From Daily TechThe Milky Way’s black hole is causing a mess, but isn’t gobbling matter as fast as was thought
One of the most complex and intriguing astrophysical phenomenon is the supermassive black hole. A superdense cluster of mass, the supermassive black hole gobbles up surrounding matter, sucking it into its gravity well. Despite the tremendous importance of these celestial bodies to the structure of our universe, scientists still remain confused about specifics of how they operate.
Supermassive black holes help to shape our universe, but their behavior is still poorly understood
. (Source: PureInsight.org)
It is a well known fact that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Dubbed Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the black hole is rather weak, due to its inability to successfully capture significant mass. The black hole is bordered by dozens of young stars. It pulls gas off these stars, but is only able to suck in a small percentage of this high velocity stream.
Past estimates put its consumption rate at a mere 1 percent of the gas it pulls away from the stars. Now a new study, using data garnered from the NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, has determined that the black hole is likely eating far less than that figure even — new models indicate it to be consuming a mere 0.01 percent of the gas it sucks off.
Read the rest of the story here.
Anna V. (21:38:28)
Anna you simply must do better than the example given, although I must give you credit. You actually used a real world example and not some abstracted pie in the sky. If I dropped a thousand different objects none of them would be a feather! Why, because anybody with half a brain and two eyes can easily see that the feather won’t behave the same as the rest because of the difference in shape and composition which relates to air resistance. Yours is a weak and feeble attempt to bolster black hole physics. Oh, and go back and read my cosmologically disturbing post. I dropped a surprise on you. So tell me Anna does NGC7603 exist or not? Does it present a problem or not? Is it a hoax? I can give you more surprising examples if you like. We haven’t even started on the observations.
Leif Svaalgard (19:49:45)
Your one line response had me rolling with laughter. I knew you had no ability to answer with a genuine response. As a matter of fact I made a bet with a buddy that you wouldn’t answer (guess who won a free steak dinner). Thank You for that!
Since apparently you do not [snip. personal insult -mod] understand the observation I will spell it out for ALL bangers.
Seyfert NGC7603 has 4 objects. All are in the same region of space. All 4 objects have wildly varying redshifts. According to current consensus redshift is a function of distance. NGC7603 invalidates this belief. What really appears to be happening is that the main galaxy has ejected the other three objects. As the newborn quasars age and increase in mass they lose the high redshift values eventually arriving at the more normally observed redshifts. Conclusion: Redshift is not a measure of distance but AGE!
As I stated before redshift has a non cosmolgical component to it.
My dad once said to me “Son, he said, you can ignore your problems in life but, be careful, one of them may eventually come back and bite you in the ass”. Wonderful wise words they are.
cba (10:03:41) :
Personally, I prefer to think in simple terms and christ-awful symbols give me a headache. I prefer to think along the lines of photons having a mass = p/c being attracted to a gravitational body just like any other.
One can come up with numerous ad-hoc hypotheses for each special case, but they all seem unnecessary when a single cause will do. There is even a case of a quasar being lensed by Jupiter: http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gravity/overview.php
I think the observational evidence now is so strong that only people with a mind so open that their brain has fallen out will continue to torture themselves with pseudo-scientific ‘alternative science’.
Brian (11:34:44) :
According to current consensus redshift is a function of distance. NGC7603 invalidates this belief. What really appears to be happening is that the main galaxy has ejected the other three objects.
You may just have given an explanation of that particular rare case, although you have not explained by what mechanism such tremendous speeds are obtained [maybe black holes at work], and why there are no galaxies with high blue shifts. Perhaps the galaxies know where we are located and choose to eject only away from us.
Anyway, I glad to have provided amusement and a steak dinner for you. I’ll be happy to help you win more bets in the future.
Brian (11:34:44) :
According to current consensus redshift is a function of distance. NGC7603 invalidates this belief.
If you want to learn more about anomalous redshifts, this is a good reference:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0509/0509630v2.pdf
The flaw is your logic is, of course, that because a few cases are anomalous, all cases must be. It reminds me of the ‘demonstration’ that Geology is completely wrong. A principle of Geology is that newer strata lie on top of older strata, and that therefore a single example of older overlying newer invalidates Geology as we know it. That science also has its wackos, e.g. described here http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/henke_steno.htm
So you are in good company.
Leif Svaalgard
Thanks for linking to the Lopez-Corredoira/Gutierez paper. The very last line contains an interesting statement, and whilst I cannot speak for Brian & Tallbloke, it seems to me to be stating their position on the issue. Is it yours, too?
And, I wish you had not used the ‘flaw’ word. It is reminiscent of the AGW tactic of inference, rather than statement. I am sure that you too hold the view that scientific truths can only ever be provisional and never perfect, so why use an adjective that implies the opposite?
supercritical (13:29:10) :
it seems to me to be stating their position on the issue. Is it yours, too?
Basically, yes. This is an interesting case that should be looked at. One reason it is not attracting much attention is the cult that has built up around this, and practicing scientists usual don’t want to be embroiled in cultist arguments. [I may be an exception :-0 ]
And, I wish you had not used the ‘flaw’ word.
I used the word because I think his argument [that because you have a few rare anomalies, all the rest goes out the window] is flawed. I don’t think this is question of ‘scientific truth’ in the greater sense, but simply about trying to understand the special circumstances that create the anomaly.
Leif,
you had me going for a moment there wondering how one could measure an optical lensing from Jupiter. radio interferometry does provide that extra bit of angular resolution though. Evidently that was experiment was strictly an attempt to measure the speed of a gravitational field change. While a bit crude in the result accuracy, it does seem to have passed with flying colors to be c.
I’m not sure what your quotation of my post has to do with your comment though. It’s strictly a conceptual notion attributing gravity’s affinity for photons in a simple classical context without the need for warping space and using GR. It doesn’t have anything to do with any particular alternative theory or hypothesis.
cba (13:51:35) :
I’m not sure what your quotation of my post has to do with your comment though.
Sometimes I use a quotation just as a weak ‘connector’ to the train of thought. The discussion at times slowly drifts off topic. I’m not even sure what our [mini-]discussion was about [too lazy to backtrack to find out], but my comments were intended to show that I [and most people working in this field] do not think that some deflections are refraction by ‘clouds’ and others are gravitational lensing. If so, one would wish to know what happened to the gravitational lensing for the cases claimed to be due to refraction, remember that refraction is due to a speed differential between two media. As far I as I am concerned, good ole Einstein has passed all tests so far. That makes it legit to explore the consequences of his theory.
Brian (11:34:44) : | Reply w/ Link
Anna V. (21:38:28)
Anna you simply must do better than the example given,
I think my example, though simple, is appropriate. I should have said : Make a feather ball of the same shape as the other solids.
If I dropped a thousand different objects none of them would be a feather! Why, because anybody with half a brain and two eyes can easily see that the feather won’t behave the same as the rest because of the difference in shape and composition which relates to air resistance.
With a feather ball you are left with air resistance which would be strong.
If you make your solids very small, you have the terminal velocity and you “invent” viscosity in order not to throw away constant g, and invent vacuum to study non resistant fall.
Feathers are a tiny small portion of the solids on the earth. The proportions might hold with the normal and anomalous observations quite well.
It is not by chance that the saying exists: the exception that proves the rule.
Exceptions make one think of how to explain them within the rule, before one throws away the rule. Usually one throws away the rule if the exceptions are so numerous to dominate statistically. This is what my example tried to illustrate.
You see, even for everybody who has two eyes and half a brain data from the cosmos is not so prevailing and available to have given him/her the background analogous to the enormous background data base gathered continuously during everyday life on earth. These anomalies are the feathers needing explanations, had we not know of feathers almost from birth.
Leif Svalgaard (12:03:42) (12:26:57) (13:44:40)
My dear Mr. Svalgaard trying to relegate those who choose to disagree with you to the land of “wacko’s and “cultists” will score you exactly 0 points in a proper debate. Let me give you some good advice. Never in a blog or to someone’s face call him/her a “wacko” or “cultist”. The fact is you know absolutely nothing about me or anyone else in this blog except that we simply disagree on an important issue. I would never call YOU a wacko. Misguided, perhaps. Confused, maybe, but a wacko. Is this an unscientific trait of yours? Most importantly it does not solve the problem. I did in fact in the heat of the moment insult you in my post at 21:38:28 so I will be more careful in future posts and it was with good reason snipped (my first snip).
The cult of NGC7603? I am truly disappointed.
On the other hand it was the work of Lopez-Corredoira/Gutierez that first brought my attention to this anomaly and your link gave me a most thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you very much. I am not quite sure why you gave me this link because it me gives me plenty more ammunition for the debate. Have you read this paper yourself? If I was in your shoes I wouldn’t have used it. The claim that that these anomalies are special and only a few exist are directly contradicted by the paper’s statement ” The sample of discordant redshift associations given in Arp’s atlas is indeed QUITE LARGE, and most of the objects remain to be analysed thoroughly”. The authors then go on to give six more examples. So, when does rare and exceptional cross the line into commom and normal. Six, ten, twenty? How about 100 anomalies would that raise your eyebrows? The very first sentence in the abstract reads “The paradox of apparent optical associations of galaxies with very different redshifts, the so-called anomalous
redshift problem, is around 35 years old, but is still without a CLEAR solution and is SURPRISINGLY IGNORED by most of the astronomical community.” So the question is why. Why ignore something that may give us a real insight as to how the universe really works? On gravitational lensing the authors give some uncomfortable words, ” Weak gravitational lensing by dark matter has also been proposed as the cause of the statistical correlations between
low and high redshift objects, but this seems to be insufficient to explain them, and CANNOT WORK AT ALL for the correlations with the brightest and nearest galaxies”. “Summing up, observations CHALLENGE the standard model”. Do I really need to go on? Unfortunately for you my so called logic is not mine at all but the logic of Halton C. Arp and Geoffery Burbidge and so by inference I guess these two men are wackos also. I would be quite privileged to be in the good company of these men! One last thing. I am quite aware of the principles of stratigraphy, Steno and superposition and of course overthrusts as I have studied the subject. I’m tempted but this is not the place to debate this. If you wish, maybe you could request Anthony to provide a separate blog as I would be happy to debate it with you, anytime.
I never even got to NGC4319, another cult object and the source of a NASA coverup in the MSM. Have a nice day!
Brian (12:08:26) :
The cult of NGC7603? I am truly disappointed.
The cult is not of NGC 7603 per se, but of ‘the Big Bang Never Happened’.
I am not quite sure why you gave me this link because it me gives me plenty more ammunition for the debate. Have you read this paper yourself? If I was in your shoes I wouldn’t have used it.
I gave yo that link because that is what an honest scientist would do. People who are somewhat deficient in that regard, would – as you say – not have used it.
How about 100 anomalies would that raise your eyebrows?
We know of 200,000 quasars, so we can live with some anomalies.
“Summing up, observations CHALLENGE the standard model”.
Which is not the same as invalidating it. It means that we need to find an explanation for the anomalies within the model, is all.
We observe quasars behind galaxies at cosmological distances.
I guess these two men are wackos also.
At the time 35 years ago no, but at the present time, yes, if they still seriously claim that the standard model is invalid.
The fact is you know absolutely nothing about me or anyone else in this blog except that we simply disagree on an important issue.
If you maintained that the Earth was flat, you would say that we simply disagree on an important issue.
Either you’re deaf, dumb or blind I’m not sure which.
I would rather be a wacko.