[HN Gopher] Astronomers Discover Closest Black Hole to Earth
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       Astronomers Discover Closest Black Hole to Earth
        
       Author : tannhaeuser
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2022-11-05 08:45 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (noirlab.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (noirlab.edu)
        
       | habibur wrote:
       | The numbers :                   Size : 10 x sun's mass.
       | Distance : 1600 LY.         Previous closest had been : ~5000 LY.
       | 
       | Discovered by calculating the velocity of a rotating run around
       | it.
       | 
       | For comparison, a star going supernova to harm earth has be to
       | within 70 LY.
        
         | dustingetz wrote:
         | how wide is the event horizon and how close can a current gen
         | spaceship get before being gravitationally bound?
        
           | Hobert wrote:
           | About 1600LY...
        
         | derjames wrote:
         | Schwarzschild radius ~28 km
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_BH1
        
           | sabujp wrote:
           | tx this is what i was looking for, also this agrees
           | https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/schwarzschild-radius
        
         | 867-5309 wrote:
         | >For distance comparison, a star going supernova to harm earth
         | has be to within 70 LY.
         | 
         | what is that based on?
        
           | Smashure wrote:
           | I don't know where they got that number from. It's depending
           | on a multitude of factors like, type of supernova and
           | orientation of the supernova (like if we're in line for a
           | gamma ray burst)
           | 
           | *edit
           | 
           | For anyone interested in this topic I suggest Phil Plait's
           | book in the subject
        
         | bilsbie wrote:
         | Any risks of that within 70ly?
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | Not at the moment. IK Pegasi is the closest candidate, at
           | about 2x that distance. Would be a hell of a show, though.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova
        
         | dtgriscom wrote:
         | Does that make the assumption that the nova's energy is
         | distributed evenly? Because I believe there are gamma ray
         | bursts that are quite directional, and can if pointed at us
         | cause harm far further than that. (IANA astronomer...)
        
           | colechristensen wrote:
           | No, a gamma ray burst pointed at us within several thousand
           | light years could cause a mass extinction event. There are a
           | couple of candidates for mass extinctions which _might_ have
           | been GRBs. They are very rare though.
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
        
       | midislack wrote:
       | * Closest KNOWN black hole to Earth. Not the closest one, period.
        
       | JoeAltmaier wrote:
       | Except maybe a tiny one in the middle of the Sun or even the
       | Earth?
        
       | _justinfunk wrote:
       | Closet black hole to earth so far
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Right. Just wait until they turn on the Large Hadron Collider
         | and it starts to create black holes that will swallow the
         | earth! /s
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | spuz wrote:
       | > Astronomers' current models of the evolution of binary systems
       | cannot fully explain how the peculiar configuration of the Gaia
       | BH1 system came about, because the original star that later
       | became this black hole should have been at least 20 times more
       | massive than our Sun. This means that it would have lived only a
       | few million years. If both stars formed at the same time, this
       | massive star would have rapidly become a supergiant, inflating
       | and engulfing the other star before it had time to become a
       | proper main-sequence star, burning hydrogen just like our own
       | Sun.
       | 
       | > It's not entirely clear how the solar-mass star survived that
       | episode, ending up an apparently normal star, as observations
       | indicate. All theoretical models that allow for this survival
       | predict that the solar-mass star should be in a much tighter
       | orbit than is actually observed.
       | 
       | Should this last sentence actually read: "All theoretical models
       | that allow for this survival predict that the solar-mass star
       | should be in a much wider orbit than is actually observed."?
        
         | fmblwntr wrote:
         | No, from the abstract of the paper "The orbital period, 185.6
         | days, is longer than that of any known stellar mass black hole
         | binary. [...] How the system formed is uncertain. Common
         | envelope evolution can only produce the system's wide orbit
         | under extreme and likely unphysical assumptions"
         | 
         | See section 8.4 for details: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.06833
         | But basically the idea is that they are assumed to have
         | interacted in the past (based on the distance), and given that,
         | all current models of such interactions would predict a very
         | tight final orbit for the solar mass star.
        
         | Broken_Hippo wrote:
         | Maybe, but I'll give some slack here. Translations aren't
         | perfect and maybe it read better before translation.
        
           | narag wrote:
           | It's the same in the Spanish version.
        
           | tete wrote:
           | Why? It's just the closest detected one.
        
             | Broken_Hippo wrote:
             | Ok. So?
             | 
             | The issue here is that I don't read spanish. I used a
             | translator - google, actually. And I know painfully well
             | that sometimes translations are clunky even when they are
             | generally good. I don't have a lot of experience between
             | Spanish and English, but I do with Norwegian-English, and
             | those are both germanic languages and often translate
             | decently.
             | 
             | But not always. Some things are just messed up. Some things
             | don't translate word-for-word simply because folks express
             | things differently.
             | 
             | So yeah, it might be weird in English. Might not be in
             | Spanish, though.
        
       | abhaynayar wrote:
       | I guess I was wrong then.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31381169
        
         | Eupraxias wrote:
         | They calculate that it is 1600 light years away. So, unless you
         | were lighting your childhood campfires 1600 years ago, that
         | light still has a little way to go.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | PartiallyTyped wrote:
         | Unless there's proof that the last planet is indeed... well...
         | a planet; we that can't be ruled out just yet :D
        
       | amacbride wrote:
       | English version from the same site:
       | https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2227/?nocache=true
        
       | Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
       | Thanks guys, another worry to add to the list of climate change,
       | potential right-wing insurrection and the health effects of Taco
       | Bell.
        
       | westurner wrote:
       | Micro black hole > Black holes in quantum theories of gravity
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole#Black_holes_i...
       | 
       | Virtual black hole
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_black_hole
       | 
       | Timeline of gravitational physics and relativity
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_gravitational_phys...
       | 
       | - [ ] Superfluid Quantum Gravity
       | 
       | -- [ ] GR + Bernoulli's re: Dark Matter/Energy: Fedi (2017),
       | 
       | "What If (Tiny) Black Holes Are Everywhere?"
       | https://youtu.be/srVKjWn26AQ
       | 
       | > _Just one Planck relic per 30km cube, and that's enough to make
       | up most of the mass in the universe_
       | 
       | Quantum foam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam
        
       | delta_p_delta_x wrote:
       | Actual article: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3140
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-05 23:02 UTC)