Biggest black hole in the cosmos discovered (18 billion suns)

New Scientist ^ | 1/10/08 | David Shiga

[Centurion2000]

Crickey a 12647 AU orbital axis and it makes an orbit in 12 years? Holy crap that sucker is moving is FAST. Must be close to 14,000 km/second in orbital velocity.

[dead]

Biggest black hole in the cosmos discovered

[adorno]

I thought blackholes had a difference in mass, depending on the amount of matter that went into it... more mass absorbed = more massive blackhole, with bigger gravity effects surrounding it.

Bigger gravity, yes. But, bigger size? I thought not! If a singularity is of just one size, then the illustration would have to be of equal sizes for both black holes.

[LibWhacker]

I’m pretty sure they could orbit each other for billions of years, no problem (though this precession business might be sapping energy from the system), just like tiny Pluto has orbited the Sun for 4.5 billion years. It’s only when the orbit decays enough that the smaller black hole begins to smash through the accretion disk of the larger black hole that the orbital decay really accelerates.

[frithguild]

I am not sure the star registry allows you to name black holes. I was going to name these two Al and Jesse...

[shbox]

Under those types of gravitational forces extremes, ten times all of mankind can be squeezed into the area of a microchip.

Under that amount of pressure, the Empire State Building would easily be squeezed to the size of a human skin cell.

The quasars are so dense, a single drop of the material would weigh 200million tons.

[LibWhacker]

The illustration is not of the black hole, proper, but of the event horizon which, of course, is larger for more massive black holes.

[advertising guy]

that’s my understanding as well..........

[shbox]

The distance from the Sun to the Earth (one atronomical unit)is also a standard measurement.

[adorno]

The illustration is not of the black hole, proper, but of the event horizon which, of course, is larger for more massive black holes.

You might be right, but...

If the event horizon is a major trait of the black hole "environment" why is the accretion disk illustrated and not the event horizon?

[CarrotAndStick]

No, not size, but mass.

[LibWhacker]

No, not fuzzy at all. There are non-fuzzy equations in physics that allow you to calculate the masses if you know the period, etc.

[spunkets]

"The mass and therfore gravitational difference is insane... the orbit of the smaller should degrade quickly I would figure... "

The mass of the 2 objects doesn't matter all by itself. The 2 objects have a field between them and trajectories. Leaving the trajectories out of the calculation results in the error that they'll collide. The mass ratio is only 170, so they're both dancing. Since they're black holes though, the mass of each object is increasing, and the accretion disks are providing friction. That means the orbits will slowly degrade.

Note that the field is very high, so the warpage of space around the 2 is huge. That means that clocks in that region of space run very slow. Even though the ~separation is 0.2 light years, the orbital frequency is 12 years. So, the degradation will be very slow.

[HamiltonJay]

39 degree precession per orbit on a 12 year overall orbit that is highly eliptical with the smaller coming very close to the larger.. more like a comet around the sun than PLUTO in terms of how its portrayed, only with a much much smaller orbit than any comet I can think of.

The article says they anticipate absorbtion of the smaller in 10,000 years.... that seems way longer that I would expect given the nature of the system and the insane mass differentials.

[KC Burke]

They have probably already had the orbit decay and collide with the energy release going into a massive Gamma Ray Burst like two opposing shotguns. At 3.5 billion Light Years away we ought to recede fast enough to not see it for another billion years.

Or maybe next Tuesday at 8:19 am EST just as Hillary gives a speech in SC.

[LibWhacker]

It is illustrated since the more massive black hole is depicted to be the largest of the two.

[LibWhacker]

I believe the merger happened approx. 3.5 billion years ago. But the GRB’s jet, if it’s aimed in our direction, won’t hit us for another 10,000 years. Yikes!

[JRios1968]

[advertising guy]

then all that means it is severly smaller in the middle than her edges ?

[JRios1968]

The quasar OJ287 contains two black holes (this slightly dated illustration lists the larger black hole's mass as 17 billion Suns, though researchers now estimate it is 18 billion Suns)

Whew!!!! Am I glad they corrected that!!!