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[squidyj]

Okay, the black hole itself has a mass more than ten billion times that of our own sun. However, over the last 100 million years, it has devoured a galaxy or such that has a mass of 600 million times that of our Sun, which has triggered this ongoing explosion (eruption?) of energy. As stars get eaten by a black hole, they get crushed down and go supernova. Some of the mass of the star gets gobbled up by the black hole's event horizon, but other parts of the star's mass get blasted out faster than the black hole's escape velocity.

So, over the last 100 million years (from the perspective of our perception, it really happened a long time ago), this black hole has been eating stars at the rate of about 6 a year, if all of the stars had the same mass of our Sun. The resulting regular chain reaction of novas has created a massive plume of energetic matter that has displaced and pushed around the 10 billion sun-masses of matter mentioned in the article.

At least that's what I think is happening based on my somewhat simple understanding of astrophysics.

if it consumed 600 billion suns worth of mass how can it eject 1trillion suns worth of mass?

doesn't mass consumed by the black hole..... become part of the black hole?

 

[marrec]

So... Is this what could happen on a smaller scale if our own Milky Way core released a massive expulsion?

Yes! A much much smaller scale. We've seen Sagittarius A* (our own super massive blackhole) give off bursts of Xrays as it feeds but it's still technically in a "dormant" state right now as there isn't much else in the galactic center but other black holes.

However there is an object orbiting Sagittarius A* right now called G2 that has been feeding little bits of itself to the blackhole and at some point in the near future will be eaten up completely, probably giving off a few galactic fireworks. Nothing dangerous to us of course.

if it consumed 600 billion suns worth of mass how can it eject 1trillion suns worth of mass?

doesn't mass consumed by the black hole..... become part of the black hole?

The Jets we see from blackholes aren't from material that was consumed but form material that was ejected by the massive forces involved in the consumption. Like when you eat corn and little bits of corn fly everywhere. Also, the accretion disk throws off massive amounts of energy as well and an accretion disk from a black hole that was 10 billion solar masses that was feeding on 600 million solar masses would give off a lot of energy indeed.

 

[MogCakes]

doesn't mass consumed by the black hole..... become part of the black hole?

Not absolutely I don't think. The magnetic fields and supernovas from the exploding stars getting eaten accelerate the fleeing particles enough to escape the black hole's event horizon. We're talking extreme amounts of energy and acceleration. The energy levels involved are nearly incomprehensible to us, they're so far outside of our window of experience.

 

[Jonm1010]

Shit like this makes me realize how special life is and how lucky we are to be in a place in the universe where we aren't on the precipice of imminent destruction by a ginormous ass explosion shooting black hole.

....As I go back to reading people argue about Fallout 4's graphics.

 

[boiled goose]

I really think it's likely this is how universes are formed. We cant see beyond the limit,but it might be endless cycles of new explosions

 

[EndlessSky]

The sheer power and size of such explosions in incomprehensibly big. Just trying to imagine such a force is ridiculous. And that's what I love about space.

 

[marrec]

Not absolutely I don't think. The magnetic fields and supernovas from the exploding stars getting eaten accelerate the fleeing particles enough to escape the black hole's event horizon. We're talking extreme amounts of energy and acceleration. The energy levels involved are nearly incomprehensible to us, they're so far outside of our window of experience.

To be specific (and pedantic) it doesn't even have to be exploding stars that cause a black hole to give off gamma ray bursts, just large enough amounts of matter feeding it quickly.

 

[ZoltanXerxes]

Man..if that happened at the center of our Galaxy and one of those cavities reached us, we'd be pretty much dead from the radiation...80% of the Galaxy would dead. Those things reach 600,000 light years from the center. Talk about a Galactic Extinction.

 

[BraXzy]

I cannot wait till our technology gets to the point where we can zoom in up close and view this in 'real time' if that's even physically possible.

 

[soul creator]

<insert masturbation joke here>

 

[Maninthemirror]

so the first wave of this will hit us in 2.7 Billion Years

 

[marrec]

Man..if that happened at the center of our Galaxy and one of those cavities reached us, we'd be pretty much dead from the radiation...80% of the Galaxy would dead. Those things reach 600,000 light years from the center. Talk about a Galactic Extinction.

We don't know if the SMBH in our galactic center is on a tilted axis so a gamma-ray burst from it could very well be aimed directly at us. It would quickly destroy all life on earth. Before we even knew it was coming in fact.

 

[Air]

That's crazy. I always like reading about these mega huge structures that are sprinkled around the universe.

 

[HelloMeow]

It sounds like this isn't really an explosion.

Big explosions in space are very different from what most visualisations would make you believe. Big explosions are, well, big. The speed of light can be relatively slow compared to the scale of these things.

Take a supernova, for example. It takes a fraction of a second for the core of the star to collapse, but it takes hours for the shockwave to reach the surface of the star. After that it takes years to fade out and expand.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

A black hole can generate an explosion?
How does that not support that our universe comes from a black hole?

The "explosion" is probably a quasar...I think. And I think current popular theory is that at minimum our galaxies are born of supermassive black holes--that at the center of each galaxy, including our own, you can find one of these massive black holes.

Although light cannot escape from the black hole itself, some signals can break free around its edges. While some dust and gas fall into the black hole, other particles are accelerated away from it at near the speed of light. The particles stream away from the black hole in jets above and below it, transported by one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the universe.

Kinda like this:

Man..if that happened at the center of our Galaxy and one of those cavities reached us, we'd be pretty much dead from the radiation...80% of the Galaxy would dead. Those things reach 600,000 light years from the center. Talk about a Galactic Extinction.

The good news is that this event, though not necessarily of same size, already happened in center of our galaxy during it's birth. If we could travel billions of years in future this event we're now observing will probably give birth to a new galaxy, which is kind of insane. I thought it was popular belief that most galaxies that were going to be born are already here?

 

[sunshine and gasoline]

Hearing about this stuff always reminds me of how insignificant we really are in the grand scheme of things.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Those numbers make me think of titans of space. http://www.titansofspacevr.com/

 

[Anfony O]

Too close for confort if you ask me

 

[B-B-Bomba!]

Fascinating and mind boggling discovery & discussion. Really appreciate the lucid explanations, i have learned something.

So ... What causes a black hole to be so big in the first place? Is it just a case of consuming more and more matter over time? So this one just had a steady stream of material to eat? Can a black hole be snuffed out with sufficient matter all at once? And assuming they can be in relative motion, what happens when they collide?

 

[WedgeX]

Is it the godwave?

 

[Netherscourge]

This sheer size of these things is beyond comprehension.

Mass, length, power... it's ...uh....god like.

 

[marrec]

Fascinating and mind boggling discovery & discussion. Really appreciate the lucid explanations, i have learned something.

So ... What causes a black hole to be so big in the first place? Is it just a case of consuming more and more matter over time? So this one just had a steady stream of material to eat? Can a black hole be snuffed out with sufficient matter all at once? And assuming they can be in relative motion, what happens when they collide?

Yep, just a black hole eating a bunch of stuff makes it this big. The bigger the black hole the longer its lifespan, stellar mass black holes last an length of time equivalent to the current age of the universe and especially massive black holes last, in theory, longer than the projected lifespan of the universe by orders of magnitude. The only thing we theorize of that can "snuff out" a black hole is Hawking Radiation which is a process of slow decay till eventual collapse with causes yet another huge explosion of energy. There are other ways that have been mathematically thought out but are theoretically impossible to consider.

When black holes collide, they merge to become a bigger black hole. Of course, the collision causes... you guessed it, an impossibly large explosion of energy.

 

[Kenai]

I literally cannot comprehend an explosion that lasts 100 million years.

 

[B-B-Bomba!]

Thank you, marrec. Very pleased to benefit from your insight.

 

[Blunoise]

I literally cannot comprehend an explosion that lasts 100 million years.

Exactly! And wait is this happening outside our galaxy? I thought there were no starts in between galaxies just emptiness

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

It's piss.

Underrated.

 

[I Big JG I]

Thats just crazy. its looks amazing. We need better cameras in space so we can see more cool pics.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Space is amazing and terrifying at the same time. How it do this

 

[-Horizon-]

Don't worry, we'll send Bruce Willis to handle it.

 

[Jason's Ultimatum]

Big Bang kamehameha.

 

[Stinkles]

Would there be any way to prove it's Hawking radiation?

From what I understand jets have never made it past the event horizon but are materials shot from its edge whereas Hawking radiation is slowly released from beyond the event horizon defying previous predictions.

 

[Smokey]

The numbers mentioned in the OP are incomprefuckinghensible

like

i cant do it

 

[Skinpop]

.

 

[Slayven]

Stop trying to be Slayven :|

I know right,

Everyone knows it is Surtur forging the Twilight Sword

 

[jchap]

Explosions always look great in space. Here is an image I took of a supernova that blew up a scant 5000 years ago.

 

[sono]

That is surely a big bang.

So Q is fucking around again?

Pfff this is 100 million year old news...

But is it as powerful as love that transcends space and time?

thisIsNeoGaf.gif

 

[dabig2]

A black hole can generate an explosion?
How does that not support that our universe comes from a black hole?

Watch this entire video for a mindfuck on the subject

But yeah, that is a scary explosion. Universe is incomprehensible in its size and violence. Can't wait to find even more cooler shit when we improve our tech. We thought we were the only galaxy like less than 100 years ago, imagine 2070 (as long as we don't destroy the world)

 

[disappeared]

so the first wave of this will hit us in 2.7 Billion Years

Mark your calendar.

 

[Red]

Explosions always look great in space. Here is an image I took of a supernova that blew up a scant 5000 years ago.

You've posted in photo threads on GAF before, right? I remember seeing pictures like that here. Great work. Wish I had the equipment and know-how to pull off something half that good.

 

[Saya]

The immensity of the forces at work here are really hard to comprehend and put into perspective, well at least to me.

 

[Couleurs]

Space is such a mindfuck, it's amazing.

 

[Nostremitus]

Yes! A much much smaller scale. We've seen Sagittarius A* (our own super massive blackhole) give off bursts of Xrays as it feeds but it's still technically in a "dormant" state right now as there isn't much else in the galactic center but other black holes.

However there is an object orbiting Sagittarius A* right now called G2 that has been feeding little bits of itself to the blackhole and at some point in the near future will be eaten up completely, probably giving off a few galactic fireworks. Nothing dangerous to us of course.



The Jets we see from blackholes aren't from material that was consumed but form material that was ejected by the massive forces involved in the consumption. Like when you eat corn and little bits of corn fly everywhere. Also, the accretion disk throws off massive amounts of energy as well and an accretion disk from a black hole that was 10 billion solar masses that was feeding on 600 million solar masses would give off a lot of energy indeed.

So, what happens of Sagittarius A absorbs one of the other black holes?

 

[chrisPjelly]

Space is too big

 

[opticalmace]

Explosions always look great in space. Here is an image I took of a supernova that blew up a scant 5000 years ago.

Great photo. Would you mind sharing some details on your equipment/setup?

 

[-MB-]

Space is too big

Yea, not a selling point to me at all.

 

[StoneFox]

Another reminder that space can kill us all at any moment and wouldn't even notice our protest.

 

[foxuzamaki]

A new feat for comics and manga and eventually games to compare their fictional characters to.

 

[foxuzamaki]

If that character is who I think it is, I dont remember this.

 

[foxuzamaki]

For something more close to home, our own Milky Way is due for a collision with Andromeda in some 4 billion years IIRC. The resulting black hole formed from that will still only be fraction of this one.

I think it was vsauce who said in the grand scheme of things it would be like nothing has happened because obviously the two galaxies are moving so slowly towards eachother and even combining that the chances of us even seeing something close to us is close to zero, course it wouldnt matter anyways, because we would all either be on some other planet somewhere or dead due to the earth heating up and no longer being habitual, unless we evolve to adjust to that somehow.

 

[BigDug13]

And they know this is the second most powerful in the history of the universe how?