Do Solo Black Holes Roam the Universe? 135
sciencehabit writes "Two mysterious bright spots in a disheveled, distant galaxy suggest that astronomers have found the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole being shoved out of its home. If confirmed, the finding would verify Einstein's theory of general relativity in a region of intense gravity not previously tested. The results would also suggest that some giant black holes roam the universe as invisible free floaters, flung from the galaxies in which they coalesced. Although loner black holes may be an entity that has to be reckoned with, they would still be rare."
We just keep finding more dark matter, no mystery? (Score:1)
And the other day - turns out tons of hydrogen gas not previously observed in voids. Sooner or later, that obvious bit of "curve over-fitting" that required the mysterious dark matter might just have to go away. That would be cool - it was obviously a bandaid on a cancer in the theory.
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turns out tons of hydrogen gas not previously observed in voids ... the mysterious dark matter might just have to go away
Put your toys away, son. A million, billion, trillion tons wouldn't even show up as a rounding error when it comes to dark matter.
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Duh, but that was not the GPs point. They are finding additional %s. Brown dwarfs, extra H2 in the voids etc. Anything is possible, especially something based on 'finaglers constant' (FC=answerwant/answergot) like dark matter.
Re:We just keep finding more dark matter, no myste (Score:4, Informative)
They are finding additional %s. Brown dwarfs, extra H2 in the voids etc.
Right, but none of them have the right properties (no EM interactions, etc) to be dark matter, not to mention that their mass is trivial compared to the amount required.
Anything is possible, especially something based on 'finaglers constant' (FC=answerwant/answergot) like dark matter.
We're a little past that stage. For example, we have observed galaxies colliding in ways that separate the visible mass from the non-visible mass - i.e. the stars, gas etc, interact via EM and slow down, while the majority of the mass (inferred through gravitational lensing) continues on as if it's affected only by gravity. It's hard to ascribe that kind of behavior to dim stars or extra-galactic H2.
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how am I supposed to parse that?
As a joke - albeit one that pointed out that H2 in voids, given our current understanding of course, isn't a candidate for dark matter. Not enough mass, not in the right place, and interacting using photons being three of the main problems with it.
The first one would be (10^6)*(10^9)*(10^12), which is a shitload of tons. The mass of the universe is roughly 3*10^52 to 3*10^54 kg given 1 ton is ~10^3 kilograms that would put that hydrogen as roughly half the mass of the o
Re:We just keep finding more dark matter, no myste (Score:5, Funny)
You obviously don't understand that 10^30 is nowhere near 1/2 of 10^52. It's practically nonexistent on that scale.
Fantastic (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it fascinating that theories developed in the first half of the last century continue to stand up to observation. This fits the predictions of general relativity, and that is almost as exciting as if they discovered something that totally blew away the predictions. The latter would mean we go back to the cutting board, but this is, as I said, almost as exciting. It makes me wonder how much of the 'missing mass' that we lump into the dark matter bucket is actually contained in bodies like this; bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'.
Blowing away the old theories would be better... (Score:1)
...because the old theories make it WAY too hard to achieve practical interstellar travel and planetary colonization.
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that difficulty is the only thing stopping THEM from coming...
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It makes me wonder how much of the 'missing mass' that we lump into the dark matter bucket is actually contained in bodies like this; bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'.
I'm gonna guess 'not much'. If there were a lot of them, every once in a while something would run into one, and believe me, we'd notice.
Re:Fantastic (Score:4, Informative)
It makes me wonder how much of the 'missing mass' that we lump into the dark matter bucket is actually contained in bodies like this; bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'.
I'm gonna guess 'not much'. If there were a lot of them, every once in a while something would run into one, and believe me, we'd notice.
If there were lots of them then we'd also see them because of the gravitational lens effect they'd impart.
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It makes me wonder how much of the 'missing mass' that we lump into the dark matter bucket is actually contained in bodies like this; bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'.
I'm gonna guess 'not much'. If there were a lot of them, every once in a while something would run into one, and believe me, we'd notice.
If there were lots of them then we'd also see them because of the gravitational lens effect they'd impart.
That would only apply if there were stars on the other side of them (from us) to generate light so that we could see the lens effect. What if these super massive black holes are on the edge of the universe or between the edge and the first lit stars, how would we know? (since the universe is defined by the shockwave expanding outward from the big bang, the other side is considered "nothing" since we have no known measurement or indications of what lies on the other side - think of the universe as a bubble)
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True. That experiment has been done, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_compact_halo_object [wikipedia.org]
There is much wrong with everything else you say. First, black holes can't be only at the edge of the universe. There is no edge - the universe is isotropic, as far as we know. Unless you suggest that the black holes were in the early universe but have somehow vanish
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There is much wrong with everything else you say. First, black holes can't be only at the edge of the universe. There is no edge - the universe is isotropic, as far as we know. Unless you suggest that the black holes were in the early universe but have somehow vanished over time. But in any case, that is totally irrelevant. We see dark matter effects IN galaxies NEAR us that we can see ALL of. If all the black holes are at the edge of the universe, they aren't affecting the dynamics of the galaxies we can see, and thus can't be cause of the dark matter effect.
Much wrong? Let's start with yours:
Black holes at the edge of the universe - you've been there? You purport to know what happened in the first ms, seconds, minutes, and hours of the universe? Please do enlighten the rest of us. We have absolutely no idea what's further out from the prototype galaxies. We've seen very little if any evidence of the monster stars that gave us all our higher order elements. Each one of those was truly massive, existed for a very short time, and went super nova for lack of a be
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I think you're confusing time with space. There is clearly a "time" edge to the universe, the big bang itself. But there is no evidence for a space edge of the universe. Yes, we don't have much evidence for what exists time-beyond th
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My point was we have no idea what's closer to the edge. Dark matter/energy are recent theories to support recent observations that didn't fit the original model, nor could explain the newly observed accelerating expansion of the universe. (Until just the last couple of decades, it was assumed that the universe was decelerating, and the question was would it contract) But, IANA(A)P, so I might have my dates and prevalent theories off by a little bit, it still highlights that they are theories and still chang
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IANAP, but as far as I know the theories cover everything back to the first 10e-43 [wikipedia.org] seconds.
Just remember - they are theories.
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There was no "before" the big bang. There was no time, space, matter, energy, distance, or anything else. Our universe may be inside another universe, or there may be other universes along side ours, but other universes may not even have such a thing as "time".
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believe me, we'd notice.
In the grand scheme of the universe, how long have we been able to notice these things? And, in the grand scheme of the universe, how do we define a lot?
It's all relative, but I'm not an astrophysicist. If there is one in the room, can you please speak up?
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In the grand scheme of the universe, how long have we been able to notice these things?
Not for long, but they tend to be obvious. It would be like completely missing a small, dark galaxy that turns hydrogen into X and gamma-rays and distorts the image behind it.
And, in the grand scheme of the universe, how do we define a lot?
Well, since we were talking about them possibly being at least a significant part of the mass of dark matter, I'd say 'a lot' would be enough that they outweigh the visible mas
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bodies so massive that we can barely fathom their 'size'
Reminds me of the last date I had.
"An Entity That Has to Be Reckoned With"? (Score:3)
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That statement implies that black holes should not be ignored... not that they should be combated.
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Yeah, unfortunately I don't see us finding a way to be proactive about an incoming black hole. On the other hand, I'd be pretty darned curious to see what is on the other side of it...
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Easy. We just need a group of roughnecks led by Bruce Willis and some nuclear warheads. Right?
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Bruce Willis can save Earth from destruction. He has a proven track record.
We must kidnap and freeze him so we can restore him whenever an apocalypse looms.
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Solo black hole != Solo supermassive black hole (Score:1)
If you mean supermassive, damn well say supermassive; from the headline, anyone would think "Duh, of course they do -- whaddya think happens when a solo star (say, ejected from its galaxy by a close pass) with tens of solar masses collapses..."
Supermassive black holes, generally understood to be found only in galactic cores, are much more interesting.
Well... (Score:2)
Do black holes clean their plate? (Score:1)
Couldnt a black hole just consume all the stars in its galaxie to end up a loaner?
Re:Do black holes clean their plate? (Score:5, Informative)
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(although "Collision" is a bad word since nothing actually hits anything else)
I like to think of it as merging.
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more like a brief merging of heavenly bodies followed by a massive ejection of.. um. stars.
sorry, i was trying to make it filthy but failed to find a plausible way to refer to stars as fluids. i guess they can be modelled as such...
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If you have a star that goes supernova and leaves say an 8 solar mass remnant, it has exactly the same gravity as a star with 8 solar masses. Being a black hole doesn't give it 'stronger' gravity in any sense, it just means that it has a superdense core that is guaranteed to pull you in and crush you if you get too close. (from your own point of view at least - to an outside observer you will move asymptotically towards the event horizon, increasingly redshifted, but never quite passing the horizon)
Most sup
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Proving... (Score:1)
They can capture the light from a star, but they can't catch a cab.
( sorry )
Rare and dying (Score:2)
Although loner black holes may be an entity that has to be reckoned with, they would still be rare."
Without lots of matter to use as a fuel source they would evaporate after a fashion.
Re:Rare and dying (Score:5, Informative)
The theoretical evaporation of black holes is an incredibly slow process; a black hole the mass of the sun would only evaporate after some 10^67 years. which considering the age of the universe is 13x10^9 years (or about 6000 if you're a creationist) means it won't disappear any time soon.
Black holes are hard to see (Score:5, Interesting)
If you were to take the 3 million solar mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way, and plop it into the solar system where the sun is, the Schwartzchild radius would be well within the orbit of Mercury. We wouldn't lose a single planet, though an earth "year" would shrink to roughly 2 hours. Hold your fist at arm's length. That's how big it would appear in the sky.
Now imagine trying to see something like that, from 4 billion light years away, moving faster than galactic escape velocity. The only reason you can see it at *all* is that it's still siphoning galactic gas into its accretion disk. Once it hits intergalactic space, you'll never see it again.
Three million solar masses sounds huge, but is a microscopic fraction of the Milky Way's total mass (1-4 trillion solar masses). Given the quantity of matter orbiting near the center of a galaxy, I'd believe it likely that even if the central black hole were ejected, a new one would form in short (cosmologically speaking) time. So core ejection may not be a one-off, but a common event during galaxy collisions. In which case, there might be enough of them to partly explain dark matter (though certainly not enough to explain it all).
We also know there is a relationship between the mass of the central black hole, and the "tightness" of the arms in a spiral galaxy. But how would core ejection affect this? Given the speed of light, the outer regions of a galaxy would be tightly wound, while the inner region would be loosely wound (after core ejection). Wouldn't that look an awful lot like a barred spiral?
So many interesting questions, so few answers...
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not lose a single planet? only if you mean cranking up the Earth's kinetic energy to maintain its present orbit. if a straight magical substition happened, the entire solar system's orbits would cross the horizon.
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"If you were to take the 3 million solar mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way, and plop it into the solar system where the sun is, the Schwartzchild radius would be well within the orbit of Mercury. We wouldn't lose a single planet, though an earth "year" would shrink to roughly 2 hours."
How high would the tides be? Would the tide just fall into space? Would Earth be outside the Roche radius, or would it disintegrate? If Earth is orbiting at 44% of the speed of light, the meteor shower on the lead
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But how would core ejection affect this?
I can't explain it... and while the science is well understood, in practice it seems to work better than any science can explain, as time and again it has been shown that if you eject the core and fire a few photon torpedos at it, destroying it spectacularly in close proximity to your ship, somehow, even though there really is no shock wave in the vacuum of space to transfer the momentum needed, and even though your WARP drive and main propulsion is now busted, it somehow allows your ship to escape a gravit
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Ah, that only works with a "red matter" black hole. You know, the kind of black hole that you can go through and come out a hundred years in the past!
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Ah, that only works with a "red matter" black hole. You know, the kind of black hole that you can go through and come out a hundred years in the past!
You are mistaken; ejecting the WARP core is an all encompassing solution [memory-alpha.org] to escape any number of unfortunate circumstances one may find one's ship in while exploring the Galaxy.
Of course: if stars can be slungshot out (Score:3, Insightful)
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There is no reason not to think that a black hole could have the same close orbit. Just much much, rarer.
Why do you think they're rarer?
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How to Find a Roaming Black Hole (Score:2)
How to Find a Roaming Black Hole...
Look in the Red Dwarf District.
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From Red Dwarf "Marooned"
Hilly: Well, the thing about a black hole - its main distinguishing feature - is it's black. And the thing about space, the colour of space, your basic space colour, is black. So how are you supposed to see them?
Rimmer: But five of them? . How can you manage to miss five black holes?
Hilly: It's always the way, innit? You hang around for three million years in deep space and there hasn't been one, then all of a sudden five turn up at once.
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I'm curious (Score:1)
The summary just asks for it (Score:1)
A "disheveled, distant galaxy" and a giant black hole?
And they say... (Score:2)
Pshaw. Gravity sees your Strong Force and raises you a Theory of Everything.
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And yet my puny electromagnetic powered muscles can overcome the mighty gravity of Earth by picking up a lemon, and even then I'm not even that short of breath. A few minutes and I'm ready to go again. Have that, gravity.
Still, maybe it only *seems* weak because it's leaking out of our 3d brane world into higher dimensional space. ;)
Yes they do exist! (Score:2)
.. You should meet my ex!
Armagedon - The Sequel (Score:1)
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Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm actually surprised that this news post hasn't already sparked more of the racist comments that have shown up here lately.
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Some guy makes a witty crack, 1 simple, single sentence post.
Then 4000 neckbeards get all pissy about it and chime in to complain about the S/N ratio.
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Some guy makes a witty crack, 1 simple, single sentence post.
If it's a one-off thing, hey, who is complaining?
Unfortunately, that's not the case
Vast majority of Slashdot articles are laced with mindless fucktard "Foist Post"
I'm getting very, very sick of it !!
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Dammit, I had +1 laying around here some-damn-where, Someone toss this guy one more for +5 Insightful.
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You do know that you get no karma for +1 Funny, right?
Slashdot isn't some game where you try to score the most karma points. It's a communication forum, and GP wanted to communicate something funny.
Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot isn't some game where you try to score the most karma points.
What? Shit, why have I been wasting all this time here if I can't win?
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Actually, it's several games. The winners are listed here. [slashdot.org]
Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The achievement are "psych profile tags" for webdev to quickly categorize us for sale to targetted-ad agencies. Thanks for playing.
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the object of the game is to gain enough karma points that you can troll at will with impunity
I've never been good at games, but I was lucky enough to somehow eternally have excellent karma, regardless of the mod points I have or haven't been awarded. I must say, it is awesome. Though I try not to abuse the privilege, I was recently just awarded my first +3 Troll... didn't last too long, but it felt great. Anyway, welcome to my world.
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Post first and post often.
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Post first and post often.
I've found that often, no matter how insightful or thought-provoking an FP is, some dufus will mod it "offtopic," "troll," or (hilariously) "redundant." I try to avoid first posts, just because if the first two mods are the "FP always modded down" type, nobody is likely to even see it. What's the point of making a comment if you're going to be at -1?
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Well look at his user number...they should have stopped at 1 million and allowed invites only...
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Well look at his user number...they should have stopped at 100,000 and allowed invites only...
FTFY.
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...I wasn't doing that as a dick swinging contest. More as a "the longer slashdot has gone on, the more idiots have come aboard" It was actually shortly after I joined that I started noticing the downward spiral in comments.
Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is that 1 million is just as arbitrary as 100k.
Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:5, Funny)
It was actually shortly after I joined that I started noticing the downward spiral in comments.
So it was YOU?!
Re:YES! And I can prove it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
Look at my number. It is huge. Yes, I contribute some bullshit every now and then, but I honestly try my best to contribute to this open forum. Why is my number soooo big? Because I chose to lurk first, learn the dynamics and how to do stuff (technical word there), and then post.
It's like this - you want to ride a roller coaster. So, you go to an amusement park. Then you get pissed about waiting in line with the other idiots. What are your options? (a) Build your own rollercoaster; or (b) quit bitching about the line and enjoy the pleasant conversations that do happen, when they happen.
If you are not the owner of a website, who are you to limit, or suggest a limit for that matter, on who can contribute?
Why do I love the internet, and online forums and discussion boards? Because I can hear a...n...y...t...h...i...n...g... on them. If I wanted to have a closed discussion on a topic, I'd go back to yelling at my television. It feels just as good, and is as one-sided as you make it.
In other words, sir or ma'am, I understand that you believe that there were glory days on this site. I'm sure there were. But, limiting who can speak, simply based on how old s/he is comes off as, in my opinion, utter bullshit.
In other words. Learn to ignore the shit. Look for the good. It's there, if you care to be positive. OR, instead of limiting who can post, have a system where you can register your account, but can not contribute until you reach a certain time on the site, or number of articles read paired with time spent reading, or something. I don't know, just quit complaining about it. It's just as annoying as the bullshit posts from user numbers>1,000,000, and contributes nothing to the discussion.
But that is all my opinion. Thank you.
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Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
It's not about putting any artificial limit
It's about having users that are courteous enough to not post shit on places like Slashdot
Look, this is not a "community site" like Facebook
This is a site where people are interested in tech, in science, in astronomy, physics etc, sharing information and engage in discussion
There have been too many "First posts" and racist rantings
The noise are overpowering genuine discussions and I can see that users are getting discouraged and many have left
If the Slashdot admin
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I can remember worse than this. You gotta figure the number of usual probable participants occupied with "Venus Transit" events, parties and swap meets.
Relax, beer is good, they'll be back.
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There have been too many "First posts" and racist rantings
Honest question: Were you reading Slashdot during the GNAA days?
Honestly, the signal to noise ratio is very good. Trouble is that the signal is no longer tech, but politics. Ever since coverage of 9/11 the community visibly changed. YRO is where all the views are, with tech-oriented articles hardly gets any comments.
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I only get worked up when newbs arrive with broken sarcasm filters.
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Many of the oldbies are not coming back
True, some have died, RIP
But those who are still not-yet-dead, many are not coming back to Slashdot due to the shitty "First Post" and the racist-ranting that are overpowering all meaningful discussions
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Not to interrupt yer moral soapbox special feelings or anything, but my slider to the right says I'm a third down the page and none of you sister boys has said a damn thing pertaining to black holes, galactic feces being flung about, Lawyers, NASA or nothing.
So with that outa the way, I'll introduce a recentish occurence, http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA13455 [nasa.gov]. I figure if you can venture a ratio of black holes to stars you can figure odds of being affected by one coming our way.
No fear
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Honest Question here - do you really believe that the best way to foster free and open discussion is to severely limit the people that can participate?
Well, that is the idea behind representational democracy, and I happen to think it works... uh... well enough. Do you honestly believe that true ideal democracy, Classical-style, is a viable alternative? We have the technology today to actually make it happen even in a society as large as the United States, giving every citizen the ability to have one vote on any consideration on the floor. While a nice idea... I'm not sure it would really work out... I think it would suffer the same deficits that represent
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Ahh, yes, that lovely golden age of slashdot when first posts didn't make fun of exes, but did have recruitment statements for GNAA.
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I would love to see more first posts that actually spoke to the topic instead of just small penis geeks getting their tiny rocks off.
I attempted that a few days ago. Granted, I was going for on topic humorous instead of insightful or informative (something about eating too much space turkey made our galaxy's super massive black hole too lethargic).
Submitted my post, and it was still the only post thus far for the discussion. Hit reload, and it was still the only post. Then a few minutes later, I hit reload again, and it was no longer the first post. For some reason, it was bumped down to 6th position even though it was the only post
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It's ironic, then, that neither of you have put anything forth to foster the discussion along what you would consider "proper" lines. Oh, and you both posted as ACs, too...
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It's ironic, then, that neither of you have put anything forth to foster the discussion along what you would consider "proper" lines.
Having read two comments from you I've yet to discover one single "proper line"
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Don't put your life in the hand of a rock and roll band, you'll throw it all away. -- Oasis , Don't Look Back in Anger
Even Huey sings country now.
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black holes don't suck.
people who turn ANY topic into "bleh bleh debt blah blah obama" suck.
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And if black holes can be flung out of the galaxy, then with the much lower mass and higher quantity, I would expect to see large numbers of intergalactic solar systems.
Why large numbers? If it's a rare event, then bingo, that's why you don't see large numbers. Besides, intergalactic stars would probably be very difficult to see. (too dim and distant)
In the case of a lone black hole, I think it's more likely to form by simply consuming everything in a galaxy. Once everything is consumed, the blackhole simply roams in the dark.
There's no reason why it would consume everything in the galaxy. Being a black hole doesn't mean it's going to hoover everything up. Our galaxy's central black hole is estimated around 2-3 million solar masses. The galaxy as a whole is probably 3-4 trillion solar masses. It's not going to suck everything up.