Slashdot Mirror
Do Solo Black Holes Roam the Universe?
sciencehabit writes "Two mysterious bright spots in a disheveled, distant galaxy suggest that astronomers have found the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole being shoved out of its home. If confirmed, the finding would verify Einstein's theory of general relativity in a region of intense gravity not previously tested. The results would also suggest that some giant black holes roam the universe as invisible free floaters, flung from the galaxies in which they coalesced. Although loner black holes may be an entity that has to be reckoned with, they would still be rare."
I was married to one for a while.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
...they always travel with their Wookie!
And the other day - turns out tons of hydrogen gas not previously observed in voids. Sooner or later, that obvious bit of "curve over-fitting" that required the mysterious dark matter might just have to go away. That would be cool - it was obviously a bandaid on a cancer in the theory.
Ease off. That was a huge step up from our normal First Posts.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
It's ironic, then, that neither of you have put anything forth to foster the discussion along what you would consider "proper" lines. Oh, and you both posted as ACs, too...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
While true, it also embodies everything worth avoiding about sites such as Reddit. The signal to noise ratio is getting far too out of whack.
I find it fascinating that theories developed in the first half of the last century continue to stand up to observation. This fits the predictions of general relativity, and that is almost as exciting as if they discovered something that totally blew away the predictions. The latter would mean we go back to the cutting board, but this is, as I said, almost as exciting. It makes me wonder how much of the 'missing mass' that we lump into the dark matter bucket is actually contained in bodies like this; bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'.
You mean, by being sucked into a giant black hole? Unless you have some suggestions on how to make a giant black hole change its course, or how to move your solar system out of the way of a giant roaming black hole, that is...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You do know that you get no karma for +1 Funny, right?
Slashdot isn't some game where you try to score the most karma points. It's a communication forum, and GP wanted to communicate something funny.
Since when has it been hip to be smart? It's hip to *look* smart. *Being* smart will still get you an atomic wedgie (at least until you are able to turn smart into rich - because it is definitely hip to be rich).
If you mean supermassive, damn well say supermassive; from the headline, anyone would think "Duh, of course they do -- whaddya think happens when a solo star (say, ejected from its galaxy by a close pass) with tens of solar masses collapses..."
Supermassive black holes, generally understood to be found only in galactic cores, are much more interesting.
Dude, lighten up. That headline cries out for (mostly bad attempts at) humor.
There should be one about the Eastern District Court of Texas, and how they get their restaurant bills sent to the office...
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Couldnt a black hole just consume all the stars in its galaxie to end up a loaner?
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
They can capture the light from a star, but they can't catch a cab.
( sorry )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Well look at his user number...they should have stopped at 1 million and allowed invites only...
-Noc
...because the old theories make it WAY too hard to achieve practical interstellar travel and planetary colonization.
Slashdot isn't some game where you try to score the most karma points.
What? Shit, why have I been wasting all this time here if I can't win?
Ahh, yes, that lovely golden age of slashdot when first posts didn't make fun of exes, but did have recruitment statements for GNAA.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Well look at his user number...they should have stopped at 100,000 and allowed invites only...
FTFY.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
turns out tons of hydrogen gas not previously observed in voids ... the mysterious dark matter might just have to go away
Put your toys away, son. A million, billion, trillion tons wouldn't even show up as a rounding error when it comes to dark matter.
...I wasn't doing that as a dick swinging contest. More as a "the longer slashdot has gone on, the more idiots have come aboard" It was actually shortly after I joined that I started noticing the downward spiral in comments.
-Noc
Although loner black holes may be an entity that has to be reckoned with, they would still be rare."
Without lots of matter to use as a fuel source they would evaporate after a fashion.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
If you were to take the 3 million solar mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way, and plop it into the solar system where the sun is, the Schwartzchild radius would be well within the orbit of Mercury. We wouldn't lose a single planet, though an earth "year" would shrink to roughly 2 hours. Hold your fist at arm's length. That's how big it would appear in the sky.
Now imagine trying to see something like that, from 4 billion light years away, moving faster than galactic escape velocity. The only reason you can see it at *all* is that it's still siphoning galactic gas into its accretion disk. Once it hits intergalactic space, you'll never see it again.
Three million solar masses sounds huge, but is a microscopic fraction of the Milky Way's total mass (1-4 trillion solar masses). Given the quantity of matter orbiting near the center of a galaxy, I'd believe it likely that even if the central black hole were ejected, a new one would form in short (cosmologically speaking) time. So core ejection may not be a one-off, but a common event during galaxy collisions. In which case, there might be enough of them to partly explain dark matter (though certainly not enough to explain it all).
We also know there is a relationship between the mass of the central black hole, and the "tightness" of the arms in a spiral galaxy. But how would core ejection affect this? Given the speed of light, the outer regions of a galaxy would be tightly wound, while the inner region would be loosely wound (after core ejection). Wouldn't that look an awful lot like a barred spiral?
So many interesting questions, so few answers...
And here I thought it was hip to be square... I guess I should stop taking life lessons from Huey Lewis :-(
I'm actually surprised that this news post hasn't already sparked more of the racist comments that have shown up here lately.
/* No Comment */
if slashdot isn't a game, then what's up with the achievements? if you don't think it's a game, you are being played. the object of the game is to gain enough karma points that you can troll at will with impunity. mini-games include Make Others Look Stupid, Make Yourself Look Smart, and I'm Sofa King Funny.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
Look at my number. It is huge. Yes, I contribute some bullshit every now and then, but I honestly try my best to contribute to this open forum. Why is my number soooo big? Because I chose to lurk first, learn the dynamics and how to do stuff (technical word there), and then post.
It's like this - you want to ride a roller coaster. So, you go to an amusement park. Then you get pissed about waiting in line with the other idiots. What are your options? (a) Build your own rollercoaster; or (b) quit bitching about the line and enjoy the pleasant conversations that do happen, when they happen.
If you are not the owner of a website, who are you to limit, or suggest a limit for that matter, on who can contribute?
Why do I love the internet, and online forums and discussion boards? Because I can hear a...n...y...t...h...i...n...g... on them. If I wanted to have a closed discussion on a topic, I'd go back to yelling at my television. It feels just as good, and is as one-sided as you make it.
In other words, sir or ma'am, I understand that you believe that there were glory days on this site. I'm sure there were. But, limiting who can speak, simply based on how old s/he is comes off as, in my opinion, utter bullshit.
In other words. Learn to ignore the shit. Look for the good. It's there, if you care to be positive. OR, instead of limiting who can post, have a system where you can register your account, but can not contribute until you reach a certain time on the site, or number of articles read paired with time spent reading, or something. I don't know, just quit complaining about it. It's just as annoying as the bullshit posts from user numbers>1,000,000, and contributes nothing to the discussion.
But that is all my opinion. Thank you.
Yep, great jokes. The words were the same, it's just that it was a different kind of black hole back then.
I would love to see more first posts that actually spoke to the topic instead of just small penis geeks getting their tiny rocks off.
I attempted that a few days ago. Granted, I was going for on topic humorous instead of insightful or informative (something about eating too much space turkey made our galaxy's super massive black hole too lethargic).
Submitted my post, and it was still the only post thus far for the discussion. Hit reload, and it was still the only post. Then a few minutes later, I hit reload again, and it was no longer the first post. For some reason, it was bumped down to 6th position even though it was the only post for a short while.
How did that happen? Doesn't matter really, but it still piqued my curiosity about how postings get prioritized here.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Oh shut up, we all know you've got a three digit UID account. You just made a new one so you could brag about how big your number is.
+1 Disagree
then black holes can be too. We have observed almost a score of so of stars with the 2 million MPH velocity required to escape from a galaxy, which they probably got from proximity to a black hole. There is no reason not to think that a black hole could have the same close orbit. Just much much, rarer.
How to Find a Roaming Black Hole...
Look in the Red Dwarf District.
black holes don't suck.
people who turn ANY topic into "bleh bleh debt blah blah obama" suck.
that difficulty is the only thing stopping THEM from coming...
Some guy makes a witty crack, 1 simple, single sentence post.
Then 4000 neckbeards get all pissy about it and chime in to complain about the S/N ratio.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Duh, but that was not the GPs point. They are finding additional %s. Brown dwarfs, extra H2 in the voids etc. Anything is possible, especially something based on 'finaglers constant' (FC=answerwant/answergot) like dark matter.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
how am I supposed to parse that? As (a million (billion (trillion)))tons or as an expressive statement that not even trillions of tons would count as a rounding error?
The first one would be (10^6)*(10^9)*(10^12), which is a shitload of tons. The mass of the universe is roughly 3*10^52 to 3*10^54 kg given 1 ton is ~10^3 kilograms that would put that hydrogen as roughly half the mass of the observable universe.
The second one would be essentially vacuum since those 10^12 tons of gas would be have a density of roughly 1 ton per 9*10^18 LY^3 LY is light year.
Being ejected? Is it possible, that the Black Hole is more like a boat anchor, and the galaxy continues to move on?
A "disheveled, distant galaxy" and a giant black hole?
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
You're so new here that you haven't actually got here yet
Solo black holes are hard to see, but supermassive ones flung out fast could have a proper motion detectable by lensing against a deep field background, even when the proper motion of a luminous object at that distance would be far too small to detect. There's a motion magnification vs luminosity tradeoff there.
Although the LSST is aimed at wide rather than deep field acquisition, detection of weak gravitational lensing is one of its many target goals, so the LSST could find the smoking guns and tell deep field observatories where to look.
how am I supposed to parse that?
As a joke - albeit one that pointed out that H2 in voids, given our current understanding of course, isn't a candidate for dark matter. Not enough mass, not in the right place, and interacting using photons being three of the main problems with it.
The first one would be (10^6)*(10^9)*(10^12), which is a shitload of tons. The mass of the universe is roughly 3*10^52 to 3*10^54 kg given 1 ton is ~10^3 kilograms that would put that hydrogen as roughly half the mass of the observable universe.
3+6+9+12=30 - so 10^30 kg of H2, or about half of the sun's mass. That's 22 orders of magnitude short, given your own numbers, of being 'half the observable universe' - i.e. not even a rounding error.
They are finding additional %s. Brown dwarfs, extra H2 in the voids etc.
Right, but none of them have the right properties (no EM interactions, etc) to be dark matter, not to mention that their mass is trivial compared to the amount required.
Anything is possible, especially something based on 'finaglers constant' (FC=answerwant/answergot) like dark matter.
We're a little past that stage. For example, we have observed galaxies colliding in ways that separate the visible mass from the non-visible mass - i.e. the stars, gas etc, interact via EM and slow down, while the majority of the mass (inferred through gravitational lensing) continues on as if it's affected only by gravity. It's hard to ascribe that kind of behavior to dim stars or extra-galactic H2.
Oh, shut the fuck up you humorless sack of shit.
You obviously don't understand that 10^30 is nowhere near 1/2 of 10^52. It's practically nonexistent on that scale.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
It's ironic, then, that neither of you have put anything forth to foster the discussion along what you would consider "proper" lines.
Having read two comments from you I've yet to discover one single "proper line"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Some guy makes a witty crack, 1 simple, single sentence post.
If it's a one-off thing, hey, who is complaining?
Unfortunately, that's not the case
Vast majority of Slashdot articles are laced with mindless fucktard "Foist Post"
I'm getting very, very sick of it !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
It's not about putting any artificial limit
It's about having users that are courteous enough to not post shit on places like Slashdot
Look, this is not a "community site" like Facebook
This is a site where people are interested in tech, in science, in astronomy, physics etc, sharing information and engage in discussion
There have been too many "First posts" and racist rantings
The noise are overpowering genuine discussions and I can see that users are getting discouraged and many have left
If the Slashdot admin don't do nothing to stop this, Slashdot not be Slashdot anymore
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I only get worked up when newbs arrive with broken sarcasm filters.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
My point is that 1 million is just as arbitrary as 100k.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
hahahaha
And they say that gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces. Gravity can trap unbelievable amounts of matter until the the heat death of the universe; it can shape the orbits of galaxies that are millions of light-years in diameter; it can create conditions that we simply don't have the math to explain. Gravity is the one force that we don't have a good theory to explain yet.
:)
Pshaw. Gravity sees your Strong Force and raises you a Theory of Everything.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Many of the oldbies are not coming back
True, some have died, RIP
But those who are still not-yet-dead, many are not coming back to Slashdot due to the shitty "First Post" and the racist-ranting that are overpowering all meaningful discussions
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Don't put your life in the hand of a rock and roll band, you'll throw it all away. -- Oasis , Don't Look Back in Anger
Even Huey sings country now.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
In Soviet Union, first posts YOU, Computers cure PCFIX , Niggers Love You and You moderate Slashdot.
Dammit, I had +1 laying around here some-damn-where, Someone toss this guy one more for +5 Insightful.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The achievement are "psych profile tags" for webdev to quickly categorize us for sale to targetted-ad agencies. Thanks for playing.
Not to interrupt yer moral soapbox special feelings or anything, but my slider to the right says I'm a third down the page and none of you sister boys has said a damn thing pertaining to black holes, galactic feces being flung about, Lawyers, NASA or nothing.
So with that outa the way, I'll introduce a recentish occurence, http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA13455. I figure if you can venture a ratio of black holes to stars you can figure odds of being affected by one coming our way.
No fear, have a beer. Don't let my low number fool ya baby, No Viagra needed here.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I can remember worse than this. You gotta figure the number of usual probable participants occupied with "Venus Transit" events, parties and swap meets.
Relax, beer is good, they'll be back.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Perhaps those bad boys just ate everything in their region. That would leave them lonely and short of a meal.
the object of the game is to gain enough karma points that you can troll at will with impunity
I've never been good at games, but I was lucky enough to somehow eternally have excellent karma, regardless of the mod points I have or haven't been awarded. I must say, it is awesome. Though I try not to abuse the privilege, I was recently just awarded my first +3 Troll... didn't last too long, but it felt great. Anyway, welcome to my world.
The Admin and the Engineer
Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
Well, that is the idea behind representational democracy, and I happen to think it works... uh... well enough. Do you honestly believe that true ideal democracy, Classical-style, is a viable alternative? We have the technology today to actually make it happen even in a society as large as the United States, giving every citizen the ability to have one vote on any consideration on the floor. While a nice idea... I'm not sure it would really work out... I think it would suffer the same deficits that representation democracy suffers from, only on a massive scale, and the rights violations and slipups would also in turn be massive SNAFUs.
The Admin and the Engineer
oh man that was good.
It was actually shortly after I joined that I started noticing the downward spiral in comments.
So it was YOU?!
There have been too many "First posts" and racist rantings
Honest question: Were you reading Slashdot during the GNAA days?
Honestly, the signal to noise ratio is very good. Trouble is that the signal is no longer tech, but politics. Ever since coverage of 9/11 the community visibly changed. YRO is where all the views are, with tech-oriented articles hardly gets any comments.
Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
Either you are replying to the wrong person completely, or the answer is an obvious NO.
Nocturnal Deviant claimed we should censor anyone with an ID over a million.
gmhowell pointed out that if we go with that line of reasoning, that arbitrary number can easily be modified to anything, especially an anything that includes the very person suggesting the censoring.
If you are against censoring as as your post claims, then why are you also so against gmhowell for pointing out the fact censoring is a slippery slope to support and can easily backfire against the very people trying to censor others?
Once you open that can of worms, you can never assure some of those worms don't jump in your own mouth.
So if you truly are against censorship as your post claims, why are you jumping down the back of the very person pointing out how bad censorship is?
Does that mean you in fact agree with the original poster gmhowell replied to, and in fact DO support censorship (as long as you aren't included in the list to be censored of course)?
I have to ask because your words say one thing, and your actions say the exact opposite.
I'm actually surprised that this news post hasn't already sparked more of the racist comments that have shown up here lately.
Is you GAY? Is you a BLACK HOLE? If so, you be eligible to join the GBHAA!
There's nothing "lately" about racist /. posts; only you 7-digit UIDs who weren't around for the GNAA's heyday think so.
.. You should meet my ex!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
*holds up an old, worn out sign*
===>>> PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!
The whole moderation system has been a game since day one. Easily gamed, if you're into that sort of thing.
Post first and post often.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I have issue with the indication that they are "flung" from their galaxy.
The fact that it is more massive than any of the stars would indicate that it would not be flung out by something else other than a even more massive black hole, and that is very unlikely. However, if by chance it were to be flung out of it's galaxy, is there any doubt that it would rip other star systems away from that galaxy as well?
And if black holes can be flung out of the galaxy, then with the much lower mass and higher quantity, I would expect to see large numbers of intergalactic solar systems.
In the case of a lone black hole, I think it's more likely to form by simply consuming everything in a galaxy. Once everything is consumed, the blackhole simply roams in the dark.
Gee, how is Bruce Willis going to save us from this new peril?
so explain the ads-disabled checkbox, available only to those with an account... if you're referring to targeted ads by cookie or IP, there are ways around that too, which slashdot users are more likely to be aware.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
yep, in my experiments with slashdot karma i first tried to get as low a karma rating as possible, and found it very easy to accumulate more troll points. there was an inertia to it. then i switched direction. as i got my karma rating up, and continued with various written acts of immaturity, i found those willing to give me troll points harder to find, and even had others with good karma agree with me. social psychology, ain't it grand?
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Actually, it's several games. The winners are listed here.
Free Martian Whores!
There was no mention of Obama. You are the one who associated him with the monstrous national debt.
Post first and post often.
I've found that often, no matter how insightful or thought-provoking an FP is, some dufus will mod it "offtopic," "troll," or (hilariously) "redundant." I try to avoid first posts, just because if the first two mods are the "FP always modded down" type, nobody is likely to even see it. What's the point of making a comment if you're going to be at -1?
Free Martian Whores!