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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kadaka (23:13:26) :
But will the pulsar-based Galactic GPS know where we are? Or will we have to upgrade to the Uni-Galactic model? They get pricey.
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Hey, you ever heard of Dixie cups and string? So you need a couple million light years of string. So what? Just make the worm hole shorter.
Perhaps the big bang was the after effect of the previous universe before us collapsing on itself, after all the black holes in the previous universe sucked up all the gases and materials around them, that there was nothing left but black holes. in the end they became attracted to each other joining into one singularity, and thus the cycle began.
Me thinks I need to stay off the green stuff 😉
Vote Quimby (01:35:08) :
Perhaps the big bang was the after effect of the previous universe before us collapsing on itself, after all the black holes in the previous universe sucked up all the gases and materials around them, that there was nothing left but black holes. in the end they became attracted to each other joining into one singularity, and thus the cycle began.
Me thinks I need to stay off the green stuff 😉
So in the next cycle, everything would be opposite sign, antimatter would be matter, colours would be reversed etc.
When that happens, remind me to stay off the red stuff. :o)
Over the past 15y I’ve become more and more worried about the state of science and how it is being conducted.
This quote from the article:-
“It is a well known fact that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.”
This type of quote from the article makes my blood boil. It is wrong at so many levels that it’s risible…
Black holes are theoretical constructs.
The hypothesis that a dimensionless singularity can exist is a ludicrous, with no observation evidence, only mathematical constructs and a desire to preserve a crumbling ‘big bang’ cosmological model.
Supermassive black holes are an even more non-nonsensical idea. If they really existed at the centre of a galaxy, their inherent gravity would stop any expansion and prevent the production of younger stars which seem thrive so close to this hypothesised destructive object.
There are many other example of ‘pixie dust’ being used to support the standard model – dark matter, dark energy, mond e.t.c
Seems it’s not just climatology which is having trouble with observation failing to match prediction. Time to throw the whole lot out and have a rethink!
Babcock-Leighton model
Mark.R (22:48:09) :
I dont know alot about black holes but how does a star with a set mass when it goes nova it must still have about the same mass why does its gravity increase ?.
Well for one thing, a star large enough to form a black hole is a better candidate to go supernova, but I digress.
A normal luminous star is a bunch of hot air. After its “death” what is left doesn’t have the energy to stay expanded, and it compresses into a denser form. As it gets smaller, the gravity felt at the surface increases.
Think of a giant interstellar cloud of gas, highly dispersed. If you’re at the edge of the cloud, its surface, you likely won’t notice its gravity. Now compress it down to the size of a planet. Same mass, but at the surface its gravity now is much stronger.
With gravity, you get the concept of escape velocity, you have to have enough speed to overcome the pull of gravity. Well, at that former star, the pull of gravity is getting rather strong. And the speed of light in vacuum is the fastest anything can travel. The thing compacts so much, the gravity at the surface gets so strong, that the escape velocity required would exceed that speed of light. Thus nothing gets away from it, not even light. You get a black hole. Note also the pull of gravity decreases with distance, but in the case of black holes it can still be so strong away from the surface that stuff near the surface also cannot escape, thus we get the boundary known as the event horizon.
Of course, what exactly is under the event horizon is the mysterious thing, and still talking about the former star’s “surface” is likely inaccurate. But, well, it’ll do for a quick explanation.
photon without a Higgs (00:39:38) :
Hey, you ever heard of Dixie cups and string? So you need a couple million light years of string. So what? Just make the worm hole shorter.
Hey, you proposed it, now you figure out how to get the string taut enough. 🙂
Paulmwho (18:09:09) :
[snip]
Schwarzschild solution and his so-called radius are as bogus as global warming theory. Schwartzchild’s solution is no ever Sshwartzchild’s it’s an error filled attempt by Hilbert.
Good luck with that.
Mike Ramsey
Mark.R (22:48:09) :
I don’t know a lot about black holes but how does a star with a set mass when it goes nova it must still have about the same mass why does its gravity increase ?
It is not that the gravity increases but rather that the outward pressure balancing the gravitational pull ceases and gravity wins. Kind of like a person failing through a weak floor; the boards can’t balance the person’s weight,
A star with say 4 to 8 solar masses has the inward gravitational pull of all that mass balanced by the outward push of “radiation pressure” of energy released by the core due to fusion.
When the lighter elements are used up, fusion at the core fails, the radiation pressure ceases and the star’s core collapses in a so called core collapse supernova. The pressure is enough to smash the electrons and protons together to form a neutron core. The shock rebounds off this dense core blowing the outer layers into space.
Curiosity is the reason that people become physicist. Stay curious 🙂
Mike Ramsey
MartinGAtkins (20:09:49) :
Mike Ramsey (16:39:51) :
You said to me.
A neutron star is not dense enough to form a black hole. Google “Schwarzschild radius”.
Please read what I said again.
No mention of a neutron star. However if two neutron stars should fuse then given sufficient mass a black hole may be the result.
I was more responding to Oliver K. Manuel who did mention neutron stars. What you say is true. A sufficient mass of neutrons will over power the strong force and collapse into a black hole. It helps to understand the steps involved.
‘mdjackson (12:42:52) :
Obviously somebody has to be taxed to fix this problem.’
That’s very funny (but keep quiet just in case).
Can anybody kindly explain why should black holes attract and capture any more matter than the equivalent normal star?
“”
Fitzy (21:10:49) :
Theres a couple of themes running through this thread;
ONE – Black Holes & Big Bang Theory is BS
TWO – People who don’t accept the peer reviewed material that Black Holes and Big Bang Theory are idiots.
“”
Really?
What is meant by the concept “accept”? Do you think peer review means some stamp of approval on the validity of the material beyond a few people with some expertise have deemed it to not be brainless BS written by a highschool dropout? Most of peer reviewed literature these days turns out to be proven wrong within 5 years of publishing. Taking it as gospel, like in climate, is more foolish than to totally ignore it.
“”
Theres a turn up for the books.
Apply the same rigour to Cosmology and Astrophysics, that is demanded by AGW skeptics, and we have a repeat of two old issues; Over reliance on computer modelling and Strong personalities riding over the top of counter arguments.
“”
Cosmology and astrophysics are quite old. They are products of the scientific method and proof that over time the scientific method advances our understanding. They are also areas that are not so subject to total domination by strong personalities,perhaps because there’s been so many.
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List one prestigious University strongly funded to research counter theories to the big-bang theory, black holes, dark matter or dark energy. Anyone?,…
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How about R. Schild at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics? He’s published in the area of MECOs as desribed in an above post. It’s based upon a concept from the great Authur Eddington and the claim is made somewhere that either MECOs can exist or black holes can exist but not both. Another area that he has published in is cold lyman alpha clouds and the prospects of non radiating baryonic matter effects. That potentially goes in to the effects of the assumed dark energy and may also point towards dark matter as being nonradiating normal matter.
As for the big bang and cosmological orthodoxy, try search for quasi steady state theory.
Whether any of these are the right path or whether none of them are of value may not truly be discerned on the relative short term. Cosmology and astronomy have been around long enough to show that some apparent falsifications aren’t necessarily real (stellar parallax) or that better verifiable results in predictions actually come from the more correct theory (epicycles in an Earth centered universe) or that two competing theories actually include the correct theory (Earth centered vs. Sun centered universe).
“”
If we are open minded, surely a theory or theories that counter consensus cosmology are also worthy of funding and research?. Or, have we reached two dead ends in science – Climate science and Cosmology?
Are we to accept that consensus in Cosmology is not the same as concensus in Climate science? What are the odds that accolade, wealth and status are absent as motivators in the field of Cosmology? Climategate surely, has removed the hubris that allows for sacred cows in any field of science, no matter how elegant the equations.
“”
Climate ‘science’ appears driven primarily by politics with financial input from politics and results being fed into a political agenda. Perhaps it should not be called a science.
Cosmology has a concensus, just like there is often a concensus on the outcome of next week’s monday night football game. It is not tied to a political agenda like climate science. It’s amazing how fast the concensus can change. Dark energy is now mainstream, yet came about over scarcely 15 years from nothing.
Suffice to say that cosmology is alive and well and is ripe for even more fundamental revelations over the coming years.
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Just my three cents worth
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hyperinflation has begun?
“”supercritical (06:17:17) :
Can anybody kindly explain why should black holes attract and capture any more matter than the equivalent normal star?
“”
They don’t. There’s a big misunderstanding going on out there.
The geometry of things is partly the culprit. All matter attracts other matter by gravity, an inverse square law. It turns out that this gravitational attraction by an object at distance R is the same for a sphere of radius r – like the Earth – as it is to assume all the mass is located at a single point at the center of the Earth. If you go deep into a mine, you will go closer to the center, but only the material under your feet (imaginary sphere of that size under your feet) still attracts you to the center of the Earth will the material above your head pulls you upward and reduces your weight or attraction. There’s less material pulling on you in the down direction even though you’re closer to the center. When you get to the center, Earth’s material is all around you pulling in all directions so you are weightless.
If you compressed Earth’s material to the size of a marble at its center except for a small platform located at the original surface, the gravity at that platform would be the same as before you compressed the Earth down. But now, if you step off the platform, you’ll fall down to the center and gravity will increase as you get closer and closer because of the inverse square law distance is decreasing and there is no increasing amount of material above your head cancelling out it’s effect. When you get to marble, the forces will be so great that they will rip you apart.
It’s the same thing with a black hole versus a star. Gravity increases as you get closer and the closer you can get without going inside the stronger it will get. If the object is smaller, you can get closer.
supercritical (06:17:17) :
Can anybody kindly explain why should black holes attract and capture any more matter than the equivalent normal star?
Gravity is what attracts matter to both. The amount of gravity is proportional to the amount of mass/energy. The black hole at the center of the Milkyway has a mass on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses and like the genie in Aladin, squeezed into a tiny space.
Mike Ramsey
To those who replied to my question:
“Can anybody kindly explain why should black holes attract and capture any more matter than the equivalent normal star?”
Thanks for those responses. I suppose for a black hole that is say equivalent to three solar masses, we could expect to find planets, comets, asteroids etc., orbiting it, normally .
And as I understand it, for an object travelling in space there is quite a narrow combination of trajectories that will lead to actual collision with a star; all others will result in deflections and orbits of some kind. This will involve angular momentum to be accounted for. So, objects falling into a black hole must be about as common as stuff colliding with the equivalent sun’s surface.
And so , there would seem to be no essential difference between a ‘black hole’ and an ordinary star, in terms of gravitational behaviour.
Then, there is the behaviour of the gravitational field within the body itself. I suppose that the gravitational force (weight) exerted on an object is at a maximum at the surface of the body, and then reduces to zero at the centre of the body. In this case, if the gravitational force really is zero at the centre of a body, what exactly IS the force that keeps the black-hole together?
Also, the behaviour of the gravitational field within a body seems to be similar to that of static electrical fields. And so if we had a hollow body, could this be the equivalent of a Faraday-cage for gravity?
For the people having problems with the concepts of black holes and neutron stars: google for quark stars and strange matter, they’re even stranger (or quarkier).
After reading the article and comments, I’m reminded of some quotes from Einstein.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
peace
supercritical (06:17:17) :
Can anybody kindly explain why should black holes attract and capture any more matter than the equivalent normal star?
Try this:
DirkH (08:25:09) :
For the people having problems with the concepts of black holes and neutron stars: google for quark stars and strange matter, they’re even stranger (or quarkier).
So now their head will hurt even more.
You’re all a buncha flat universers.
photon without a Higgs (00:35:01)
Yes, that’s right Albert Einstein never subscribed to “black holes”.
It was not Einstein who argued that General Relativity suggested “black holes”, but others who used General Relativity to suggest the existence of “black holes.”
supercritical (06:17:17) :
5 part series in YouTube
Part 1
James F. Evans (08:59:52) :
Well, he did talk about the characteristics of light around black holes. That’s one of the times when some people thought he was a mad man.
James F. Evans (08:59:52) :
Yes, that’s right Albert Einstein never subscribed to “black holes”.
And as you said:
James F. Evans (23:20:40) :
Old scientists don’t change their opinions with new evidence…they just pass from the scene and new scientists more open to new ideas take their place.
This is precisely what happened to Einstein. Thanks for understanding this so clearly.
This paper would seem to contradict SgrA* “eating more slowly” as it was discovered that the magnetic field in the center of the Milky Way is much stronger than previously thought. Couldn’t that indicate something other than a quiescent “black hole” going on there?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100106193219.htm
The closer we look, magnetic fields (charged particles moving in field aligned filaments and sheets within plasma?) are stronger and play a more important role than standard models account for, across the board pretty much. But mention any skepticism of standard cosmology and the response from some is, well just plain meansprited and ill-informed.
No dude, you don’t know squat about what any of these posters may or may not know and I’m sure all of them have their own individual talents, skills and interests and people who love them for those things and more.
There are some AGW skeptics here, who fail to see their own hypocrisy, that treat those who are skeptical of standard cosmology the same (like dirt), or worse, as they are treated by the AGW alarmists.