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At the core of our Milky Way galaxy lies a black hole. Like all black holes, its gravitational pull is so strong that it swallows anything that ventures too close—even light. It weighs in at four million times the mass of the sun.
But that's nothing compared to what astronomers have discovered at the heart of two galaxies about 300 million light-years away. Those galaxies go by the names NGC 3842 and NGC 4889. And they host the most massive black holes ever observed. Each is about 10 billion times the mass of the sun. That's equivalent to 2,500 of the Milky Way's black holes. The discoveries were announced in the journal Nature. [Nicholas J. McConnell et al., "Two 10-billion-solar-mass black holes at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies"]
Of course, black holes emit no light, and they can't be seen directly. But the astronomers were able to measure the mass of the black holes with a bit of extragalactic detective work. The researchers tracked how the black holes' gravitational pull influenced the motions of nearby stars. It's a bit like the FBI talking to a suspect's neighbors to get information. Word from the neighbors in this case—don't loan the black holes anything. You'll never get it back.
—John Matson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
[Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.]
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6 Comments
Add CommentIt's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't it ironic how these two galaxies can have such super massive black holes and still exist as a galaxy after trillions of years? The cops (FBI and local) should be especially interested in these two galaxies because wouldn't those massive black holes make these two donuts? If there is a coffee cup galaxy close by, you'll know that the cops have already made that discovery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we should stop demonizing black holes and start looking for their true purpose. Couldn't anything that can create a black hole like that could also rip the fabric of space and create worm hole that could go for billion of light years?
Seriously, James, it's not the first time I've thought of black holes and worm holes as being like a sort of cosmic sex ..... maybe of the black widow spider type.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@JamesDavis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistrillions of years? really?
According Vasily Yanchilin black holes do not exist. What is meant by the author is simply a very big mass. Then the question arises whether that is made of common stuff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember that at the Big Bang period light was not hindered to spread, which contradicts also existence of black holes. Read the book The Quantum Theory of Gravitation (2003).
Black holes are based on the general theory of relativity. However this theory is wrong which can be deduced from the curvature of photons towards mass: The photon follows the optically shortest path according the principle of least action. The latter means as big steps (oscillations, lower frequency) as possible and a minimum number of these. From the book: Draw between points A and B a convex line, a straight line and a concave line. Below the latter a mass, all seen from the bottom of the paper. If there is no mass the light will follow the straight line. Near mass the unit of length becomes smaller and therefore the path longer. Yanchilin maintains that near mass the second runs faster (more oscillations) and therefore the photon chooses the convex path. If Einstein were right with his general theory of relativity the concave track would be taken, which is not in agreement with observations (Mercurius).
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but neither does our Galaxy nor any other, like the NGC 3842 or NGC 4889 here, host a black hole at its center or anywhere else in our observable universe. The black hole is a total misconception, an end product of an abstract theory called General Relativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, there is a simple,rational answer indeed to explain the phenomenon we now attribute to a 'great big monster feeding at the centre' (of the galaxy or even the quasar)- a fairy-tale-like hyped-up explanation for kids and the lay (taxpaying) public to keep observations and research going smoothly.
Let us quickly see here what is causing a galactic centre to seem abnormally active with enormous outpouring of mass-energy. The stellar wind is a well verified fact of observation today, something unknown during Einstein’s time. In our Sun, typically, the solar wind emanates from the solar corona, ejecting millions of tons of nuclear matter per second. A similar outward wind, now called The Galactic Superwind, from the galactic halo, too, has since been observed (please see the Nature report, and my letter, in: www.sittampalam.net/TheSuperwind.htm and the Science news item, and letter, in: www.sittampalam.net/BlackHoles.htm).
Thus, such an outward wind, by recoil action, would have an enormous back pressure, increasing as the inverse square with decreasing radius toward the center of the stellar or cosmic core, where this pressure would be stupendously high - to mimic the hypothetical black hole for the increased nuclear activity.For more on this final paradigm of physics, please access:
www.sittampalam.net/StarFormation.htm
www.sittampalam.net/Synopsis.htm
Thank you all.