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josie's avatar

Do you think The Black Hole is still there?

Asked by josie (30934points) April 10th, 2019

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=black+hole&view=detail&mid=BD3C602FC4E7B3C4EFAEBD3C602FC4E7B3C4EFAE&FORM=VIRE
Cool picture of something that happened 55,000,000 years ago.
Do you think it still there?

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33 Answers

kritiper's avatar

Yes. I wonder what it looks like today?

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Well…what? Where would it go?

If anything @kritiper, bigger.

ragingloli's avatar

Yes.
Do you know how long those things live?
They will outlast the universe’s last stars, and then some.

Darth_Algar's avatar

Absolutely. While black holes (probably) “evaporate”, they do so on a scale of a googol (10, with 100 zeros after it) of years. 55,000,000 is less than an eye blink comparatively.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

….how would they “evaporate” @Darth_Algar?

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Still there !

Pinguidchance's avatar

Darn, it’s gone and left a hole where it used to be.

Brian1946's avatar

I’m 99.99% sure that it still is. The 0.01% that I’m allowing for, would be for something like a phase shift.

The lifespans of stars are hydrogen-dependent, whereas those of black holes aren’t. It seems to me that supermassive black holes, such as the one at the center of M87, can offset some of their black-body evaporation by taking material from objects that fall into their accretion disks.

Being the engines and probably the creators of their surrounding galaxies, these objects are at least as old as and will probably outlive their respective galactic homes.

Even so, it’s estimated that red dwarf stars can live for about 10 trillion years. So if an object that needs a hydrogen fuel supply can live that long, I can only imagine the lifespan of an object that doesn’t need one, and can replenish its mass by taking it from nearby orbiters,

Even though Virgo A (one of the names of the supermassive black hole at M87’s center) is at least 13.24 billion years old, it can’t be any older than the age of the universe, which is about 13.772 billion years. Therefore, it’s still alive and will be sucking stellar matter far, far into the future.

Response moderated (Obscene)
kritiper's avatar

@Brian1946 How do you determine the age of the universe? From what starting point, and how did that start begin? Are you saying that before the universe began, there was nothing, not even the void?

Dutchess_lll's avatar

GQ @kritiper. And one that plagues every thinking human being.

Darth_Algar's avatar

@kritiper

The Big Bang is the starting point for the Universe. As for what came before it – we simply do not know.

kritiper's avatar

@Darth_Algar I understand the whole “Big Bang” thing but what I wonder is why couldn’t there have been countless other “Big Bangs” before this last one. IMO, as limited as it might be, the matter contained in the void has always been there, as was the void itself. So the idea that the universe, (void and all, if that meaning was intended,) somehow came to be at some fixed moment in time carries no merit in my POV.
I would have bought the notion if the point was made that the universe as we know it today came to be at some moment in time that we call The Big Bang, or something to that effect.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Could have been for all we know @kritiper. It could have happened an infinate number of times before.

Darth_Algar's avatar

@kritiper -

That’s the thing – there could have been countless “Big Bangs” before. The Universe could be an endless cycle of “Big Bang”-expansion-retraction-rinse and repeat. We just don’t know because we cannot observe anything before that point.

kritiper's avatar

@Darth_Algar I understand that. But does @Brian1946 ?

Darth_Algar's avatar

I’m sure he does. Nothing in his response indicates otherwise.

kritiper's avatar

@Darth Algar You ASSUME he does.
I want to be sure so let’s ask him!
Wait…I already did that…

Darth_Algar's avatar

I’ll put it this way – if he doesn’t understand that basic, elementary school fact of the Big Bang then it is extremely unlikely that he would know anything else in his above posting. I mean, I suppose it’s possible. It’s also possible, but extremely unlikely, that someone could win a spelling bee without knowing the order of the alphabet.

kritiper's avatar

But it’s still a crap shoot.
My philosophy is to “Never assume anything.”

Dutchess_lll's avatar

I think @Brian1946 understands. There is no reason to assume he doesn’t.
In fact, reading his answer what would make you think he doesn’t understand?

Brian1946's avatar

@kritiper

“How do you determine the age of the universe?”

I used a source I found via Google to make that determination.

“From what starting point, and how did that start begin?”

Current theory holds that the starting point was the initial singularity. Do you understand how the name “Big Bang” answers the second part of your question?

“Are you saying that before the universe began, there was nothing, not even the void?”

My post is only about what’s happened since the universe “began”. If you have issues with what you think astronomers and astrophysicists might be implying about what preceded it, perhaps you should investigate the findings of the Planck spacecraft and WMAP for yourself.

Brian1946's avatar

I understand what @Darth_Algar said.

However, the evidence provided by currently observed galactic red shifting indicates that even if there were any explosion-expansion-contraction-compression cycles preceding the BB, they might not continue.

It seems that one factor determining the far future of matter depends on whether protons decay.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

^^^^ He understands.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

So do protons decay?

Brian1946's avatar

I think there’s a hypothesis that they do or will decay, but I don’t know if there’s yet any verifiable evidence that they do.

According to a video a saw that was narrated by Stephen Hawking and others, if protons do or will decay, it might not happen until about a quadrillion years from now. :-o

Brian1946's avatar

Whoops- I was off by a magnitude greater than 6. According to the excerpt below, the estimate of an actual theoretical physicist (Goran Senjanović) is at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 quintillion) times greater than mine. :-o

“The subsequent evolution of the universe depends on the possibility and rate of proton decay. Experimental evidence shows that if the proton is unstable, it has a half-life of at least 10^34 years”.

Incoherency_'s avatar

@kritiper kicked Brianus’s intellectually flaccid ass! ;-D

Brian1946's avatar

@Incoherency_

Exit this thread before your dork energy causes it to decay.

Response moderated (Writing Standards)
Strauss's avatar

^^Dork energy! LMFAO!

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