Posted on 09/14/2005 5:56:20 PM PDT by AntiGuv
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A supermassive black hole appears to be homeless in the cosmos without a galaxy to nestle in, Hubble Space Telescope scientists reported on Wednesday.
Most monster black holes lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, slurping up matter from the galactic center with a pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
But a team of European astronomers reported in the journal Nature that a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.
The black hole was detected when the scientists went hunting for quasars -- extremely bright, small, distant objects that are strongly associated with black holes. Astronomers believe a quasar is produced by cosmic gas as it is drawn toward the edge of a supermassive black hole.
Most quasars and black holes are in the middle of supermassive galaxies and in their survey of 20 relatively nearby quasars, the scientists found 19 followed this expected pattern. But one showed no signs of having a galactic home.
The astronomers, using the Hubble telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile, reported that this rogue black hole may be the result of a rare collision between a seemingly normal spiral galaxy and an exotic object harboring a very massive black hole.
One problem in quasar-hunting is that they are so bright, they outshine most galaxies that surround them, just as the headlights from an oncoming vehicle can make the vehicle hard to see. So even if a surrounding galaxy is present, it can be difficult to detect.
The European astronomers used the two telescopes to overcome this problem by comparing the quasars they were watching with a reference star. This let them differentiate the light from the quasar from the light from any possible underlying galaxy.
Further information is available online at http://www.spacetelescope.org.
Somewhere a galaxy has a picture of the black hole on its milk cartons...
Space isn't technically a void. A black hole of that size would still be sucking up the couple atoms per cubic kilometer in space and continue to spit out small amounts of x-rays.
Okay, okay. "We'll" pay to rebuild that too. I'm sure my grandchildren will have grandchildren that will also have grandchildren that will assent to underwrite that. Unless they shrug.
Speaking of which, why are we still looking for radio signals? A civilization as advanced as ours might be using lasers or something else at a much higher range.
Okay what does it say about me that I find this thread very funny and entertaining...
Could the black hole have swallowed its entire galaxy, or do scientists expect that even in that instance, there would be a residual debris left?
Or could the black hole have come from a massive star which escaped from a galaxy?
Gravitational distortion of light coming from a galaxy behind it.
Us <
You're one SICK bastid!!!! :)
I'd be more impressed if they found one WITH a bottom.
Some AGNs have massive jets of outflowing material. It is possible such a jet could accelerate the object relative to the rest of the galaxy and that is might escape. Usual models expect such things to be so symmetric they don't produce sufficient net force in any given direction to do this. But those assumed symmetries are mostly for modeling convenience, and because we don't know enough about them to know what might skew them. The energy outflow from something like the giant relativistic jet in M87 is certainly powerful enough to shoot even something massive out like a cannonball.
Symetrically disposed between the twin Splincter Galaxies, the massive void has been nicknamed by the astronomers as Moore's Hole.
<P< Abandon hope all ye who enter here...
Do you realize how many trillions of critters have probably met their doom by this black hole?? ;^)
I'm just thinking that moving an object at high speeds through interstellar space might take a lot of energy that might leave some kind of signature.
It would, but we wouldn't be able to specify its origin.
BTW, where is Web Hubble these days, and what is he up to?
"...a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy."
Wait a minute...Don't we have to wait 5 billion years to find out if it is still homeless on this day?
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