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Black Holes Lead Galaxy Growth

The AAS meeting in San Diego is producing lots of news on the astronomy front. Studying galaxies that were forming in the universe's first billion years, astronomers have solved a longstanding cosmic chicken-and-egg problem: which forms first, galaxies or the black holes at their cores? "'We finally have been able to measure black-hole and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they were in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and the evidence suggests that the constant ratio seen nearby may not hold in the early Universe. The black holes in these young galaxies are much more massive compared to the bulges than those seen in the nearby Universe,"' said Fabian Walter of the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Germany. 'The implication is that the black holes started growing first.'"

10 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. I cant believe.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    People keep getting sucked in to these stories.

    1. Re:I cant believe.. by gandhi_2 · · Score: 3, Funny
      bong!

      but seriously, it's nice to hear some good economic news.

  2. The AAS is not the AAAS by Shag · · Score: 3, Informative

    The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is not the same thing as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This conference is astronomy-specific.

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
    1. Re:The AAS is not the AAAS by Shag · · Score: 2, Funny

      D'oh, I should have caught the location too - I've got enough colleagues and co-collaborators there, presenting posters, papers, booths, whatever.

      I, of course, have been left behind to run things in their absence, thus protecting audiences from exposure to my idiocy. ;)

      --
      Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  3. What did they really find? by FlightlessParrot · · Score: 4, Funny
    >We finally have been able to measure black-hole >and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they >were in the first billion years after the Big Bang

    Galaxy cameltoe.

  4. Re:Am I the only one that thinks that.... by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's cooler than that. Hawking radiation is literally the creation of matter from space. Virtual particles form on the event horizon of a black hole in pairs. One of them goes into the black hole, the other one doesn't.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  5. Re:Am I the only one that thinks that.... by maugle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even cooler/stranger, the virtual particle that goes into the black hole effectively has negative energy, so the black hole loses mass each time it consumes one.

    Sadly, I'll have to dispel that "black hole consumes enough matter and then explodes" theory. For something (like a particle in that sort of explosion) to escape a black hole, it would have to travel faster than light. Accelerating a particle to/above the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy, so there simply isn't enough energy in the black hole (or the universe) to make the black hole explode.

    There are theories that within each black hole is a universe all to itself, but even if it's true we'd never be able to observe it.

  6. Wimps v. Machos by ookabooka · · Score: 2, Funny

    So I guess the wimps win this round? Small amount of matter out there, occasionally clumping around black holes and heating up? Or do machos win as there could be a lot of black holes out there that we cant observe?

    --
    If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
  7. Re:Am I the only one that thinks that.... by Thanshin · · Score: 3, Funny

    There are theories that within each black hole is a universe all to itself, but even if it's true we'd never be able to observe it.

    "Never" doesn't usually work well in science.

    When you aproach the parts we've not really understood yet, it's advised to use expressions like "probably", "As far as we know", "educated guess", "whatever", "tiny little strings..."

  8. Re:That would be cool. by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ``If a black hole with a positive electric charge comes near another black hole with a positive electric charge, the two will, IMHO, repel each other because the electrostatic forces are larger even than the gravitational forces that can pull everything up to and including light into the black hole.''

    That would depend on the strength of the charges, of course. A few million electrons of difference in charge isn't going to do much to stop two black holes of a couple million kilos each from gravitating to one another.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.