Black hole 12bn times more massive than sun is discovered

theguardian.com ^ | Feb 25, 2015 | Press Association

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Scientists name new ‘object’ SDSS J0100+2802 and say it is 12.8bn light years from Earth and was formed just 900m years after the Big Bang

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A monster black hole powering “the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe” has been discovered that is 12bn times more massive than the sun, scientists have revealed.

The extraordinary object is at the centre of a quasar - an intensely powerful galactic radiation source - with a million billion times the sun’s energy output.

For years the nature of quasars, discovered in 1963, remained a mystery. Today scientists believe they are generated by matter heating up as it is dragged into supermassive black holes at the centre of distant galaxies.

The new object, named SDSS J0100+2802, is 12.8bn light years from Earth and was formed just 900m years after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe.

Astronomers cannot explain how such an enormous black hole could have formed so early in cosmic history, soon after the first stars and galaxies emerged.

[Dead Corpse]

God can’t exist any other way?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

So we are in the Final Days???

[Don Corleone]

Just a wild a$$ guess? It could be only 11.9 billion or as much as maybe 12.2 billion times as massive or some other factor.I’ll bet the scientists haven’t even checked with the POPE yet have they? More BS from the purveyors of scientific crapola.

[Rocky]

But they don’t know what to do about it, other than to decide that 16 dimensions of theorizing can explain it all away.

What we need is a Theory of Everything with no strings attached.

[VanDeKoik]

Man that’s a lot of racism in that quasar.

[left that other site]

Supermassive Pingerooni.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We already have String Theory....

[left that other site]

I am glad that it’s, like, really REALLY far away.

[ClearCase_guy]

Well played.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

[Dead Corpse]

Not just far away, but a long time ago too...

A lot can happen in a few billion years.

[Teacher317]

You don't seem to comprehend the Scientific Method.

Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results

Then every other scientist on earth gets to try to knock down your idea, with their own hypotheses and experiments. If your hypothesis withstands all attempts to thwart it for a significant period of time, then it MAY be promoted to the title of THEORY, which is STILL simply a BELIEF. Even Newton's Laws, Einstein's postulations, and Hawking's ideas are all basically still just BELIEFS... they just happen to be beliefs that nobody has disproven yet (with a few minor exceptions aside), despite millions of attempts and competing ideas. In the end, they're just the best ideas that we have at the moment, and MANY, MANY cool inventions have been created while relying on them, so they seem to be pretty solid.... with the VERY ACCEPTED AND EAGERLY ANTICIPATED possibility that they can be changed by the next Great Mind or Great Idea.

This system is still FAR FAR better than blindly obeying a cloture of old men who a billion people pretend are suddenly being guided by an invisible hand to make unassailable rules... most of which turn out to be horrid ideas (selling indulgences, changing Bible verses, including and excluding books of the Bible, etc etc etc). The current Pope is not exactly doing a stellar job of making intelligent political decrees these days, nor is one single religion out there doing a terribly good job at openly accepting and encouraging competing and contradictory thoughts and ideas. When one is open to hearing and testing competing ideas, one is mature and wise. When one goes into a rage over different ideas, and has to make threats about worldly or after-life pain and regret, then one is simply an authoritarian who wants obedience more than they want to get closer to the Truth.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This truly boggles the mind.

[Teacher317]

(clique, not cloture... stupid auto-correct has even starting changing NUMBERS on me lately, as if it knows better what phone number or dollar figure I’m trying to type!)

[Axenolith]

Nah, if it was a vacuum energy state catastrophe it might be different, because the act of seeing it would mean it’s propagation front was upon us. As it stands, we’re looking at the activity of a black hole as it was 12.8 billion years ago.

Now, interestingly, the area where this was/is taking place could just be empty now, the hole having sucked up the surrounding area for thousands of light years.

[Ax]

Agree that it is mind-boggling. How can something that big escape detection for so long? Incredibly powerful telescopes mounted on satellites?

[Steely Tom]

A lot can happen in a few billion years.

So we know where it was, 12.8 billion years ago.

But how do we know where it is today?

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

“The new object, named SDSS J0100+2802”

What a clever name! That must have taken a lot of thought.

I guess SDSS J0100+2801 was already taken.

[left that other site]

Heck...a lot can happen in a few minutes! LOL!

[left that other site]

Yes...yes it dfoes! :-)