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Largest black hole ever discovered
1.8 million light-years from Earth
"US astronomers have discovered the biggest black hole orbiting a star 1.8 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, with a record-setting mass of 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, NASA said Tuesday."
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News article
wow awesome. Nature is amazing and at the same time frightening.
I saw that this morning in yahoo (www.yahoo.com), say... what's inside a black whole?
@Welshman,
I know, I get the same feeling when I look at the stars or think about worm holes, black holes etc...It just boggles the mind it's so incredible. It also makes me wonder,..what's on the other side? The universe is so beyond comprehension, I feel lucky to be here.
I thought this was a bit of a mind trip:
Another interesting tidbit, a black hole with the mass of the earth would fit in the palm of your hand.
I know, I get the same feeling when I look at the stars or think about worm holes, black holes etc...It just boggles the mind it's so incredible. It also makes me wonder,..what's on the other side? The universe is so beyond comprehension, I feel lucky to be here.
I thought this was a bit of a mind trip:
QUOTE
We know that black holes suck in light. So if you were inside a black hole, would it seem incredibly bright, or is the light destroyed/converted somehow as you fall into the black hole? Also, can you see out? The videos we looked at seemed to show that everything turns into a doughtnut shape around you?
We are - Sam, aged eight and mummy aged 37, high school science teacher!!
This is a really interesting question and I have taken some time to think about my answer so I hope that I will get it at least mostly right. Black holes are strange things - completely outside of our normal physical intuition so it can be really hard to think about what things would be like near them! Of course the first thing that I should say is that it would not be possible to go into a black hole and survive long enough to look out. If you were not torn apart by the enourmous tidal forces you would be fried by the extremely high energy radiation (X-rays and Gamma-rays) 'raining' down on you. Also between crossing the event horizon and hitting the central singularity is likely to be only a fraction of a second of your time!
That being said, it is interesting to think about what things would look like if we could see them. The first thing that comes to mind is that as the light from the universe "falls" into the black hole it gains energy. This means that its wavelength gets shorter. Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light - so very simply things would appear to get bluer. There is also light outside the range which we can see (as I'm sure Mummy knows, see also this nice explanation with diagrams ) so the longer wavelength radiation would get shifted into the visible range (and through it) and the visible would get shifted to shorter wavelengths. Eventually at the event horizon there is an infinite shift - so the light has an infinite amount of energy, but zero wavelength. What this would look like I can't even imagine! I'm not sure if you could see it even if you hadn't been killed by the gamma-radiation hitting you as you got close to it!
Now if we assume not only that we haven't died on the way into the black hole, and that we can see the light which has an infinite blue shift we would be able to see some weird things. If we looked away from the singularity at the centre of the black hole we would be able to see the whole universe in one small patch of our sky - even the stuff that is actually behind the singularity! Also time outside would appear to be running much faster, so we would be able to see the evolution of the universe "flash" before our eyes.
It would be pretty interesting I think - although like I said it would seem to be completely impossible to even do and certainly impossible to survive it given that you would then be stuck inside a black hole!
We are - Sam, aged eight and mummy aged 37, high school science teacher!!
This is a really interesting question and I have taken some time to think about my answer so I hope that I will get it at least mostly right. Black holes are strange things - completely outside of our normal physical intuition so it can be really hard to think about what things would be like near them! Of course the first thing that I should say is that it would not be possible to go into a black hole and survive long enough to look out. If you were not torn apart by the enourmous tidal forces you would be fried by the extremely high energy radiation (X-rays and Gamma-rays) 'raining' down on you. Also between crossing the event horizon and hitting the central singularity is likely to be only a fraction of a second of your time!
That being said, it is interesting to think about what things would look like if we could see them. The first thing that comes to mind is that as the light from the universe "falls" into the black hole it gains energy. This means that its wavelength gets shorter. Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light - so very simply things would appear to get bluer. There is also light outside the range which we can see (as I'm sure Mummy knows, see also this nice explanation with diagrams ) so the longer wavelength radiation would get shifted into the visible range (and through it) and the visible would get shifted to shorter wavelengths. Eventually at the event horizon there is an infinite shift - so the light has an infinite amount of energy, but zero wavelength. What this would look like I can't even imagine! I'm not sure if you could see it even if you hadn't been killed by the gamma-radiation hitting you as you got close to it!
Now if we assume not only that we haven't died on the way into the black hole, and that we can see the light which has an infinite blue shift we would be able to see some weird things. If we looked away from the singularity at the centre of the black hole we would be able to see the whole universe in one small patch of our sky - even the stuff that is actually behind the singularity! Also time outside would appear to be running much faster, so we would be able to see the evolution of the universe "flash" before our eyes.
It would be pretty interesting I think - although like I said it would seem to be completely impossible to even do and certainly impossible to survive it given that you would then be stuck inside a black hole!
Another interesting tidbit, a black hole with the mass of the earth would fit in the palm of your hand.
Currently reading Baxter's Destiny's Children - One of the best "black hole" Sci Fi books is the second book in that series "Exultant" as well as his other work with Ghosts and Xeelee.
Saint - I think I bought this book years ago in WH Smith. Have a nice walk in the Tuilleries for me and a coffee at Madame Tartine's.
Saint - I think I bought this book years ago in WH Smith. Have a nice walk in the Tuilleries for me and a coffee at Madame Tartine's.
Sure thing, Zemonkey..I have spent an afternoon or two sitting on the floor of WH Smith's
Why didn't you use the chairs? You wrinklies shouldn't be giving bad example to the young.
What's a "wrinkley" Garibaldi?
They don't have chairs to sit on at WH Smith. If you are lucky you may find the occassional stool but normally you have to sit on the floor. The shopkeepers don't mind
They don't have chairs to sit on at WH Smith. If you are lucky you may find the occassional stool but normally you have to sit on the floor. The shopkeepers don't mind
QUOTE (Saint @ Nov 1 2007, 2:11 pm) 
What's a "wrinkley" Garibaldi?
Dat a "wrinkly":
Mine are only around my eyes, from laughing and squinting, G.
Can be caused by effort, zemonkey, a particular one-handed kind of effort.
Just to set the record straight: The black hole in that news article is not the biggest one thought to exist in the universe, not by a long way. It is however the biggest stellar-mass black hole found so far - that is, it is a black hole that was formed from a collapsing star, and its mass is comparable to that of a large star.
But there are much bigger monsters out there. The centre of our galaxy is believed to contain a black hole with a mass millions of times that of the sun. And that is thought to be quite typical for galaxies like ours, which the universe is full of. Just an ordinary, mind-boggling, common-or-garden black hole really. In fact - but don't quote me on this coz I haven't tried it myself - I believe it's said that with a black hole that size, you could in fact travel into it without being ripped apart by tidal forces, as the increase in gravitational pull would be much more gradual. It would still be a one-way trip though, and no doubt you'd need good radiation protection. It has even been suggested that our entire universe is just the inside of a black hole in someone else's universe.
And of course, there's the fascinating idea, discussed in depth in another thread, of objects travelling via worm holes to a parallel universe.
But there are much bigger monsters out there. The centre of our galaxy is believed to contain a black hole with a mass millions of times that of the sun. And that is thought to be quite typical for galaxies like ours, which the universe is full of. Just an ordinary, mind-boggling, common-or-garden black hole really. In fact - but don't quote me on this coz I haven't tried it myself - I believe it's said that with a black hole that size, you could in fact travel into it without being ripped apart by tidal forces, as the increase in gravitational pull would be much more gradual. It would still be a one-way trip though, and no doubt you'd need good radiation protection. It has even been suggested that our entire universe is just the inside of a black hole in someone else's universe.
And of course, there's the fascinating idea, discussed in depth in another thread, of objects travelling via worm holes to a parallel universe.
Did anyone else see a hawk looking in from the left when first seeing that pic or is it just me hallucinating again?
Isn't that a Debian logo?
I'm just wondering, do all you guys pretend you're Steve Hawking by night and rig up you computer to make robotic noises, kind of in the same way like normal guys watch sport, or blue movies.
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