Astronomer: Most black holes form when a star which is ten times more massive than our Sun runs out of fuel for fusion. This causes the star to collapse, explode as a supernova, and, if enough material is left over after the explosion, becomes what is called a stellar black hole. A black hole is an object with such a high density that even light doesn’t travel fast enough to escape its gravity. Something that falls into a black hole can never escape, because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
What would happen if one of these stellar black holes wandered into our solar system? Very Bad Things. The first indication we might get that something unusual was happening would be subtle changes in the orbits of the outer planets. These changes would be detectable at least by the time the black hole was a few hundred thousand times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
By then the black hole would be near the outer reaches of the solar system, in an area filled with icy comet-like objects called the Oort cloud. It’s possible that the gravitational disruption caused by the black hole traveling through the Oort cloud could gravitationally catapult a large number of additional comets into the inner solar system, some of which might strike Earth or other planets. If the black hole passed through only this outer part of the solar system, for example if it were moving too fast to be strongly affected by the Sun’s gravitational influence, an increase in comets in the inner solar system might be the only effect we would observe.
At this point we likely wouldn’t see anything at the black hole’s position, even if we looked with the best available telescopes. The black hole itself doesn’t doesn’t give off light, and the only way we might detect it is through the energy released when it consumes some gas. Even the black hole’s affect on the light from stars behind it – which causes the light to be bent into an apparent ring around the black hole – would be too small for us to see. Only until the black hole reaches the inner edge of the asteroid belt would we be able to directly observe the light-bending effects of the black hole. By this point, the effects on the Earth’s orbit would be extreme and it’s likely the black hole would have become visible through its interaction with one of the outer planets.
If the black hole continued to move toward the inner solar system, the orbits of the planets would continue to be disrupted in dramatic ways. Jupiter, the most massive planet, might be snared by the black hole due to their strong mutual gravitational attraction. The black hole would pull gas from Jupiter, forming a bright disk of swirling, hot gas. The hot gas disk gives off x-ray radiation. Despite the fact that Jupiter is thousands of times larger than the black hole, the black hole is thousands of times more massive than Jupiter and easily wins. Jupiter is entirely consumed onto the relatively tiny black hole.
A black hole eating the sun. Om nom nom.
By this time, the Earth is already in grave trouble. The gravitational effects of the black hole have caused earthquakes and volcanic eruptions more extreme than those ever seen before by humans. The Earth would be pulled out of its usual orbit, possibly experiencing abrupt changes in direction or being pulled away or towards the Sun. By the time the black hole crosses Earth’s orbit the geologic effects from tidal forces will have effectively repaved the Earth’s surface with magma and wiped out all life. Since the Sun contains 99.9% of the mass of the solar system, the Sun and the black hole experience a strong gravitational pull towards each other. The black hole would approach the Sun, whose gas is stripped and pulled into the black hole. The Earth, whose inhabitants have already died, would approach the sun/black hole pair, heat up, be torn apart by gravitational forces, and then be pulled into the black hole itself.
Now that we’ve set this morbid scene, you might wonder how likely is it that a black hole will wander into our solar system, causing widespread death and destruction. Here, at least, we have some good news. With what we know today, it seems exceedingly unlikely to happen anywhere in the galaxy (except at the very center), much less our own solar system. Distances between black holes are huge, and the density of black holes is less because we are in the outer third of our galaxy. In addition, most black holes aren’t zipping around the galaxy at high speed, which makes them far less likely to encounter a solar system.
(picture credit: University of Warwick/ Mark A. Garlick)
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That second pingback is just plain -wierd-
It’s like someone ran an astronomy text through google translate.
How long do black holes exists? Do they even disappear?
They do eventually evaporate, but it takes a long time even by stellar standards.
The evaporation rate depends on the surface area of the event horizon. Small black holes would evaporate quickly. Large black holes evaporate much slower. They may emit energy so slowly that the microwave background energy will more than make up for it, and so won’t evaporate until the universe has expanded and cooled.
cute. so now there’s an astronomer in addition to a mathematician and a physicist. Good luck modifying your logo to accommodate three names.
These changes would be detectable at least by the time the black hole was a few hundred thousand times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
WE CAN BREATHE AND NO ARE THEN WE WILL FLOTE IN TTHE AIR
AND IF IT HAPPENS WE WOULD HAVE NO OXYGEN AND……….DIE
I MENCHENED CANT BREATHE INSTED OF CAN BREATHE
Is it possible???
Possible, but really, really unlikely.
Living things are affected and all creatures are destroy
Al lliving organism are destory and all member of solar system are also destory.
Just a quick little question. In the answer it states that: “The black hole itself doesn’t doesn’t give off light, and the only way we might detect it is through the energy released when it consumes some gas.”, but isn’t the black hole constantly emitting hawking radiation, even if it has not consumed any matter?
It is, but for any black hole of appreciable size (big enough to affect anything) the amount of Hawking radiation being generated is zero in any measurable sense. In fact, you’d have a much easier time seeing a black hole in terms of the cosmic background radiation it absorbs. That is, a black hole is blacker than the dark in between stars.
Is it possible that the expansion of the universe at an ever increasing rate is caused, not by dark energy, but by our solar system falling inward by gravitational decay in orbit around a black hole?
Could the precession of the equinoxes be proof that our solar system is in fact in orbit around a black hole every 26,000 years? I know that we ascribe the phenomenon by the earth wobbling in its axis… However… We would observe the same effect if the solar system itself is in orbit around a super massive object. Since we cannot detect that object… Naturally, it has to be a black hole.
Im excited!
what would happen if a human jumped in a blackhole
Bad things. The long and the short of it is that you’d die plenty. There are more details here.
But what if the black hole was really, really far from us and it’s trail of gas ever got in our way? Would we die or just get affected?
what if 2 black holes meet together? what will happen?
are we realy expected to beleleive that we are safe?all mankind are doomsdayers by nature!wots with all the recent devestation world wide and the change of jupiters orbit?sorry but i dont buy it!we have a right to know.then people can say goodbye to their loved ones,and instead of fear and impending anarchy.the world can have its first taste of peace since all text and relegion!
According to Hawking there are some points of universe highly compressed at formation of universe, they create primordial black holes, they can be so small as head of a pin or as big as moon or earth. These black holes exists uniformly in the universe and most likely there are some in our own Galaxy. So if this is true, the likely hood of Earth is visiting by black hole is very high.
First time reader. Very, very interesting read!!
Kumar, the probability of a monkey painting a picture of my house if given a paint set is very high on a long enough time span. These things travel very, very slow, I don’t have to start rushing to complete my bucket list anytime soon
I am very scared about this
I have been thinking that all that is happening at this time is_ a result of a black hole even though far away- they are much stronger I feel that even you scientists can know why because you can see pictdures but maybe cannot see the true effects that are really happening to me it sounds more hypothetical than anything else but I have been wondering with all that occurs lately if that is the case I am 82 years old notd afraid of the future as before and you can of course realize why haha my age I certainly will not be around for all that and ver happpy about it too — just thought I could say my piece .Thank you Hermone
Is it possible for humans to somehow survive if this happens? Also, If this does happen in a billion years will it block out ALL light or can we put on the lights in our house then or lanterns?
I think a better ending would be for the black hole to be ejected from the solar system altogether. Instead of being sucked in, we’d freeze. However, this still isn’t a happy ending.
Yes, the black hole could be ejected from the solar system. In the above comment, I meant the EARTH being ejected into interstellar space.
Thank you guys for halping me out with my project
Hopefully the black hole would never be able to get close enough to us it’s gravitational pull would effect us
We are already constantly being pulled towards a massive black hole, aren’t we?
I believe that a massive black hole exists at the center of every (at least our) galaxy, hence the spiral formation of the Milky Way. But by the time we would actually get sucked in by it, I think that the universe will have reached it’s end.
I have a question;
It’s said that our galaxy is on a collision course with Andromeda (neighbouring galaxy).
Does Andromeda also have a black hole at it’s center?
And when they collide, what would happen with these black holes? Would they just form one super massive one?
@Pestapocalypse:
We’re not falling toward our galaxy’s super-massive black hole. In fact, even the stars that are closest to it are merely in orbit (so that’s good).
We are on schedule to starting impacting the Andromeda galaxy in around 4 billion years. Andromeda (like every large galaxy we’ve checked) does have a super massive black hole and, according to simulations, they tend to find each other and combine during galactic mergers.
Thank you for that information.
What would the collision of two black holes be like, in comparison to if two giant stars would collide?
“(like every large galaxy we’ve checked)”, how are “smaller” galaxies “held together”?
what starts a black hole?
If the universe is expanding using dark matter i thought matter could neither be created or destroyed
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A black hole is started by the death of a star, it leads to the star running out of fuel- and collapsing on itself. The gravity also collapses- it goes plasmatically incorrect, and implodes on itself to a black hole. I would suggest that if any stellar apocalypse were to happen- we should accept it- we all die someday- plus- it would be in the far future- we would be with better technology- like for example, the HALO video game series has advanced tech- chances are we would be like that, so we would have a chance to leave Earth before it has much effect on the planet, that would be Earth’s end- as Venus’s life forms destroyed its atmosphere (like us) and global warming resulted it its current flaming tornados. Mars life ended (except micro-organisms) due to Earth’s expansion of mass, so it was pushed farther from the sun- and froze to death. We would be eaten by a huge tear in space time continuum and our mere existence would implode on us! Yay! Death! We cant stop a stellar apocalypse, so we have to suffer it! Goodbye Earth! @somone
I’m working on a soft sci-fi novel and want to know what would happen to a planet (with inhabitants) during the first stage effects of a super massive black hole entering their galaxy. How long would these effects last? What is the approximate time table for the planet to no longer be inhabitable? My hero is off in a foreign galaxy and stumbles across his ancestral race. Their galaxy is being destroyed by a black hole and they do not have the means to escape their planet. I need to develop critical timing- they need to be rescued in the last possible days before the planet becomes inhabitable. Any thoughts??
The above info gave me some clues, but I’d like to have more info in order to work the timing out better.
If you’re curious about me:
http://amazon.com/author/krowe
Thanks!
@Kathy Rowe
The presence of a super massive black hole in a galaxy doesn’t change much. Even the stars in tight orbits around our galaxy’s central black hole are doing fine.
If a super massive black hole hit the alien’s solar system straight on (amazingly unlikely), then it would swallow it almost instantly, with relatively little lead up. If it merely came close by, then the star system would stay relatively intact, and may just be scattered in a new direction (with planet orbits staying more or less the same), maybe even leaving the galaxy (after many millions of years).
Black holes is surely the worst name given to these things, 1. since when they start feeding say for instance a gas cloud, that gas cloud will get caught in the event horizon- causing friction and eject a quasar, which ultimately escapes the black hole, 2. it would be surely be a black sphere of emense gravity not a hole, since we live in 3 dimensions that we no of so far, but surely the black hole crushes matter down to point where it becomes as small as a particle, which then quantum physics come into play and the matter can zip in and out of the universe and also be 2 places at once, which could ultimately be dark matter
thank you, this has given me a lot of info on black holes.
very nice. hope you keep informing me on anything new in the universe by e-mailing me on my e-mail ID.
Please do so
THANK YOU
Ok this may sound either crazy or stupid but is anyone else intrigued about what would actually happen if you were sucked into a black hole?
I am almost to the point to say I’d like to be sucked into one. But maybe that’s just the manic-depressive part of me talking. Either I’m gonna go out in an epic fashion or who knows could survive. Some scientists say its possibly a gateway to another universe
thanks.
same like story about the fate of the solar system
in the Muslim concept.Muslim believe that the ‘Hell’ is a blackhole.
Mrs, Kathy
I have much much for you.
email me
To Damien and all
Muslim teachings say we will all be sucked by the ‘Hell’ which is in their concept it is a black hole . At the end believers will escape to different universes ( Paradise) disbelievers will remain in.
ong i am so happy that a black hole will not come to earth thank you can u not just move the black holes ?????????????
As far as I was aware black holes cannot move as they abide by the laws of gravity just like all of the other objects in space…. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/what-is-a-black-hole-58.html
Some black holes do in fact move but this takes an incredibly strong force, such as the very thing required to make it, a supernova. A supernova, if close enough would not send a black hole flying extremely fast but rather slowly in comparison to the speed of earth’s orbit. However its gravitational pull on other objects and vise versa would gradually increase its movement. But rest assured there are much stronger forces than the sun that will cause a black hole to almost completely avoid our solar system. But in time the sun itself should become a black hole but not for some million years.