Posted on 03/10/2009 3:45:41 PM PDT by TaraP
Scientists have determined the mass of the largest things that could possibly exist in our universe. New results have placed an upper limit on the current size of black holes - and at fifty billion suns it's pretty damn big. That's a hundred thousand tredagrams, and you'll never get the chance to use that word in relation to anything else.
Black holes are regions of space where matter is so dense that regular physics just breaks down. You might think physical laws are immutable - you can't get out of gravitational attraction the same way you can get out of a speeding ticket - but beyond a certain level laws which determine how matter is regulated are simply overloaded and material is crushed down into something that's less an object and more a region of altered space.
While there's theoretically no upper limit on how big a black hole can be, there are hard limits on how big they could have become by now. The universe has only existed for a finite amount of time, and even the most voracious black hole can only suck in matter at a certain rate. The bigger the black hole, the bigger the gravitational field and the faster it can pull in matter - but that same huge gravitational gradient means that the same matter can release huge amounts of radiation as it falls, blasting other matter further away.
Based on this self-regulating maximum rate, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Massachusetts, and the European Southern Observatory, Chile, have calculated an upper limit for these mega-mammoth masses. Fifty billion suns, that's 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg, otherwise known as "ridiculously stupidly big" and triple the size of the largest observed black hole, OJ 287.
There are potential problems with this calculation. Based as it is on the radiation outflow from a black hole, new discoveries could change this estimate - though only from "insanely massive" to "ridiculously ginormous."
A mass of 50.000.000.000 is still just chump change when you compare it with the number of stars in the visible Universe. 10-22 stars or 100,000,000,000 times 100,000,000,000. If our Universe is a member of a “multiverse” then the number of universes and stars becomes numberless. If that be the case then there are numberless copies of me and you typing away at FR. I am not sure I buy into the Multiverse model though.
Does this event horizon make me look fat?
“ridiculously stupidly big”
“insanely massive”
“ridiculously ginormous.”
What about: Obama budget big
I once got a tredagram from a friend in Japan. It said: Rost waddet. Prease send money.
You can also move it in the other direction. Compared to a subatomic particle, we are larger than the universe. ;)
Well there are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the known universe and something with half the mass of our galaxy is almost atomic in that scale.
I like descriptions like that, for the non-scientist 1040kg means absolutely nothing ... but Ridiculously Stupidly Big puts it all into perspective :)
/grin
I’ve seen bigger.
There’s a difference between size and mass. What they mean is it has (supposedly) 50 billion times the mass of our Sun. Black holes are comparatively small objects on the galactic scale. At the heart of a black hole is an infinitely dense entity called a singularity. The amount of mass contained within the singularity determines the size of the black hole’s “event horizon”, the spherical region surrounding the singularity where you would need to exceed light speed in order to escape the immense gravitational field of the object. Some BH event horizons are small, others larger than our solar system. It all depends on the amount of mass contained within the given singularity.
One has only to gaze into the far reaches of the WH to see an example of one hundred thousand tredagrams.
“Does this event horizon make me look fat? “
Don’t worry! Spaghettification will soon slim you down! Way down!
and triple the size of the largest observed black hole
That caught my eye ... largest possible isn't even an order of magnitude bigger than the largest "observed." This sort of object defies human comprehension.
Actually, wouldn't it be smaller than a bread box??? A singularity??
I hate when they sling all that technical jargon around.
Heck, that’s nothing. By the time Obama is done with our economy, our deficit will be that big. /sarc
How does this fit into your belief the universe is less than 10,000 years old?
Home from day care early today?
Indeed. But I wonder...does He hold dominion over all of the other millions of possible universes as well?
Surely, beyond the edge of this universe there is nothingness. How far would you have to travel to encounter another universe? And how many others are there?
If there is a limit to the void beyond the edge of our universe, where does it end and what is beyond that?
Just some stuff I wonder about from time to time.
I am still waiting for you to provide proof that cancer did not exists before the industrial revolution.
Do you think you will have an answer soon?
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