Black holes are actually 'green'

[Hum]

(SPACE.com) -- A new study finds that supermassive black holes, located at the heart of some galaxies, are the most fuel efficient engines in the universe.

"If you could make a car engine that was as efficient as one of these black holes, you could get about a billion miles out of a gallon of gas," said study team leader Steve Allen of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University.

"In anyone's book, that would be pretty green."

The finding, made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and announced in a media teleconference today, is giving scientists insights into how supermassive black holes generate energy and how they affect the galaxies where they make their homes.

Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that matter and light can't escape once they pass the event horizon, a spherical boundary surrounding the black hole.

However, inflowing matter that hasn't yet passed this point of no return can -- through friction and interaction with the black hole's strong magnetic field -- release energy in the form of either diffuse light or focused jets of energy.

"Once gas comes within a distance about a million times larger than the event horizon of the black hole, it becomes gravitationally captured," Allen explained. "At this point the gas becomes fuel for the black hole engine."

The new study looked at nine supermassive black holes at the centers of elliptical galaxies; each one was about a billion times more massive than our sun. The black holes were relatively old and generated much less energy than the fiercely luminous and rapidly growing supermassive black holes known as "quasars."

The researchers found that these "quiet" black holes released about 1,000 times more energy as jets than as light. The reasons for this are still unclear.

"That's a mystery, how these black holes selectively put that much energy into the jets without producing much light," study team member Christopher Reynolds from the University of Maryland told SPACE.com.

The scientists think the supermassive black holes are green in another way, too. The energy that each black hole emits as jets warms the surrounding environment. This prevents gas from cooling and coalescing into billions of new stars and places an upper limit on how large a galaxy can grow.

"In an environmental sense, the black holes are actually preventing galactic sprawl from taking over the neighborhood," Weaver said.

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[bdsams Veteran]

wow, this really blows the crap out of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive

[sundayx Veteran]

all we need is a black hole in our prius

[phate]

all we need is a black hole in our prius

hahah best post ever :D :D

[chopyaedoff]

The reason they produce so much energy IMO is because they are able to split the atoms, thus releasing huge amounts of energy.

If we were about to split atoms in a controled way we could solve the world energy crisis.

[vincent]

The reason they produce so much energy IMO is because they are able to split the atoms, thus releasing huge amounts of energy.

If we were about to split atoms in a controled way we could solve the world energy crisis.

You are referring to Nuclear fusion which in this case does not happen. That takes place in stars, not blackholes.

[n3wt]

You are referring to Nuclear fusion which in this case does not happen. That takes place in stars, not blackholes.

Actually he is talking about Nuclear Fission, which is the opposite of what takes place in stars.

[MGS4-SS]

The reason they produce so much energy IMO is because they are able to split the atoms, thus releasing huge amounts of energy.

If we were about to split atoms in a controled way we could solve the world energy crisis.

Humans have a way to control nuclear fission (the process seen in nuclear powerplants). But it is the uncontrolled fission that everyone knows (nuclear bombs).

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Humans have a way to control nuclear fission (the process seen in nuclear powerplants). But it is the uncontrolled fission that everyone knows (nuclear bombs).

And we have enough nuclear fuel, they if we all moved to nuclear power, we would have a good source of fuel for (e.g. all that we need) for thousands of years to come.

And they would be cleaner than current power plants. :yes:

But, people resist it, always hear Chernobyl brought up, guess what guys, we wont be using 40 year old, flawed soviet reactor designs for new nuclear power plants, we have much safer designs now (like pebble bed reactors)

[kupang]

.. and then we'll have another USA govenment agenda..

damn it !!