Monster Black Holes

Caty Pilachowski IU Astronomy Mini-University 2014

A black hole is…. …an object whose gravity is so intense that light cannot escape

How Big Are Black Holes? A black hole’s size depends on its mass…. 100 billion times smaller than a proton

About 1 centimeter

About 3 kilometers

Strong Gravity! • Strength of gravity changes rapidly with distance • The closer you are, the stronger the gravity

Small black holes have strong “tides”

Spaghettification!

Black Hole Safety! At larger distances, a black hole’s gravity is exactly the same as if it were “normal” matter

Safe limit: hundreds or thousands of times the black hole’s diameter

Black holes are not intuitive!

from xkcd (www.xkcd.com)

Earth and Moon? What would happen to the Moon if the Earth were suddenly to collapse into a Black Hole?

A. Nothing – it would continue to orbit the Earth B. The Moon would spiral into the Earth C. The Moon would fly off into space

C

A

B

And the answer is….

A! The Moon would continue to orbit the Earth just as before…

a

Escape Velocity

A cannonball fired with enough velocity will orbit the Earth With a high enough velocity, it will escape Earth entirely

Gravity ~

Mass Distance x Distance Isaac Newton, 1728 A Treatise of the System of the World

Dark Stars John Michell, 18th century British scientist, Fellow of the Royal Society

• What happens if a star’s gravity is so strong that its escape velocity is faster than the speed of light? • From the speed of light, Michell calculated that light could not escape from a star 500 x the Sun’s radius and the same density (125,000,000 solar masses!) • The star would be dark!

In the 1930s – Chandrasekhar, Oppenheimer, Snyder predict that massive stars can collapse into something denser – a black hole

J.A. Wheeler popularized the term “black hole”

Black Holes!

Cygnus X-1: The FIRST Black Hole Discovered in 1972 A blue supergiant star orbits an invisible companion Bright in x-rays HDE 226868, near Eta Cygni in Cygnus

Evidence for Black Holes Effect of gravity on nearby objects – Mass! Accretion disks Accretion disks emit x-rays as matter falls in But it’s hard to tell the difference between a black hole and a neutron star

About 20 candidates known in the Milky Way Masses 4-12 times the mass of the Sun A few thousand light years away The galaxy contains many more yet to be discovered

1974 – A strong radio source was discovered in a radiowavelength survey of the Galactic Center region

Sgr A* in X-rays

Strong X-ray emission from Sgr A* X-ray flares!

Sgr A* is not visible in visible or infrared light

But many stars surround Sgr A*

Even though Sgr A* is 26,000 light years away, we can see stars orbiting around it

Stars Orbit Sgr A*

Stars Orbit Sgr A* The orbits of stars around Sgr A* tell us the mass of the central object The mass of Sgr A* is 4,000,000 times the mass of the Sun

Other galaxies have black holes, too!

The giant elliptical galaxy M87 contains a massive black hole 3.5 BILLION solar masses!

All large galaxies contain central black holes Hubble has examined many large galaxies and found supermassive black holes at their centers

How do Monster black holes form?

Does the galaxy make the black hole?

-orDoes the black hole make the galaxy?

Dense clump of primordial gas becomes a black hole

The black hole’s gravity attracts more gas into a disk

The gas forms stars to make a galaxy

Black Hole First

Galaxies First: A single massive star forms The star collapses to form a few hundred solar mass black hole

The black hole eats gas, stars, and other black holes to grow

I

Galaxies First: A cluster of massive stars forms in a baby galaxy The cluster collapses under gravity to form a massive black hole

The black hole grows

II

Black Holes Grow with Galaxies Black holes accrete gas Black holes eat stars When galaxies merge, their central black holes also merge NGC 5033 hosts TWO supermassive black holes! The black holes will eventually merge into one

Merging Black Holes Black holes in the center of galaxies will eventually merge together

Black Hole Eats a Star • A star in the galaxy RX J1242-11 came too close to its black hole • The star was tidally shredded • Strong x-ray flare

Artist’s Conception

BH Mass ~ 100 million suns

Accreting Gas

The Doomed Cloud Small gas cloud discovered in 2011 Moving almost directly toward Sgr A* black hole (yellow ) Velocity ~ several million km/hour! About 3 Earth-masses of gas (but is a star inside?)

The Cloud in 2013 Closest approach to Sgr A* in early 2014, about 2200 x the black hole’s radius As the cloud approaches Sgr A*, gravity “spagettifies” the cloud

2014 Observations The leading edge of the cloud has whipped around Sgr A* at 10,000,000 km/hour! Computer Simulation

We’re still not sure what it is… – An isolated cloud – A “wind bubble” around a star

The Cloud’s Future… Current observations suggest the cloud contains a star… Computer Simulation

Black Holes Affect Galaxy Evolution Only a fraction of accreted material ends up in the black hole – most is shot back out in a jet!

High energy jets from feeding black holes may regulate star formation, gas accretion, and galaxy growth!

Courtesy A. Feild / STScI / NASA