Massive Black Holes Maybe Merging On Edges Of Milky Way-Type Spiral Galaxies

[Judi Lynn]

BY HIMANSHU GOENKA @HIMGOJOURNO ON 10/31/17 AT 12:53 AM

As scientists improve their understanding of the fundamental aspects of the universe, the detection of gravitational waves, which are ripples in the fabric of space-time, has been a big jump in the field of astronomy. And while only a handful of them have been detected so far, a new paper suggests a lot more could be found in a previously unsuspected location.

The fringes of spiral galaxies like our very own Milky Way could be teeming with massive colliding black holes, the upcoming paper says. The merger of black holes is what creates gravitational waves, and these orbiting pairs of black holes (binary black hole systems) are thought to exist in regions of space that are sparsely populated. That means a relatively small number of stars, the area fee of heavy elements like iron, gold, and platinum which are produced in supernova explosions, and low-intensity winds that don’t affect the gigantic stars.

These conditions typically exist in dwarf or satellite galaxies, and the paper — accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters — posits they exist on the outskirts of spiral galaxies too. The one big difference is that the much bigger and more massive spiral galaxies are significantly easier to find.

Sukanya Chakrabarti, assistant professor of physics at Rochester Institute of Technology and lead author of the paper said in a statement Monday: “The metal content in the outer disks of spiral galaxies is also quite low and should be rife with black holes in this large area.”

More:
http://www.ibtimes.com/massive-black-holes-maybe-merging-edges-milky-way-type-spiral-galaxies-2608345

[SCantiGOP]

1. watched a NOVA episode on black holes last night

They were not able to find any real context to try to explain the massive amounts of energy and mass involved here.
The closest they came was in talking about the merger of two massive black holes. They said the energy produced in less than a trillionth of a second would be about 300 times the amount of energy our sun will produce over its billions of years of existence. For that trillionth of a second the energy coming from the black holes would be greater than the energy produced by all of the stars in the observable universe.

[Thor_MN]

2. Would this cause a even bigger "missing mass" issue?

Having massive black holes adding mass to the rims of galaxies should slow their rotation, causing a what should be an even larger difference in the rates of motion between the galactic centers and rims. That they move at the same rate is the reason dark matter is assumed.

That is, unless I am thinking about this bass ackwards.