Balck Holes too soft

[dogscoff]

<Red Dwarf>
Thing about space, right, is it's black. And the thing about black holes, right, is they're black. So how you meaent to see 'em then?
</Red dwarf>


Sorry, it was all getting beyond me=-)

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There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

[raynor]

I just watches four episodes of Star Blazers yesterday. Their mission is to travel around 200,000 light years in less than a year. That's a pretty good distance considering that ST:V'Gr is gonna take around 70 years to travel just 70,000. Oh, I just figured it out. They made their first space warp from the moon to Mars and covered several thousand light years. :-)

[Sirkit]

black holes are tecnically a pain in the *** to detect, but in the case of light if matter was caught in the accreation disc you could see it and then recognize the fact that a dense peiec of matter was at the center (ie. a black hole) BTW listen to Suicide_Junkie for the most part hes right

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Their mission is to travel around 200,000 light years in less than a year.

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I hope that wasn't a straight line distance.
Since [our] galaxy is only 100k LY across, that would put them in the middle of nowhere no matter which way they went.

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Black hole detection:
If your black hole didn't have an accretion disk, and there was nothing in orbit (or even nearby), then it would be difficult to see indeed.
There would be a slight distortion from gravitational lensing around the edge of the hole, but you'd have to be looking right at it.
The ship would be slightly stressed from gravitational shear, but it it was noticeable over the air & people inside, it would be too late anyways...

But the main thing is:
This black hole is in the middle of nowhere, since there is nothing in the area to form an accretion disk. That means you'd have no reason for going there in the first place, & would never be in that position.

If you were travelling through an SE4 warp point to get to a BH system, then you'd have something to compare your movement to.
Since the WP is at a fixed distance from the hole, and likely provides no momentum to your ship, you would immediately start falling towards the hole.
What you would see is the WP moving away from you.
So, you:
A) full thrust for the WP & go home right away.
B) Assume you're being pulled by gravity & not an alien tractor beam, so you thrust sideways and go into orbit.
From your orbit & seeing the motion of the stars, you figure out where the hole is & what its mass is. Having mapped the system, you look for other WPs and then report to the empire for further instructions.
Note that the orbiting of the hole is easy & immediate.

quote:

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Black holes are tecnically a pain in the *** to detect,

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Well, Black holes are a pain to detect, sitting on your home planet if you're flying around in your spaceship inside the BH system, and have a WP to compare to, its mindless busywork to detect and map the thing.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 02 April 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

I thought they found black holes by looking for what was not there, no light where there should be some. I know they use x-rays and heat measurements also but I thought the absence of light was the main indicator.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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I thought they found black holes by looking for what was not there, no light where there should be some. I know they use x-rays and heat measurements also but I thought the absence of light was the main indicator.

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Very good.
the point you're missing is that they knew something is there, just not what it could be. If you look out into the depths of space at a black hole, you don't see much at all, and move on. If you see a star going in little circles, but nothing else, then you look closer and find that theres got to be a star-sized mass right there, but we don't see any light. Probably a black hole.

If the hole is sitting all alone, then it is almost impossible to detect. When your ship goes through the warp point, the hole is no longer alone, you and the warp point are there, & you can quickly see somethings amiss and conclude that it's a Black hole

[Sirkit]

Of course I ment detection from Earth, but a quick point of order all black holes have an accreation disc, this area in with space is warped by the intence gravity exists wether there is something there on not the size of this area is determined by the overall desity of the hole the shape is determined by its rotation, also time is warped arount the hole this may affect how quickly the crew of a ship can respond and how quickly the signal they transmit will reach the general empire but in general loosing a ship to a black hole wouldn't be a common thing if the captain has some idea of stellar cartography and how vectors work, if he/she doesn't he/she shoudent be in space!

Now to the statment that black holes are in the middle of nowhere, not really, black holes are thought to exist in the center of our galaxy. Since early stars witch would form early in the universe time scale would be massive black holes should be damn near everywhere, assuming that the large stars were even half as plentiful as the ones witch exist now they may in fact be in the area of several thousand in the general vacinity of Sol (an estimate I will admit).

Suicide Junkie may I ask where you knowlege of stellar phenomenon is derived?