First Black Hole Photographed

CalPolyTechnique

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Centrifugal forces can be very strong. Really if you think about it. Galaxies are huge and the objects within are all massive. While the power of gravity can be great enough to create a black hole, it's also the weakest of all the fundamental forces. So, you have these stars that are massive in their own right. (you have to be to have enough gravitational force for fusion to start in it's core) All that mass / weight is moving at extremely high speeds..

To understand it. Our Sun (mass of 1.989 × 10^30 kg) is moving around Sagittarius A* (our black hole) at 43k miles per hour. (think of how much kinetic energy that actually is) It's doing it at a distance of 26 light years from Sagittarius A*. A light year is an ungodly number of miles given light travels 186,000 miles second and there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. (186,000 * 31,536,000) * 26

We are in the middle of the milky way's disk too. There are star system that are twice that far away from Sagittarius A*.

Our galaxy is one of likely trillions. Space is so mind-bogglingly large!

I’d add black holes are not like whirlpools where everything near it falls in and it just keeps consuming like a vacuum. Gravitational mass is the common denominator here. You can actually orbit a black hole the same way a planet orbits a sun or moon does with a planet given the right trajectory and distance (ie. out of the event horizon). They actually believe most galaxies have super massive black holes at their centers.
 

CalPolyTechnique

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I'm out of my element when it comes to anything space, but it's not the lack of surprise or excitement in confirmation that shocks me. It's the fact that (at least to me) black holes were pretty much treated as a given. A given without any supposed confirmation at all. Almost like science decided to suspend the rules for a minute and say, "we know they're out there, and we'll tell you when we can prove it".

Additionally, I thought there had been observances of light bending unexpectedly prior to this. Could have been a movie, I suppose, but I thought distant light sources had been observed passing behind a presumed black hole and the resulting distortion was attributed to the presence of that black hole. Provided it wasn't a movie, I guess I just don't have the prerequisite background to appreciate the difference whatever it was that was observed before and what it is we are seeing now.

All of this boiled down is math. Relativity has always been supported by math and black holes were one of the logical conclusions of the math (ie. if you have an infinitely dense massive object it will collapse on itself...”).

These photos are just the first photo evidence of what was long theorized due to the math.
 

timb2

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Scientists today released the first ever image of a black hole. I'm really surprised this

eso1907a.jpg
AAAAhhh Doughnuts!!
national-donut-day-homer-simpson-thumb-315xauto-41227.jpg
 

YosemiteSam

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I'm not a flat Earther, but I believe all the extra dimensions are flat!

Down with the Calabi-Yau manifolds!

7491166544_77807901bd_b.jpg
 

Runwildboys

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CowboysZone DIEHARD Fan
I'm not a flat Earther, but I believe all the extra dimensions are flat!

Down with the Calabi-Yau manifolds!

7491166544_77807901bd_b.jpg
I'd never heard of Calabi Yau manifolds before, so I read several articles/descriptions.........I still have no idea what they are. The best I can come up with is that they're shapes with infinite, or nearly infinite continuous surface......but I'm probably way off.
 

Melonfeud

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Or it's an orange glaze donut.

Seriously, I find it hard to believe this hasn't been national news. Maybe they want to wait until they can convince even the most skeptical?

This is awesome, BTW!!
It had a pretty prominent header over on the drudge report just as soon as the news was released
 
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