A real whirlpool in space
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture above, cropped to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of nearby galaxies that have what astronomers call an Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), because the supermassive black hole at the center is devouring nearby material at a great rate and thus producing high energy emissions as it does so.
Many active galaxies are known to astronomers at vast distances from Earth, thanks to the great brightness of their nuclei highlighting them next to other, dimmer galaxies. At 128 million light-years from Earth, UGC 3478 is positively neighbourly to us. The data used to make this image comes from a Hubble survey of nearby powerful AGNs found in relatively high-energy X-rays, like this one, which it is hoped can help astronomers to understand how the galaxies interact with the supermassive black holes at their hearts.
The bottom line is that this spiral galaxy literally is a whirlpool, the entire galaxy spiralling down into that massive black hole in its center. One cannot help wondering why such galaxies don’t end up eventually getting completely swallowed by that black hole.
Or maybe they do, and we don’t see such things because all that is left is a supermassive black hole that emits no light or energy at all, a dark silent ghost traveling between the galaxies unseen and undetectable.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture above, cropped to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of nearby galaxies that have what astronomers call an Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), because the supermassive black hole at the center is devouring nearby material at a great rate and thus producing high energy emissions as it does so.
Many active galaxies are known to astronomers at vast distances from Earth, thanks to the great brightness of their nuclei highlighting them next to other, dimmer galaxies. At 128 million light-years from Earth, UGC 3478 is positively neighbourly to us. The data used to make this image comes from a Hubble survey of nearby powerful AGNs found in relatively high-energy X-rays, like this one, which it is hoped can help astronomers to understand how the galaxies interact with the supermassive black holes at their hearts.
The bottom line is that this spiral galaxy literally is a whirlpool, the entire galaxy spiralling down into that massive black hole in its center. One cannot help wondering why such galaxies don’t end up eventually getting completely swallowed by that black hole.
Or maybe they do, and we don’t see such things because all that is left is a supermassive black hole that emits no light or energy at all, a dark silent ghost traveling between the galaxies unseen and undetectable.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Mr. Z.,
Great picture.
I’ll just drop these in–
Idealized Circular orbits near Schwarzschild black hole
Pavel Rozhkov
https://youtu.be/l3hmtbnYK_0
(2:01)
Do Black Holes Have a Size Limit?
https://youtu.be/EGzvGgNmaiY
(10:20)
“The bottom line is that this spiral galaxy literally is a whirlpool, the entire galaxy spiralling down into that massive black hole in its center.”
This really isn’t true. At distances well beyond their event horizons, black hole gravity fields are no different than any others. The whole galaxy is no closer to being sucked into the black hole at its center than Jupiter (and Earth) are to being sucked into the Sun.
But wouldn’t there be a cascade effect? As the nearer things get sucked in, there is more gravity pulling on what’s left. Or not? If Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars fell into the sun, the amount of mass inside the orbit of Mars (or where Mars used to orbit) would not change. However, it would all be in one place, rather than spinning about, tugging this way and that.
Either way, one either ends up with a giant black hole that sucked up the entire galaxy or a donut shaped galaxy where the black hole got all it could and everything else is left spinning around it.
There’s also a time aspect involved. It could be that there simply hasn’t been time for either one to occur. A galaxy is a big place and black holes are not ShopVacs. It takes a while for stuff to fall in because it spins around so much, first.
Some of the very far away galaxies that we see now might have already been completely sucked in, we just can’t see it, yet. (Yes, that is a classical definition of “now”, but I insist, despite all evidence, that there is such a thing as a universe-wide, simultaneous “now”. I understand General Relativity’s “now”, but I don’t think it removes the normal one.)
Related:
NO, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP
“How much free money as an American citizen to buy a house where you offered by your government? Please let me know.”
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-enemy-of-every-american-democrat
Somewhat related to Mark Sizer’s comment; I also wondered if a galaxy could be completely ‘swallowed’, leaving a wandering, giant black hole. I surmise it could be detected by the gravity lens effect. The other suggested result of a donut-shaped galaxy makes sense if there is a limit to how much the black hole could ingest.
“… the amount of mass inside the orbit of Mars (or where Mars used to orbit) would not change.”
It can be mathematically proven (although not by me) that this really is all that matters. If everything inside the orbit of Mars somehow got sucked into the Sun, Mars wouldn’t even twitch. If the Sun were somehow replaced by a one-solar-mass black hole, the orbits of everything outside of the Sun’s current “surface” radius from the black hole would be entirely unaffected.
Not a physicist nor an orbital-mechanic, but I do know there is no “sucking'” when it comes to gravity.
I’m taking Mr. Z’s language as being Poetic, rather than literal, and this picture does evoke a sense of motion, and I did a cursory look-up as to Why everything doesn’t spiral in.
Apparently this all has to do with the size of the black hole, the innermost stable circular orbit, and the Schwarzschild radius.
General Relativity says black holes have no upper size limit, but we know GR falls apart inside the event horizon. Recent calculations put the upper limit at 50-65 billion solar-masses, depending on spin. At that point matter in a galaxy is either inside the innermost stable circular orbit and lost, or it’s outside the orbit and feels more gravity between itself, than from the black hole.
(so sayeth the internet…)
see this segment:
https://youtu.be/EGzvGgNmaiY?t=355