Chandra X-Ray Observatory Shows Two Giant Black Holes Circling Each Other

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Once again, I am proven right. Chandra shows clearly that there are two huge black holes in Abell 400 and they are definitely not only falling into each other, they are spiralling into a mutual jointure. Space is not rapidly expanding and stretching, it is warping and plunging inwards, all black holes are moving in spirals into each other.

New Scientist:

Black holes revealed in death spin

21:29 06 April 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Kimm Groshong

Scientists have found new evidence that a pair of voracious black holes in the galaxy cluster Abell 400 are orbiting one another, probably on a path towards an eventual merger. Learning more about such collisions could help astronomers seeking to detect the gravitational waves generated.

Supermassive black holes are extremely dense, massive objects thought to have consumed millions or billions of stars from their surrounding environment. The Milky Way's own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is thought to contain the equivalent of about 4 million suns.

Radio waves from plasma-emitting jets associated with the two supermassive black holes in Abell 400 were first detected in 1984. Observations of the jets' bending and twisting behaviour indicated that the pair were interacting, but did not prove they were actually gravitationally bound.

Now, using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists from the University of Bonn, Germany, the University of Virginia, US, and the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, have shown that the jets streaming behind the two black holes bend in the same direction. This shows the black holes are traveling together through the galaxy cluster, and that suggests the two are orbiting each other.

This isn't a "death spin". This is more like a marriage of like minds. I really wish science writers used different metaphors to describe what happens when space/time deforms so much, various star systems and black holes slide into each other. Just like the black holes that have created all galaxies: they aren't "devouring" anything, they are COMPRESSING matter into an ever-deepening gravitational depression, namely, just like if you roll marbles on your bed while your mate lies on it, they all roll into his or hers bodies and then make the bed rather uncomfortable. Even if your mate eats the marbles for some demented reason, they would still be there and will add, to some small degree, the the reclining mate's weight, depressing the bed even more.

Roll infinite numbers of marbles and they eventually will crash the bed frame unless it is a water bed.

Here is an earlier article about this same "black hole" event in yet another galaxy. New Scientist:

Black holes are double trouble for galaxy
12:10 20 November 2002
NewScientist.com news service
Hazel Muir

Two monstrous black holes are jostling for power in the same galaxy, the Chandra X-ray satellite has revealed. The pair will slam into each other in a few hundred million years, giving the fabric of space-time a good shake.

"Today for the first time, thanks to the Chandra X-ray observatory's unparalleled ability to spot black holes, we see something that is a harbinger of a cataclysmic event to come," a NASA official told a press conference on Tuesday.

Stefanie Komossa of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and her colleagues used Chandra to look at an extraordinarily bright galaxy called NGC 6240, which is about 400 million light years from Earth.

Far from being "trouble" for a galaxy, having a black hole is a necessity. We still don't understand how multiple black holes merge. Evidently, they probably don't blow up the galatic conglameration or there would be no galaxies.

Always, the unanswered question is why are all these black holes and galaxies sliding into each other if the universe is expanding faster and faster? Something is going to give and I am betting human explanations will be the thing these black holes will eat without so much as a burp.

Culture of Life News Main Page

Comments

[shrinkwrap]

Matter can coalesce even while space expands because of the paradoxical nature of entropy in gravitational systems:

Gravity, Entropy, and Coherence --
Given quantity of gas initially concentrated in a small region, the gas will naturally tend to expand to fill a progressively larger volume of space. This is an example of how the entropy of physical systems tends to increase. It is called an irreversible process, because a concentrated region of gas will spontaneously disperse, whereas the reverse does not normally occur, i.e., a dispersed quantity of gas will not spontaneously become concentrated into a smaller region. Or will it? In the treatment of small quantities of gas the gravitational attraction of the gas molecules on each other is negligible, but for a sufficiently large quantity of gas – such as in some regions of interstellar space – there exist large enough regions of gas (of sufficient density) that a cloud of gas will naturally contract due to the mutual gravitational attraction of the molecules. Indeed this is (presumably) how stars are formed. (from http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath573/kmath573.htm)

I'm no physicist, do not have a rigorous understanding of these concepts. However, I do think the physics is well described.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yes, isn't that so! After our sun "turned on" and began to shine, the planets were bombarded by INCOMING debris. Hugely so.

Isn't that funny?

As I keep saying, huge, gigantic black holes can't be falling into each other's gravitational spirals if they were all shooting away from each other at increasing speed, no?

[shrinkwrap]

Again, I'm no expert, but there is a huge difference in scale between the debris in the solar system and gigantic black holes.

[JSmith]

Hey, kids! Let's have fun with logic!

First,

"Chandra shows clearly that there are two huge black holes in Abell 400 and they are definitely not only falling into each other, they are spiralling into a mutual jointure. Space is not rapidly expanding and stretching, it is warping and plunging inwards, all black holes are moving in spirals into each other."

Sorry, Elaine! The move from "some black holes are sipralling into each other" to "all black holes are spiralling into each other" is logically invalid: from "all are..." you can infer that "some are...", but not the other way arouind. Thanks for playing!

Next,

If

"I'm no physicist, do not have a rigorous understanding of these concepts."

How would you know whether or not

"... the physics is well described."

Tune in next time for more of Logic 101 with JSmith!