Questions tagged [supermassive-black-hole]
Questions regarding the most massive examples of black holes that typically reside at the centers of galaxies.
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Has gain in mass from accretion onto a black hole been observed?
Have we observed a black hole directly gain mass via accretion? That is, have we observed the black hole to have mass $m_1$ at time $t_1$ and then observed its mass to be $m_2 > m_1$ at a later ...
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How can a black hole have a charge, or be charged?
So-called 'hairless' black holes (no-hair theory, or theorem?) , which is what real black holes are, can be described by just three characteristics: Mass, spin, and charge.
It is easy enough to ...
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Why is the Milky Way's SMBH inactive?
Our galaxy is not an active galactic nucleus (AGN). With so many stars and so much gas orbiting it, as explained here Central kiloparsec of Seyfert and inactive host galaxies: a comparison of two-...
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Does black hole singularity really exists with respective to relative frame of reference? [duplicate]
How can one describe this phenomena?
What are the factors that we should consider for solving such a problem?
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Can an entire star pass through the event horizon of a black hole unharmed?
Can there be any black hole big enough that a regular sized star can pass through its event horizon unharmed?
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What do stars in galaxies without supermassive black holes revolve around? [duplicate]
I still don't quite understand what the stars in galaxies without SBHs revolve around. I mean, the stars must orbit something. If the Sun suddenly disappeared, the planets wouldn't just continue in ...
3
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1answer
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Could Sgr A* be a core of dark matter instead of a supermassive black hole?
A recent paper (related news) shows that Sgr A* at the center of the Milky Way galaxy could be a dark matter core, instead of a supermassive black hole, according to their calculation using the ...
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How do we know that supermassive black holes can gain mass by means other than merging with other supermassive black holes?
I just stumbled across the following answer "update" from 2013:
This just in, recent observations have ruled out the possibility that SMBHs gain mass only through merging with other black ...
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What is Hawking radiation? [closed]
Like the radiation the Sun gives out to sustain it's circular shape, will Hawking radiation sustain the black hole's shape?
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1answer
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Would studying massive stars that are experiencing time dilation due to proximity to a black hole be useful?
I saw this question (Could a star closely orbit a black hole long enough for the star to have lost 0.5B+ years to time dilation?) and came up with an interesting thought. Massive stars live for less ...
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1answer
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Hypothetically, could a civilization in a solar system near a supermassive blackhole use the blackhole as a huge gravity lens telescope?
I have heard of various proposals that use the massive gravity of stars to sort of focus light at and observe with a suitable telescope placed at such a distance, and I am assuming here that bigger ...
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1answer
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Is there a closest free-return trajectory to a black hole?
The scenario I am imagining is a test particle falling from infinity with an initial off-center velocity. In Newtonian mechanics the path would be a hyperbola. But I assume that, near a black hole, ...
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1answer
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Do any particles in AGN jets escape the galaxy?
I have read, at http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Black-holes.html for example, that whole stars can be ejected from certain galaxies. "These are thought to have been part of a binary star system ...
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What keeps galaxies together?
The super massive black hole at the centre of Milky Way has a mass of about 4 million times that of our sun. Is this enough to keep the entire galaxy together, is it this black hole which keeps the ...
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How spaghettification is possible at the Event Horizon of a supermassive black hole?
if gravity is too strong then it will break a object apart as gravity is strong enough to break the chemical composition of object why we consider "Spaghettification" relevant in this case ?
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Why don't black holes quickly eat up the galaxy/universe?
It's my understanding that the radius of the event horizon of a black hole is proportional to it's mass.
Which means the surface area of a black hole is proportional to it's mass squared.
Lets just ...
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What is the effect of extinction in the accretion disk for black hole mass determination?
I've created a basic model of the accretion disk (AD) by summing up blackbodies following the temperature profile of the AD according to Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) (extensively used in the ...
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1answer
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How can a supermassive black hole be 13 billion years old?
A supermassive black hole was discovered recently that is 13 billion years old. This blackhole is 1.6 billion times the mass of the sun. How can this blackhole have formed so quickly after the big ...
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Correlation between supermassive black hole properties and galaxy rotation speed
Is there any correlation between the size or spin - or any other properties - of a galaxy's central supermassive black hole and the speed of galaxy rotation (which I think would also be proportional ...
2
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1answer
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Why are galactic nuclei yellow?
So we've seen millions of galaxies, and all of them have a bright, yellow nucleus. What is the cause of the yellowness? Is it because of aging stars, redshift from the SMBH, or something else?
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What came first: Galaxies or Stars? [duplicate]
In Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time, the book mentions that "in regions that were slightly denser than average...galaxies were born." (pg 123). However, according to many other ...
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1answer
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Why is there no color shift on the photo of the M87 black hole?
Last year, the first photo of a black hole in Messier 87 was published:
(Source: EHT)
It is quite obvious that about the lower half of the accretion disk is brighter.
This question (or rather, the ...
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Details of the M87 Active Galactic Nucleus — questions of scale
This video describes a scale model of the M87 SMBH (somewhat distorted to live in flat space and for other practical reasons) in which the Schwarzschild radius appears to be scaled to about 10cm, with ...
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Could blackholes warping space-time create dark energy?
I think the effects of blackholes on the surrounding space is localised to a small area around the blackhole but I wondered if the largest blackholes at the centre of massive clusters could be a ...
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2answers
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Is the angular size of the black hole in the movie “interstellar” completely overblown?
I assume everybody is tired of reading questions derived from the movie Interstellar, I will try to keep this short and simple:
In general in movies, in order to have stunning visuals, celestial ...
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Will the first Event Horizon Telescope image of the Milky Way's black hole be just another orange donut?
@HDE226868's answer to Why doesn't the black hole in the center of the Milky Way glow similarly to the famous M87 image? explains that neither black hole is orange and any Event Horizon Telescope ...
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1answer
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Will the Sagittarius A* Black Hole eventually swallow the entire Galaxy?
In one of his interviews, Sir Roger Penrose mentioned that when the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies eventually "collide" and merge into one, their super-massive black holes will also ...
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1answer
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Black Hole Collision & Gravitational Waves
The Gravitational waves detected by LIGO on 14th September 2015 are attributed to a collision of two black holes, which had been rotating near the speed of light around each other just before the ...
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1answer
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Are there any predictions of what galaxies exist in the Norma cluster/ Abell 3267?
I am working on a map for a science fiction story and using what information is available I have a good idea of locations of nearby galaxy groups and clusters and where the known supermassive black ...
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1answer
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Would DCBH form supermassive stars first before BH formation
In reading some literature it seems ambiguous (intentionally?) as to the path that Direct Collapse Black Holes (DCBH) take. Some papers do talk about pristine Halos collapsing to form supermassive ...
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1answer
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How do we know that the discovered M87 black hole isn't just a star surrounded by a dust disk?
To an untrained eye like mine, pictures of stars surrounded by dust discs look very much similar to the picture of the M87 black hole.
Here are some pictures of these dust discs:
And here is a ...
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How does gas in accretion disks of supermassive black holes create orbital torques on smaller black holes within the disks causing them to migrate?
This answer to What enhances the capture and merge rates of pairs of small black holes orbiting around supermassive black holes? links to Migration Traps in Disks Around Supermassive Black Holes which ...
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Why would the merger of spinning black holes within the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole cause them to “shoot straight up” out of the disk?
I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
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1answer
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What enhances the capture and merge rates of pairs of small black holes orbiting around supermassive black holes?
I just tried to read the new New York Times article Two Black Holes Colliding Not Enough? Make It Three which links to the new 25-June-2020 Physical Review Letter Graham et al. Candidate ...
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1answer
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What happens when a huge star is being consumed by a black hole
What happens when a huge star in its later stage( iron core) is near a black hole that slowly consumes some of the matter from the star? Would this offset the imbalance caused by iron fusion ...
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What will be the eventual result of the Milky Ways future mergers?
I am wondering, after the Milky Way merges with Andromeda and other near by dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, will it then merge with galaxies in the Virgo cluster and even Laniakea? And if so ...
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1answer
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What is the actual temperature of a quasar?
My daughter asked me last night: What is the hottest thing in the universe?
The first thing that sprang to mind was the core of a fresh neutron star (this question agrees: What is the hottest thing ...
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2answers
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Why don't they make an image of the black hole in the M33 galaxy?
Since we see the Triangulum galaxy M33 from a quite vertical position (contrary to our Milky Way and a bit the Andromeda galaxy) it should be easy to image the black hole in the center of it, shouldn'...
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1answer
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Hills' mechanism for making Hypervelocity Stars
In Hill’s mechanism, the gravitational tidal force of
a single MBH disrupts an approaching binary. One star is captured on an eccentric orbit around
the MBH and, by conservation of energy, the ...
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1answer
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A question related to black holes
Not a physicist just a simple guy, don't know much about physics as well. Just like to read things. I was reading about black holes and a question popped in my mind.
If I understand it correctly ...
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2answers
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Can dark energy or dark matter affect black holes
I was wondering if black holes are the greatest force of gravity how does other highly spoken about concepts such as dark energy or dark matter compare. Can a black hole absorb dark energy or dark ...
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2answers
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How does a Super-Massive Black Hole 'flare'?
This week we have read of evidence of the Super Massive Black Hole in the centre of the Galaxy 'flaring'.
My understanding is that light cannot escape from a black hole.
My question is: How does a ...
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1answer
151 views
How did they estimate the mass of Sgr A*'s companion G2 without knowing what it was?
Gizmodo.com's Astronomers Spot Unprecedented Flashes From Our Galaxy's Black Hole mentions Sgr A*'s companion gas cloud G2.
That Wikipedia article says:
First noticed as something unusual in ...
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1answer
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Are there galaxies with 2 or more super massive black holes orbiting each other?
We now know that most stellar systems have 2 or more stars orbiting each other. Do we know of any galaxies which have 2 or more super massive black holes orbiting each other? Is it possible?
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1answer
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Two body orbit dynamics for orbital periods approaching light cone limit
How do you model a system of two large celestial bodies, where they achieve a rotation very close to the limit at which information can escape the system (heat, light, etc.), do they begin to appear ...
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1answer
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How did they measure the distance to the center of our galaxy to 0.3% accuracy?
The abstract of A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty (Open Access) says:
We present a 0.16% precise and 0.27% accurate determination of R₀, the ...
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1answer
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Size of a black hole
If there is no matter inside any of the black holes and all of them have a singularity in the center of them, which is infinitely small and infinitely dense, then how can they differ in size and ...
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How do two supermassive black holes reach “the last parsec” in merging galaxies?
This answer to Why can't supermassive black holes merge? (or can they?) describes the barrier to merging that two supermassive black holes face when two galaxies are in the process of merging or have "...
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1answer
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Why can't supermassive black holes merge? (or can they?)
The CNet article Astronomers discover two supermassive black holes in a death spiral links to Discovery of a Close-separation Binary Quasar at the Heart of a z ~ 0.2 Merging Galaxy and Its ...
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1answer
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How feasible is it that we could see the Central Black Hole Sgr A* occlude one of it's closely orbiting stars?
I'm thinking about the recent famous photo of a black hole, some months ago. It got me wondering if there isn't a way to more easily make a direct observation of these.
We detect exoplanets in part ...
