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Colliding Galaxies Reveal Colossal Black Holes
Matt_dk writes "New observations made with the Submillimeter Array of telescopes in Hawaii suggest that black holes — thought to exist in many, if not all, galaxies — were common even in the early Universe, when galaxies were just beginning to form. Astronomers have found two very different galaxies in the distant Universe, both with colossal black holes at their hearts, involved in a spectacular collision."
the web site has become a black hole as well.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You could have at least made a goatse reference. Damn it man, it was right *there*.
Pictures please!
Or would that be considered "galaxy pron" ?
The opportunity was left wide open!
I don't think that discovering early black holes is all that surprising given that concentrations of matter were much greater early on.
What I want to know, is how did the universe expand beyond its own swartzchild radius?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Much like the collision between a server full of astronomy pictures and slashdot.
Nothing survives.
Oh, and as the mass increases, time slows down in the vicinity. Or at least that's how it seems.
Paul Leader
http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.2188
...must be millions of inhabited worlds, each populated by beings that believed themselves to be the center of the very universe, each believing that their existence had so much significance on the cosmic scale that this would not happen to them.
Instead they find themselves in the most sucky situation in the entire galaxy...
4C60.07 - the first of the galaxies to be discovered - came to astronomers' attention because of its bright radio emission. This radio signature is one telltale sign of a quasar - a black hole, spinning rapidly, feeding on its parent galaxy. A new image captures the moment, approximately 12 billion years ago, when this galaxy ripped a stream of dusty gas from a neighbour.
"This new image reveals two galaxies where we only expected to find one," said Professor Rob Ivison ... "Remarkably, both galaxies contain super-massive black holes, each capable of powering a billion, billion, billion light bulbs. The implications are wide reaching: you can't help wondering how many other colossal black holes may be lurking unseen in the distant Universe?"
Due to the finite speed of light, we see the two galaxies as they collided in the distant past, less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang. By now the galaxies will have merged to create a football-shaped elliptical galaxy. Their black holes are likely to have merged to form a single monstrously large black hole.
"These two galaxies are fraternal twins. Both are about the size of the Milky Way, but each one is unique"
From the thats-a-lot-of-lightbulbs department?
Lead on, we're right behind you.
Feel free to go for a galactic swim, oh great enlightened one.
You should be able to get there just by jumping, since gravity holds no power over you!
which is totally what she said
WTH is that? Just a metaphor?
Eventually he will actually find out that black holes really do suck.
which is totally what she said
I knew a girl once that I would say had a glowing blackhole...it really was spectacular. OHHHHH /andrewdiceclayvoice
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
At least the snuggle afterward.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Well boy howdy, that would have been one unobservant ancient man to not notice driftwood, shells, crabs, and seaweed that gets washed up on the beach.
Seen any driftwood coming out of black holes?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I would encourage you to study what a black hole actually is, rather than trusting some random sci-fi author's unsubstantiated notion that the layman's term "hole" must mean "magical portal to another dimension".
Our present equations yield a value of "infinite" when solved for the conditions believed to exist at the center of a black hole. This is likely to only mean that our equations are buggy and need fixing.
It is not the opinion of most scientists that anything special would happen inside a black hole. If you could somehow build an infinitely resilient spaceship that could somehow shield you from the effects of extreme gravity, and assuming we are wrong about the speed of light, and that you could possibly go faster than it, the most you would be able to do with a black hole would be to go in and out of the event horizon unscathed, or perhaps bang into whatever form of extremely compressed matter exists at its center. We have no reason to believe otherwise - wormholes, however prevalent they may be in the realm of science fiction, are just an unlikely hypothesis in the world of real science. For them to exist, strange forms of matter with negative density would have to be discovered, and nobody but the wishful thinkers seriously believes in that.
(I am not a physicist, however, and as such I welcome factual corrections and additions to this post)
The accretion disks glow. Actually, the black hole glows, but at a temperature far too low to care, thanks to Hawking Radiation.
Is how to answer my 5-year old's question of: "Ok, but whats outside the universe?"
She gets solar systems, and has a pretty good handle on galaxies and that there are lots and lots of them. I'm still trying to explain the Big Bang, and keep getting hung up on what the universe is expanding INTO.
I know, even us Big People don't have a good answer, but what the heck do you tell a kid?
And now, for the headbangers:
Hole in the sky, take me to heaven
Window in time, through it I fly
Yeah
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
Damnit. Who left the LHC turned on again!? How many times do I have to say it? When you leave the room please turn off the Large Hadron Collider.
I know I aught be able to work this out myself, but I'm not sure if general newtonian calculations would be accurate. Is it possible to orbit a black hole from inside the event horizon if it is big enough? It seems intuitively obvious that if you can't achieve escape velocity you shouldn't be able to reach an orbital velocity either but I thought I'd see if someone was willing to give a more solid answer.
"Remarkably, both galaxies contain super-massive black holes, each capable of powering a billion, BILLION, BIIIILLLLLLIIIIIOOOOONNNNN light bulbs." Why do I feel like Dr. Evil coauthored this article?
Upon following a river to the sea, ancient man may have thought, "Look! The blue blood of the Mother Earth flows in, but nothing comes out! There is no way to escape the giant hole in our world!"
No ancient man ever thought that. See, ancient man knew what fish were.
Today, we take the same myopic and uninformed view. "Don't go into the black hole at the center of our galaxy! You'll disappear forever!"
Well modern thinking is that you wouldn't necessarily disappear forever; the energy that used to be you would be released as Hawking Radiation at some point.
But who really cares if you'd disappear forever or not when in the process of entering the hole in the first place tidal forces would rip you apart into a stream of particles? Or are you imagining that some miraculous force on the "other side" would put you back together?
The enemies of Democracy are
"this galaxy ripped a stream of dusty gas from a neighbour" Gee, and I got ticked when my neighbour nicked my cooking gas canister for his Bar b q.. Black holes and all that.. tsk, tsk ..
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
Black Hole Sun... Won't you come... and wash away the rain?
Bow-ties are cool.
âoeRemarkably, both galaxies contain super-massive black holes, each capable of powering a billion, billion, billion light bulbs."
Most people couldn't possibly conceive of such a number. Maybe they should tell us how many Libraries of Congress that number of bulbs could light.
Can we get a better frame of reference than that please?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I think these findings start to beg the questions, is a colossal black hole at the center of every galaxy, and are galaxies created *because* of colossal black holes?
This remains one of the more interesting open questions. Did galaxies aggregate central black holes or did primeval black holes catalyse the formation of galaxies? A definitive answer would be at least worth a physics Nobel. It's also why I bothered reading this thread to the bottom.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
When two neutron stars collide within our own galaxy, the resulting gamma burst can be a serious threat to life on Earth.
How bad would it be if two galactic black holes collided? Would they emit gamma ray bursts as colliding neutron stars do? Would the energy be released in particular directions? If suitably (and very unfavourably) directed, is there any minimum safe distance within the observable universe from such a collision?
Blancmange
Didn't Disney make a "X" rated movie by the same name???
It's not only the number of light bulbs that's important here. One must also ask the wattage of each bulb in order to truly understand the amount of power represented. Are we talking 100 watt bulbs? Or 25 watts? Incandescent, LED, or CFL? The article is stunningly silent on this point...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Q: How many astrophysicists does it take to screw in a billion billion billion light bulbs?
A: Two per bulb, but most of them prefer lava lamps.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_