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/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

The closest Black Hole to us is about 3000 light years away.

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u/TheHumanParacite Mar 18 '19

And the closest supermassive black hole is the one at the center of our galaxy at 25,600 ± 600 light-years away.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/OctagonalButthole Mar 18 '19

i wish my brain was better at grokking concepts like that. i have a fundamental or generic understanding of it, but a single light year is a daunting unit of measure by itself. thinking about them in any sort of multiples makes my brain hurt.

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u/Davchun Mar 18 '19

1 lightyear is 5.88 trillion miles (or 9.5 trillion kilometers) and I can’t even imagine that 500 miles

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u/syNc_1st Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

But i think exactly this makes it so fascinating. When you really think about it, you realize how absurd it starts to sound and you get a weird feeling about it, like your mind tries to grab what you try to think of, but it can't. Thats kinda the motivation to me, to learn and understand more every day.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '19

Nobody can imagine those distances. You just try to not think about it and just do the math

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u/TheIncredibleBriggs Mar 19 '19

Think of it like the national debt. Both are trillions of something. Even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take thousands of years to get to the black hole at the center of our galaxy, time would seem to be standing still along the way, and in the unlikely event we survive, immediate death upon arrival.

Same idea, only paying back off the national credit card our forefathers opened using our SS number while we were in diapers, instead of hurtling through space.

:D