Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Friday February 27 2015, @03:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the billions-and-billions-of-stars dept.

Astronomers have identified a mammoth black hole weighing as much as 12 billion suns.

It's not the biggest black hole ever found, but it's astonishingly young. The giant appears to have swelled to its enormous size only 875 million years after the big bang, when the universe was just 6 percent of its current age. That's a surprise, astronomers report Wednesday in the journal Nature, because giant black holes are thought to grow relatively slowly by vacuuming up gas and even stars that venture too close."

Don't you think it odd that 875 million years after the big bang could be called "astonishingly young?"

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday February 27 2015, @03:24PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 27 2015, @03:24PM (#150469) Journal

    There was so much energy density in the early big bang that the first discrete stars didn't form until 400 million years afterwards. (wikipedia)

    That is to say, matter was so energetic that it would repel other matter more than gravity could possibly draw it together. And we don't know of any processes that can lead to black hole creation other than the collapse of stars. So yeah, it's a bit astonishing.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 27 2015, @04:57PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday February 27 2015, @04:57PM (#150538)

      It's only astonishing to people who don't see how the FSM was a bit slow at mixing the primordial sauce and it ended up with lumps...

      I don't know enough about the big bang models to know why they would forbid non-uniformity. "Matter was so energetic" may not have applied everywhere.

      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by ikanreed on Friday February 27 2015, @05:02PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 27 2015, @05:02PM (#150543) Journal

        The 2nd law of thermodynamics(with the real, scientific definition of entropy) was the reason for suspecting the entire universe was sufficiently energetic to prevent star formation. Note that that doesn't mean equally energetic, just that in extremely, unimaginably high (kinetic) energy environments, substantial energy vacuums would be filled by something resembling ideal gas laws.

        That's on top of observational data, where looking at things further away than t+520 million years in our light cone has no signs of stars.

        It's a big universe, and anything is possible, but you're vastly underestimating just how much energy we're talking about. Super-hot plasmas everywhere.

        • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Friday February 27 2015, @07:56PM

          by Zinho (759) on Friday February 27 2015, @07:56PM (#150672)

          Note that that doesn't mean equally energetic, just that in extremely, unimaginably high (kinetic) energy environments, substantial energy vacuums would be filled by something resembling ideal gas laws.

          This is true, but incomplete. You need to go to a Zeroth law analysis [wikipedia.org] to get the whole picture.

          If you talk to astronomers, the flat distribution of Black Body radiation in the Cosmic Microwave Background means that everything we see between the stars was at thermal equilibrium during the big bang (and, being at the same temperature, still is). So it is entirely accurate to say that at the beginning of the universe everything really was equally energetic.

          --
          "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday February 27 2015, @05:21PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday February 27 2015, @05:21PM (#150557)

      Well, it it was born only 400 MY after stars started forming, wouldn't that make it astonishingly *old*?

      Also, I've heard a contrasting theory that what became super-massive black holes might have actually formed very early in the universe's history, possibly even during or before the inflationary period*, and their gravity is at least partially responsible for concentrating enough matter to form galaxies in the first place.

      *(it's been a long time, I'm afraid I don't remember the details well - possibly formed from quantum fluctuations that would evaporate almost instantly in our current low-energy-density environment?)

      Such black holes would have been one of the few things that could survive and bind together even the superheated plasma of the primordial universe, in fact they would have grown very rapidly in such an environment - the radiation pressure which normally puts an upper limit on their growth rate would have paled in comparison to the ambient energy levels.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 27 2015, @03:26PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Friday February 27 2015, @03:26PM (#150471) Homepage

    Don't you think it odd that 875 million years after the big bang could be called "astonishingly young?"

    Not so much as odd as very confusing. 875m.y. ABB is not the hole's date of birth, but rather it's date of observation - i.e. it had been around for no more than 875m.y. when the light we are now seeing left it. By now (for most reasonable values of "now", timey wimey wibbly wobbly etc), it's astonishingly old.

    What would make it clearer would be to say it is/was young for its size - though there again, "big for its age" is probably an easier concept to get your head around.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday February 27 2015, @04:35PM

      by melikamp (1886) on Friday February 27 2015, @04:35PM (#150520) Journal

      Not so much as odd as very confusing.

      I think it's just a gaffe. The object is one of the oldest of its kind. It was born in a very young universe.

      • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday February 27 2015, @10:12PM

        by wonkey_monkey (279) on Friday February 27 2015, @10:12PM (#150771) Homepage

        I don't think it is a gaffe. What they mean is we're seeing it when it was very young, and they know this because the universe itself was very young at the time, and it can't have been older than the universe.

        The mix of tenses doesn't help:

        [it is] astonishingly young [...] when the universe was just 6 percent of its current age.

        --
        systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @07:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @07:03PM (#150640)

      So, have we found the creator of this Universe?

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 27 2015, @08:21PM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday February 27 2015, @08:21PM (#150689) Journal

      What would make it clearer would be to say it is/was young for its size

      WAS is all we have to go on here. And WAS is measured by distance. And Distance is pretty much a guesstimate.

      What we see, is light believed to left that area 875m.y, and it was already big then.
      We have no idea how big or small it is now.

      Calling it "Young" is certainly some form of the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive tense. [wisc.edu]

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @03:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @03:27PM (#150474)

    I didn't think Oprah Winfrey was that old.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @03:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @03:34PM (#150479)

    That sucks.

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday February 27 2015, @04:17PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 27 2015, @04:17PM (#150511) Journal

      This joke is even older than that black hole.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:21PM (#150515)

        You mean younger, right?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27 2015, @04:55PM (#150535)

    This black hole is even bigger that Uranus?

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by JeanCroix on Friday February 27 2015, @05:45PM

    by JeanCroix (573) on Friday February 27 2015, @05:45PM (#150572)
    That hole is clearly white and gold.