Up To 2,000 Black Holes May Be On Perimeter Of Our Galaxy

[n2doc]

By James A. Foley Apr 03, 2013 11:23 AM EDT



Space scientists from the University of California have used a computer model to determine that our galaxy may contain anywhere from 70 to 2,000 black holes existing along its outer edges.

Valery Rashkov and Piero Madau's computer model mimics what they believe occurred when galaxies were in formative stages. The model starts with the idea that there is a subgalactic building block called a "seed" black hole that was in the center of old galaxies. As the Universe aged, galaxies crashed into one another, merging as they did so and causing their central black holes to merge as well.

But the computer simulations show that not all galaxies merged neatly. The researchers suggest that gravitational waves created by colliding galaxies ejected smaller black holes form the merger, shooting the singularities to the outer perimeter of the galaxy.

The simulations show that these ejections occurred less than 20 percent of the time, according to Phys.org. As a result of all the intergalactic merging and ejecting, our Milky Way galaxy should have at least 70, but as many as 2,000 intermediate mass black holes in its halo, the researchers suggest.

more
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1183/20130403/up-2-000-black-holes-perimeter-galaxy.htm

[zbdent]

1. racist ...

[Javaman]

6. Do you listen to the Morning Stream, by chance? nt

[demosincebirth]

2. Interesting, but beyond my comprehension.

[DreamGypsy]

3. So, assuming their model is correct and that the 'seed' black hole conjecture holds ...

...and assuming that the resulting ejected black holes ended up distributed approximately uniformly on the circumference of the Milky Way, then while taking a walk around the MW circumference one should encounter a black hole somewhere between every 157 LY to 4500 LY on the journey - that's roughly between a billion million miles and 2.7 trillion million miles.

Tomorrow morning I'll strap on the ol' galactic hiking boots and set out for the edge. I'll turn left at the junction and keep careful track of every black hole I encounter on the circumnavigation. I'll be sure to edit this response with my findings when I return.

Thanks for the post, N2D. See ya later.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. There are more places to search that that - they're in the halo

not on the circumference of the disc. So you've got about 500 trillion cubic light years to search. Even if there are 2000 of them, that would be an average separation of about 6000 light years, I think. Good luck.

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/S/Stellar+Halo

[deutsey]

4. Now they know how many holes it takes to line the Milky Way

I'd loove to tu-u-urn yo-ou o-on...