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Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

sciencedaily.com

11–20 of 107 posts

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#11
post #2

This is one of those headlines where I simultaneously think "cool" and now have a new source of low-grade background anxiety about. It can have a seat next to false vacuum collapse.

The good news about black holes is that even if one transited the solar system, it would be extremely unlikely to come anywhere near earth.

The bad news is that if a black hole is not primordial, the minimum mass is high enough (2-4 M_sol) that it doesn't so much "pass through our system" as "we pass through its".

I'm not 100% confident, but rough approximation suggests that a close approach of even 5 AU even at typical interstellar velocities might have an unplesant climate impact by increasing the eccentricity of our orbit.

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#12

Anyone have guesses about how a transiting primordial black hole would effect a Sun like star? Paper is about tidal forces inducing supernova in white dwarfs. For that matter how might it effect sea tides?

For the latter, you mught enjoy Greg Egan's "Perihelion Summer".

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#14
post #2

This is one of those headlines where I simultaneously think "cool" and now have a new source of low-grade background anxiety about. It can have a seat next to false vacuum collapse.

In that case you may enjoy “The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever” by Daniel Wilson.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260310115201/https://www.willi...

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#16
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news about black holes is that even if one transited the solar system, it would be extremely unlikely to come anywhere near earth.

The bad news is that if a black hole is not primordial, the minimum mass is high enough (2-4 M_sol) that it doesn't so much "pass through our system" as "we pass through its". I'm not 100% confident, but rough approximation suggests that a close approach of even 5 AU even at typical interstellar velocities might have an unplesant climate impact by increasing the eccentricity of our orbit.

Did you mean 5 AU or 5 ly? 5 AU at 2-4 M sol intuitively seems like a complete and utter havoc.

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#17

3-Body-Problem once again vindicated as the scariest possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox

Many physicists have pointed out several flaws in the dark forest theory, which makes for a great read but doesn’t really carry over to the real universe 1:1.

Re: Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way

#19

Anyone have guesses about how a transiting primordial black hole would effect a Sun like star? Paper is about tidal forces inducing supernova in white dwarfs. For that matter how might it effect sea tides?

[flagged]

Perhaps you meant to read the https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html about comments being kind, not snarky, and substantive.
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