Supermassive Black Hole ... just over there ...

[Thomas]

There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a study has confirmed.

German astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way, using two telescopes in Chile.

The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.

from the BBC

 

[wil]

If I remember reading correctly at the center of most spiral galaxies is a big black hole.

The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal.

Now what I still can't get my head wrapped around is 'singularity' a black hole is supposedly a singularity, all that mass collapsed upon itself (I had always assumed down to the size of a planet) down to less than the size of the nucleus of one atom. All those atoms crushed to one single point in space...4 million times heavier than our sun. wow.

As I understand it our sun would create a dwarf when it collapses, they theorize that it would take a star at least 3.5 times the mass of our Sun to collapse into a small black hole.

4 million times, can you imagine how many solar systems, how many black holes have been sucked into this to form this super massive one?

 

[Thomas]

Wil —
I know ... 'boggle' no longer does it justice, does it? There's a link on the same page to an image of a 'sombrero' galaxy ... the Man Upstairs must have had a quiet moment with nothing to do ... I mean, 'sombrero galaxy' sounds like a Gary Larson cartoon.

He Tao —
Is there a unit of measurement to quantify the stagger factor on an astronomical scale? There should be one ... something like the Beaufort Scale for staggering awesomeness inherent in astronomical phenomena ...

Thomas

 

[Tao_Equus]

If I remember reading correctly at the center of most spiral galaxies is a big black hole.
Now what I still can't get my head wrapped around is 'singularity' a black hole is supposedly a singularity, all that mass collapsed upon itself (I had always assumed down to the size of a planet) down to less than the size of the nucleus of one atom. All those atoms crushed to one single point in space...4 million times heavier than our sun. wow.

As I understand it our sun would create a dwarf when it collapses, they theorize that it would take a star at least 3.5 times the mass of our Sun to collapse into a small black hole.

4 million times, can you imagine how many solar systems, how many black holes have been sucked into this to form this super massive one?

A lot. But maybe not as many as it has spat out. I think it now improbable that galaxies make black holes. For me all evidence is the reverse. And do not forget our universe appears to have the mass of a black hole of the size of the universe... just makes me see fractal geometry.

 

[Tao_Equus]

He Tao —
Is there a unit of measurement to quantify the stagger factor on an astronomical scale? There should be one ... something like the Beaufort Scale for staggering awesomeness inherent in astronomical phenomena ...

Thomas

Yeh but it involves the important inclusion of excited foot stomping nerdiness. Are you really willing to go there?

tao

 

[Thomas]

Yeh but it involves the important inclusion of excited foot stomping nerdiness. Are you really willing to go there?

I am a typographer, we are the nerds of the graphic design profession.

I work with IAs to build GUIs for transaction web apps ... the first floor of our office is Nerd Central. They like me ... that must tell you something ...

The TE Scale ... bring it on bro'!

Thumper

 

[wil]

Is there a unit of measurement to quantify the stagger factor on an astronomical scale? There should be one ... something like the Beaufort Scale for staggering awesomeness inherent in astronomical phenomena ...

Thomas

It would surely have to be ego centric yeah? Like AU (astonomical unit) we relate distance to the distance between the earth and the sun or Sol relating mass of objects to the mass of our sun, will the US every get away from measuring everything in reference to the kings thumb and foot?

So I say anything more amazing than our SBMH is in multiples of staggeringly awesome and anything less then our SBMH is in fractions of awesomely staggering.

Yes the meek may inherit the earth but the geeks inherit the universe.

 

[Dharmaatmaa]

People can't still say what a black hole is. If it exists in our galaxy or not, no one is sure.

 

[Tao_Equus]

People can't still say what a black hole is. If it exists in our galaxy or not, no one is sure.

That may be read two ways. We are sure black holes exist. We are sure that they are dense regions of mass that hover below the planck scale in a supercooled quantum state. The black hole in our galaxy has not only been accurately 'weighed' but has also been observed feeding. Black Holes have been observed to have a predictable relationship to the dynamical movement of galaxies. By observing galactic rotation you can deduce the mass of the central supermassive black hole.
What has also been observed is that older galaxies quieten down, until they collide with other galaxies, where as the youngest ones which get called quasars are ejecting and feeding in a frenzied state. The popular image of a black hole as some un-seeable devourer of everything is very probably the patent opposite of what a black hole really is. They make the galaxies not destroy them.
I say again that black holes are key to unlocking the mysteries of what exactly our universe is, where it came from and where it is going. And there are alternative theories to big bang theory that show the mechanism by which we can see the same process at work in the formation of galaxies as a universal event. Universal expansion, as observed, can be viewed as a single black hole making a matter ejection. The black holes that drive the galaxies being great globs of quantised superheavy, supercooled matter spat out when all the matter in our universe last reached super-critical density almost 14 billion years ago and switched to a repellent phase. This theory, based on Loop Quantum Cosmology, not only explains relativity's blank stares over the question of infinite density but also explains the few oddity's we have observed that hint our universe must have existed for longer. An expanding and contracting quantum 'material' that changes its, for want of a better expression, 'polarity' in relation to its density explains everything we can see. It is the most elegant theory I have come across and is well worth investigating for yourselves.

Loop quantum cosmology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

tao

 

[Dream]

Its a pretty cool theory which might help explain Fermis Paradox ( http://www.interfaith.org/forum/fermis-paradox-8769.html ). An intelligent race might find itself racing to escape the big crunchy at the end of the universe. I can think of a couple of ways they might try doing it: travel very fast for a long time with lots of mass to get out of the way and completely break the link with all other matter, or somehow transform themselves enough to integrate their consciousness into the universe in a persistant way. Both methods of crunchy survival would make respect for other intelligent species a low priority. Yeah, its a far out idea, but how else would you explain Fermi's paradox?

 

[Tao_Equus]

Its a pretty cool theory which might help explain Fermis Paradox ( http://www.interfaith.org/forum/fermis-paradox-8769.html ). An intelligent race might find itself racing to escape the big crunchy at the end of the universe. I can think of a couple of ways they might try doing it: travel very fast for a long time with lots of mass to get out of the way and completely break the link with all other matter, or somehow transform themselves enough to integrate their consciousness into the universe in a persistant way. Both methods of crunchy survival would make respect for other intelligent species a low priority. Yeah, its a far out idea, but how else would you explain Fermi's paradox?

I am not quite sure what you mean by "respect for". One method to survive a 'crunch' would indeed be to 'seed' the inward falling matter with coding that would kick start life again when it started to expand again. Again we seem to see this, the building blocks of life are everywhere. And it would explain these rogue stars of great age and high velocity that travel independent of the galaxy, stars that may have survived the last implosion event. The physics also suggest this is an infinite cycle, which sits well with me...

tao

 

[Dharmaatmaa]

Yes, it's all nice. But... In this 'black hole' theory there are a great deal of 'black' places as well. They say black star not to have any matter in its consistention. It's a ball of powers (of gravitation etc.). Yes, maybe in the hole there are weight, gravitation etc.
How could the materialistic science - which never imagined a power existing without phisical matter - not to avoid this standpoint! I don't try to prove it's incorrect. But from viewpoint of materialistical science knowing nothing but matter with its powers it looks very much strange.

 

[Dream]

There are other theories, too. Its strange because its a theory that has been crafted to explain some strange things. I say crafted but puzzled would be a better word, because the cosmos is a giant puzzle with pieces that sometimes fit together in more than one way.