and again and again.....

    And on that note.... I have a few black holes up for sale.... they contain everything you need and want... and as soon as we figure out gravity then we can unpack them...

  9. Re:Just don't consider this as a fact by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Occam's Razor (...) Don't make things more difficult then they have to be. Black holes are the simplest explanation

    With all due respect to the advantages that Occam's Razor has given to the advance of science, this was exactly the key factor that made the leading scientist of late XVIII century like Antoine Lavoisier to judge that stones cannot fall from the sky. In 1768, 1794 and 1795 there were substantial sightings of meteorite showers in France, Italy and England - yet according to the Occam's Razor, it was easier to explain them by assuming the witnesses just lie. Use Occam's Razor as any razor - with extreme caution.

  10. Spelling by Decaff · · Score: 4, Funny

    Depends on the language:

    Basic: blackhole%
    Fortran: BLACKHOL
    Pascal: BlackHole
    C: black_hole
    Java: blackHole
    Hungarian Notation: lpzBlackHole (a long pointer which terminates in null)

  11. Re:Just don't consider this as a fact by Jerf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a possibility of "antimatter" with antigravity property.

    FYI, in English (since you reference a French site), "antimatter" is charge-reversed matter. It still has positive mass and therefore, standard positive gravity.

    You're looking for word(/phrase) "negative mass".

    Note that negative mass emits a negative gravity field and therefore repulses everything, though; based on your haphazard explanation it's not clear if you're trying to claim negative mass would emit a gravitational field that attracts other negative mass.

    That's just a nomenclature point. Here's a criticism: Every theory I've ever seen like that focuses in on how their exotic theory could explain something, but then completely fails to draw out the rest of the conclusions of that exotic matter. For instance, see the discussion on Exotic Matter in Wikipedia. Negative mass may explain some things, but it would also produce a boatload of other effects which we haven't seen.

    Dark energy, in my mind, remains a better theory.