Hubble spies homeless black hole

[merwin]

Hubble spies homeless black hole

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A supermassive black hole appears to be homeless in the cosmos without a galaxy to nestle in, Hubble Space Telescope scientists reported on Wednesday.

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Most monster black holes lurk at the heart of massive galaxies, slurping up matter from the galactic center with a pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

But a team of European astronomers reported in the journal Nature that a particular black hole some 5 billion light-years away has no evidence of a host galaxy. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.

The black hole was detected when the scientists went hunting for quasars -- extremely bright, small, distant objects that are strongly associated with black holes. Astronomers believe a quasar is produced by cosmic gas as it is drawn toward the edge of a supermassive black hole.

Most quasars and black holes are in the middle of supermassive galaxies and in their survey of 20 relatively nearby quasars, the scientists found 19 followed this expected pattern. But one showed no signs of having a galactic home.
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I'll pull the tasteless joke on this one since someone probably will... More homeless blacks under George Bush's watch. When will it all end??!?!?
:evilgrin:

[mainegreen]

1. Perhaps it ate itself out of house and home? nt.

[hootinholler]

7. Possible...

Watch out for the burp!

-Hoot

[VegasWolf]

2. Maybe Katrina got it? nt

:)

[Miss Chybil]

3. God, I wish my brain was big enough to fit around this stuff.

It's so fascinating....

[meganmonkey]

4. I thought it said "Hubbie"

as in husband. All sorts of horrible things were going through my head

:rofl:

[merwin]

8. LOL. I bet!

[Duer 157099]

5. Here's the phrase I have a problem with:

"...extremely bright, small, distant objects..."

Can someone explain why the writer used the word "distant" in this sentence?

I mean, they are using the HUBBLE telescope to view these things, isn't that sort of a given?

[Carla in Ca]

11. Hey a light year here, a light year there...

Actually, I thought this was a joke regarding *'s head...empty.

[MadAsHell]

15. I suspect that ....

is to underline the really, really distant as opposed to "normal" distant like on the other side of our galaxy. The black hole in the article is at 5 billion light years away, about a third of the way across the universe. The quasars are rare and they are way to cool to hang out in our boring, run-of-the-mill neighborhood of galaxies.

[Dudley_DUright]

20. It is probably more that quasars are basically dead in our era

and we are seeing 5 BLy quasars as the were 5 billion years ago. Our own galaxy could have been a quasar when it was first forming, since it has a supermassive black hole at it center.

[FlaGranny]

25. There's no

law that these things have to be distant. Distant is relative anyway. We have one in the center of our own galaxy.

Edit: Whoops, never mind - I didn't notice we were talking about a quasar.

[ldf]

6. maybe it has already

(at least 5 billion years ago) sucked in all the surrounding galaxies in its immediate vicinity.

gotta wait for some more galactic drift (expansion) to send some more stuff its way. i'm sure its gravitational pull is already tugging away at anything close by.

its probably back to chomping away, we just won't see it for another few billion years.

just guessing....

:shrug:

[bread_and_roses]

9. We have been judged and found wanting....it's coming for us

the current "leader of the Free World" sealed our fate with the Advanced Beings in charge of our quadrant of the Time-Space Continuem...they've called on the Federation of United Universes to send the Galaxy-Destroyer our way....

...the above is tongue in cheek, in case anyone has any doubt, but some days when I contemplate the power of Our Corporate Masters and their Puppet-in-Chief I feel exactly that gloomy.

(edit to Capitalize)

[kineneb]

16. No, it is a Vogon constructor fleet,

preparing for an intergalactic bypass. Where is Ford Prefect when you need him?


RIP Douglas Adams, we miss you.

[JitterbugPerfume]

10. wow

there are more things in heaven and earth than are drempt of in your Phylosophy, Horatio


or something like that

[meow2u3]

12. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Bush's soul is a homeless black hole! :evilgrin:

[merwin]

14. I was thinking more along the lines of...

Condi's nether regions.

[WCGreen]

13. Must be from New Orleans......

[Lochloosa]

17. Intellegent Design screwed up...

it didn't give it anything to eat.

[Oerdin]

18. Likely...

That black hole has already sucked in it's galaxy and that's why there isn't a galaxy there any more. You need a super massive star to go super nova to create a black hole so there was something there at one time.

[ozone_man]

19. Can't they do a size estimate?

If this was the case, with the number of stars in a galaxy, it should be one massive black hole.

[Dudley_DUright]

22. I would guess that this bare super-massive black hole got

flung out of its parent galaxy due to a collision with another galaxy. This is what can happen to stars when galaxies collide:



http://spaceinfo.jaxa.jp/note/ginga/e/gin9810_antennae_e.html

[xchrom]

21. i can't wait to find out what happens to black holes

when they're done being black holes.

do we even suspect what that might be?

[Dudley_DUright]

24. Steven Hawking has shown that black holes eventually will

"evaporate" due to Hawking radiation. But for large black holes, this will take a very very long time (so don't hold your breath)! On the other hand very small black holes that could have been created in the big bang have already evaporated.

http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/hawk.html

[FlaGranny]

23. Maybe it already "ate" it's galaxy. n/t