Super-Giant Black Hole Baffles Scientists

[CowboyMcCoy]

You would probably not enjoy the galaxy NGC 1277. Never mind that it's far - 220 million light-years away in the constellation Perseus. The problem is that at its center is a giant, giant black hole, 17 billion times as massive as our sun, so big that scientists calculate it makes up 59 percent of the mass of the galaxy's disc.

Astrophysicists have long believed that there's a black hole at the center of our Milky Way, but it probably accounts for something like 0.1 percent of the galaxy's center. The one in NGC 1277, scientists report in today's edition of the journal Nature, is the second largest they've ever observed, and it upends what they thought about how galaxies form.

Black holes, as you'll recall, are objects in space so massive that their gravity consumes everything around them - stars, planets, matter, energy, even light. Earthly scientists can only observe their effect on the space around them, not see them directly. Be grateful we're not close to one. They're actually useful to astrophysicists in explaining the nice spiral shape of many galaxies - you need something massive in the middle for the stars to circle - but NGC 1277 is an extreme.

"This is a really oddball galaxy," said Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the team that made the find. "It's almost all black hole. This could be the first object in a new class of galaxy-black hole systems." Gebhardt and colleagues at the McDonald Observatory have been calculating the mass of different black holes - no small task considering their powerful gravity.

http://news.yahoo.com/super-giant-bl...news-tech.html

[CowboyMcCoy]

This black hole. It's um, 17 billion times larger than our sun. No big deal guys?

[dexternjack]

Originally Posted by CowboyMcCoy

This black hole. It's um, 17 billion times larger than our sun. No big deal guys?

Not a big deal compared to 220 million light years away. Come to think about it, I did not think our universe was that big, 220 mil lt years is a long, long, long........, ways aways.

[CowboyMcCoy]

Originally Posted by dexternjack

Not a big deal compared to 220 million light years away. Come to think about it, I did not think our universe was that big, 220 mil lt years is a long, long, long........, ways aways.

That's very true.

[vta]

Random reactions...



'Great, now I won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that thing is out there.'

Link

[BlindFaith]

Originally Posted by dexternjack

Not a big deal compared to 220 million light years away. Come to think about it, I did not think our universe was that big, 220 mil lt years is a long, long, long........, ways aways.

So how big did you think the universe was, if not infinite? Some big infinite brick wall at the edge?

[Cajuncowboy]

Well, Shazam...

[joseephuss]

Originally Posted by dexternjack

Not a big deal compared to 220 million light years away. Come to think about it, I did not think our universe was that big, 220 mil lt years is a long, long, long........, ways aways.

The universe is estimated to be 15 billion years. That 220 million is almost 1.5% of that.

[trickblue]

Originally Posted by dexternjack

Not a big deal compared to 220 million light years away. Come to think about it, I did not think our universe was that big, 220 mil lt years is a long, long, long........, ways aways.

Approximately 1,290,453,120,000,000,000,000 miles away...

So if I remember correctly, that is:

1 sextillion, 290 qunitillion, 453 quadrillion, 120 trillion miles away...

One trillion = 1,000 billion
One quadrillion = 1,000 trillion
One quintillion = 1,000 quadrillion
One sextillion= 1,000 quintillion

I think I got it right...

[Joshmil53]

Originally Posted by trickblue

Approximately 1,290,453,120,000,000,000,000 miles away...

So if I remember correctly, that is:

1 sextillion, 290 qunitillion, 453 quadrillion, 120 trillion miles away...

One trillion = 1,000 billion
One quadrillion = 1,000 trillion
One quintillion = 1,000 quadrillion
One sextillion= 1,000 quintillion

I think I got it right...

Meh, not that far.

[ShiningStar]

Originally Posted by trickblue

Approximately 1,290,453,120,000,000,000,000 miles away...

So if I remember correctly, that is:

1 sextillion, 290 qunitillion, 453 quadrillion, 120 trillion miles away...

One trillion = 1,000 billion
One quadrillion = 1,000 trillion
One quintillion = 1,000 quadrillion
One sextillion= 1,000 quintillion

I think I got it right...

that sir is what us neurosurgeons call "right around the corner" thank you very much.

Wow thats some impressive work on the math. My mind is still boggling it.

[trickblue]

Originally Posted by ShiningStar

that sir is what us neurosurgeons call "right around the corner" thank you very much.

Wow thats some impressive work on the math. My mind is still boggling it.

The good news is that your Prius could make it there with only 25,809,062,400,000,000,000 tanks of gas...

Call us when you get there... oh... and take a flashlight...

[Sam I Am]

I have a friend that recently got a job at UT's McDonald Observatory. That is where I heard about this from.

17 billion solar masses is unfathomably large. It takes light 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the Sun. That is 93 million miles traveled in 8 minutes.

Neptune is 30 times further from the Sun. (2,780,246,913 miles) It takes light from the Sun 4.12 hours to reach Neptune. Neptune's orbit is twice that. (60 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth, or well over 5 billion miles)

NGC-1277 is 11 times wider than Neptune's orbit. That comes to about 61,165,432,086 miles. (61.1 billion miles wide) The size of NGC-1277 dwarfs our entire solar system. It is 11 times larger!

Traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 4 days to cross the diameter of this black hole.

Edit: Here is an image talking about what I said.

[DFWJC]

Originally Posted by CowboyMcCoy

This black hole. It's um, 17 billion times larger than our sun. No big deal guys?

Astounding.

It has to be an ancient merged cluster of some sort to become that large. Hard to inagine how anything exist anywhere close to it...any by that I mean within light years of it.

[ShiningStar]

Originally Posted by trickblue

The good news is that your Prius could make it there with only 25,809,062,400,000,000,000 tanks of gas...

Call us when you get there... oh... and take a flashlight...

u ll be the first to get a post card from there.