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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*.
Yeah! Where's the pictures of the huge black holes from which light doesn't escape!
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
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?
There was an excellent picture taken before the light was all sucked up, however the photographer got a bit too caught up in his subject and is stuck in the moment.
Pictures??? Video is better! Ok a simulation is better than nothing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVgPplOgB1g
Lead on, we're right behind you.
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)
"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?
No.
Maintaining an outward velocity = c would keep you at the event horizon indefinitely. Add a sideways component and you'd be able to orbit, but at velocity > c. Anything lower and you'd need velocity > c just to maintain height, much less to orbit.
If you could go fast enough you might be able to make a few passes in some sort of collapsing orbit, but a stable orbit would be impossible.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.