4 ms·
For those too lazy to read: the quasar is a supermassive blackhole growing at the rate of 1 Sun per day and with an accretion disk 7 light-years in diameter. M
by brabel 3y ago
For those too lazy to read: the quasar is a supermassive blackhole growing at the rate of 1 Sun per day and with an accretion disk 7 light-years in diameter.
My question is: where does it find a Sun every day to eat??
- simonebrunozzi 3y agohmm, antimatter? dark matter?
- tromp 3y agoIt must be in a region of space where the density of stars is orders of magnitude higher than in our part of the Milky Way, where you only find a handful of stars within 7 light years. Thanks to attracting far away stars for billions of years I guess?!
- asicsp 3y agoSpace is mostly empty, but probably adds up to be a Sun's equivalent of material across 7 light-years...
- misja111 3y agoTo put things into perspective: the distance from us to the nearest star is 4.3 lightyears. With a 7-years wide accretion disk, I guess it will catch a lot of stars. Also we see it 12 billion years in the past. The universe was a lot more dense at that time so it could catch even more.
- The_Colonel 3y agoSupermassive blackholes reside in the center of galaxies which have higher density of matter / stars. Quasars are very distant and thus very old images of those galaxies from the time they were "cleaning" the area from surrounding matter. Milky way center was likely a quasar a long time ago as well, but it already passed this "cleaning" phase and there isn't much floating matter in the center anymore.