10 ms·
Yes and no. I mean, how would you study a black hole of radius ~5cm without getting really close? Consider that: 1. Time dilation dictates that it would take a
by codethief 6y ago
Yes and no. I mean, how would you study a black hole of radius ~5cm without getting really close? Consider that:
1. Time dilation dictates that it would take ages for any instrument to get near the black hole, conduct measurements and send its results back to Earth.
2. Time dilation also means you would never see anything fall into the black hole. So studying the inside of the black hole is out of question, too. But arguably this is what would be required to make any breakthroughs in our understanding of black holes.
3. Tidal forces near the event horizon of such a tiny black hole would have catastrophic consequences[1] for anything (human or object) that gets too close to it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification
- 7373737373 6y agoWouldn't this mean that these tidal forces may (have) cause(d) highly accelerated matter to shoot through our solar system?
- codethief 6y agoI assume you're referring to astrophysical jets[1] that are common with SMBHs. I'm afraid, though, I'm not familiar enough with jet physics to answer your question. A priori, the tidal forces only cause infalling matter to get shredded (and heated up). Whether a proper accretion disk together with a (significant) jet can form, given the size of the black hole, I don't know. On a related note: It'd be interesting to see in how far such a small BH would actually be capable of "sweeping [its] local neighbourhood clear of objects" like planets are (as was claimed in some comment above). Only then would I expect a significant accretion disk and, possibly, a jet. The reason the answer to this question is not obvious (at least to me) is once again the tiny size of the BH: How would anything manage to fall into the black hole, given that it's so tiny and, thus, very easy to miss? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysical_jet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysical_jet