Is There a Black Hole in Our Solar System?

In summary: I've seen it theorized somewhere that our own sun is supposedly orbiting a BH 1/10 its' size. I think that must be utter nonsense, but maybe I'm missing something crucial that would make it possible?There is no credible evidence that suggests our sun orbits a black hole.
  • #1
wolram
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there is so much in the literature about BHs, but AFAIK only observations
of some gravitational disturbance has been observed, how can we ascribe
this to some thing that is purely hypothetical?
 
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  • #2
I am sure this topic has been talked about almost to exhaustion so will
only cite these 2 cited papers.

http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/aa/pdf/2002/48/aaeg151.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0109/0109035.pdf
 
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  • #3
wolram said:
there is so much in the literature about BHs, but AFAIK only observations
of some gravitational disturbance has been observed, how can we ascribe
this to some thing that is purely hypothetical?
That's a contradiction. If its based on observations, then it isn't purely hypothetical.
 
  • #4
The black hole situation is tricky, but here's the basic gist: we've observed gravitational influences that cannot be explained by the mainstream theories in any way other than to invoke a black hole. In other words, we're assuming they're black holes because of the theory. For them to be something else would probably require new physics.

I would certainly say that this is not a bad first guess as to their identity, but I think we should be careful about making assumptions. After all, we assumed that the universe would be decelerating before we observed it to be behaving otherwise.
 
  • #5
Sorry Russ_watters, i will choose my words better next time, hopefully.
 
  • #6
Space Tiger
I would certainly say that this is not a bad first guess as to their identity, but I think we should be careful about making assumptions. After all, we assumed that the universe would be decelerating before we observed it to be behaving otherwise.

I could not agree more, but it has been mentioned in the literature, that
new science may be needed to explain other astro anomalies.
 
  • #7
purely hypothetical would be a collision of two "distortions of gravity" aka black holes...I'd like to hear theories on that.
 
  • #8
actually we have seen what we believe to be black holes. We have pictures or the acretion (spelling) disks and the jets that are around the black hole. Of course, we could be wrong about what's inside but whatever it is would need a massive amount of gravity. Also, I am pretty sure I read somewhere that we can detect X-rays coming from the event horizon. These are made by anti-matter and matter colliding at the event horrizon.
 
  • #9
x8jason8x said:
purely hypothetical would be a collision of two "distortions of gravity" aka black holes...I'd like to hear theories on that.

Such collisions are expected to produce large amounts of gravitational radiation. In fact, the LIGO project is attempting to detect these events.
 
  • #10
michael879 said:
actually we have seen what we believe to be black holes. We have pictures or the acretion (spelling) disks and the jets that are around the black hole.

We of course have images of jets (they can extend to megaparsecs in size), but I've not heard of imaging of accretion disks. Do you have a reference?
 
  • #11
if this [http://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/GC/index.php ] doesn't convince you that black holes are real- then nothing will- seeing is believing
 
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  • #12
SetAI

That is rather convincing, is anything known about the bodies orbiting
this central mass?
 
  • #13
I've seen it theorized somewhere that our own sun is supposedly orbiting a BH 1/10 its' size. I think that must be utter nonsense, but maybe I'm missing something crucial that would make it possible?
 
  • #15
x8jason8x said:
I've seen it theorized somewhere that our own sun is supposedly orbiting a BH 1/10 its' size. I think that must be utter nonsense, but maybe I'm missing something crucial that would make it possible?

The sun orbits the center of the galaxy which is believed to contain a supermassive BH, but there's not a BH included in our local solar system.
 

Related to Is There a Black Hole in Our Solar System?

1. What exactly is a black hole?

A black hole is a region in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. It is formed when a massive star dies and collapses in on itself, creating a singularity.

2. How do we know black holes exist if we can't see them?

While we cannot directly see black holes, we can observe their effects on surrounding matter. For example, we can detect the gravitational pull of a black hole on nearby stars and gas, as well as observe the distortion of light as it passes near a black hole.

3. Are there different types of black holes?

Yes, there are three main types of black holes: stellar black holes, intermediate black holes, and supermassive black holes. These differ in size and mass, with stellar black holes being the smallest and supermassive black holes being the largest.

4. Can anything escape from a black hole?

No, once something crosses the event horizon (the point of no return) of a black hole, it cannot escape. This is due to the extremely strong gravitational pull of the singularity at the center of the black hole.

5. Could a black hole destroy the entire universe?

No, while black holes are incredibly powerful, they are not capable of destroying the entire universe. They can only affect objects within their immediate vicinity and do not have the ability to expand and consume everything in the universe.

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