Smallest Black Hole Found

[MC]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA scientists have identified the smallest black hole ever found -- less than four times the mass of our sun and about the size of a large city.

But the mini-black hole, dubbed J1650, could still stretch a person into a "strand of spaghetti" with its pull, the researchers told a meeting in Los Angeles.

"This black hole is really pushing the limits. For many years astronomers have wanted to know the smallest possible size of a black hole, and this little guy is a big step toward answering that question," Nikolai Shaposhnikov of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.

It would likely be stronger than bigger black holes found at the centers of galaxies. Shaposhnikov said if someone ventured too close to J1650, its gravity would "stretch your body into a strand of spaghetti."

Like other black holes, it was formed by a star that ran out of fuel and shut down, collapsing due to its own gravity.

Shaposhnikov and his Goddard colleague Lev Titarchuk used NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite and a new method to estimate the size of the black hole, found in a system in the southern constellation Ara, in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

It measures the oscillation of hot gas piling up near the black hole as it sucks in matter, they told a meeting in Los Angeles of the American Astronomical Society High-Energy Astrophysics Division.

The new black hole has a mass of 3.8 Suns and would be about 15 miles across, they estimate. "This makes the black hole one of the smallest objects ever discovered outside our solar system," Shaposhnikov said.

The smallest black hole previously identified was GRO 1655-40, with a mass of about 6.3 Suns.

"Amazingly, equations from Albert Einstein predict that a black hole with 3.8 times the mass of our Sun would be only 15 miles across -- the size of a city," NASA said in a statement.

A collapsing star that was much smaller than J1650 would likely form a neutron star and not a black hole, the researchers said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080401/sc_nm/space_blackhole_dc;_ylt=ArpBTwuaTIaiypEGkJe4DRKs0NUE

 

[Hibiki]

The question is has it always been that small or has it shrunk.

 

[SS4 Gogeta]

The question is has it always been that small or has it shrunk.

ya, or was it the size of this thing before?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/03/18-billion-suns.html

 

[Raven]

erm it's actually no problem to calculate the size a black hole. All you g2 do it calculate how dense a mass has to be in order to reverse the speed of light. E.g. if our sun would be a black hole it would have to be as dense as 3.0km in diameter, the problem is the mass to start from, cuz our sun can't become one cuz it's one mass is to small to collapse into one of those bastards, so the actual question is what kind of base mass created those little sucker.

 

[Zeonix]

Eh....a black hole with the Sun's mass would have a radius of 2.9 km; not 30. That said, the discussion isn't about how one determines the size of a black hole, but whether or not that particular black hole has always been that size, or has grown or shrunken to its present state (neither of which, frankly, make sense since the article clearly states a star collapsed in on itself and formed a black hole that size).

 

[Eacos]

I hate black holes... they scare the crap outta me.
As much as I hate them though, I find them equally fascinating.
Singularities may be as much as a hyperbole than gateways to other
galaxies; Scharwzchild confessed that in mathematics infinite numbers usually
signify mistakes.

Who knows, maybe black holes are meant to defy science... these monsters help regulate the amount of mass spread throughout the universe, and when they evaporate or explode, they might also release new particles and help in creating new galaxies and solar systems.

Its all part of the equation set forth by Him. ;D

 

[Hibiki]

Actually I just misread the article. This isn't anything too special. Just near the TOV limit for black holes.

 

[sub]

I hate black holes... they scare the crap outta me.

Black holes are actually a good thing. The current theory is that black holes are at the center of most galaxies, with their immense gravity being the force which keeps galaxies holding together.

Who knows, maybe black holes are meant to defy science... these monsters help regulate the amount of mass spread throughout the universe, and when they evaporate or explode, they might also release new particles and help in creating new galaxies and solar systems.

They don't defy science, it actually makes a lot of sense. Black holes = enormous amount of mass, and thus an enormous amount of gravity. So much gravity that the matter collapsed onto itself. So much gravity that light cannot escape.

Its all part of the equation set forth by Him. ;D

Citation needed.

 

[VideoJinx]

About It:
[ame="http://youtube.com/watch?v=TUJGT3-p87g"]YouTube - The Truth and Lies about Black Holes[/ame]

Fun Fact:
[ame="http://youtube.com/watch?v=aVZtqZBw9N0"]YouTube - the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of our Galaxy[/ame]

 

[Deman]

Citation needed.

You know damn well were he's getting is info from just as I know damn well this is a trolling statement Play nice.

 

[sub]

You know damn well were he's getting is info from just as I know damn well this is a trolling statement Play nice.

Point taken, but my comment wasn't the only trolling statement. He stated that like it was a fact.


Jinx, your second video is no longer available.

 

[Hibiki]

Black holes are actually a good thing. The current theory is that black holes are at the center of most galaxies, with their immense gravity being the force which keeps galaxies holding together.

Super massive black holes at the center of spiral galaxies help counter the gravitational forces caused by the dark matter at the edges of the galaxy. With out more mass at the center it wouldn't be balanced and would loose it's shape. Most of the gravitational forces pulling a galaxy comes from dark matter and not the black hole.


Also Jinx if you have nothing to contribute to this topic then don't post.

 

[Sicron]

I was just reading something about the biggest Blackhole ever found, 18 billion suns. This black hole is 3.5 billion lightyears away. Orbiting it was a smaller black hole, mass of 100 million suns. Supposedly, they calculated they would collide within 10,000 years. I wonder, would these 2 black holes have already collided 3,499,990,000 years ago? On the other hand, Einstein suggested (and it was proven) anything that moves faster will experience time in a slower rate. And the closer you get to the speed of light, the faster the time flows around you. It's weird...time near a black hole would pass by at an entirely different rate. Well, at least for anything outside of the black hole. I wonder when these black holes (will) collide(d).

 

[Zeonix]

Time doesn't "flow faster" around an object approaching the speed of light. Time stays the same. It's the object and it's interaction with time that changes as a result of its speed. That said, once you approach the singularity within a black hole, all rules and laws are thrown out the window, so I don't think time would slow down or speed up, as time would no longer even exist once within the singularity in much the same way the laws of the Universe didn't exist before the creation of the Universe. Then again, this may be big bang singularity-specific, so I'm not completely sure.

 

[Hibiki]

The problem with time is that it's not a constant so you cant really say it slows or speeds up. I mean you can say it slows down as you enter the event horizon... buuuut slows compared to what? If you were the one entering the event horizon nothing would change, but for everyone else you would be frozen in time.

It's both stopped and flowing at the same time in the same spot.

 

[DJ-Ready]

black holes aren't called singularity for no reason you know