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Hundreds of Black Holes Roam Loose In Milky Way

Posted by samzenpus on from the Maximilian-and-old-bob dept.

sciencehabit writes "From Science: 'Astronomers suspect that hundreds of medium-sized black holes are roaming loose in the Milky Way. These rogues, according to a new study, are the orphaned central black holes of the many smaller galaxies that the Milky Way has swallowed over its billions of years of existence.'"

13 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by adnonsense · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anything else we need to be worrying about?

    1. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by Nephrite · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Looks like everyone has already forgot the LHC...

    2. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by mrsquid0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And the biggest risk that most of us face, getting hit by a car on the way to work.

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
    3. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's what has puzzled me to no end since the onset of various hypes. SARS? Your chance to catch it? Play the lottery if you do, your chance for a jackpot is higher. Mad cow? Ditto. Terrorism? 3000 affected of roughly 200 million (directly, not due to the political fallout). Swine/bird flu?

      And now compare that to the chance of a heart attack. Lung cancer. Getting run over by a car. Getting mugged. And various freak accidents that happen all the time.

      It's a miracle that you're still alive! And it's not because of black holes, not because of terrorism, not because of pandemics. It's because you're living.

      Your alternative is to spend your life under your bed. But then again, where's the difference to being dead already?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by bugeaterr · · Score: 5, Funny

      Global warming, fundamentalist christian, jews, muslims, poisonous food additives,and a global echonomic collaps can be a good start. :D

      Nothing a rogue black hole can't fix, or at least make a LOT smaller.

    5. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by sgbett · · Score: 5, Insightful

      note capital 'T'

      Terrorism
      -noun
      Terrorism adj. use by the media to sensationalise otherwise typical occurances into newsworth articles.
      1. the use of panic and ignorance to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes
      2. the state of fear and submission produced by government or governance
      3. a Terroristic method of reporting or of interpreting news reports.

      terrorism
      -noun
      1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
      2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
      3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

      --
      Invaders must die
    6. Re:First swine flu, now loose-roaming black holes? by JTsyo · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, the black hole will just make the problems last a lot longer while we wait at the event horizon.

  2. Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if black holes could account for either of these things? Gamma rays would be released if a large mass hits a black hole. A cosmic ray could be accelerated if it passes too close to a black hole.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:Gamma ray bursts and high energy cosmic rays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Gamma-ray bursts = an advanced civilization switching on its own LHC.

  3. Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu? by VShael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And how can the news networks use it to induce fear?
    And more importantly, how we can we use it to sell stuff?

    "Black hole protective face-masks" just don't seem like a seller, to me.

    1. Re:Yes but how does this relate to Swine Flu? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

      The Black Holes were created by the Large Hadron Collider during the short time that it was online, before the radioactive liquid helium leaked out and freeze-burned its way down toward the center of the earth (China Syndrome), where it was reflected back up and surfaced in a pig patch in Mexico, and irradiated sick pigs with Swine Flu, which mutated into the Mexico Flu, and hopped a ride on some poor little kid, who passed it on to Mexico city.

      Seems all pretty plausible to me.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  4. Re:Nah, I call BS by AlecC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because the galaxy is not a point mass. Most ordinary star/planet modelling is based on viewing each object as a sphere, which behaves as a point mass at the centre. But when you penetrate inside another body, as two galaxies do when they collide, this simplification no longer applies. Some of the mass of the "other" galaxy moves behind the penetrating galaxy, slowing it down rather than, as the point mass model would suggest, continuing to accelerate into the centre. In the simplest model, of inter-penetrating spheres, gravity no longer has an inverse square law but an inverse linear law. Of course, galaxies are not uniform spheres, and the modelling is much harder. However, it is widely accepted that when two galaxies collide, they merge and the vast majority of the mass forms a single galaxy - though clusters may be flung out. If the galaxies are of broadly similar masses, the distinctive spiral structure is wiped out and the merged result becomes an elliptical galaxy for a few hundred million years before the spiral structure re-establishes.

    Google "andromeda collisions" for simulations of the collision between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy in about 3 billion years.

    --
    Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  5. Re:Nah, I call BS by beanyk · · Score: 5, Informative

    What happens when two black holes actually intersect at their event horizons? Inquiring non-astrophysicists would like to know.

    They merge into one bigger hole. The final hole mass will be (almost) the sum of the two masses, and will likely have a significant spin, even if the pre-merger holes don't.

    Disclaimer: this is actually my area of research.