• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Massive black hole discovered near heart of the Milky Way (NOT Sagitarius A*)

Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
An enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun has been found hiding in a toxic gas cloud wafting around near the heart of the Milky Way.

If the discovery is confirmed, the invisible behemoth will rank as the second largest black hole ever seen in the Milky Way after the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* that is anchored at the very centre of the galaxy.

...

Observations from the Alma telescope in Chile showed that molecules in the elliptical cloud, which is 200 light years from the centre of the Milky Way and 150 trillion kilometres wide, were being pulled around by immense gravitational forces. The most likely cause, according to computer models, was a black hole no more than 1.4 trillion km across.

The scientists’ suspicion that a black hole lay in the midst of the gas cloud received a boost when further observations picked up radio waves indicative of a black hole coming from the centre of the cloud, said Tomoharu Oka , an astronomer at Keio University in Tokyo. “This is the first detection of an intermediate-mass black hole candidate in the Milky Way galaxy,” he said.
Click to expand...

More: https://www.theguardian.com/science...k-hole-discovered-near-heart-of-the-milky-way
 
B

BobLoblaw

Banned
Hasn't this been known for an extremely long time or is it just now being confirmed? It would take some on the order of this size to keep the galaxy "together."
 
V

v1oz

Member
It's amazing how life on earth could end without warning and without us knowing because something millions of miles away like a black hole.
 
Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
BobLoblaw said:
Hasn't this been known for an extremely long time or is it just now being confirmed? It would take some on the order of this size to keep the galaxy "together."
Click to expand...

You're thinking of Sagitarius A*, which is in the center of the galaxy. This one is new.
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
Not too crazy about dying, but you gotta admit that if you're gonna die, getting sucked into a black hole would be a pretty sweet way to go.

Imagine being in 5th or 6th grade and one kid is like "my dad died in a car accident". You could say "oh yea? Mine got sucked into a black hole, fool. Top that shit"
 
T

TheCthultist

Member
v1oz said:
It's amazing how life on earth could end without warning and without us knowing because something millions of miles away like a black hole.
Click to expand...

Not really how it works with black holes. Even something like an mass-extinction-style asteroid heading toward earth would have less warning than a black hole suddenly being close enough to destroy the world. This is more in the way of the kind of fascinating, "doesn't effect us in any way" type of space news. Definitely cool to read about either way.
 
T

TraBuch

Banned
If you had the opportunity, would anyone in here voluntarily go into a black hole? Depending on my age, I think I would.
 
Q

qcf x2

Member
v1oz said:
It's amazing how life on earth could end without warning and without us knowing because something millions of miles away like a black hole.
Click to expand...

A nearby supernova would do this, black hole not so much. They feed a lot more slowly than movies might have you believe.
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
BobLoblaw said:
Hasn't this been known for an extremely long time or is it just now being confirmed? It would take some on the order of this size to keep the galaxy "together."
Click to expand...

That's a common misconception. Sagittarius A*, the super massive blackhole at the center of the galaxy doesn't keep the galaxy together. Black holes aren't particularly special in terms of gravitational strength, it's still a function of mass/distance^2. As massive as it is, the galaxy is several orders bigger than it, both in terms of bulk mass and volume.

ssolitare said:
Why is this exciting?
Click to expand...

What do you mean by exciting? It's more insight into how blackholes form and exist. As the article notes, this is an intermediary step between blackholes from a single star and the super massive blackhole at the center of the galaxy. It doesn't need to paradigm breaking for it to be noteworthy.
 
V

v1lla21

Member
The last thing that black hole will see and hear when it consumes me will be me flipping it off and whispering, "fuck you, science."
Once I'm on the other side I'll just wait for my daughter to pick my cold body up in Saturn's parking lot.
#FollowTheBookShelves
 
H

HeySeuss

Member
KarmaCow said:
That's a common misconception. Sagittarius A*, the super massive blackhole at the center of the galaxy doesn't keep the galaxy together. Black holes aren't particularly special in terms of gravitational strength, it's still a function of mass/distance^2. As massive as it is, the galaxy is several orders bigger than it, both in terms of bulk mass and volume.
Click to expand...

Isn't it generally accepted that there is likely a super black hole in the center of every Galaxy? I would have to think the reasoning for such a thing couldn't be just coincidence and that black holes have some vital purpose.

Pretty cool stuff regardless
 
V

Vulcano's assistant

Banned
ssolitare said:
Why is this exciting?
Click to expand...
It's like finding tall volcanoes. People like superlatives so not only geologist that use them as evidence of tectonic activity pay attention to them. And there is also the mildly uneducated that think of them as mysterious dangerous things and like them for that reason.
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
ssolitare said:
Why is this exciting?
Click to expand...

200 light years from the centre of the Milky Way and 150 trillion kilometres wide, were being pulled around by immense gravitational forces. The most likely cause, according to computer models, was a black hole no more than 1.4 trillion km across.
Click to expand...

If you don't think the ability to detect, measure and study things on this scale is exciting then why the hell are you ever in any thread about astronomical discovery?
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
cpp_is_king said:
Not too crazy about dying, but you gotta admit that if you're gonna die, getting sucked into a black hole would be a pretty sweet way to go.

Imagine being in 5th or 6th grade and one kid is like "my dad died in a car accident". You could say "oh yea? Mine got sucked into a black hole, fool. Top that shit"
Click to expand...

This one has a large smooth event horizon so you could say, "oh mine is being spaghettified at a glacial almost infinitely long pace from our perspective but relatively quickly from his perspective "
 
BasilZero

BasilZero

Member
Love hearing stories like this.

Love reading articles about space!


And its terrifying at the same time lol.
 
Demoskinos

Demoskinos

Member
The concept of the galaxy as a whole like scrambles my mind to mush. Once you start thinking of concepts like an infinitely expanding galaxy, black holes, anti-matter ect...
 
A

ArkhamFantasy

Member
I read our sun is too small to become a black hole. SMALL.

Space is scary, space photos are literally scary to me, same with deep ocean photos.
 
I

Iceman

Member
You could theoretically live a whole, full lifetime within a black hole before reaching the singularity. Just because we can't see past the event horizon doesn't mean it's a horrifying, molecule rending, wood chipper. It's just relativity. If you were moving near the speed of light, and everything else around you was moving at the same speed would you even be able to tell that anything was out of the ordinary?

Here's a creepy thought: What if this little portion of the universe was actually beyond the event horizon of a super-massive black hole?
 
Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
ArkhamFantasy said:
I read our sun is too small to become a black hole. SMALL.

Space is scary, space photos are literally scary to me, same with deep ocean photos.
Click to expand...

Yup. In stellar scale it's relatively small. Funny thing is it takes a monster star to create a black hole, which is, usually, very tiny in comparison.

FunkyPajamas said:
Massive black hole... Toxic gas cloud...

Hmmm...


Pretty cool stuff. Can't wait for the JWST to be online.
Click to expand...

Oh FUCK YES. I think once it actually goes to space and NASA says "ok all systems working flawlessly" I'll open a champagne. Seriously. I'm waiting for this since I was a kid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, photographed for the first time
2
59
3K
Rentahamster replied
There's a "dark impactor" blasting holes in our galaxy.
40
2K
Mista replied
  • Locked
Astronomers to peer into a black hole for first time (not xrays) in April
2
62
8K
Phobophile replied
  • Locked
NASA Selects Mission to Study Black Holes, Cosmic X-ray Mysteries
2
809
maquiladora replied
  • Locked
Never-before-seen galaxy (called "Crater II") spotted orbiting the Milky Way
2
2K
Clydefrog replied
Top Bottom