Is the Universe a big black hole?

[Theory5]

In the attached picture of a universe, it always looks like it is swirling around something like water going down a drain. Is there a reason for this? Is it a black hole?

 

Also, a follow up question: Does the size of a black hole determine how fast it swallows other stuff?

Could the universe be a black hole that is so big that it would take Billions of Eons to swallow the solarsystems?

 

Something seems to be holding the universe together.

[Moontanman]

In the attached picture of a universe, it always looks like it is swirling around something like water going down a drain. Is there a reason for this? Is it a black hole?

 

Also, a follow up question: Does the size of a black hole determine how fast it swallows other stuff?

Could the universe be a black hole that is so big that it would take Billions of Eons to swallow the solarsystems?

 

Something seems to be holding the universe together.

 

First of all that is a picture of a galaxy, not a universe. Yes there is thought to be a black hole at the center of all galaxies. Not sure about your follow up questions, they don't seem to be connected.

[Pluto]

G'day from the land of ozzzzz

 

Black holes or large compact matter are found in varies sizes throughout the galaxy, as they move towards the centre they merge and grow larger. Near the centre of our Milky Way we have a swam of black holes and one very large, several million times that of our sun.

 

The size of the black hole will determine its activity and formation of jets and in turn will determine the evolutionary stages of galaxy form.

 

What holds the galaxy form is the gravity sink at the centre.

[modest]

Yeah, that's the Andromeda Galaxy. Interesting, they used to call galaxies "island universes", but that ended up being confusing.

 

Theory5,

 

The universe is usually defined as everything that physically exists. This includes billions of galaxies that each look more or less like the picture you posted.

 

A galaxy is a collection of stars (from millions to trillions), dust, and gas. We live in the Milky Way galaxy and our nearest appreciable neighbor is the Andromeda galaxy which is two and a half million lightyears away.

 

As far as current theory suggests, neither galaxies nor the universe are a black hole. But, as moontanman points out, most galaxies are believed to have a supermassive black hole in the center.

 

~modest

[Theory5]

Ah okay. When I wrote this I was distracted so I just put universe. Thats pretty interesting, thanks.

[Moontanman]

G'day from the land of ozzzzz

 

Black holes or large compact matter are found in varies sizes throughout the galaxy, as they move towards the centre they merge and grow larger. Near the centre of our Milky Way we have a swam of black holes and one very large, several million times that of our sun.

 

The size of the black hole will determine its activity and formation of jets and in turn will determine the evolutionary stages of galaxy form.

 

What holds the galaxy form is the gravity sink at the centre.

 

Actually the mass at the center of a galaxy isn't enough to account for the rotation of matter around the core of a galaxy, the Dark matter that makes up most of the Galaxy is what gives holds a galaxy in it's spiral shape.

 

Galaxy rotation curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[freeztar]

In the attached picture of a universe, it always looks like it is swirling around something like water going down a drain. Is there a reason for this? Is it a black hole?

 

The center of galaxies are potential locations for blackholes.

Also, a follow up question: Does the size of a black hole determine how fast it swallows other stuff?

 

The "size" of the black hole is determined by its mass.

It is a bit tricky to answer the question of "how fast?".

 

The formula for a non-rotating black hole's event horizon's radius is:

 

[math]R_{Sch}=\frac{2GM}{c^2}[/math]

 

This will tell you when, or more precisely where, but will not tell you how fast. I believe it is logarithmic, but I'm unaware of equations that deal with velocities inside the Schwarzschild Radius. :QuestionM

 

Could the universe be a black hole that is so big that it would take Billions of Eons to swallow the solarsystems?

The universe and our galaxy, are *not* black holes that will "swallow" our solar system. Well, it could happen, but certainly not in our lifetime and almost certainly not before the sun morphs into a red giant about 5 billion years from now. ;)

Something seems to be holding the universe together.

 

And at the same time, something seems to be blowing it apart. :)

 

The forces that bind particles are pretty well understood. The big mystery is what is causing the repulsion. :hyper:

 

Source: Universe (Fifth Edition) By Kaufmann and Friedman

[buddyzen]

Is it possible galaxy's move through the universe like a giant mass or ship ???

[freeztar]

Is it possible galaxy's move through the universe like a giant mass or ship ???

 

Everything moves through the universe. There is no such thing as a galaxy that sits still. Also, when you consider relative movement, it becomes impossible to tell if something is sitting still or moving. :doh:

[buddyzen]

so is it possble that we may eventually colide with another galaxy???

[freeztar]

so is it possble that we may eventually colide with another galaxy???

 

The Milky Way is currently en route to collide with Andromeda actually. :doh:

 

Andromeda-Milky Way collision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[CraigD]

Is the Universe a big black hole?

To answer this, we need to understand what’s required of to have a black hole, then apply it to the biggest thing of which we know, the universe.

 

To have a black hole, we must have a concentration of matter that can be contained in a sphere with radius less than the Schwarzschild radius given by its mass.

 

This question has come up a few times before, so I’ll quote one a post from one of those threads

Taking the equation for Schwarzschild radius, [math]r = \frac{2Gm}{c^2}[/math] and some common approximations for the visible universe (Eg: wikipedia article “Observable Universe”), we get:

Radius of visible universe = 7*10^25 m

Mass of visible universe = 3*10^52 kg

Event horizon of visible universe = 4*10^25 m

It’s interesting to apply the above equation to objects of various sizes, which we’ve done a few times, such as in this post.

 

The [math]3 \times 10^{52}\,\mbox{kg}[/math] estimate of the mass of the visible universe, however, only accounts for visible matter. If we take a common low estimate of the amount of invisible, or “dark” matter in the universe, 95%, the event horizon of the universe is a little bit larger than its radius. So the answer to the question is a definite maybe.

 

The whole question may be senseless, however, as by the late 1990s, the scientific consensus was and remains that on the universe’s ultimately large scale (there can be no physically real scale larger :)), the dominating force is not on the attractive force of gravity, on which Schwarzschild radius equations are based, but the repulsive force of a negative cosmological constant (which is related to concepts such as cosmic inflation and dark energy).

 

More, it’s important, I think, to note that even though much of the physics of black holes have been well understood for longer than many of us have been alive, we’re less than scientifically certain that our predictions of their behavior are really correct, because the physics of black holes - essentially general relativity – isn’t fully compatible with the physics of reality on a small scale – quantum field theory. Although we’ve superb observed confirmation of several GR predictions about black holes – gravitational lensing, etc. - we don’t have it for the really profound predictions, such as that the event horizon of a black hole is, as Lee Smolin eloquently describes, “a sheet of light that is standing still”. It would be wonderful to get such observational evidence, but as all the black holes we know of are surrounded by super-hot and bright accretion disks of ordinary matter, observing the most extreme predicted relativistic effects appears really difficult.

 

A separate, in many ways easier question, we can ask is “will the universe someday be a big black hole?”, or “will the universe someday be almost nothing but black holes?” As best I can tell, the scientific consensus on the first question is “no, the universe will never be a single black hole”, on the second, and uncertain “yes, there will be a time when nearly all the mass in the universe is in the form of black holes.” This time is commonly called the black hole era, and is expected to last from roughly [math]10^{40}[/math] to [math]10^{100}[/math] years after the big bang (vs. our current date of roughtly [math]10^{10}[/math] yABB, or in other words, when the universe is roughly a trillion trillion trillion time older than it is now :eek_big:) - see Five Ages of the Universe: The Big Bang Era, and the wikipedia article “The Five Ages of the Universe”.

[Pluto]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzzzzz

 

CraigD said

 

A separate, in many ways easier question, we can ask is “will the universe someday be a big black hole?”, or “will the universe someday be almost nothing but black holes?” As best I can tell, the scientific consensus on the first question is “no, the universe will never be a single black hole”, on the second, and uncertain “yes, there will be a time when nearly all the mass in the universe is in the form of black holes.” This time is commonly called the black hole era, and is expected to last from roughly to years after the big bang (vs. our current date of roughtly yABB, or in other words, when the universe is roughly a trillion trillion trillion time older than it is now ) - see Five Ages of the Universe: The Big Bang Era, and the wikipedia article “The Five Ages of the Universe”.

 

One of the properties of compact matter is their abilty to form jets and these jets form quite frequently and different sizes. It is this property that will prevent the collapse to black holes only. We have millions of stellar black holes throughout the Milky Way and we have larger black holes from 20 to 1000's sun masses in globular star clusters. Swam of Very large BHs and a huge one at the centre.

Massive BHs exit in varies galaxies and are known to grow to 16 Billion times that of our Sun's mass

 

[astro-ph/0411099] Host Galaxy Evolution in Radio-Loud AGN

Host Galaxy Evolution in Radio-Loud AGN

 

 

[astro-ph/0409687] Evidence that powerful radio jets have a profound influence on the evolution of galaxies

Evidence that powerful radio jets have a profound influence on the evolution of galaxies

 

[astro-ph/0408555] Heating groups and clusters of galaxies: the role of AGN jets

Heating groups and clusters of galaxies: the role of AGN jets

 

It will take a few more years before we understand the workings of compact matter. The evidence from the LHC will help us determine the properties of the basic particles of matter and this may explain BHs.

[CraigD]

One of the properties of compact matter is their abilty to form jets and these jets form quite frequently and different sizes. It is this property that will prevent the collapse to black holes only.

…

[astro-ph/0411099] Host Galaxy Evolution in Radio-Loud AGN

…

It will take a few more years before we understand the workings of compact matter. The evidence from the LHC will help us determine the properties of the basic particles of matter and this may explain BHs.

I agree that the http://Relativistic jets of accretion material around supermassive black holes and other compact objects are important structures that may have a significant effect on the structure of the very far future ([math]10^{40}+[/math] years) universe. However, the papers to which you link, Pluto, contain no references to such jets affecting the formation of black holes, or the structure of the very far future universe. Can you reference any source supporting the idea that jets prevent the formation of supermassive black holes?

[Pluto]

G'day from the land of ozzzzzzz

 

CraigD said

 

Can you reference any source supporting the idea that jets prevent the formation of supermassive black holes?

 

You must have read this out of context.

 

It should read that jets prevent the end result of only black holes. It's the same as the chicken and the egg. You must have a compact matter to form jets. Although jets can be formed by convection waves. The size of the black hole is determined by the rate of inflow of matter and the rate of outflow. Cluster go galaxies have a large inflow and thefore their black holes get quite large and their jets are relative and are able to go for millions of light years.

 

 

Galactic Black Hole Fires a Jet at a Nearby Neighbour

Galactic Black Hole Fires a Jet at a Nearby Neighbour | Universe Today

Ouch, that's going to leave a mark. A new photograph captured by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows a powerful jet blasting out of one galaxy, and colliding with another. As the jet tears through the galaxy, it could have serious implications for planetary formation, and trigger a wave of new star formation.

 

A Jet is a Jet, Big or Small: Scale Invariance of Black Hole Jets

A Jet is a Jet, Big or Small: Scale Invariance of Black Hole Jets

 

Time-Lapse Movies of XTE J1550-564

Chandra :: Photo Album :: XTE J1550-564 :: Time-Lapse Movies of XTE J1550-564

 

Life Cycle of Black Hole Emissions Seen for First Time

SPACE.com -- Life Cycle of Black Hole Emissions Seen for First Time

 

 

18 Billion Suns -A Galaxy Classic: Biggest Black Hole in Universe Discovered—and it’s BIG

18 Billion Suns -A Galaxy Classic: Biggest Black Hole in Universe Discovered?and it?s BIG

 

Black hole's particle jets trigger star births

Black hole's particle jets trigger star births - space - 16 January 2005 - New Scientist

 

I have to come back to this and show the links that indicate distance for these huge jets.

[Pluto]

G'day CraigD

 

This maybe a link of interest

 

[0809.1693] Quantum Oscillations Prevent the Big Bang Singularity in an Einstein-Dirac Cosmology

 

Quantum Oscillations Prevent the Big Bang Singularity in an Einstein-Dirac Cosmology

 

Authors: Felix Finster, Christian Hainzl

(Submitted on 10 Sep 2008)

 

Abstract: We consider a spatially homogeneous and isotropic system of Dirac particles coupled to classical gravity. The dust and radiation dominated closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-times are recovered as limiting cases. We find a mechanism where quantum oscillations of the Dirac wave functions prevent the formation of the big bang or big crunch singularity. Thus before the big crunch, the collapse of the universe is stopped by quantum effects and reversed to an expansion, so that the universe opens up entering a new era of classical behavior.

Numerical examples of such space-times are given, and the dependence on various parameters is discussed. We finally give an example of a space-time which satisfies the dominant energy condition and is time-periodic, thus running through an infinite number of contraction and expansion cycles.