'Ultramassive' black hole

[Peerie Maa]

'Ultramassive' black hole discovered by Durham astronomers


Image source, ESA/Hubble/Digitized Sky Survey/Nick Risinger
Image caption, Scientists used gravitational lensing to find the "ultramassive" black hole (artist's impression)

Astronomers say they have found one of the universe's largest black holes to date using a new technique.
Scientists at Durham University discovered the "ultramassive" black hole by observing its pull on passing light, called gravitational lensing.
Dr James Nightingale who led the study said even he struggled to "comprehend how big this thing is".
Their findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The academics said the black hole was 30 billion times the size of our Sun and was the first to be measured using gravitational lensing.

Image source, Durham University
Image caption, Scientists said the way the light arc showed it was being affected by a large black hole

Dr Nightingale told BBC Radio Newcastle: "Even as an astronomer, I find it hard to comprehend how big this thing is.
"If you look at the night sky and count up all the stars and planets you can see and put them in a single point, it would be a fraction of a percent the size of this black hole.
"This black hole is bigger than the majority of galaxies in the universe."
He said the discovery "pushes our understanding of astronomy to the limits", adding: "How do you form a black hole this big in just 13 billions years of the universe's existence?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-65109663

[skuthorp]

I love science, questions on questions. And answers just bring more questions. The universe is weirder than we can imagine, and a human is probably weirder still.

[Jim Mahan]

It is uncanny how much that image in the OP looks like the eye of something, like a legendary sea monster, some ancient, never before seen specimen of a species of octopus the size of a tugboat, or a bottom-feeder flatfish the size of baseball diamond.

[Jim Mahan]

So... If it's really that big, shouldn't it be moving, and expanding, extremely rapidly? If it's that big, what's to make us think it's stable in size, as opposed to growing, because it's attracting whole galaxies to lunch? That's what they do, right? Suck in matter prodigiously? It didn't just, get that big and then stop getting bigger. IE, it's coming for us. And if it's really that big, and our understanding of galactic physics is mostly right, it'll be sooner than otherwise.

This is brain-hurty.

So... If it's really that big, shouldn't it be moving and expanding extremely rapidly? If it's that big, what's to make us think it's stable in size, as opposed to growing, because it's attracting whole galaxies to lunch? That's what they do, right? Suck in matter prodigiously? It didn't just, get that big, out there in the middle of nowhere, and then stop getting bigger. It's coming for us. And if it's really that big, and our understanding of galactic physics is mostly right, it'll be sooner than otherwise.

This is brain-hurty.

The idea that this BH is larger than most galaxies, and we detect it from billions of light years away, and also that many billions of years ago, a large fraction of the age of the Universe, does that not make it likely for there to be other, widely scattered, ultramassive BHs, expanding away from the center of the Universe, the point that was the center of the Universe in the instant of the Big Bang and from which everything else must've expanded? And they're all also moving and expanding etc, also extremely rapidly. I predict a Big Collapse, and it's going to make a boom.

God abhors a vacuum.

[ron ll]

In the beginning was The Word. And that word was KABOOM!

[Peerie Maa]

So... If it's really that big, shouldn't it be moving, and expanding, extremely rapidly? If it's that big, what's to make us think it's stable in size, as opposed to growing, because it's attracting whole galaxies to lunch? That's what they do, right? Suck in matter prodigiously? It didn't just, get that big and then stop getting bigger. IE, it's coming for us. And if it's really that big, and our understanding of galactic physics is mostly right, it'll be sooner than otherwise.

This is brain-hurty.

So... If it's really that big, shouldn't it be moving and expanding extremely rapidly? If it's that big, what's to make us think it's stable in size, as opposed to growing, because it's attracting whole galaxies to lunch? That's what they do, right? Suck in matter prodigiously? It didn't just, get that big, out there in the middle of nowhere, and then stop getting bigger. It's coming for us. And if it's really that big, and our understanding of galactic physics is mostly right, it'll be sooner than otherwise.

This is brain-hurty.

The idea that this BH is larger than most galaxies, and we detect it from billions of light years away, and also that many billions of years ago, a large fraction of the age of the Universe, does that not make it likely for there to be other, widely scattered, ultramassive BHs, expanding away from the center of the Universe, the point that was the center of the Universe in the instant of the Big Bang and from which everything else must've expanded? And they're all also moving and expanding etc, also extremely rapidly. I predict a Big Collapse, and it's going to make a boom.

God abhors a vacuum.

Black holes grow by swallowing other celestial bodies that come too close. Perhaps it has already absorbed all available bodies in its sphere of influence?
As to are there others waiting to be found? I say certainly there are. One is a scientifically weird number. That there is one is proof that there can be others.

According to our best models of the evolution of the universe, the most likely scenario is what’s called the Big Freeze. If dark energy keeps accelerating the expansion of the universe forever – and calculations suggest that it will – then the cosmos is in for a slow death that’s drawn out for a googol years. That unfathomable number is a one followed by 100 zeroes.
If you could watch a patch of sky in fast-forward over billions of years, the stars would start to turn red, then fade out completely. That’s because the expanding universe would stretch the wavelength of their light farther and farther towards the red end of the spectrum, before rendering them completely invisible to the eye.
Of course, even if you couldn’t see them, the distant stars and galaxies would still exist – at least for a few trillion years. But after a while, the expansion would dilute the dust and gas floating around in space, until there isn’t enough concentrated in any one region to fuel the birth of new stars. With no more being born, stars eventually become an endangered and then extinct species, as the last of them die off.

https://newatlas.com/physics/end-uni...-crunch-slurp/

[LeeG]

Ultra is bigger than super?

One of the many things that surprised me was that the density of the supermassive black holes using the measure of the event horizon as the black hole makes for a pretty low density. Apparently between the event horizon and the singularity is not super dense. brb


ok, the event horizon doesn’t define the black hole anymore than the atmosphere defines the earth, it’s the event horizon. Beyond that, there be monsters.

[ron ll]

NOVA “New Eye on the Universe” last night highlighted some of the massive amount of new info coming in from the Webb telescope. Fun to see so many scientists grinning ear to ear.

[LeeG]

NOVA “New Eye on the Universe” last night highlighted some of the massive amount of new info coming in from the Webb telescope. Fun to see so many scientists grinning ear to ear.

It is. And not just what one telescope pulls up but the notification by one instrument or more that something happened with multiple ones providing real time and mountains of data to mine later on. That’s what tickles me. This gathering of new data is like filling the pantry with new spices but it’s the cooks pulling it together serving up new dishes of knowledge.
gawd what a cheesy metaphor

[Rich Jones]

In the beginning was The Word. And that word was KABOOM!

Wait a minute.... I've read the Gospel According to John several times and I don't think
it starts like that.
I'll go back and check...

[ron ll]

Wait a minute.... I've read the Gospel According to John several times and I don't think
it starts like that.
I'll go back and check...

That is paraphrasing “Young Sheldon” which I seem to be alone in thinking is one of the best sitcoms out there. No laugh track, great characters, and delightful little pot shots at religion.

[LeeG]

In the beginning was a little toddler pointing his/her finger saying “dat”, “dat”, “dat”. Later on after much repetition the grown ups wanted a magical super dad to say “THAT”. And Gawd was born.