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

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

[LibWhacker]

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). The smaller black hole crashes
through a disc of material around the larger one twice
every orbit, creating bright outbursts (Illustration:
VISPA)

The most massive known black hole in the universe has been discovered, weighing in with the mass of 18 billion Suns. Observing the orbit of a smaller black hole around this monster has allowed astronomers to test Einstein's theory of general relativity with stronger gravitational fields than ever before.

[weegee]

Yes, it is. Astronomers often speak in terms of how many solar masses an object contains: black holes, giant stars, galaxies, etc.

"...it's full of stars!"

[spunkets]

"At 3.5 billion Light Years away we ought to recede fast enough to not see it for another billion years."

You'll see it in 10000 years. What you're seeing now happened 3.5 billion years ago, so just add hte 10K yrs to that.

[weegee]

One of these is already named after OJ.

[weegee]

Ask for nothing and you’ll receive it in abundance.

[theDentist]

Hmmmmm.... I’m gonna need a lot more line for this fission hole....

[weegee]

So it’s old news.

[spunkets]

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

Not sure what you mean by that.

[advertising guy]

me either..............lol

went back and re read the comments so still trying to form a smart question...........I’ll get back to ya

in 2009....................lmao

[LibWhacker]

LOL, I’m going to add that to my file of quotes!

[spunkets]

Yes, we’re seeing what happened 3.5 billion years ago.

[wastedyears]

This brings to mind the song ‘Brighter Than A Thousand Suns’.

Except it was about the nuclear bomb.

[Centurion2000]

The way I understood black holes, all accretion goes into a singularity that is by all indications, smaller than an atom.

You are correct; the singularity is smaller than an atom, but what changes in radius based on mass will be the event horizon. The differences between the black holes will be their event horizons or where the orbital velocity required to maintain orbit exceeds the speed of light.

Get within the event horizon and you will never get back out.

[KC Burke]

We may see it in 10,000 years but my point is that it aleady happend 3.5 billion years ago plus ten thousand, give or take a Clinton Convention speech duration unit to the 85th power.

[Centurion2000]

Event horizon on the big one : 178.671973 Astronomical Units

On the little one :0.99262207 Astronomical Units

18 billion solar mass BH vs 100 million SM BH

[TexGuy]

Holy Cow! Is that Cankles herself trying to karate chop off her left hand?

[Mugwump]

“There’s a dog star...”

__________________________________________________________________

Gosh, that’s Sirius!

</groaner>

[Calvin Locke]

GRBs emanate out the poles. So, just make sure you’re off to the side when it spits them out.

[ex-snook]

How did all this ‘evolve’?

[garyhope]

ROFL, you got that right.

(Still giggling)

[LibWhacker]

Gravity tells almost the whole story, from the Big Bang to the present, when we have one monstrous black hole about to dine on another monstrous black hole.

In fact, this moment in the life of that larger black hole is beautifully illustrative of how it grew to such colossal proportions in the first place; i.e., by sucking in all the mass near it for billions of years, including other black holes, thereby growing ever larger — without limit, for all practical purposes.