The Largest Black Holes in the Universe!

"Meet the new record-holder for the LARGEST BLACK HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE (so far) in this EXPANDED and UPDATED version (in 1080p) of our most popular Cosmic Journeys episode.

Our Milky Way may harbor millions of black holes... the ultra dense remnants of dead stars. But now, in the universe far beyond our galaxy, there's evidence of something far more ominous. A breed of black holes that has reached incomprehensible size and destructive power. Just how large, and violent, and strange can they get?

A new era in astronomy has revealed a universe long hidden to us. High-tech instruments sent into space have been tuned to sense high-energy forms of light -- x-rays and gamma rays -- that are invisible to our eyes and do not penetrate our atmosphere. On the ground, precision telescopes are equipped with technologies that allow them to cancel out the blurring effects of the atmosphere. They are peering into the far reaches of the universe, and into distant caldrons of light and energy. In some distant galaxies, astronomers are now finding evidence that space and time are being shattered by eruptions so vast they boggle the mind."

reply to post by ResearchEverything777




HOLY TAP-DANCING JESUS CHRIST!

indeed

"This video takes you through Hubble's deepest view of the universe, from its location in the sky to the dimmest, most distant galaxies." Awesome!

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Structure of a Black Hole
Although black holes come in a variety of masses and sizes, their structures are all alike. A black hole's entire mass is concentrated in an almost infinitely small and dense point called a singularity. This point is surrounded by the event horizon - the distance from the singularity at which its escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. And a rotating black hole is surrounded by the ergosphere, a region in which the black hole drags space itself.


The singularity forms when matter is compressed so tightly that no other force of nature can balance it. In a "normal" star, like the Sun, the inward pull of gravity is balanced by the outward pressure of the nuclear reactions in its core. In the collapsed stars known as white dwarfs or neutron stars, other forces prevent the ultimate collapse.

If there is too much mass in a given volume, though, the object reaches a critical density where nothing can prevent its ultimate collapse to form a black hole.

Because gravity overcomes the other forces of nature, a singularity follows its own bizarre rules of physics. Time and space as we know them are crushed out of existence, and gravity becomes infinitely strong.

blackholes.stardate.org...