black hole formation and galaxy development -which comes first????

[papau]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/11/23/black.holeformation/index.html

Enormous black holes formed in early universe
By Robert Roy Britt
SPACE.com
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 10:41 AM EST (1541 GMT)

(SPACE.com) -- Incredibly massive black holes had fully matured just a billion years after the birth of the universe, according to two separate studies.

Scientists already had strong evidence that black holes grew to gargantuan heft early in the universe. Several have been found to pack the mass of hundreds of millions of suns or more. But now scientists are pushing the limit of how far back in time they spot such objects and improving the firmness of their measurements.

In a study announced today, a black hole catalogued as SDSSp J1306 appears to be about one billion times as massive as the sun. It is 12.7 billion light-years away, meaning the light just recorded -- by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory -- took 12.7 billion years to reach the vicinity of Earth.<snip>


How such massive and energetic structures formed so quickly remains a major puzzle for scientists. Mergers of smaller galaxies and their black holes may have played a role. Researchers suspect that black hole formation and galaxy development go largely hand-in-hand, but they cannot say which comes first.

[Heyo]

1. If there's enough mass....

...a black hole can form very quickly. (I don't see why not)

Surely a black hole of that size can form in the 2.5 billion years or so since the estimated time of the big bang.. (referring to the 12.7 billion year old black hole)

If there's enough mass there, it WILL collapse....

I dont see what the big mystery is? 2 and a half billion years is not long enough to form a hundred million solar-mass black hole, even with the vast amount of matter that early in the universe as well as it's incredible density?

But hey, I am no profesional 'stronomer. I am just an amateur so I will assume they know what they are doing....

:bounce:

Heyo

[papau]

2. Once they observe the burst (they expect 150 over the next year) we

will at least have some experimental data with which to test black hole theory?

I'm looking forward to the Swift project results!

:-)

[pmbryant]

3. The problem is this

Right after the Big Bang, matter in the universe was very evenly distributed. (This is known due to the extreme uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation.)

It was so evenly distributed that it should have taken a very long time, well over a billion years, for gravitational effects to cause matter to clump into galaxies, etc. Yet only 1 billion years later, supermassive black holes apparently already existed (according to the results in this article).

Exactly how galaxies, black holes, and other structures could form out of the even distribution of matter in less than a billion years is not currently understood.

--Peter

[Heyo]

6. That part is understood...

"Exactly how galaxies, black holes, and other structures could form out of the even distribution of matter in less than a billion years is not currently understood."

Well, it may very well have taken a long time for very slight density variations to pull themselves together into the large scale structures we see today, this is true. But I don't know that any actual black holes did form earlier than maybe 2 or 3 billion years after the big bang. But they may have. They ('stronomers) have found galaxies that formed in what they believe is the first half billion years or so, or even earlier possibly. But if this seems like too soon, it may be that the universe is older than we currently realize.

There are indeed very slight variations on the temperature of the CMB radiation, on the order of milionths or billionths of a degree, that would be where the clumping came from.

Due to quantum mechanics, specifically, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the very tiny quantum density variations in the few picoseconds after the big bang would have been magnified enourmously by the expansion of the universe.

:bounce:

Heyo

[pmbryant]

8. age of universe

I admit I have never kept up much on the theories of large scale structure formation etc. Perhaps that is further advanced than I realize. But I was under the impression that the age of the Universe is now known pretty accurately thanks to the WMAP probe. (Again, though, I may have missed newer developments.)

--Peter

[Heyo]

9. There are some...

... who think they have it pegged at about 15BY.

I am not so sure though, because every time we get better telescope technology, and keep seeing farther and farther back, we see fully developed structures not terribly different from the ones we see nearby today. A billion years error on the age makes a big difference on where we'd see structure vs where we won't.

The jury is still out, IMHO.

Heyo

[pmbryant]

10. 13.7 billion years, plus or minus 200 million

That's the WMAP result from 2003, which as far as I know, is extremely rigorous.

(Here's a brief article: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908644.html.
Here's the WMAP website: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html .)

[Heyo]

11. I just finished Brian Green's new book...

...The Fabric of the Cosmos...

And there are some fascinating theories out there with regard to the size and age of the universe, as it relates to quantum mechanics and "inflationary cosmology" along with Einstein's theoretical repulsive gravity..

Einstein predicted that gravity is produced by both mass/energy as well as *potential* energy, and that a "negative" pressure can actually have the effect of repulsive gravity. (A "hill" in spacetime rather than a "depression" if you're going by the bowling-ball-on-a-matress visualiztion to think about gravity, which I usually do)

It would take all day to elaborate on the details, so I won't, other than to reccomend the book.. but here's the kicker....

If this particular theory for inflationary cosmology is correct, it makes this general prediction for the actual size of the universe:

If the entire universe was shrunk down to just the size of the Earth, the sphere of volume that we are currently able to *see*, with our best telescopes, would be represented by a grain of sand.

That is pretty mind boggling. I have spent quite a few late night reading and just thinking, and trying to truly appreciate the distances involved when you're talking about astronomy and cosmology...

God I love 'stronomy.

:bounce:

Heyo

[govegan]

12. Sounds like a fascinating read.

I am just nearly finished with Greene's previous book The Elegant Universe. Since I am not a physicist or astronomer, I find his writing very clear in presenting the gist of the arguments and theories of relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory.

One of the last chapters is about black holes and cosmological implications of string theory, and I am just beginning that part. From my layman's perspective, I would think that the multi-dimensional structures of string theory and the possibility of "space tearing flop transitions" would surely have impact in those areas.

[Heyo]

13. Elegant Universe...

...one of my favorite books of all time on the subject.

If you haven't checked out the PBS special of the same name, hosted by Mr. Green himself, you definitely want to check that out.

Also, Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell" hardcover is a beautifull illustrated, fantastic read.

Heyo

"I could be bound in a nuthsell and count myself the king of infinite space"
- Shakespeare

[govegan]

20. Cool.

His name is Greene with an "e" (fyi).

So I assume that you must think that Greene's new book is worth a read even after "Elegant Universe." I saw the book in a bookstore recently, and wondered how much it added to his previous work. I definitely will put it on my list of reading material.

I heard Mr. Greene on one of the Science Friday interviews with Ira Flatow on the Seattle NPR station a few months ago. That motivated me to buy the book. I think that it might have been this show: http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2004/Feb/hour2_020604.html

I just read the chapter on the black hole issues last night. I won't comment on it yet, still cogitating, so much to absorb. Intriguing and awesome work being done!

From whence cometh the Bard's quote?

[Beetwasher]

4. Is It Possible They Were Already There?

From a previous incarnation of the universe?

Bear with me. If the universe is cyclic, IOW, singularity, big bang, Universe, back to singularity somehow (rinse and repeat), then is it possible some black holes were left over from the previous universe?

[pmbryant]

5. Hmmm...

I think the uniformity of the cosmic microwave background eliminates the possibility that supermassive blackholes existed right after the Big Bang. Which eliminates the possibility of any surviving from any hypothetical pre-Big Bang state.

But I suspect I need to refresh my memory on the details of this stuff to say anything definite.

And current evidence suggests that the Universe we are in is not cyclic.

Peter

[Heyo]

7. well...

... if the cyclic universe you describe exists, all the black holes, as well as all other matter, would have been compressed back into the singularity, so there'd be nothing left over.

A black hole, strange as it is, is simply a very heavy, compact object that does have a finite mass.

Heyo

[papau]

14. the implication that black holes came first and then put out the matter

that made each Galaxy

followed by the matter falling into a black hole and the cycle continuing

is a beautiful - IMHO - outside of the current box - plausible avenue for research!

[Heyo]

16. interesting...

... but logic just seems it would be the other way around.. the center of the galaxy colapses until it forms a black hole.. and there are lots of smaller black holes scattered troughout galaxies that are just colapsed stars.. (Cygnus X-1 for example)

Heyo

[papau]

19. center of the galaxy colapses is part of cycle - but where does cycle

start?

We know have mass coming OUT of the black hole

We now have information coming out of the black hole - if Hawkings August 05 equations hold up.

So we now have a cycle.

[Beetwasher]

15. I'm Not Sure How You Can Say That W/ Such Certainty

Considering we really don't know how the universe began or how it ends (if at all), or even everything about black holes for that matter...I'm not so sure you can categorize a black hole as "simply a very heavy, compact object that does have a finite mass". I don't think it is in fact simply just that. It is my understanding that we have little to no idea about the nature of the singularity that is a black hole.

[Heyo]

17. The nature of the singularity itself..

... we don't really know.

But black holes do have a mass that can be measured... a good examples would be binary systems where one of the two bodies in the pair is a black hole... which appears to be a star orbiting around what appears to be an empty point in space...

The mass of the visible star can be calculated, and by observing the orbital characteristics, the mass of the dark object can be inferred...

As for what actually happens down in the center... my personal theory is that that's where all the left socks go that get lost in the dryer...

:bounce:

Heyo

[papau]

18. In the fifties someone noted that lost socks turned into wire hangers

My memory is not working that well at the moment

It was cute short story - but I can't recall the complete life cycle of socks to hangers to whatever - or why the hangers killed the fellow who discovered the secret of who was really in charge of the earth!

[Beetwasher]

21. I Always Liked To Think That There Was a Gooey Center

with sweet nougat and chewy caramel...After all, there's supposedly one at the center of the Milky Way, right?

Certainly there's gravity involved, but it's still really the singularity that is referred to when one refers to a black hole, and we don't know much about that EXCEPT that there is a strong gravity field associated to it that is assumed to be an effect of it's mass, and I gather, a few other things as well now, but still, not much...

[Heyo]

22. The question is....

... how many licks does it take to get to the center of a black hole?

:dunce:

Actualy, I came to understand that the term "black hole" is basically a region of space that is within the event-horizon. For the layperson, the "event horizon" is the spherical region, out to a certain distance from the black hole, where nothing, not even light, can escape if it were to pass beyond the event horizon. Like from the Dante book.. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

Interestingly enough, if you happen to cross inside the event horizon of a black hole, nothing especially interesting or noticable would happen to you at that moment. However, you would be getting sucked in by the extreme gravity, as you drifted closer to the center and looked out at the surrounding universe, the events that you see taking place would begin to happen faster and faster from your point of view, the side effect of time slowing down for you. (This isn't theory anymore, this is fact, time dilation)

As you got close to the center, your body would eventually be destroyed by the gravitational pull.

I still go with occam's razor on black holes, there are just extremely heavy, dense objects, that have crossed a certain threshold of gravitational intensity and density that they are able to pull in light, and therefore everything, with no possiblity of anything getting out. (since light travels the the highest velocity known in the universe and photons have 0 mass)

If you have a large heavy star, and another star orbiting at a fairly large distance, if that large star were to collapse into a black hole, the orbiting star would not notice the difference as long as it was outside the event horizon, it would continue to orbit the invisilbe "hole" in space as it always did the star, because the black hole would have the same mass as the star, except it would now be much more compact, thereby creating a deep gravity well at the center and an event horizon at some distance out from that center.

Heyo

[papau]

23. nothing, not even light, can escape? But Hawking says information excapes

Indeed the idea that the black hole vaporizes over time I thought was still out there

meaning nothing escapes -

and everthing escapes.

thus spake the Lord.