Webb Telescope detects most distant active supermassive black hole | Hacker News Reader

Webb Telescope detects most distant active supermassive black hole

phys.org

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Thats a mere 0.17 AU, inside the orbit of mercury and smaller than some stars:

https://www.vttoth.com/CMS/physics-notes/311-hawking-radiati...

The one in the Milky way is small as well

That’s like saying gold is less valuable than paper money because it’s small..

The black hole is merely ~12x as dense as gold!

Are you saying the nucleus? because hydrogen is too

Funny that by this measure, black holes get less dense as you pile stuff into them.

perhaps it is dying from hawking radiation considering it is so old (about 13b years)

I think given the current level of cosmic background radiation (3K if I remember correctly) any black holes larger than 0.1 mm (just less than the mass of the moon) will get larger over time rather than smaller.

It's only once the universe cools down to below their surface temperature that they'll start evaporating.

A very interesting video about how JWST data is already unexpected (ie. resulting in "good science", as in we already have to refine our models of the early universe and galaxy formation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfwXWNla-Ts

how does it know there isn't one further out past the observable universe? OR Does Webb actually see 100 percent of the entire universe?

"Further out past the observable universe" pretty much doesn't matter (hah), by definition.

No, by definition we only see the observable universe like you noted, but most people assume there is more out there beyond it. In fact, by the Copernican principle we should assume there is more out there, otherwise we happen to find ourselves exactly in the center of everything and can see exactly as far as light could have traveled in the known age of the universe.

The title is a little unclear, but I read it as the most distant known supermassive black hole. This is the farthest one we've detected, but we can assume there are further ones (even some that may still be detected by Webb in the future)

https://www.pbs.org/video/how-much-of-the-universe-can-human... is a really fascinating video to watch about the observable universe.

In some ways it’s depressing that humanity is doomed to only understanding what’s in our observable universe. I really hope we find some way around it.

Is there any reason to think what’s outside the observable universe is any different? It doesn’t depress me since we have plenty to see to get a good idea and sample size to know what exists. What does depress me is the idea that far in the future all people will see is our galaxy and not know others exist.

Yes, because what is outside of the observable universe is the light from the big bang and the time just after it

The light from big bang is inside the observable universe. It is the cosmic microwave background. We can’t see earlier because the universe was opaque before 378k years and any light from earlier stages was absorbed.

> we should assume there is more out there, otherwise we happen to find ourselves exactly in the center of everything and can see exactly as far as light could have traveled in the known age of the universe.

Is there a real argument against this view that warrants the use of "should"? Over half the world (believers in Genesis) would seem to believe we very well could be the center (with equally absent real argument).

Over half the world are not "believers in Genesis" (by which I would guess you mean biblical literalists).

I was a bigger fan before Peter Gabriel left.

Literalism has nothing to do with it. Over half the world identify as believers in Moses's God. Less than a sixth believe in Stochastic Gas. Under the Gas model, it would perhaps be strange for us to be at center. Under the God model it would not.

Regardless, to say one way "should" be the answer is a religious argument not a scientific one, and it has questionable place in a scientific discussion.

Where in Genesis does it say we are the center of anything?

It doesn't, of course. But the universe is described as being intentionally created explicitly for Earth and Man, so it wouldn't be hard to go on to think we may be at the center.

The long history of geocentricity would support this being a plausible interpretation.

I feel like contextually it's pretty obvious that it's simply comparing to what has been discovered thus far.

Yeah, although it's not my habit to bother with articles, I was bold enough to click this one and confirm you are correct.

First sentence: "Researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole *to date* with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)."

Sorry. Are you saying that you only go on hacker news and comment on articles that you haven’t read?

Yes. Your phrasing is a little different than I would use, but I think you've captured the gist. I'm not seeking out articles I haven't read to comment on, but rather I'm here for the great aspects of our community found in the comments.

I think this thread -- where a portion of the debate is about details of the headline answered by the first sentence of the article -- hints that many people are using a similar modus operandi.

My mental model is

  - comments are more entertaining
  - comments are shorter
  - comments highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the article
  - comments expand the scope of the article and point at interesting related items

Well that's a problem

I understand just reading the comments for all the reasons you mentioned, but how can you contribute to the discussion when you never took the time to understand what the discussion was about?

It’s like debating the validity of what the 10th person said in a game of telephone instead of going to the first person to understand what the origin of the idea is.

As the sibling said, that seems like a problem.

But the discussion is almost never about the article. Look around! Consider that this one isn't.

I reviewed the sibling's comment history.

  - Well that's a problem
  - If stimulus is people spending their money in the marketplace to meet their needs, I'd say it works quite well.  
  - Holding on to the best explanation until they find a better one, you mean? Yes, of course they are
  - The writer was belittling the OP so maybe direct that elsewhere
  - Nostalgia?
  - What is "woke" political stuff, specifically, vs non-woke?
  - I want to see x rays!
  - Linkding is great, and has some browser extensions to inject your favourites into relevant search pages on the likes of google, ddg, bing, etc, which was a nice idea I hadn't considered before
  - Have you tried kbin?
  - It's both hilarious and unintuitive, but for some people their personal familiarity trumps most other things

None of those are about the article! Great, engaging comments. Nice pointers to interesting tools -- Linkding, kbin. Some economics, some psychology, some tech. Not a single reference to the article, none on the same topic as the article.

Good points. Especially about our discussion here. I guess I would narrow it and say as long as it’s not a commentary on the article itself then no worries! If someone is commenting on the article without reading then I still feel like I would rather them read it first so we can have the same definitions.

> If someone is commenting on the article without reading

Yeah, I hear you. I note in my case, I read the article and posted about the clarifying sentence.

I did find it funny that so many people were in an animated discussion about the interpretation of the headline.

  gremlinsinc: "how does it know there isn't one further out past the observable universe?"
  doctoboggan: "the title is a little unclear, but I read it as the most distant known supermassive black hole"
  dotnet00: "I feel like contextually it's pretty obvious "

Obviously without reading the first sentence of the article.

Adding to the answers of others, Webb can't see the whole observable universe. It has an upper limit on wavelengths that it can detect. Because older / further away light sources are more red shifted, at some point the really old / really far away stuff drops off the spectrum range that Webb can see. Here's a nice read [0] which tells me that the oldest things Webb can see are from T = 100-250 M years after the big bang. The light from the [matter around the] black hole in the main article originated at T = 570 M years. So it is plausible to me that an even earlier one will be spotted by Webb eventually.

[0] https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/science/firstLight.html

First sentence: “ Researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole to date with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).”

It doesn’t know, this is the most distant it has detected so far

Is it remotely and scientifically possible that black holes are:

1) Power sources somehow?

2) Marks of some sort of galactical weapons?

They are just regions of spacetime with a lot of mass and very strong gravity.

1) They aren't power sources, but if they are spinning that rotational energy could theoretically be harnessed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_process

2) Uh, no?

kurzgesagt has a video about (spinning) black holes as an energy source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCdoCfw-bY

If there was any evidence anything in the universe outside our planet had been artificially manipulated you would've heard about it.

Not by themselves.

However there are theories on how a super advanced civilisation could achieve your points 1 and 2:

1) Use black holes as a power source. This works by encasing a rotating black hole in a Dyson sphere where the inside is coated in perfect mirrors. Then you fire lasers across the inside to the other side (not into the black hole). (I think you fire your laser in the direction the black hole is rotating.) This light steals some of the black holes rotational energy and just keeps on building up as it bounces off the mirrors and around the black hole. As the energy builds you then bleed off the higher energy beams - this is your power source, likely the greatest power source ever to exist.

2) See (1) above. Now instead of bleeding off the energy in a reasonable way, you just keep the entire thing 100% sealed after you fire your first beams, and just let the runaway laser beams gain in energy for a much longer time. You might need stronger mirrors? This can now be weaponised as follows:

A) Do nothing. It'll eventually gain too much energy for your containment and explode. Literally a black hole bomb. So the way this strategy works is you find a suitable black hole near your enemy and build your Dyson sphere, start your laser ignition then leave. Eventually it'll explode and obliterate anything within range. I'm not quite sure what the range would be.

B) The above are ideas I learnt from a Kurzgesagt video. My humble addition to this ridiculous concept is instead of letting the thing become a bomb, just let the energies build way past power generation scales, but before your Dyson sphere breaks down, and open a directional channel, like imagine a cylinder with the same mirrors on the inside aimed like lenses and this cylinder sticks out from the sphere on the outside. Now open a hole in the shell for light to pour out into your cylinder lens "gun barrel" and ensure its aimed at a star system you want to obliterate. Now you have something potentially more powerful than any astrophysical/relativistic jet and on demand.

I like the direction but have a feeling that 1) the mirrors would give in at some point in time. There are no perfect mirrors. 2) the energy required to stabilize this contraption would be higher than what you could extract from the bh

Yeah, whiffs joint totally dude!

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