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.
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Either way, living with a black hole in the neighborhood … really sucks.
Any sign of a new tax scheme to remediate for anthropogenic black holes?
Just wondering about Black Holes and the conservation of angular momentum. Lumps of matter in orbit around them ought to whizz around faster and faster as they get closer and closer, and so would they emit visible radiation?
If this is so, why shouldn’t black holes be visible?
“If this is so, why shouldn’t black holes be visible?”
Black holes in orbit around stars do tend to accumulate matter in accretion disks, which do generate infrared as well as xray emissions that are observable by scientists.
Those black holes only to be found in the minds of “De la Belle Epoque” scientists…Kind of “daliesque”nightmare, concocted for scaring children by dividing reality by zero and justifying the existence of evil ghosts.
Black hole: A big, big coal dark round thing where bad kids who deny global warming are sent to…
Those nasty beasts, as told by a phantom physicist who made the travel through, from time to time, expel a kind of bright jet of incandescent farts..
so we don’t really know if it swallows or sh…ts.
Seriously talking….buy more popcorn!. Siberian hackers will soon reveal the “Astro-Gate” closely associated to “Climate-Gate” scandal. This one promises to be a real black hole for the established Hollywood Science of armageddon scenarios. WUWT hit will reach a billion!
supercritical (13:16:58) :
“Just wondering about Black Holes and the conservation of angular momentum. Lumps of matter in orbit around them ought to whizz around faster and faster as they get closer and closer, and so would they emit visible radiation?
If this is so, why shouldn’t black holes be visible?”
Black holes are visible when enough matter is being fed into them – they are called quasars then and are the brightest objects in the known universe.
@ur momisugly Mike (12:07:30)
Thanks for making me spit my Diet Pepsi all over the floor 🙂 At least I turned in to to avoid having to buy a new laptop.
Black Holes,….the rich scientists carbon
I find this story a bit odd because it has been known for quite some time that the matter actually entering the black hole tends to fall in phases. In other words, things are stable for quite a while, the matter builds up, and at some point a big clump falls in or something disrupts the order and a bunch of stuff continues falling in for a while and then it gets stable again.
Sounds to me like a project’s funding cycle is coming around again and someone needs to drum up support. The 1% figure was, as I understood it, a long term average, not an constant. I thought it was understood that consumption rates would vary from periods of nearly no consumption to periods of massive amounts of matter falling in. Anyone observing for a period of a few years would be able to only verify that the current period is one of relative stability.
If the black hole has been ‘eating the galaxy’, then there is less galaxy left to eat. The low hanging fruit, so to speak has, already fallen; now the ‘hole’ has to work much harder to satisfy its appetite.
As with all energy transformations, inefficiencies result in excess heat. In this case, the heat gain is referred to as the Aggregate Galactic Warming, or AGW. It’s been in the news for years; our science has, though, confused itself with its perpetually parochial persective.
Move on, nothing to see here.
Save the Holes!
Catchy.
Interesting that they call this thing “rather weak” given that it’s guestimated to weigh in at 3 million solar masses? Guess that means the others are “rather bigger/stronger?”
I was going to say something about models, but nevermind.
WRBriggs 12:23:55… Are you talking about Rachel Riemann? Man, I’d like to have studied her surface when I was in school,
Fitzy (13:07:39) :
“Righhhhtttt….so something that can’t be seen, uses complex computer models to describe it, and uses a proxy instead of a genuine observation isn’t behaving like the models say it should?”
While some might say that a black hole can’t be seen, how about look at it from a different perspective.
You can’t see through a black hole.
This discussion about not ‘seeing’ a back hole is misleading.
You can’t see something that sucks light into it.
Gravity, in the form of magnetism, attracts material, to the source of that gravitational pull.
If you watch closely, stars orbiting the center of the galaxy, warp around and diminish as they orbit behind the center of the galaxy.
Some people rely on facts, others pretend that the facts are falsified.
Ray (13:02:27) :
“It’s supposed to be a supermassive black hole but with only a few dozens of young stars around it??? How many stars again at the center of our galaxy? I bet there are more than just a few dozens. Also, how could a supermassive object only suck up gas from those stars… why not suck the whole stars?”
Think about satellite Io. It orbits Jupiter. Io emits gases much like the stars in near proximity to our solar systems black hole. And in both circumstances, neither the moon of Jupiter nor the stars near the center of our galaxy are sucked in. Not yet. Given time, this too shall pass. Gravity affects discharges emitted from objects more greatly because of its mass. The greater the mass, the more time it takes to wheel in that mass.
This post here states:
“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. ”
How do we know a black hole can capture mass?
Observations.
How do we know a black hole is at the center of our galaxy?
Observations.
If you don’t agree with observed facts, I can only conclude that ones decision to deny the facts is lack of understanding of the science, or the denial of the existence only helps someone with a different agenda they wish to politicize.
And the pedaling of pseudo-science, regarding the denial of black holes, is very much like the pseudo-scientists pedaling global warming.
In both cases, neither belief has facts from observed science and both deal with a large amount of faith.
Stick to the facts and leave the faith in things to the religious and mythological.
Oliver K. Manuel (12:06:45) :
There are no black holes. But there are supermassive neutron stars.
Repulsive forces between neutrons prevent the collapse of a neutron star into a black hole.
A black hole is an object whose mass causes it to have a gravitational escape velocity that equals the speed of light. A sufficient mass of neutrons will form a black hole.
I need a very large grant to determine the gravity of this situation.
David Alan (14:38:05) :
“Gravity, in the form of magnetism, attracts material, to the source of that gravitational pull.”
What?
“If you watch closely, stars orbiting the center of the galaxy, warp around and diminish as they orbit behind the center of the galaxy.”
Again, what?
First they tell us that nothing can escape a black hole. Now they tell us:
“This radiation heats up the gas in the stream surrounding the black hole, and creates an outward pressure, driving gas away from the black hole.”
So which is it?
The black holes aren’t eating right???? Oh NO!!!! We must do something quick. We don’t have time to actually study the issue to see if there is actually a problem. We must convene a UN committee to decide on when a where a conference will be held to determine what type of treaty will be discussed so then all the diplomats can fly over, grab some booze and hookers, listen to the US president give a speech, applaud the stark raving socialist/commies that give speeches, then tax the snot out of everyone that actually produces anything. But we can’t wait, so let’s get started by 2020.
Correction:
But we can’t wait, so let’s get the committee formed by 2020 with a treaty done by 2030.
The only Black Hole that exist are the one that billions of dollars are thrown down for research into nothing of any real value.
There are no
Black Holes,
No Dark Matter,
No Dark Energy,
No God Particle
No Neutron Stars and definitely no
Big Bang.
Every single one of these concepts is nothing more than an mathematical assumption built on top of another assumption built on top of an erroneous conclusion about an observation that was misunderstood from the very beginning.
The guy in the wheelchair is a moron
An extremely intelligent moron
But a moron none the less.
“There is nothing complicated about the universe. It is only made complicated by people too intelligent to see how simple it really is.” – Paul M
“David Alan (14:38:05) :
[…]
Gravity, in the form of magnetism, attracts material, to the source of that gravitational pull.
[…]
Some people rely on facts, others pretend that the facts are falsified.”
Others again rely on the idea that magnetism is a form of gravity. Which it isn’t.
Sorry… i crack myself up, i have to post this…
Did someone ever consider that it might be dark matter that the black hole is preferredly swallowing,…
…and that that’s why it’s so BLACK?
ad (14:50:14) :
David Alan (14:38:05) :
[“Gravity, in the form of magnetism, attracts material, to the source of that gravitational pull.”
What?]
Our galaxy, has at its center, an object that has sufficient gravity to draw gases, plasma, matter and light unto itself. That object also causes the magnetic planes that surround it, to capture those materials.
[“If you watch closely, stars orbiting the center of the galaxy, warp around and diminish as they orbit behind the center of the galaxy.”
Again, what?]
Through observations, stars orbiting in near Sagittarius A, have been measured to show variances in emitted light wave propagation as they orbit around Sagittarius A. Mainly speaking, as those stars orbit around behind the mass of Sagittarius A, observers witnessed a minimization in light wave intensity, because the mass of Sagittarius A somewhat blocks our perspective of those objects as they pass around Sagittarius A.
If you still have any more ‘whats’ in you, feel free to research more in depth in the matter. There are wonderful papers written on the subject.
Yeah, no links. I doubt you would trust any links I might provide.
I dunno, the black hole at the center of our galaxy may be sucking less, but it is far more than compensated from the black hole sucking all matter into its inky event horizon here on earth. I speak of course of the various governments and organizations that wish to insure that we and the planet are well taken care of, according to their standards, whether we want to be or not. I wonder how much matter Al Gore et al, suck in when they open their mouths?