NASA Uncovers Millions of New Black Holes

coondoggie writes "NASA today said its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite has unearthed a 'bonanza of new-found supermassive black holes and extreme galaxies called hot DOGs, or dust-obscured galaxies.' NASA said the latest discoveries help astronomers better understand how galaxies and the behemoth black holes at their centers grow and evolve together." The news was released in a press conference, and io9 has a comprehensive write-up about everything that was covered, including the Q&A session. Pretty pictures here.

Comments

"NASA Uncovers Millions of New Black Holes"

[msauve]

Quick, cover them back up, before they cool off!

I know what you're thinking..

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'are there a million black holes waiting to hoover up all sentient life from the universe or are there 100 million black holes waiting to hoover up all sentient life from the universe? ' Well to tell you the truth, in all the chaos I myself can't remember how many black holes I made. So let me ask you, punk. Do you feel lucky ?

Re:I know what you're thinking..

[Jeremy Erwin]

a hundred million black holes in the universe? Given that there are 170 billion galaxies, that's a pretty small number of black holes.

Re:I know what you're thinking..

[hansraj]

A black hole would dissipate via Hawking radiation only if it doesn't absorb more energy than it emits. Large blackholes absorb more energy (cosmic background radiation) than they would emit and hence will not necessarily dissipate. From wikipedia:

"A black hole of one solar mass has a temperature of only 60 nanokelvins; in fact, such a black hole would absorb far more cosmic microwave background radiation than it emits. A black hole of 4.5 × 1022 kg (about the mass of the Moon) would be in equilibrium at 2.7 kelvin, absorbing as much radiation as it emits. Yet smaller primordial black holes would emit more than they absorb, and thereby lose mass."

Re:I know what you're thinking..

[Chris Burke]

In the long term -- "long" that makes the current age of the universe look like an eye-blink and protons seem unstable -- the CMB will be redshifted away until even supermassive black holes begin losing mass.

"This, too, shall pass."

New?

[rossdee]

I'll bet these have been around longer than we have

Re:Missing mass of the universe?

[Chris Burke]

How does it jibe for balancing things without using 'dark matter/energy'?

Not well.

These SMBHs are in the centers of galaxies, and piling up more mass at the center of a galaxy doesn't explain the problem of flat galactic rotation curves. The mass needs to be in and surrounding the galaxy, which is why the non-exotic DM theory is called "MACHOs" as in MAssive Compact Halo Objects -- because it'd have to be in the halo.

It's even worse for Dark Energy, since extra mass would actually have the opposite effect that DE has, pushing the universe closer to the Big Crunch scenario. It certainly would not explain accelerating expansion.

Re:Missing mass of the universe?

[Smauler]

It doesn't. Basically the reasoning for dark matter is this :

Under Newtonian or Einsteinian physics, galaxies should rotate a lot slower on the outside, and quicker in the middle than than they actually do (a little like our solar system behaves). No one can explain why they do not, satisfactorily yet.

Dark matter is an explanation which proposes that there is undetectable matter causing the gravity interference which does explain the mechanics of galactic movements. Trouble is, we haven't got a hold of dark matter yet, so although it's an explanation, it's not concrete by any means. If you want a definite explanation, you're probably going to have to go to your priest.

Black holes don't fit. There aren't that many black holes, and despite the name, they are observable. If there were enough black holes to cause galaxies to rotate like they do, we'd have seen them already.