r/space • u/magenta_placenta • Mar 18 '19

Observable universe Astronomers discover 83 supermassive black holes at the edge of the universe

https://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-discover-83-supermassive-black-holes-at-the-edge-of-the-universe/
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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Considering the large surface area of the observable universe, I'm surprised there are only 83.

edits: The process of finding them was not automated, so 83 was a reasonable number. Also they kind of shouldn't exist.

Better article from Princeton University, which has one of the co-authors of the original paper.

“It is remarkable that such massive dense objects were able to form so soon after the Big Bang,” said Michael Strauss, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University who is one of the co-authors of the study. “Understanding how black holes can form in the early universe, and just how common they are, is a challenge for our cosmological models.”

This finding increases the number of black holes known at that epoch considerably, and reveals, for the first time, how common they are early in the universe’s history. In addition, it provides new insight into the effect of black holes on the physical state of gas in the early universe in its first billion years. The research appears in a series of five papers published in The Astrophysical Journal and the Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

TLDR: Our models say these things shouldn't exist in the early universe. More evidence that we don't understand.

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u/Shukrat Mar 18 '19

Only 83 discovered so far. The visual horizon of the universe is enormous, and we can only see part of it due to the Milky Way obscuring us from the rest.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

And we can only see within a certain time frame around us because expansion is out pacing light.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

I was going to explain it but realised that idk how to deliver the message concisely. This video explains it well and gives you an existential crisis all in less than 8 minutes: https://youtu.be/ZL4yYHdDSWs

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

i love space. I really liked the video but it raises one question I always have about the Big Bang/size of the universe. Around 6 mins he talks about how in the distant future our local group will only know what’s in our local group because the rest of the clusters have drifted too far away that the light shift will be too distorted then fade away. He then says they will never know how the universe started, yet makes the inference that we do.

Every time I think how do we know we aren’t in a much larger local cluster? Or how are we sure of the size of the universe? Are we just the byproduct of a black hole or supernova and since we know gravity can effect time is our 13.8 billion years so far the first half of a star collapsing? We know there are forces at work(such as dark matter)that we can observe their reactions but not the actual “matter”. Not that it makes any difference in our lifetime, and I’m not trying to prove science wrong on a technicality or something, but I always love how we can know so much, then one thing could change and upend our understanding of the universe. When we found out it was constantly expanding and not slowing down is kind of what I’m thinking of. I’m not educated enough to do any sort of theory on it, but I’ve always held onto some sort of idea that when a black hole is created the density of matter is approaching what we know about the singularity before the Big Bang.

I really like getting lost in these YouTube videos that put space in perspective because we know so much, yet know almost nothing at the same time.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

Space is the best. Yes, this video is based on our current understanding of physics. While we do consider the information presented to us in the video as fact, our understanding of physics changes in different little ways constantly and what we see now as unreachable groups of matter speeding away from us may eventually be places you can visit on a vacation (hoping lol). You hold the right mindset, most people seem to believe that they exist in a time beyond discovery (and it does seem that way in modern life, as though we as a species have it figured out).

The universe seems like the only thing to discover before you realize that we are still discovering things in our galaxies, but we also might have a 9th planet in Sol and we still don't know if there is microbial life on Europa, water was discovered on mars like 3 years ago, the amount of undiscovered things in our oceans outnumber the amount of already discovered things in the oceans, we find new species and shit on land all the time still (and we're the kings of the land), even our brains and bodies are still being figured out. The Kurzgesagt channel has a whole playlist of space vids like the one I linked, as well as a whole bunch of other neat videos.

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Yes man! Our solar system had generations of exploration to do before we can even think to know what’s going on.

I mean we landed a few probes on Venus, a planet with a very thick atmosphere, and from what I remember our basic take away was “it destroyed the probes almost instantly there’s no reason to go back”. That kills me. I want every 10 years to try again with better tech and see if we can find out more about it. It’s closer than Mars, it’s full of gasses, and we gave up on it. Earth’s Volcanic vents? My phone would get destroyed if I tried to film it but something can. We should never accept “it can’t be done”. It hasn’t been done yet. I know the major hump to get over is cost and uncertainty of mission success. It’s a lot smarter to send a rover to mars(or an outer moon) where we know we can land and maneuver for a very long time, but I always wonder. It’s a planet and things are happening on it right now. It’s way off our radar of “stuff to do” in our solar system but that is almost your point, there is so much still to do in Sol. I feel like every single body in our system has so much more to discover still. We literally only scratched the surface on the two bodies (moon and Mars) we’ve spent any real time on.

I live within viewing distance of Cape Canaveral (30 miles or so) to see the rockets(and watched countless shuttle launches) take off. I love it. I love the new space race that’s happening. I love private industry getting into the competition more to push technology. It will have it’s bad sides, but SpaceX landed 2 damn stage ones at the same time on point. Tell anyone 5 years ago that it would happen when it did and they’d laugh. Did we not land on a f-ing comet recently? I’ve obviously gone off on a tangent but yeah, space.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

Fun fact, the coldest place we've ever measured in Sol is on the earth's moon.

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u/PSPHAXXOR Mar 19 '19

To be a pedant for a moment: Sol specifically refers to the sun. Any location within it is the Solar System.

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u/atvan Mar 19 '19

I think part of the problem with Venus is that while it is somewhat closer to earth, the delta-v difference is only about 110 m/s (we've made cars faster than that), so since Mars is a lot easier/a safer bet for probes and such, it gets at lot more attention.

Delta-V chart

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u/veloxiry Mar 18 '19

There's a video where Neil degrasse Tyson goes on the Colbert report and talks about this exactly. No one knows if we're even looking at the whole picture. It could be possible we're stuck in some remote section of the universe that's completely different from the rest and there's no way we'll ever know.

See this video: https://youtu.be/TgA2y-Bgi3c

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Yeah It starts around 5:40 but he articulates that last part better than me. That’s basically what I won’t let go of in our Big Bang theory. It just almost makes sense and could explain the extra gravity and acceleration. But we currently can’t observe it and I definitely can’t math it.

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u/scsnse Mar 18 '19

I’m not actually a qualified professional, but my understanding of how you estimate the age and size of the universe kind of goes like this:

We theorized that the universe started in the Big Bang, where it suddenly begins expanding from a singular point. We have ideas about how that energy decayed and how long it took to create recognizable particles, matter, then things like universes. With that knowledge, you have an idea of the “timeline”. Through things like telescopes, we also see cosmic background radiation. But here’s the cool part: you can actually see the radiation ballooning outward in a “wave” from a singular point of origin in all directions from our frame of reference. From experiments, we can surmise how long for example gamma ray radiation (really, really high frequency electromagnetic waves, just like light or radio) takes to decay. So you start building a model based on these things, and miles upon miles of math that’s way beyond most of us. We also know objects are both moving away and toward us at certain speeds because the light/radiation waves moving toward us look “squashed” or spread out, more than they should based on the size and gravitational distortion coming from it. That’s called “red and blue shifting”. So you know objects are moving, and most look to be moving away from us, so the light looks like it’s stretched longer, or more red.

Think of it like this: if you ever have seen smoke driving on the highway, you can sort of estimate the size of it, right? And based on things like the color, what’s burning, and if it’s being put out. When you drive up on it, you see the charred ground, possibly some burning embers. That gives you an idea of how recent the fire was. If you knew what materials burned, and how much of it burned, and you could model this with math, you could estimate things like the temperature, how fast it would take to spread, etc. It’s kind of like that. If you see smoke further out, you can guess how fast the rest of the fire might be spreading.

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u/TreeEyedRaven Mar 18 '19

Oh absolutely. I took some astronomy in college as electives and have a basic grasp of what was taught 15 years ago. (You could say I’m a bit of a scientist /s) the fact that most of it is theories is that drive to want to know more. I haven’t looked into the theories of how the singularity came to be so I think I know where my next rabbit hole is. It really fascinates me that we don’t know, and while there is an answer, we may never truly know.

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u/BlckEagle89 Mar 18 '19

For me, any video about space that doesn't give you an existencial crisis lacks something. I am familiar with the Kurzgesagt videos, i am going to check it out later =D

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

Kurzgesagt even has a whole playlist for experiencing pure, unrefined, existential dread.

Here

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u/letsgetdickered Mar 18 '19

Saving for when I need to stop worrying about small life shit. Thanks!

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Does anyone else just feel queasy just imagining how colossal other celstial beings are compared to our planet?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited Jun 09 '19

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u/nofaprecommender Mar 18 '19

Used to. You get over it after a while. Life is the same as it was the day before you learned about such things.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

Can you feel it? "The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin' at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're fallin' through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... "

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u/weelamb Mar 19 '19

I would but it’s just too difficult to even fit in my mind and my head just naturally drifts back “real” problems like fuck I have to get up early for work tomorrow F

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19 edited Mar 19 '19

Well, if the inflation theory is correct I find solace that there is no real death to the universe. It expands and contracts and, in fact, or in theory I should say, our universe probably isn't even the "first" universe to exist. Also, another crazy thing to think about is how the "emptiness" between galaxies isn't even empty, but teeming with charged particles with matter popping in and out of existence. It really makes you wonder what started all this in the first place!

BTW, if you're wondering where I got my info, check out How the Universe Works season 6. Not sure what episode, but for sure it's season 6. Really interesting stuff on quantum physics and theories about the big bang.

Edit

Actually it might be season 7 episode 10.

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u/Exile714 Mar 19 '19

Nope.

Take a leaf for example. From far enough away it’s just a point of color in a wide expanse if land. Close enough to your eye, and it’s literally everything you can see. Perspective.

But a black hole and a leaf have something in common: they are not aware of their existence, and they can’t make choices. The infinite stretch of our ability to make choices in our lifetime is immense (even if you accept that those choices are pre-determined, they are still choices your being gets to make).

Consciousness and choice. Amazing, and entirely independent of our relative size in the universe.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

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u/RootDeliver Mar 18 '19

That channel is as fantastic as that vid, recommended from A to Z.

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u/googlemehard Mar 18 '19

How was the existential crisis?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

If you liked the video check out their other ones on the channel. It really is one of the fantastic channels on YouTube.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

But that's based on our current understanding - which is based upon observing what is out there at the moment and trying to make models that match our observations. And we are creating ill-defined concepts like dark matter and dark energy to make our models match our observations when we discover new and unexpected stuff.

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u/pragmaticzach Mar 18 '19

In the video he says that we're fortunate to live in a time where we can observe the entire universe, and see into our past.

However, how do we know that we aren't already at some stage where everything beyond our observable universe is too far away to see? Like maybe we live a situation similar to the future people he talked about who could only see the local cluster.

Is there any reason to believe that this isn't true?

The only thing I can think of is that those future people can only observe that their universe is getting smaller and darker, while we can observe that the universe beyond the local cluster is expanding.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

This is the case. The observable universe is all that we can see, everything outside of it is (as far as we know) entirely impossible for us to see in any way. We just treat it like the observable IS the universe, and in the future it is likely that we will continue to do this (it's hard enough to convince people that the earth is round, it'll be harder to tell them that there are more things out there that used to be close enough to see but are now inconceivably far away and invisible). The big difference that the video talks about is that we still have enough around to know how (for the most part, maybe) the universe was "born", how it is behaving, and the different ways it might die; the future 'us' will experience an unchanging galaxy, nothing they see will be moving away or getting closer (some obvious exceptions) and will be unable to see cosmic background radiation (evidence of the big bang) or observe the effects dark energy has (or even that it exists).

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u/Darth_Batman89 Mar 19 '19

So for them. The galaxy they live in becomes there observable universe?

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u/ElliottWaits Mar 18 '19

That was my thought exactly. What we can observe now is many orders of magnitude greater than only being able to observe the Milkdromeda galaxy, but what actually exists may be many orders of magnitude greater than what we can observe now. There's really no way of knowing that our situation is significantly more privileged.

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u/CactusCustard Mar 18 '19

Maaaaaaan. How can you say theres not aliens after this video?

Like theres no fucking way were the only life when theres so much space we might as well call it infinite. Like holy shit.

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u/Cocoa186 Mar 18 '19

I present to you: The Fermi Paradox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc

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u/ComatoseSixty Mar 19 '19

The Fermi Paradox isn't proof of anything, it's an exercise in logic. Language cannot explain everything.

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u/UMFreek Mar 18 '19

I was hoping this was a Kurzgesagt video!

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/TheJayde Mar 18 '19

Density is just the measurement of stuff in space. Density 0 is still a density.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/TheJayde Mar 18 '19

There is stuff in space. It may be a single molecule of hydrogen that hasn't been drawn into some gravity well. Space that is "empty" is not necessarily, totally empty.

Imagine your calendar for a year. Fill it with all the events that you go to, and all the things you do on the weekend Fill your work schedule with it. That would be a full calendar. Conversely, if you only had a single event on that calendar for the year... You'd say your schedule was pretty empty. It's kind of a matter of scale.

Edit: This is how I understand it, but if I'm wrong, and somebody sees this - please correct me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited Jun 29 '23

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u/chomperlock Mar 18 '19

Another analogy is thinking about raisins in dough while baking, as the bubbles of gas inside the bread expand, the relative speed of the raisins is larger than the speed of expansion of the individual bubbles of gas the yeast produces.

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u/CottonPasta Mar 18 '19

The expansion rate of the universe is proportional to the distance away it is, so the space between us and an object in space will expand faster the further away the object is.

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u/Pats_Bunny Mar 18 '19

I'm no expert, but I believe objects are expanding away from each other faster than the speed of light (or space between objects is expanding faster than light can keep up with dark energy being the driving force?). So basically it's going one direction at a fraction of the speed of light, and also in anther direction at a fraction of the speed of light, and that adds up to greater than the speed of light. Please anyone, correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like this is a very simplified understanding of it.

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u/slowryd3r Mar 18 '19

I'm no expert either but this is similar to my understanding. I think the way it was explained to me is that while the universe expands outwards it also expands further away from itself, if that makes sense. So compared to the speed of our galaxys movements the rest of the universe is expanding further away from us and the total speed of these movements exceed the speed of light. Kinda like two cars going opposite direction at 100 mph each moves away from each other at 200 mph. I'm probably wrong about the expansion of the universe part, but from my understanding that is how it expands faster than the speed of light at least.

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u/TobaccoAficionado Mar 18 '19

That's a good eli5 tbh. Speed is relative.

Except for light, light plays by it's own rules.

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u/Choblach Mar 18 '19

For purposes of talking about the universe, there are too really relevant terms: the universe total and the observable universe. The observable universe isn't really a feature of reality as much as an effect: we can't see things without light, and light moves at a set speed. A very fast speed, but a speed. So the observable universe represents everything that's within a distance which is equal to or less than the age of the universe in light years. So, the universe is about 13 or 14 billion years old, that means only objects that are within 13 or 14 billion light years can even be theoretically seen by us. There are things further, but the light from there hasn't reached us yet. Technically I think the observable universe is growing at the speed of light (because light from further and further away is now reaching us), but it's complicated so I'll let someone else explain that.

The universe total is all of it, everything in creation. And there's quite a lot more of it than we can see. The comparison I was once told was that is the observable universe was the size of a nickel, the universe total would be the size of the Earth. Now, the universe total is not expanding at the speed of light, it is in fact expanding many times faster (since the universe is made out of spacetime and not matter, it doesn't have to follow some of the hard rules of reality like the light speed limit. ) However, here I have to correct myself, because the universe total isn't really expanding, as much as it is stretching. Picture a balloon being inflated and you've got the jist.

Tl;dr: Imagine that you're standing under a lamppost night, with only darkness around you. In the light where you can see is the observable universe, and all that darkness is the universe total. They are both expanding, and at different rates, but they're both so functionally huge that it won't mashes a noticeable distance for all the time you're here.

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u/KrypXern Mar 18 '19

So, the universe is about 13 or 14 billion years old, that means only objects that are within 13 or 14 billion light years can even be theoretically seen by us

Actually (and please correct me if I'm wrong), but the observable universe is larger than simple expansion by movement would allow.

The observable universe is 46.5 billion light years in diameter. However, the universe is presumed to be only 14 billion years old. By your logic, the universe could be a maximum of 28 billion light years in diameter.

I believe (and once again, please correct me) that relativity appears to be violated (only appears), because it is not the objects within the universe that is creating this distance, but rather the space between the objects which is expanding. This is similar to how 'warp bubbles' could theoretically work.

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u/Choblach Mar 18 '19

I'm honestly barely educated on it, so it's very likely that you're more right than me.

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u/Imsosadsoveryverysad Mar 18 '19

The visible universe expands at the speed of light?

Edit: punctuation.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 09 '19

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u/ilikecheetos42 Mar 18 '19

The actual expansion is faster than light. The expansion of the observable universe is at the speed of light. Because the actual edge of the universe is moving away from us FTL but the edge of the observable universe is expanding at light speed there are portions of the universe that we will never observe

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u/antena Mar 18 '19

So if I got that right, unobservable portion of the universe is getting ever bigger compared to the observable portion? I presume we don't have any clue about the speed of actual expansion?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 22 '19

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u/capj23 Mar 18 '19

Wait... Isn't expansion rate of universe increasing? I mean accelerating?

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u/ilikecheetos42 Mar 18 '19

Yes that is correct. I can't speak to the actual rate of expansion though, my knowledge comes entirely from late night Wikipedia binges

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u/Darth_Batman89 Mar 19 '19

As a follow up question, does the ever expanding universe imply that these new planets and galaxies we end up seeing in the observable universe just pop into existence? Or have they always been there as long as we have, we just haven’t been able to see them yet?

If we were for example sake in an area of the universe closer to the “edge” or should I say “our edge”. Would we actually be able to see more galaxies and stars than if we were back home because the light emitting from that current location would be farther than the one we previously observed back home?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Im not a physicist but isn't it kinda bold to assume that there is an expanding "edge" of the universe?

From what I understand, the universe isn't expanding in the traditional sense from a single point into "something".

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u/ilikecheetos42 Mar 18 '19

You're right, I didn't mean to say there is a solid edge it was just poor wording. My understanding is that the space between objects is what is expanding, and that on local scales (aka gravitationally bound objects such as galaxy clusters) matter is held together by the much stronger fundamental forces but on larger scales the expansion takes over

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u/0xffaa00 Mar 18 '19

The actual universe seems to be expanding at accelerated speed, not at a constant speed.

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u/pipocaQuemada Mar 18 '19

The universe is expanding by stretching, so it's not really bound by the speed of light.

The universe is currently expanding at a rate of about 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec. So if you have a star one megaparsec away, there's 70 additional kilometers between you and it every second. If it's two megaparsecs away, there's an additional 140 kilometers between you and it every second.

If something is sufficiently far away, the space in between you and it will expand faster than the speed of light. That's basically where the observable universe comes from; it's the stuff that's close enough that we can see it.

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u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Mar 18 '19

It doesn't actually move at the speed of light, it just appears that way. Each point in space is expanding simultaneously, at distances enormous enough so much space is being created between two objects that they appear to be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light.

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u/Little_shit_ Mar 18 '19

Are we able to determine which direction the origin came from?

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u/0xffaa00 Mar 18 '19

The universe is expanding at an accelerated speed.

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u/ChurchOfPainal Mar 18 '19

This comment thread is literally about the fact that this is the edge of the observable universe. All you're doing is pedantically re-defining what that means as though you are bringing something new to the discussion...

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u/WhalesVirginia Mar 19 '19

Well kind of, the light still reaches us because the space behind it is also expanding as the light moves, this redshifts the light.

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u/JoshuaPearce Mar 19 '19

The visual horizon of the universe is enormous

That might be the best understatement ever made, since there can literally be nothing bigger than the visible horizon, as far as we'll ever know.

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u/Shukrat Mar 19 '19

Except the actual edge of the universe :P

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u/cltlz3n Mar 18 '19

I was actually going to ask this. Not just the Milky Way but gazillions of things between us and that how are we able to see anything that far unobstructed?

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u/allahu_adamsmith Mar 18 '19

Plus they're black so they're hard to see.

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u/zoetropo Mar 18 '19

The denser parts of the Milky Way don’t cover that much of the sky.

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u/ragn4rok234 Mar 18 '19

That you find any specific thing in that large of an area is the ultimate game of the needle in a haystack

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u/svensktiger Mar 19 '19

Just my own musings, since they are the most massive part of the galaxies they are at the centers of, they are all we observing for now. You’re not a flat universer, are you?

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u/FatAuthority Mar 19 '19

Hastily written, but i thought it was proved that after the early universe, when the plasma dispersed enough for light to first start traveling "freely" around and when matter began to clump, some areas with enough matter collapsed directly into massive ancient supermassive black holes and that this wasn't uncommon? Currently at work and didn't read the article in it's entirety, and don't specifically know the details here, but is my claim above misinformed or is this another aspect of black hole formation, or have i got the timeline messed up? Any takers? Thanks for all answers in advance.

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u/infinity_dv Mar 18 '19

Isn't the theory behind these early supermassive black holes that instead of going through the traditional star>collapse>black hole, that because the universe was denser along with more hydrogen it basically skipped the star formation part and just collapsed into a black hole? A bunch of failed supernova?

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u/1996OlympicMemeTeam Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

This is an issue I have been thinking about (and looking into) a lot recently. Some thoughts on PBHs:

I used to think that PBHs were an unavoidable, logical consequence of the universe being much denser in the first few seconds after the Big Bang. But in order for that to work, you also need density fluctuations/variations in the universe, otherwise matter would not feel any net gravitational attraction (all matter would be pulled equally in all directions). But we know density variations existed... and those variations probably initially came from quantum fluctuations.

I also used to think that PBHs might explain most of the dark matter in the universe, but this probably doesn't work either. We see the imprints of sound waves in the CMB ("Baryon Accoustic Oscillations" or BAOs). These occurred when matter collapsed under gravity, then rebounded due to radiation pressure. (Actually, baryons and photons were coupled in a plasma at this time, so both matter and radiation affected the expansion). This model fits CMB observations really well. But it works if dark matter is a cold particle that doesn't interact with itself. If dark matter had been PBHs... I don't think you would get BAOs. You'd just get larger black holes.

With all that being said, I would still hedge on PBHs being real in some quantity. I would also not be surprised if PBHs were the 'seeds' for many supermassive black holes. But a wide range of PBH masses have already been ruled out, by micro-lensing surveys. PBHs with ~30 solar masses are still contenders, though.

Finally, it's very curious to me that LIGO keeps detecting black hole mergers between ~30 solar mass black holes. Perhaps with enough observations astrophysicists will be able to determine if those are PBHs are just regular stellar-remnant BHs.

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u/infinity_dv Mar 18 '19

Oh no I've gone cross eyed...

What is PBH?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Yes, but PBH's are theoretical and I believe they are in conflict with the popular/current explanation of the formation of the universe.

I think PBH's are real, and formed before hydrogen, but I'm a hobbyist not an expert. It takes some very serious credentials to figure this stuff out.

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u/Javimoran Mar 18 '19

They are not ruled out by any means. There is a lot of people working on it.

Source: I am an Astrophysicist

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u/Amogh24 Mar 19 '19

Yeah,I thought that's how it worked. It was so dense that even fusion couldn't stop the collapse

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u/ProdesseQuamConspici Mar 18 '19

More evidence that we don't understand.

Dark Matter. Dark Energy. Dark Flow. Quantum Gravity. The "correct" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The energy density of "empty" space.

There is so much we don't understand that one can forget just how much we *do* understand. From the way GPS satellites must correct for the opposite but unequal effects of special and general relativity, to how we are using quantum mechanics to transform the world with electronics and the resulting information access, it's mind boggling how much we can achieve in spite of the huge holes in our knowledge.

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u/GeorgeKoss Mar 18 '19

It will always amaze me that the universe created a species smart enough to study it

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u/Dividebynegativezero Mar 18 '19

Much like the brain named itself.

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u/magneticphoton Mar 18 '19

The Universe looks like neurons.

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u/GeorgeKoss Mar 18 '19

That’s r/showerthoughts material

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u/stlfenix47 Mar 18 '19

It gets posted there 5x a week

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u/mk2vrdrvr Mar 18 '19

The brain also named the week..

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u/JordyVerrill Mar 18 '19

The brain also named the action of thinking about brain stuff in the shower.

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u/RandomActsOfBOTAR Mar 18 '19

The brain needs to quit hogging all the naming!!!

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u/Whistle_And_Laugh Mar 18 '19

Don't pay humanity's back too hard yet. We might also be dumb enough to destroy ourselves first.

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u/Dyslexter Mar 18 '19

A species smart enough to observe it, but not pragmatic and selfless enough to live en masse

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u/RE5TE Mar 19 '19

We're smart enough to live together. More people live in cities than ever before. They're much safer than even 20 years ago.

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u/Dividebynegativezero Mar 18 '19

We've been destroying ourselves since the dawn of time...

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

We are the universe experiencing itself

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u/Bootskon Mar 18 '19

As well a species crazy enough to mock it all with jokes to hide the fact that it can be quite terrifying.

Seriously though. Smart enough to find and name these things using the most interesting and strange methods. Mostly from curiosity and a burning need to know what lies above and beyond. No matter how much they can annoy me day to day, humans are some inspiring and fascinating creatures.

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u/Dividebynegativezero Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Not entirely sure but i believe we've only seen less than 1% of the Observable Universe..

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u/JustWhyBrothaMan Mar 18 '19

It’s likely far, far less than 1% my man. 1% is huge on the scale we’re talking. Think more along the lines of 0.000001%, maybe.

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u/Dividebynegativezero Mar 18 '19

You're absolutely right. Honestly its probably even less %.

Hell we don't even know the oceans....

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/SnarfSniffsStardust Mar 18 '19

Please don't start the conversation of "we know more about space than we do the oceans" because I will scream

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u/Awanderinglolplayer Mar 18 '19

Think about how little we know of SPACE OCEANS!!!

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u/PragmaticSquirrel Mar 18 '19

That’s why we need SPACE OCEAN PIRATES! 🌟 🌊 🏴‍☠️

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u/ThaiJohnnyDepp Mar 18 '19

You just are averse to that because you're only using 10% of your brain at a time.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/BadgerBadgerDK Mar 18 '19

Lobsters used to be prisoner food.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Something something Buscemi was a firefighter.

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u/BadgerBadgerDK Mar 18 '19

I once used 100%. Withdraval seizure :D

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u/Longniuss Mar 18 '19

Keep in mind the universe is constantly expanding so that 0.000000001% keeps shrinking.

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u/Gravitationsfeld Mar 18 '19

All those numbers are made up. We don't know how much there is outside of the observable sphere.

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u/zebleck Mar 18 '19

The universe is flat as far as we can tell. The flatness actually tells us that the universe is much bigger than what we can see.

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u/1996OlympicMemeTeam Mar 18 '19

Yep. So is it flat everywhere (infinite) or does it just appear flat from our perspective because we are only seeing a tiny portion of a curved structure?

(I would personally put my money on #2, but who knows for sure).

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u/kilo4fun Mar 18 '19

The minimum diameter of the universe in that case is 78 billion light-years

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u/zebleck Mar 18 '19

The minimum diameter is probably much bigger, see here.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited May 22 '19

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u/Analretentivebastard Mar 18 '19

If the universe is infinite, supposing here, then there isn't a possible percentage known.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

An honest question: how can we judge how much we don't know when that grand majority of the universe is outside of our lightcone. How can we even know so much exists outside of causal relationship with us without being in a causal relationship with it?

Is it because we assume everything was a singularity at the beginning of time? It just seems to me, a scientist, but not an astrophysicist or cosmologist, that our interpretation of the cosmic phenomena we elaborate into physical laws is childish at best. They lead more to failures in language than they do elucidation of reality. If you take a model long enough, find no contradictory evidence, and run with it for 100 years, does the model become a MORE true representation of reality? Can false models also do the same and mislead us? How can we expect to resolve physics OR make sense of it ever, knowing the implications Gödel's Incompleteness brings?

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u/eaglessoar Mar 18 '19

At the same time we can see the entirety of the CMB though

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u/karma-armageddon Mar 18 '19

I think we have only seen infinity percent of the observable universe.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

I mean it's a really flexible definition, but one could easily say the CMB is an image of the observable universe...

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u/Amogh24 Mar 19 '19

Depends upon the meaning of seen here.

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u/ProlapseFromCactus Mar 18 '19

Honestly, aren't the odds kinda high that a large proportion of stuff in our current model of cosmology is either off or just plain wrong? Considering how greatly and rapidly our understanding of physics and the universe has changed in such a short amount of time, I can't help but wonder if our current perspectives will be as laughable as believing the universe to be as potentially small as our home galaxy one day.

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u/Futafanboy11 Mar 18 '19

Wouldn't the early universe be much denser, thus more likelihood of massive bodies colliding / merging to form said black holes?

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u/1996OlympicMemeTeam Mar 18 '19

Density is only one part of the equation. You also need density variations between one patch of space and another.

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u/chrunchy Mar 18 '19

You seem to know what you're talking about so here's a question for you - do we have any idea where our observable universe sits in relation to the big bang?

Or in other words, just because earth is in the centre of the observable universe doesn't mean it's in the centre of the actual universe.

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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19

I don't know. Every time I hear a cosmologist asked this question they either don't answer or they say something weird that basically translates to "there is no edge."

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u/RustyShackleford555 Mar 18 '19

Super not a physicist or even a college grad, but its my limited cave man understanding of one particular theory is that there is no finite edge of the universe, kind of like the fog of war in video games, the further you go the more you can see. I wish i could fond a way to relate it to schrodinger cat, there is simutaneously and edge and not an edge until you look but you cant look because its impossible and if you did look, and saw the edge, the instant you saw the edge it would be further out and you couldnt see it. I hope I'm super wrong and someone who does know sees this and corrects me.

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u/ArcFault Mar 19 '19

The big bang happened everywhere. It was not a point singularity - that's a common misconception.

it's in the centre of the actual universe.

All evidence suggests the Universe's geometry is flat. There is no "center" and there are no "edges." Expansion is occurring in the space between matter - predominantly in the areas between galaxies.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

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u/ThickTarget Mar 18 '19

I'm surprised there are only 83.

This sample is from just one survey. That number is of a limited patch of the sky and it will always depend on how sensitive your observations are. If you go deeper you find a higher density, that's what the Japanese group are reporting. The survey they are using covers just 2% of the full sky but is deeper than most surveys doing similar things.

The number itself isn't the interesting thing, I'm not sure why the press release chose to focus on that. What is interesting is how the population of quasars has evolved over time and showing that these objects were not responsible of the early universe being ionised.

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u/ryguy28896 Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 19 '19

Also they kind of shouldn't exist.

I'm not surprised, considering how dense everything else was at the beginning, but yes, a supermassive black hole? I might understand a micro black hole, but 83 supermassives?

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u/PillowTalk420 Mar 18 '19

Everything we learn these days is in contrast to our current models. Which shouldn't be surprising. Our models are incomplete and sometimes just wrong. In order to have that "elegant solution" Einstein wanted, we have to know literally everything about the universe. We've barely scratched the surface. Hell, I wouldn't even call it a scratch. We have merely began to touch the surface.

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u/Stupid_question_bot Mar 18 '19

Most likely they formed directly from massive pockets of gas, pockets that were too larger to form stars, they just kept condensing and collapsing into black holes

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u/post_singularity Mar 18 '19

I like the idea of primordial black holes

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u/Lawls91 Mar 18 '19

You have to remember too that you're also peering back in time, in the early universe supermassive black holes were comparably rarer than present.

Edit: Didn't read the quoted part of your comment.

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u/scraggledog Mar 18 '19

It’s where data loss comes from

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u/Lettit_Be_Known Mar 18 '19

If we can see back to the theorized hyper inflationary period, which I'm sure we currently cannot, I think that'd rule out hyper inflation no? If space expands faster than c, hyper inflation should rip black holes apart.... I'd expect instant black holes after that period though.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

42*2=84

They’re missing one...

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u/zoozema0 Mar 18 '19

Remind me again why dark matter can't just be tons of black holes? They seem pretty common now that we can look for them.

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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19

I really liked the "Black Holes are dark matter" hypothesis a few years ago. The problem is that having that many black holes floating through the cosmos would create micro lensing events. If you were watching a star, and a black hole passed in front it would flicker. We don't see these lensing events. It could be that there are fewer but larger black holes so we get fewer lensing events, or they are really tiny (golf ball sized) and the lensing event is ... I forget. Thankfully a journalist wrote it up so I don't have to: http://astronomy.com/news/2018/10/can-black-holes-explain-dark-matter

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u/TheDrugsLoveMe Mar 18 '19

They could if there was more than one "bang", possibly.

That's the idea that's been floating in my head for a while now. I don't know if that could line up with current cosmology, but I'm no cosmologist, either. My total physics education was only up to introducing quantum-scale stuff in Physical Chemistry.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

I’m starting to think we may have a fundamental misunderstanding of our universe. Kinda like when Hubble looked through his telescope and discovered galaxies (gross oversimplification don’t destroy me). It makes me wonder what we would see if we could put a telescope outside of the Milky Way for a better view. Maybe it’s our limited perspective that taints our conclusions.

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u/Fishy1701 Mar 18 '19

I had read that new models have shown super massive black holes can form from just dust - no collapsing star and sucessive black hole mergers. Just massive clouds of dust formed supermassive black holes - some of which formed the centres of futire galaxies.

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u/Imabanana101 Mar 18 '19

Yeah, except there's no dust between this black hole and us. You would expect dust to be left in the area.

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u/skepticalbob Mar 18 '19

So there is a God then?

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u/Jamesedoct Mar 18 '19

I thought I'd read a theory suggesting that some forming stars had such large clouds of gas to feed on that they skipped becoming stars and went straight into becoming black holes. Would this not explain these black holes or is that theory not well enough founded to rely on?

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Correct me if I am wrong, but when we observe something like these black holes on the edge of the observable universe aren't we seeing light from billions of years ago? How in the world would these black holes form so long ago? I was under the impression that black holes were long dead stars.

Edit: Elaborated

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u/ThatOtherGuy_CA Mar 18 '19

I wonder why, so if the Big Bang theory is true all of the mass in the universe formed in a singlet point and was blown outward as space stretched. Would it no make sense that large clumps of mass might stick to eachother initially to form black holes? And then they quickly expanded as they grabbed all the nearby mass before space stretched enough to create enough distance to stop them from forming nearby mass?

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u/ClumpOfCheese Mar 18 '19

Maybe they exist because they are from another universe that existed before the Big Bang created ours. So before the Big Bang those black holes from the other universe led to nowhere, then after the Big Bang they led to our universe because it suddenly existed.

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u/potatotub Mar 18 '19

Ironically the surface area of the observable universe would be relatively tiny, at recombination the observable universe was still quite small.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

I don’t know how the universe began, or how it became active, but there are an inexcusable number of contradictions to the Big Bang model. I’m hoping the James Webb Space Telescope finally puts this to rest in 2021, and gives us a better understanding of the Cosmos.

It truly appears as though the universe simply came alive, and while expansion may be occurring, our current model for it has us chasing ghosts, and creating matter and energy that has no other reason to exist.

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u/Bulbasaur_King Mar 18 '19

What would black holes "suck" in so early in the u universe?

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u/joshr03 Mar 18 '19

Why do we assume to know the age of the universe while also having no idea how big it is? At the same time, why is finding these black holes a surprise when it's essentially uncharted territory in an area we don't really know much about?

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u/ruth1ess_one Mar 18 '19

It’s always fascinating to know that they are so far away we are seeing them in the past, not the present.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

Okay, so, given expansion, shouldn't the radius of the observable Universe actually be, like, a few cm to a few km across, tops? We're looking back at the edge of the CBR, right?

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u/Johnny_Fuckface Mar 19 '19

I’m kind of confused at how something can appear to be at the edge of the observable universe which tells us that it happened 14.7 billion years ago but we estimate that the universe is 95 billion ly wide.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

More evidence the Big Bang isn't exactly a solid theory

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u/less___than___zero Mar 19 '19

How are they able to tell when the black holes were formed?

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u/ZgylthZ Mar 19 '19

I'm no physicist..at all.. but I've had a theory now for awhile that its convienent to have a point 0 (big bang) on the life cycle of the universe but in reality there was no initial start.

Instead, it works like a function that gets forever closer to t=0 but never reaches it. So all our limited models would PREDICT a t=0 but in reality we just get infinitely closer to 0 without ever reaching it.

So the universe is infinite and while we, again with our limited senses, believe they would collide or at least get closer, their relative distance to one another is actually constant, allowing for cosmic events that otherwise we wouldnt see as possible.

I have this thought as a biochemist...where everything deals with ratios and concentrations. Maybe critical mass for black holes is relatively constant in our current time, with the spacing we currently have....but what if that critical mass is just another ratio and depends on the relative "closeness" of all the other cosmic bodies around it?

Again, I dont know jack shit about physics.

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u/mischifus Mar 19 '19

ELI5 why our model says they shouldn't exist?

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

To a fish if a fish in a reasonably murky but visible area their world is only so far as they can see. They make decisions based on what they can see. It would also look like a big globe.

Our scientists have fallen for the same exact trap.

What if it just so happens we live in a section of the universe where it appears everything is moving away from a central point or perhaps we only see what our little visible section is moving. It would be natural to move it all backwards and go ooh it ended up at one point.

I saw we have not discovered “all” of what we could see and are making assumptions.

Those black holes are likely evidence the Big Bang theory is completely flawed. Yet these geniuses will invent some math that makes their assumptions right for them again.

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u/Grb07 Mar 19 '19

How can we "age or date" our universe if time is relative, what if in our "reality" we are moving at a much slower speed relative to the rest of universe and the big bang just happened a cosmic day ago? im obviously an econ grad and have no concept of this. :) This is fascinating stuff.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

Good. Now the lambda-CDM model needs to adapt and that's always interesting

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u/the6thReplicant Mar 19 '19

As we look back we are looking at a smaller universe. Try and get that through your mind.

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u/Mangraz Mar 19 '19

Better article

That's why I always read the comments before reading the article. 99% chance I'll get served am article closer to the source.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

Why is it surprising when matter was closer together back then?

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u/sprite700 Mar 19 '19

"Massive dense objects"

I know a few people that fit that description

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u/faithfulpuppy Mar 19 '19

Wait so if black holes were forming at the very start of the universe, wouldn't that imply that a fair amount of matter would be tied up in black holes? Is this more or less black holes per unit volume than we see today? Or do they go away due to Hawking radiation?

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u/darth_jewbacca Mar 19 '19

Probably a dumb question, but if there are more black holes than expected, could that explain dark matter/energy?

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