A Black Hole Is ‘Almost on Our Doorstep’

The Atlantic ^ | May 6, 2020 | Marina Koren

[lurk]

A Black Hole Is ‘Almost on Our Doorstep’

Well. If it knocks, give it some warm cookies out of the oven.

[Valk Rider]

Michelle Obama ?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hahaha!! YUK YUK YUK!! Hehehehe!! LOL LOL LOL!!

[BroJoeK]

"Four billion years from now when the Sun runs out of the available nuclear fuel in its core, our Sun will die a quiet death."

Well... maybe not so "quiet", first it will likely gobble up the Earth.
Any of our descendants still here will need to find new homes.

[Moonman62]

Or move Earth to a more distant orbit.

[Redcitizen]

" On the scale of the Milky Way, its in our backyard".

Farmer's Insurance has seen a thing or two...

[Ozark Tom]

Skipped over the part in which the Sun will increase in luminosity sufficient to eliminate water at the Earth’s surface long before running out of fuel. Move the Earth to rest at one of Jupiter’s Lagrange Points, or emplace a shield to reduce insolation to a tolerable degree???

A third option is Star Lifting which would gain usable materials from the sun, reduce the solar mass to effectively turn down the thermostat, and extend the usable life of the sun. A nice long-term management project.

[Ozark Tom]

Chandrasekhar’s limit is currently postulated to be about 1.4 solar mass.

[Ozark Tom]

French or Swiss side?

[Moonman62]

Didn’t think a star with only 4x mass of sun could become a BH.

...

It can’t. 4x is the final mass of the black hole. The star it came from would be around 20x.