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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
supercritical (06:17:17) :
You can learn almost anything through the internet. Here’s a huge tip for you, go to these links and start watching:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Michio+Kako+black+holes&search_type=&aq=f
and
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Alex+Filippenko+black+holes&search_type=&aq=f
and
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Leonard+Susskind++black+holes&search_type=&aq=f
From there you can go on searches for years in the internet to learn everything you’d want about Black Holes.
kadaka (03:06:51) :
Hey, you proposed it, now you figure out how to get the string taut enough.:)
Hey, come on, that’s a cinch! Just adjust the length of the worm hole till you get the right tension. 😉
solrey (09:22:28) :
“Yeah, I agree, it seems that most posters don’t know squat about anything.”
No dude, you don’t know squat about what any of these posters may or may not know
Their lack of depth of their knowledge of the topics at hand speaks for itself. It is OK not know something, as long as you don’t believe that is a virtue.
Science Daily – January 7, 2010 – Milky Way’s Magnetic Attraction Ten Times Stronger Than Rest of Galaxy:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100106193219.htm
“Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics, the University of Adelaide, Monash University and the United States have recently published their findings in Nature.”
As opposed to some who claim Science doesn’t know where magnetism comes from, others take an empirical approach and note that repeated observation & measurement both in the plasma physics laboratory and in situ probes show charged particles in motion (not necessarily an electric current as such) cause a magnetic field.
So, based on empirical evidence of intense magnetic fields at the galactic center there is a possibility that at the galactic center of the Milky Way is a concentrated formation of charged particles in motion.
Some call this a plasmoid.
This phenomenon has been studied in the laboratory. And this concept has been studied for over 50 years. Please see the paper linked below:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1958IAUS….6…87B
Title: Experimental Study of Plasmoids
Authors: Bostick, W. H.
Journal: Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no. 6. Edited by Bo Lehnert. International Astronomical Union. Symposium no. 6, Cambridge University Press, p.87
More study is needed on plasmoids, both in the laboratory and in situ.
The gravity “only” model of astronomy (so-called “black holes” being the best known aspect) has been falsified many times…still believers cling to it by additions of “pixie dust” like so-called “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and even “dark flow” (all NEVER observed & measured), and probably more imaginary substances will be added on an ad hoc basis as needed to keep the “gravity” only model from being cast into the ash heap of discarded scientific ideas.
Leif Svalgaard (09:19:27) wrote: “This [passed by as new evidence was observed & measured] is precisely what happened to Einstein. Thanks for understanding this so clearly.”
Tusche.
photon without a Higgs (09:00:58) : I could bet that there are common characteristics in the psychological phenomena of Climate Gate and currently hidden “Astro Gate”.
Both though look like conspiracies, they are not, they just begin with an idea of one man or a group…the rest goes just like “roses, roses”, and like being attracted by a “black hole” or a spider´s web, those “scientists” who share some common personality characteristics like “pride”, “prejudice”, “self esteem”, “self indulgement”, who, since childhood have been convinced that they are “mom´s predilect offspring”, inevitably get caught in it….
Only a few seconds afterwards they begin wiseacreing about their new and trascendental nany discoveries…
James F. Evans (10:14:41) :
Tusche. touché?
James F. Evans (10:14:41) :
Leif Svalgaard (09:19:27) wrote: “This [passed by as new evidence was observed & measured] is precisely what happened to Einstein. Thanks for understanding this so clearly.”
Perhaps I overrated your understanding…
‘As new ideas about black holes took hold by new scientists more open to new ideas took their place’ is what happened to him.
James F. Evans (10:06:49) :
Science Daily – January 7, 2010 – Milky Way’s Magnetic Attraction Ten Times Stronger Than Rest of Galaxy
Is pure nonsense. What they discovered is that the magnetic field strength is 50 microgauss. That is 0.000,050 Gauss compared to the Earth’s field of 0.5 Gauss. The rest of your post displays your deep ignorance of basic physics [but fits with many similar posts].
Dr. Svalggard:
Read the paper published in Nature if you don’t like the Science Daily headline for their report on the paper, I’m fine with that.
Besides, you are distracting from the salient point: The galactic centerof the Milky Way is the source of intense magnetic fields.
So, Dr. Svalgaard, you subscribe to “black holes”. Do you also subscribe to “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and “dark flow” as well?
None of these have been observed & measured, they are ad hocs to keep the “gravity” only model from being fasified.
But for the failure of the “gravity” only model to explain spiral galaxy rotation (the edges spin as fast as the core in contradiction to gravity models), so-called “dark matter” would never have neen thought of.
Dr. Svalgaard, please give a physical description of a “singularity”.
“If our Galactic Centre’s magnetic field is stronger than we thought, this raises additional questions of how it got so strong when fields in the early universe are, in contrast, quite weak. We know now that more than 10% of the Galaxy’s magnetic energy is concentrated in less than 0.1% of its volume, right at its centre.” — Dr Roland Crocker, the lead author of paper published in Nature.
Dr. Svalgaard, if you have a problem with the above quote or any of the other quotes in the Science Daily article which speak for themselves, I suggest you take it up with Dr. Crocker or Dr. Jones.
photon without a Higgs (09:00:58) :
What ever any could argue about that video, that gathering of scientists around a table looks like a spiritist´s round table with a medium presiding it, a kind of “sabbath”of witches concocting a deadly beverage, something like a “black hole”.
Again, the common characteristic of psychic infection it is that it is easily transmissible through “self-pride”, “egotism”, waves…:
OH! how wise we are!, the proof that we are the most intelligent and beautiful people is that NOBODY, NOBODY, but we, the chosen ones, are able to understand our brilliant theories!!!.
It is not surprising then, that politicians, sharing with these predilect sons and daughters of their dear mamas, the same psychic profile, are the first ones in “buying” that kind of phantasies.
The law which governs this phenomenon it is called, by sages of all epochs, the “law of the match striking”.
James F. Evans (11:05:28) :
Do you have more links besides the one Nature paper? I am interested to read more. But I will want to read up on as much as possible. One paper won’t be enough.
James F. Evans (11:05:28) :
I don’t know of the ‘gravity only’ model of the Universe. There are scientists who say gravity is the only force that matters?
James F. Evans (11:05:28) :
Besides, you are distracting from the salient point: The galactic centerof the Milky Way is the source of intense magnetic fields.
Absolutely not. The general magnetic field in the Galaxy is about 5 microGauss, 100,000 times weaker than the Earth’s field or 500 million times weaker than that of a typical sunspot. The report has indeed a poor title – but it is poor of you to fall for such nonsense]. Right at the center where the giant black hole pulls in the matter, matter and magnetic field frozen into it as in any space plasma become compressed and so the field ends up 10 times stronger, i.e. 50 million times weaker than a sunspot. No ‘intense’ magnetic fields here.
So, Dr. Svalgaard, you subscribe to “black holes”. Do you also subscribe to “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and “dark flow” as well?
I don’t know what ‘dark flow’ is, but dark matter and dark energy seem well established from observations, e.g. of the rotation curve as you have noticed.
Dr. Svalgaard, please give a physical description of a “singularity”.
One could give one to any level of detail. To give me an idea of what level you are capable of understanding may I ask you first give me a physical description of that favorite object of yours: the electron at the level you think you can manage, then I’ll be happy to return the favor for a singularity to the same level.
James F. Evans (11:29:10) :
Dr. Svalgaard, if you have a problem with the above quote
Only with your nonsensical interpretation of it. Perhaps you take that up with them and get them to endorse your view?
supercritical (08:24:20) :
[snip]
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 .
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0306213
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.
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2002/xmark/index-p.shtml
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 behavior 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?
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/Academics/Astr221/SolarSys/hydrostat.html
Also, the behavior 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?
Faraday cages block electric fields but not slow varying magnetic fields. Mass does not screen gravitational fields. Water under the surface of the ocean still feels the tug of the moons gravity.
photon without a Higgs (11:29:40):
I’m sorry, no additional papers, but a UCLA press release that reviews another paper published in Nature:
“Astronomers Report Unprecedented Double Helix Nebula Near Center of the Milky Way”
http://www.physicalsciences.ucla.edu/research/doublehelix.asp
From the UCLA press release:
“Astronomers report an unprecedented elongated double helix nebula near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, using observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The part of the nebula the astronomers observed stretches 80 light years in length. The research is published March 16 in the journal Nature.”
Further:
“We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule,” said Mark Morris, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, and lead author. “Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm. Most nebulae are either spiral galaxies full of stars or formless amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas — space weather. What we see indicates a high degree of order.”
An “order” close into the galactic center that contradicts “theories” about so-called “black holes”.
How so?
The double helix would likely be ripped apart by the intense gravity of a “black hole” (however, it’s noted that the authors of the paper give proper allegiance to “black holes”).
From the UCLA press release:
“We know the galactic center has a strong magnetic field that is highly ordered and that the magnetic field lines are oriented perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy,” Morris said. “If you take these magnetic field lines and twist them at their base, that sends what is called a torsional wave up the magnetic field lines.”
Further:
“This magnetic field is strong enough to cause activity that does not occur elsewhere in the galaxy; the magnetic energy near the galactic center is capable of altering the activity of our galactic nucleus and by analogy the nuclei of many galaxies, including quasars, which are among the most luminous objects in the universe. All galaxies that have a well-concentrated galactic center may also have a strong magnetic field at their center, Morris said, but so far, ours is the only galaxy where the view is good enough to study it.”
Plasmoid, anyone?
Leif Svalgaard (11:34:51) :
James F. Evans (11:05:28) :
[snip]
So, Dr. Svalgaard, you subscribe to “black holes”. Do you also subscribe to “dark matter”, “dark energy”, and “dark flow” as well?
I don’t know what ‘dark flow’ is, but dark matter and dark energy seem well established from observations, e.g. of the rotation curve as you have noticed.
Alternative theories of gravity have not been ruled out to explain galactic rotation rates. But dark energy seems necessary to explain cosmic acceleration.
Dr. Svalgaard, please give a physical description of a “singularity”.
One could give one to any level of detail. To give me an idea of what level you are capable of understanding may I ask you first give me a physical description of that favorite object of yours: the electron at the level you think you can manage, then I’ll be happy to return the favor for a singularity to the same level.
Solomon would have been proud of you. Well answered! 🙂
Mike Ramsey
Leif,
I said there was no way to scientifically test my belief in an infinitely repeating universe because I base it on a single concept as follows: The behavior of quanta is determined by only one thing, temperature. At inflation quanta cannot form structures due to heat and at abolute zero all quanta are locked in singularities. In order to test that you must create temperatures that exist at the instant universal inflation begins and shortly thereafter and you must achieve absolute zero in the laboratory. In a brief email exchange with Dr. N.D. Tyson a couple of years ago he pointed out that the law of thermodynamics precluded obtaining absolute zero in the lab. (I kind of thought that all the neutrinos zipping through the experiment would have that effect. Also, if I was right and you succeeded, what would you do about the black hole in your lab?) After that I altered my position to the one stated above. If the universe becomes totally singular in nature, it would seem repulsive forces would no longer exist. In a universe then totally dominated by attractive force(s), the result should be coalescing of the singularities no matter how far flung they may be.
James F. Evans (12:02:09) :
Plasmoid, anyone?
No, not even the authors suggest anything like that. The ‘strong magnetic field’, is only relatively strong compared to the incredibly weak general magnetic field in the Galaxy, and thousands times smaller than the field of the Sun [which is again ten thousand times smaller than that of a sunspot]. And the nonsense about this being the only nebula with structure. Almost all nebula in the Galaxy have lots of internal structure.
Leif Svalgaard (11:34:51) wrote: “.. but dark matter and dark energy seem well established from observations…”
A misleading statement.
Anybody, who knows anything about the scientific discussion of so-called “dark matter” or “dark energy” and responds in good faith, knows that a vigorous debate rages in scientific circles about the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy” and the continued failure to directly observe & measure either of these “pixie dust” ad hocs.
When a scientific model fails to predict or explain physical observations & measurements, that constitutes a falsification of the model.
It’s poor science to just invent something that never has been observed so the model isn’t falsified.
Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “One could give one to any level of detail.” in response to a request: “please give a physical description of a “singularity”.
It’s an evasive answer because as Dr. Svalgaard knows a “singularity” is a mathematical construct that NEVER been observed & measured — it can’t because it’s an abstract concept.
But let me clarify for Dr. Svalgaard, please explain a “singularity” in relation to so-called “black hole” theory.
actuator (12:14:35) :
In a universe then totally dominated by attractive force(s), the result should be coalescing of the singularities no matter how far flung they may be.
It seems that on the largest scales, our universe is dominated by repulsive forces causing the expansion to accelerate.
Mike Ramsey (12:12:48) :
Alternative theories of gravity have not been ruled out to explain galactic rotation rates.
Gravitational lensing can be [and has been] used to detect and actually map the distribution of dark matter. Now, one can always posit alternative theories, but they seem ad hoc and, so far, General Relativity has passed a lot of good tests.
Leif Svalgaard (12:26:54) :
actuator (12:14:35) :
In a universe then totally dominated by attractive force(s), the result should be coalescing of the singularities no matter how far flung they may be.
It seems that on the largest scales, our universe is dominated by repulsive forces causing the expansion to accelerate.
What is the physical mechanism proposed for this repulsive force Leif?
Yes Leif, but it is still going to cool to absolute zero according to Dr. Tyson.