Dozen black holes found at galactic centre

A new analysis provides support for a decades-old prediction that "supermassive" black holes at the centres of galaxies are surrounded by many smaller ones.

However, previous searches of the Milky Way's centre, where the nearest supermassive black hole is located, have found little evidence for this.

Details appear in the journal Nature.

Charles Hailey from Columbia University in New York and colleagues used archival data from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope to come to their conclusions.

They report the discovery of a dozen inactive and low-mass "binary systems", in which a star orbits an unseen companion - the black hole.

The supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is surrounded by a halo of gas and dust that provides the perfect breeding ground for the birth of massive stars. These stars live, die and could turn into black holes there.

BBC.com, news, science, 4 April, 2018 - Dozen black holes found at galactic centre.

More technical read, Phys.org - New study suggests tens of thousands of black holes exist in Milky Way's center.

The more we look at the universe the more interesting it becomes!

The term "supermassive" is truly mind boggling. They measure the size in light days! The area Sagittarius A* covers is half a light-year wide! Finding a dozen or so binary systems around that massive a structure is not surprising. That in a six light-year wide neighborhood there could be 10 - 20,000 black holes is truly wild.

Maybe if they do not capture the event horizon picture they can catch one of the smaller black holes! At least we know that LIGO will have targets to study.

And here I was just getting my mind around the SMBH and they sprinkle in 15,000 more for good luck!

What happens when a black-hole gets sucked into a black-hole?

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I guess it makes sense that with so much dust and gas massive stars would form , die and create Black Holes but what a strange place it must be , I wonder how that much mass and gravity would effect space toward the centre.

originally posted by: skunkape23
What happens when a black-hole gets sucked into a black-hole?

They become merged . Bigger , stronger , faster (and not at a 6 million dollar cost)
Perhaps one reason the one in the center of each galaxy is now a supermassive one.

a reply to: skunkape23

It burps!

phys.org - Researchers catch supermassive black hole burping—twice.

Even better article, space.com - Space Cannibal: Ginormous Black Hole Caught Eating Another.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Yep maybe ? If these BH's have a decent mass ? we could have our missing figures for Universal Mass.



www.dailygalaxy.com... #more

So maybe the recent Galaxy find with no dark matter may have no black holes ?

Galaxies and dark matter go hand in hand; you typically don't find one without the other. So when researchers uncovered a galaxy, known as NGC1052-DF2, that is almost completely devoid of the stuff, they were shoc Read more at: phys.org...

Thank's for Posting..

originally posted by: skunkape23
What happens when a black-hole gets sucked into a black-hole?

Gravitational waves

a reply to: gortex

Remind me to not get drunk and fly my spaceship through that neighborhood!

If we ever reach Time Lord tech-level and use a singularity as a power source, then we would know where to go looking for one just hanging out!

a reply to: skywatcher44

I saw the story and had to share! It is a strange concept to think about. Solitary BHs falling in towards Sag A*, binaries living and dying in such an environment... that is just crazy to contemplate!

a reply to: skunkape23

Gamma ray burst!

a reply to: skywatcher44


I've read that sometimes the orbital mechanics of merging galaxies causes one SMBH to bounce off the other one. There is this story from last year where one is seen leaving the merging galaxies near the speed of light.

sciencenews.org - Supermassive black hole gets kicked to the galactic curb.

Black holes are cool and scary at the same time! Universe sure is interesting.

a reply to: skunkape23

Would that qualify as a cat fight?

So there are thousands of black hoes partying at the center of the Milky way? Cool, wish I was a little younger again, I liked parties forty years ago.

a reply to: rickymouse


Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict??



This year is another rare occurance with Sag A*.

The star is called S0-2, one of a class of stars known as S-stars (not to be confused with S-type stars) that closely orbit Sgr A*, which has an estimated mass of around 4.3 million Suns.

But S0-2 is special. It's one of two stars that zoom in closest to the black hole in its elliptical orbit, which means it's likely to show the effects of the black hole's gargantuan gravitational pull when it swings around once every 16 years.

According to general relativity, light affected by a strong gravitational field will get stretched out, or redshifted. The orbit will also shift, ever so slightly changing trajectory.

As S0-2 moves in for its closest approach at 17 light-hours away from the centre of the galaxy (about four times the distance between the Sun and Neptune), accelerating to 3 percent of the speed of light, researchers with the UCLA's Galactic Center Group will be carefully looking to see if these changes take place.

If they do, they'll have confirmed general relativity once again.

science alert.com - A Star Passing The Black Hole at The Centre of Our Galaxy Is About to Test Einstein's Theory.

The center of the Milky Way is an active place!

The star will pass by mid-year. So I guess June, 2018 has more going for it than summer solstice!

Ok...this is not new, but what is in the Center of the Universe, Millions of Black Holes...an entropy?

The whole black hole concept is so misunderstood .
A star starts collapsing as it does so Its gravity well gets smaller and thus stronger this keeps going untill the excape volicty is so high NOT even LIGHT is fast enough to obtain Breakaway speed .
Like leaving earths orbit takes (25,000 miles per hour any slower and you dont get out of orbit .
i earth gravity creates this much pull .
So once the mass is eather dense enough or a high enough amount not even light is fast enough .

What is left of that star still sits in the middle the mass is still there as for otehr things like time and space folding well even earth effect both .

originally posted by: skunkape23
What happens when a black-hole gets sucked into a black-hole?

Time distortion that turns the fabric of spacetime in on itself to create an acausal ouroboros.

a reply to: skunkape23

Same thing that happens when you divide by zero or type Google into Google.

Over email, [Chuck] Hailey told me it "would be a miracle" if scientists detected a gravitational wave that originated in our own galaxy, because capturing these waves is so rare. But, he said, "by getting solid numbers of black holes in the center of our galaxy, and the distribution of those black holes, which we have now observed, that information can be 'spun' by theorists into a deeper understanding" about the nature of gravitational wave events in other galaxies.

"After all, the Milky Way is an average type galaxy, so if we see lots of black holes snuggled up against the supermassive one here, we should see them in the centers of many other galaxies," he told me. "So theorists will use our results to particularize their predictions of how many of these exotic binaries (and [gravitational wave] events) will happen in other galaxies so the can make much firmer predictions than they could otherwise make."

motherboard.vice.com -
The supermassive black hole at the galactic core seems to have an abundance of smaller black hole friends.


That is the author of the paper from OP talking with Becky Ferreira at Motherboard. Besides the "major announcement" it is there kinds of observations, thoughts, quips, and comments that make the story more interesting.

Using the data, new models can be thought up and investigated. If the observed data matches up they are on the right the path! Which is amazing because we only detected gravity waves in 2015! Look at that neutron star merger from last year and how much of a sensation it created.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I always kind of thought that there have been big bangs before this last one, Black holes eat and merge and when the mass gets so large it goes bang again and starts all over. forever is along time.

originally posted by: darepairman
I always kind of thought that there have been big bangs before this last one, Black holes eat and merge and when the mass gets so large it goes bang again and starts all over. forever is along time.

It continuously happens in all dimensions, including the non-physical ones. The Big Bang is not a starting point, per se, but more like where the spoon is in the center of the cake batter in a mixing bowl.