Some black holes should have jets too...

[MK Regular]

I did not know that black holes could have jets. Very interesting... would you kindly point me in the direction of any source material you may have? It would make an interesting read.

Edit: Sorry, I was pressed for time when I wrote this (I'm also a bit lazy sometimes). Thank you to turkwinif for pointing me in the correct direction.

 

[turkwinif]

I did not know that black holes could have jets. Very interesting... would you kindly point me in the direction of any source material you may have? It would make an interesting read.

See: Quasars

Basically supermassive black hole(s) at the center of young galaxies that are actively consuming matter. The farther back we look, the more numerous and energetic they are.

 

[space voyager]

Sure could use some more variety of space objects. Wouldn't be very happy to jump into one of these jets. BTW, is that even possible in Elite? I've never jumped into a NS's or WD's jet.

 

[sidereal6]

According to this: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013ApJ...769...16R

61% of stellar-mass black holes should have accretion disks. Now, not all of those would have jets - some would just have glowing (hot) disks. But it'd be a cool effect, right? Gravitational lensing would allow you to see both the top and the bottom of the far side of the disk from certain angles. I'm sure everyone has seen these artist's renderings:

From what I've heard though, the problem is that the Cobra engine doesn't currently support this. Apparently, the lensing effect we currently have in the game is done on the 2-D representation of the background stars and nebulae - and that effect is computationally much simpler to do. Nothing in the system can (currently) be subject to gravitational lensing.

...but, here's hoping they're working on it, or at least working on a hack (like for example, they could have the engine render the near-side of the accretion disc, but dynamically remove the far side - then project the far side onto the 2-D background and allow the existing lensing effect to distort it there)

Sagittarius A* should have jets

Sag A does sometimes become active. In fact, this is how it was originally discovered - as an x-ray source. However, if it were a seriously active black hole with a jet, wouldn't that basically sterilize the entire galaxy? Check this out: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16110-0

Maybe we should be thankful it doesn't have a jet? Don't wake the dragon!

 

[JesusRocks1988]

Just to add to this I'd like to see Neutron Stars with magnetic poles at 90 degrees to their rotation, so to make an actual lighthouse effect with their jets.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Sure could use some more variety of space objects. Wouldn't be very happy to jump into one of these jets. BTW, is that even possible in Elite? I've never jumped into a NS's or WD's jet.

It's possible (at least in 3.0) but rare.
The game tries to avoid it happening, but isn't always successful.

 

[MK Regular]

So, I did a bit of looking and I found a few things:

• On average, we observe a 'bright' x-ray flare from Sag A* once every 5-10 days
• 'Bright' x-ray flares can last up to several hours

I haven't found anything indicating how wide the angle of these emissions are. This here is the main variable I have yet to nail down. A wider angle would mean that x-ray flares are less frequent, combined with their random nature they would not translate very well to a game feature. However a narrower angle would suggest that x-ray flares are more frequent, meaning that they could translate fairly well into a game feature resembling an FSD supercharge.

Currently I'm looking at an x-ray flare having a radius of ~2.5 degrees, meaning that x-ray flares happen 72 times more than what we currently observe (if you assume that the x-ray flares occur along the equator of Sag A*). This would mean that at any given point in time there would likely be at least one active 'bright' x-ray flare being emitted by Sag A*. The 2.5 degree figure is just for gameplay purposes (it is about what we see with white dwarfs and neutron stars).

As for OP's suggestion about traveling to the Magellanic Clouds, I doubt that the vast majority x-ray flares would be properly aligned to make the trip, although there is nothing from stopping the FSD from jumping a few thousand (or a few ten thousand) light years and dumping players deep in uncharted space....

Edit(s): Word choice, clairification

 

[Burke]

I did not know that black holes could have jets. Very interesting... would you kindly point me in the direction of any source material you may have? It would make an interesting read.

https://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/opo1332a/

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

Black Holes are only a theory, and utilized in numerious ways in Quamtum Physics. Which is a study of possibilites based entirely on speculations. Which on occasion has lead to actual real discoveries. Such as the Nuclear Bombs we have to day. As of this date, not one has ever been actually documented, any and all of the proposed locations of any black hole are purely speculative.

It is assumed that black holes suck and nothing that enters can ever leave. Thus how can a black hole have jets of materials coming from it. That would indicate that black holes are not what the theory has suggested since there concept.

 

[sidereal6]

not one has ever been actually documented

What evidence will you accept? Keep in mind that according to the theory, you can't see them with the naked eye. So "a picture of one" isn't a valid answer.

There is a valid answer to this question. There is evidence that you should accept. But before I simply tell you what it is, please put some thought into the question on your own, because it's important.

It is assumed that black holes suck

No, that's not correct. They don't suck matter in. Matter that crosses the event horizon cannot leave (although mass can be "stolen" from a black hole one subatomic particle at a time), but that's not the same thing as "sucking."

Thus how can a black hole have jets of materials coming from it.

There is no jet coming from the black hole. There is, however, a jet coming from the accretion disk (if such a disk exists, and if it's large enough). Material in the disk is traveling at different speeds, with material very near the event horizon traveling very fast. This difference in speed heats the gas in the disk. It begins to radiate in higher and higher frequencies. This radiation only has two directions it can go - up and down. Thus, there can be two jets emanating from a black hole - but they aren't coming from below the event horizon.

I have to ask (and I suspect I'll get no answer to this) - did you just assume that scientists are idiots? Did you assume that scientists made obviously contradictory claims like (a) nothing can escape a black hole and (b) jets of matter escape from a black hole - did you assume scientists made contradictory claims and nobody has ever called them out on it?? That's a very strange assumption. If such a contradiction did exist, and was so obvious that you could spot it, you should assume that lots of people would be pointing it out.

 

[Burke]

Spoiler

"The observations show that the river of plasma, travelling at nearly the speed of light, may follow the spiral structure of the black hole's magnetic field, which astronomers think is coiled like a helix. The magnetic field is believed to arise from a spinning accretion disc of material around a black hole. Although the magnetic field cannot be seen, its presence is inferred by the confinement of the jet along a narrow cone emanating from the black hole."

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1332a/

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1332b/

 

[Burke]

So if i understand it right the magnetic field is so extreme that its taking matter from the accretion disk and expelling it.

 

[MK Regular]

"The observations show that the river of plasma, travelling at nearly the speed of light, may follow the spiral structure of the black hole's magnetic field, which astronomers think is coiled like a helix. The magnetic field is believed to arise from a spinning accretion disc of material around a black hole. Although the magnetic field cannot be seen, its presence is inferred by the confinement of the jet along a narrow cone emanating from the black hole."

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1332a/

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1332b/

Welp, it looks like my assumption that the flares were emanating radially outward from the equator was wrong. If anything, a 'Black Hole FSD Supercharge' will probably only function like a Neutron Star boost, just on a larger scale. Bit of a shame really, I was getting into the the idea of getting dumped out of Witchspace in some random system

 

[Burke]

well, i was thinking and i apologise if this is the wrong place but...

In the begining of the universe there was nothing but hydrogren and sinse hydrogen cant fuse on its own there was no stars and so no light. This went on for a very long time, possibly like a billion years. Now they say the universe is expanding but for the first billion years there was no light, so wouldnt that mean that if you could view the universe from the outside it would look like a sphere of darkness. Whats that remind you of?

I asked google if the universe was a black hole...

https://www.insidescience.org/news/every-black-hole-contains-new-universe

What i said might be nonsense but im very proud that i thought it up myself.

 

[Jimmox72]

@Burke and @dc83

Good thinking, folks!

You might enjoy Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, where he mentions a similar theory in one of the episodes. Go check the series out!

o7

 

[sidereal6]

In the begining of the universe there was nothing but hydrogren

The big bang created subatomic particles of matter and antimatter in very nearly equal amounts. In fact, it's a bit of a mystery why it wasn't exactly equal matter and antimatter, but it's fortunate because if that were the case, it would have all annihilated itself.

What coalesces out of this soup of particles is mostly hydrogen (75%), some helium, and trace amounts of lithium. (source).

hydrogen cant fuse on its own there was no stars and so no light.

I think I know what you're referring to. I've heard that there is something of a mystery about how the first stars formed, because a star cannot be made of hydrogen alone. Something heavier is required to be in the core.

This went on for a very long time, possibly like a billion years.

I'm googling it and the number I'm getting is between 100 million and 250 million years. (source)

if you could view the universe from the outside it would look like a sphere of darkness.

The big bang created space too. I know that sounds strange, but there's no "outside" of the universe within the 3D space that we inhabit. Maybe there's a multiverse, but that's not exactly the same thing.

Here's an analogy: imagine the universe is only 2D. Think of a white board. You're a guy living on the surface of a white board. You can't see "out" of the whiteboard because the only directions that make sense to you are X and Y. There's no Z in your universe and though you can understand it mathematically (just like we can understand a 4th dimension mathematically) you can't interact with it.

So now, the 2D version of you that lives on this whiteboard is asking, "if I could go past the edge of the whiteboard, then I'd be outside it" - you're imagining going in either the X or the Y direction and you're imagining finding an edge and going past that, then looking back at the whiteboard. You are not imagining going in a Z direction, because your brain doesn't work that way.

But here's the deal, your whiteboard universe is actually curved through that Z dimension. You can't detect it, but it is. Your 2D universe is on the surface of a 3D sphere. As a result, your 2D universe is finite, but unbounded. There is no edge that you can reach by going in the directions you're able to go: X or Y. The "2D big bang" that created your 2D universe created both the matter in your universe and the surface of that 3D sphere. The "2D big bang" was not something that happened on an existing infinite whiteboard. It created the whiteboard.

Our 3D universe is similar. It is finite, but it's unbounded. You can't go outside it and look back, at least not without a 4th dimension, which you cannot access. The big bang didn't happen in the universe, it created the universe.

 

[Burke]

I got my billion years by asking google "how long was the universe dark"

In the beginning there was hydrogen, as you say you need another partical for fusion. I forget what, possibly helium. Anyway this dark hydrogen soup sloshed about, gravity started to squeeze but the other ingredient was missing. The hydrogen particals wizzed about and smashed against each other but very very rarely either split or fused to create the new ingredient (this is from memory) millions of years go by until there was enough of thie new element (10%) to allow the first starts to be born. Those first stars burned their simple fuel mix and in doing so created new elements. The stars went thru the sequence, exploded and scattered all these new elements. Gravity.... time.. the elements comeback together and created new stars of differnt colours and types.

Outside the universe was very hypothetical. I have had this outside the universe argument before but you needed to be outside to see the black sphere.

Edit: yeah pretty much what your artical says.