this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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The size of two supermassive black holes at the center of a distant galaxy relative to our solar system (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by FlyingSquid to c/dataisbeautiful
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbital dance at the core of the distant galaxy OJ 287. This diagram shows their sizes relative to the solar system. The larger one, with about 18 billion times the mass of our sun (right), would encompass all the planets in the solar system with room to spare. The smaller one is about 150 million times the mass of our sun (left), which would be large enough to swallow up everything out to the asteroid belt, just inside the orbit of Jupiter.

https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/image/ssc2020-11b-sizes-of-black-holes-in-galaxy-oj-287-relative-to-the-solar-system

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[–] GraniteM 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What does "size" mean in the context of a black hole? Is that the size of their event horizons?

[–] Carrolade 10 points 1 week ago

Yes, they're talking about the volume encompassed by the event horizon.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Man, getting to explore the universe would be fucking cool

[–] FlyingSquid 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Cool, but only if you could somehow do it very quickly (which would violate the laws of physics) or had some sort of suspended animation system you repeatedly went into. Even the nearest star to us would take you well over 4 years to reach at the speed of light.

As for OJ 287, it would take you five billion years to get there. Longer than the Earth has existed.

[–] SidewaysHighways 7 points 1 week ago

Or if we divorced ourselves from biological life!

[–] Carrolade 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not totally settled that practical FTL is actually impossible. There's possibly loopholes that can potentially be exploited, such as the Alcubierre drive that attempts to to shrink spacetime in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it. So while it itself moves at a slower speed, it traverses through an artificially shortened distance basically.

It's all still sci fi at this point of course, and probably isn't practical due to enormous energy requirements. (like, you'd basically need a star or something to power it as far as we know) But, we're still pretty far from understanding what dark energy is, so things could potentially change at some point in the future. shrug

No reason not to let the kids dream though, they may be the ones studying these things in the future.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's all still sci fi at this point of course

Wasn't there a simulation, that shown it will work? Provided we somehow obtain insane amount of energy or exotic matter.

[–] Carrolade 2 points 6 days ago

Not sure. All I've heard is that it's still theoretically possible.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You must be fun at parties.

[–] FlyingSquid 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sorry you don't find data to be beautiful.

[–] lolrightythen 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I found it very interesting!

[–] FlyingSquid 4 points 1 week ago

Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Why do you think we all get wet over Trek!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Now like, a very small purple ring with a huge yellow ring around it and the new tag is “ur mom lawl”

[–] Atlas_ 3 points 1 week ago

I can only dream of making a purple ring that large, but the one I got is pretty nice too. 💎✊

[–] itsnotits 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why does it say "Earth's Solar System" when the Solar System is clearly named after the Sun (i.e. the system of Sol)?

[–] UmeU 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

~~Solar system = sun system. Stars in other systems are still suns even if they aren’t called sol.~~ I am wrong see below

[–] itsnotits 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Stars in other stellar systems are called stars. There's only one star in the universe named the Sun, and its system is the only Solar System in the universe. The same is true for solar wind (vs. stellar wind), solar mass, solar day, solar radius, etc. — all of these terms refer to Sol, a.k.a. the Sun.

[–] IndiBrony 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And it's the small black holes that'll fuck you up. Once you're in that gravity well you're never getting out.

[–] deus 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Don't larger black holes work the same way?

[–] peopleproblems 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah. Technically you aren't screwed unless you are in an orbit that crosses the event horizon.

Although I wonder if the accretion disk produces enough drag that an orbit could eventually fall into the black hole.

Also, time gets funky when you get closer and closer to the black hole.

But in any case the behavior is the same. It's just a lot bigger.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why would it be different from a suns gravity well? Unless you mean the event horizon but I don't get why the small one would be worse.

[–] Carrolade 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He's probably talking about tidal forces. Gravity falls off with the square of distance, so the closer you get to the center, the greater the difference in gravitational strength becomes for every meter of distance. With a supermassive, you're far enough from the center that your head and feet experience similar levels of gravity at the event horizon.

With a small one you're much closer to the center, so your head and feet experience extremely different gravity, which rips you apart.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is the small one that small though. I mean its still like the inner planets size.

[–] Carrolade 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, these two specifically are huge and huger. lol