36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horseshoe gravitational lens

Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by MurkyLabs on Monday August 11, 2025 @11:24AM (#44865197)

It doesn't seem like there's a limit to how big they can get just a limit to how quickly they can get bigger due to what's called the Eddington Limit which explains how matter falling into the black hole emits radiation and if enough radiation around the accretion disk builds up, it can overcome the pull of the black hole and push matter away, at least until enough matter is pushed away that the radiation levels fall back under the limit and matter starts falling in again.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by zamadatix on Monday August 11, 2025 @12:13PM (#44865947)

Importantly, the Eddington limit does not apply to black hole mergers, theoretically allowing as much growth rate as you're able to feed in from smaller black holes.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by pixl97 on Monday August 11, 2025 @04:48PM (#44869305)

This said, the final parsec problem isn't solved/understood. We know black holes do merge, but we don't understand what energy is being bled out of the system so supermassive black holes crash into each other in the timeframes we're seeing it occur.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by allemagne on Monday August 11, 2025 @12:34PM (#44866223)

So then the only theoretical limit on black hole mass would just be how fast you can put matter in black holes and/or merge existing black holes versus how fast the universe expands?

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by MurkyLabs on Monday August 11, 2025 @01:42PM (#44867096)

I'm 100% an armchair physician so take my words with a grain of salt but it seems like according to the math there is no limit to how massive a black hole can get. There are limits on the size of how big and small things can get and how hot or cold they can get, the second part is pretty cool, Physics Explained on yt has a good video on it (he's got a lot of good videos) but I enjoyed this one on what the maximum temperature is in the universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVlEQlz6n1k

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by ghurtado on Monday August 11, 2025 @02:28PM (#44867664)

> I'm 100% an armchair physician

Not to be that guy, but a physician is a doctor.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by dotancohen on Monday August 11, 2025 @02:32PM (#44867721)

But that's not important right now.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by ghurtado on Monday August 11, 2025 @03:47PM (#44868640)

Just pointing out a simple mistake.

In the time that it took you to type that response, you could have learned 10 new words.

I do it because I appreciate it when people do it for me.

That was the purpose of my comment. What was the purpose of yours?

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by ninkendo on Monday August 11, 2025 @07:04PM (#44870453)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AK3gB7DpaM0

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by throwaway81523 on Tuesday August 12, 2025 @03:55AM (#44873568)

I heard a joke about a nerd who dies and finds himself in a very hot underground cavern. The devil is there, and says "Welcome to Hell! This over here is the lake of molten lava where you'll spend the rest of eternity". The nerd says "well actually, since it's underground it's called magma rather than lava". The devil replies, "um, you do understand why you're here, don't you?".

I try to remember that when I'm tempted to point out mistakes that are fine to overlook.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by andrekandre on Monday August 11, 2025 @10:18PM (#44871611)

shirley you cant be serious

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by jfengel on Monday August 11, 2025 @10:29PM (#44871692)

Not to be cet homme, but in French a physicien is a physicist.

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by lanna on Friday August 15, 2025 @11:09PM (#44919775)

Not to be that guy, but English is not French

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by qualeed on Monday August 11, 2025 @12:44PM (#44866366)

PBS Spacetime had an episode somewhat recently about a black hole which is growing at many (hundreds? thousands? I forget) times the Eddington Limit. And, as far as I remember, it isn't the only one to exceed the Eddington Limit - just the one with the record for how much it exceeded it.

I'll try to dig it up when I'm not at work (or if I remember the exact episode through the day).

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Re:36B solar mass black hole at centre of the Cosmic Horsesh... by orra on Monday August 11, 2025 @03:59PM (#44868760)

I remember this episode too. The answer is four thousand times bigger than the Eddington Limit. Blimey!

The episode is called “The NEW Ultimate Energy Limit of the Universe”. https://youtube.com/watch?v=0rzgYzbzq5Q

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