Your welcome, 0zzF4.

There are millions of black holes out in the universe. What purpose do they serve? I think they gather time, and when their full, they erupt into a supernova. Giving the universe back what was sucked in. Wild theory of mine.
jmo

Big mistake about the supernova. OK. The key to black holes and the universe is in the math.

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The key to black holes and the universe is in the math.

That is a very accurate statement! Sometimes it is a bit difficult to know all the variables and equations, but in the end, math will sort it out. Of all our technology, none of it works by magic. From the most simple to the most complex, understanding the math is the key.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

The key to black holes and the universe is in the math.

That is a very accurate statement! Sometimes it is a bit difficult to know all the variables and equations, but in the end, math will sort it out. Of all our technology, none of it works by magic. From the most simple to the most complex, understanding the math is the key.

Steve

Maybe black holes need math of there own??

Everyone,

Check this out.

Using the Hubble space telescope, astronomers have captured a direct image of the disk surrounding a black hole.

The disk is made of gas and dust, slowly being consumed as it spirals down into the black hole’s center. As it falls in, the material spews out a tremendous amount of energy, forming what is known as a quasi-stellar radio source, or quasar.

Among the brightest objects in the sky, quasars are short-lived phenomena that only existed during the earliest eras of the universe. They are known to be huge — most are around 60 billion miles across — yet they lie billions of light years from Earth, making them nothing but insignificant pinpricks in even the most powerful telescopes.

Update: Many of the commentors below have wondered how this quasar can be 18.5 billion light-years away when the universe is only 13.5 billion years old (and therefore nothing should be farther than the distance that light would travel in that time, namely 13.5 billion light-years).

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/black-hole-disk/
Hubble Spots Disk Around Distant Black Hole


This Hubble picture shows a quasar that has been gravitationally lensed by a galaxy in the foreground, which can be seen as a faint shape around the two bright images of the quasar.

Lynn

I read that they now claim the universe to be some 30 billion years old or at a minimum 30 billion light years across.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I read that they now claim the universe to be some 30 billion years old or at a minimum 30 billion light years across.

30 bn ly to the farthest observable object is what I read...

Lt

I read that they now claim the universe to be some 30 billion years old or at a minimum 30 billion light years across.

30 bn ly to the farthest observable object is what I read...

Lt

That isn't quite correct. The farthest observable object is now 30 bn ly away, but it was a lot closer to us when the light we see now started our way.

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Due to early-on inflation the universe is some 50+ Billion light years accross.

I read that they now claim the universe to be some 30 billion years old or at a minimum 30 billion light years across.

30 bn ly to the farthest observable object is what I read...

Lt

That isn't quite correct. The farthest observable object is now 30 bn ly away, but it was a lot closer to us when the light we see now started our way.

I wasn't around when that light started it's journey, Gary, so I'll have to take your word for it... :)

Lt

Everyone,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/05/supermassive-black-holes-discovered-space?newsfeed=true
Supermassive black holes are largest ever discovered

Astronomers have located the two biggest black holes ever found, each one billions of times more massive than our sun. Observations of these supermassive cosmic objects will give scientists clues on how black holes and galaxies form and evolve, especially in the earliest parts of the universe.

~more~

Maybe one day we can send a probe to a black hole.


Lynn

Everyone,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/05/supermassive-black-holes-discovered-space?newsfeed=true
Supermassive black holes are largest ever discovered

Astronomers have located the two biggest black holes ever found, each one billions of times more massive than our sun. Observations of these supermassive cosmic objects will give scientists clues on how black holes and galaxies form and evolve, especially in the earliest parts of the universe.

~more~

Maybe one day we can send a probe to a black hole.


Lynn

If it goes in, it's lost forever. If it orbits the black hole, it'll get no useful data.

Everyone,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/05/supermassive-black-holes-discovered-space?newsfeed=true
Supermassive black holes are largest ever discovered

Astronomers have located the two biggest black holes ever found, each one billions of times more massive than our sun. Observations of these supermassive cosmic objects will give scientists clues on how black holes and galaxies form and evolve, especially in the earliest parts of the universe.

~more~

Maybe one day we can send a probe to a black hole.


Lynn

If it goes in, it's lost forever. If it orbits the black hole, it'll get no useful data.

The nearest black hole is in our milky way galaxy. I watch the show how the universe works, and one day they hope to send a probe, without loosing any data.

Lynn

Everyone,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/05/supermassive-black-holes-discovered-space?newsfeed=true
Supermassive black holes are largest ever discovered

Astronomers have located the two biggest black holes ever found, each one billions of times more massive than our sun. Observations of these supermassive cosmic objects will give scientists clues on how black holes and galaxies form and evolve, especially in the earliest parts of the universe.

~more~

Maybe one day we can send a probe to a black hole.


Lynn

What gets me is the size of the event horizon. It extends 5 times the distance from our sun to Pluto. That is an enormous amount of mass. I find it facinating that we were able to find these, over 350 million light years away. The other day, I did see a repeat of the experiment that showed the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milkyway. The stars orbiting it were moving at over 1 million miles an hour, and of course slowed once they headed for the other apex of their eliptical orbits.

Nice post Lynn!

Steve

---

Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Everyone,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/05/supermassive-black-holes-discovered-space?newsfeed=true
Supermassive black holes are largest ever discovered

Astronomers have located the two biggest black holes ever found, each one billions of times more massive than our sun. Observations of these supermassive cosmic objects will give scientists clues on how black holes and galaxies form and evolve, especially in the earliest parts of the universe.

~more~

Maybe one day we can send a probe to a black hole.


Lynn

What gets me is the size of the event horizon. It extends 5 times the distance from our sun to Pluto. That is an enormous amount of mass. I find it facinating that we were able to find these, over 350 million light years away. The other day, I did see a repeat of the experiment that showed the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milkyway. The stars orbiting it were moving at over 1 million miles an hour, and of course slowed once they headed for the other apex of their eliptical orbits.

Nice post Lynn!

Steve

Hi Steve,

All physical laws are inherently bound up with a coherent fabric of space and time, black holes. I am also fascinated by the stars going a million miles an hour around the black hole in are milky way. Any scientific theory at this point will ever be proven about black holes.

Lynn

The black hole at the center of our galaxy eating a gas cloud. The images they get of that should be interesting to watch.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

they are endless, and amazing.





For several years Chandra has detected X-ray flares about once a day from the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, or "Sgr A*" for short. The flares last a few hours with brightness ranging from a few times to nearly one hundred times that of the black hole's regular output. The flares also have been seen in infrared data from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

NASA's Chandra Finds Milky Way's Black Hole Grazing on Asteroids

Lynn

So I may ask the following question:

Do mass (as we know it, having a certain weight compared against or with its intrinsic density) exist inside the event horizon of a possible black hole in space?

Does anyone have an answer to this?

Mass is supposed to be particles. Energy is also mass, but you get a lot of energy from a given amount of mass. A heck of a lot, really.

Remember Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. (or possibly replace M for m if it makes it fit better).

But inside a black hole, time is supposed to be stopping up. Gravity is supposed to be infinite. Possibly time still exists, even though it too supposedly has stopped up. Both the force of Gravity as well as the mass of the particles or whatever state the mass exists of inside such a black hole.

If you crush atoms, you get some exotic elementary particles back in return. If even these particles cease to exist because of the tremendous gravity inside the black hole, what about their possible wave characteristics or behavior?

It may seem that the force of gravity is the ultimate winner compared with anything else that may also be there.

Ever heard about the "Superforce"?

There is no such thing as gravity. It is (was) a convenient fiction for explaining things ala Isaac Newton. The space is infinitely warped in and around a black hole. The more mass that is "eaten" the further out the warping.

an interesting and somewhat humorous look at time and gravity

http://www.cracked.com/article_19659_7-theories-time-that-would-make-doc-browns-head-explode.html

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

There may seem to me that the force of gravity not only is bending space but also time.

If someone more advanced than us could be existing somewhere is space (meaning a possibly technological civilization), they possibly could be able to use gravity as a means of possible travel in space (as well as travel in time).

But in order to have a strong gravitational field (or force), you need an awful lot of mass, possibly such a mass compressed in a small amount of space ("relatively speaking").

In the world of physics, one may speak of the word "indolence" (my dictionary gives my three suggestions here, I go for the third one) when it comes to setting something having a mass in motion and possibly getting something being in motion change its orbit or trajectory. Possibly I have mentioned this before, but I happen to know that there may be produced two types of energy from mass in motion, namely kinetic energy and the other definition which once again is lost to me.

A classic book in Astronomy that I have, written by an author of my nationality and in my own language tells me that Isaac Newton proposed three separate laws when it comes to things in motion. One of the laws (possibly the third one) is quite complex in nature. Possibly I am able to get some understanding and insight into the two first ones, but the third one definitely gets beyond me.

But in the end, even Newton may seem to fail. The motions of atoms and other elementary particles fall into the realm of quantum physics. If I am not wrong, this field also deals with the laws of objects having mass being in motion.

There is no such thing as gravity. It is (was) a convenient fiction for explaining things ala Isaac Newton. The space is infinitely warped in and around a black hole. The more mass that is "eaten" the further out the warping.

What?? I hope you were joking.

Lt