--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > (snip) > > On the subject of black holes, the monster at the centre of our > > galaxy is about to start feeding. A large cloud of gas has been > > drawn in close and in the next few weeks we should get HD pictures > > of just what happens when something disappears into oblivion. Shall > > post any pics when they appear, though I'm surprised things like > > this aren't front page news. > > "Start feeding"--first time I've heard that phrase in > connection with a black hole. Does this happen often?
Bit anthropomorphic perhaps, but as I say below the reaction of matter being dragged into something with infinite gravity at such high speeds is that it explodes down it's component particles giving off all sorts of hideously powerful radiation at great speed which pushes the surrounding stars, gas etc into a stable-ish orbit. Things moving around will nudge each other occasionally closer or create a gravity field that pulls in other stuff like the gas cloud approaching "our" black hole at the moment. > > > Another factoid that gives the lie to the above black hole theory > > is that most galactic centre holes are dormant. This is because the > > explosions caused by things like stars being sucked into something > > a lot smaller causes massive explosions that push other material > > away to orbit at not-quite safe distance but eventually something > > will stray too close and the process starts up again. Until then > > you just get a lot of stuff circling apparently nothing. > > > > Just like this in fact: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duoHtJpo4GY > > Pretty, but I needed some narration to explain what was > going on. Hmm, that might have helped. My jaw fell off when I saw it because I knew what I was looking at and was previously under the impression that all the dust at the middle of the galaxy meant we'd never see what was there. All this is converted from infra-red and ultra-violet light that our super cool new range of satellites can see. I think someone won a Novel prize for this discovery. Anyway that's the stars at centre of our galaxy orbiting a black hole with a mass 4 million times that of the sun but is obviously much smaller. I think it's really eerie, all those stars will be sucked inside never to be seen again. Life on an earthlike planet orbiting one of them would be going through a grim philosophical period indeed. BTW Our wondrous galactic singularity is classed as a super massive black hole but isn't a particularly big one, there are some 18 billion times the mass of the sun, that's a whole lot of feeding on other stars...
