The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
arstechnica.com
The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
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Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#2Could someone explain the implications of all this in laymen terms? Are we in deep shit?
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#3Could someone explain the implications of all this in laymen terms? Are we in deep shit?
No. From what I understand, any material caught in the accretion disk is merely funnelling down into the black hole's event horizon, i.e. the centre. It will not affect any orbiting bodies, such as our solar system, but it will make the black hole pseudo-visible to astronomers because the material in the accretion disk will admit some light.
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#4Considering the lightyears involved, I assume this means we'll see it in 2013?
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#5Could someone explain the implications of all this in laymen terms? Are we in deep shit?
No. From what I understand, any material caught in the accretion disk is merely funnelling down into the black hole's event horizon, i.e. the centre. It will not affect any orbiting bodies, such as our solar system, but it will make the black hole pseudo-visible to astronomers because the material in the accretion disk will admit some light.
It will add mass to the black hole though, right? So that will affect orbits, no? Or is that just so infinitesimally small that it can reasonably be ignored?
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. From what I understand, any material caught in the accretion disk is merely funnelling down into the black hole's event horizon, i.e. the centre. It will not affect any orbiting bodies, such as our solar system, but it will make the black hole pseudo-visible to astronomers because the material in the accretion disk will admit some light.
It will add mass to the black hole though, right? So that will affect orbits, no? Or is that just so infinitesimally small that it can reasonably be ignored?
All that mass is already orbiting (on a galactic scale) right on top of the mass. It'll affect our solar system's orbits in the same way that the sun moving a few microns affects them, I'd imagine.
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#7Considering the lightyears involved, I assume this means we'll see it in 2013?
Was thinking the same thing. Depending on how you think about space-time it "is" happening 27,000 years go.
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#8Considering the lightyears involved, I assume this means we'll see it in 2013?
Presumably, yes. It would be odd for the astronomers to use two different temporal points of reference; time of observation is the only time that matters. Plus, any excitement on the part of astronomers would be super pointless if they had to wait another 24824 years to observe it.
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#9Considering the lightyears involved, I assume this means we'll see it in 2013?
That's correct. But never forget the idea of a "now" is deeply tied to a "here".
Re: The Milky Way's black hole may spring to life in 2013
#10That may be about to change, however. Astronomers have spotted a cloud of gas with a mass about three times that of Earth that's on a trajectory that will have it pass close to Sgr A in 2013*
If this is for real, I am ridiculously humbled by the power of modern astronomy. It's pretty damned amazing to me that we have the ability to detect the location, dimension, and trajectory of a mere 3 earth-masses of thin, amorphous gas 27k light years away, in the noisiest and densest part of the galaxy.