Weekender: Black Holes to Rip Galaxy Apart–or has It Already Happened?
Two supermassive black holes are circlling each other–or they were, a million years ago, in a galaxy far away. In all probability, that galaxy is now being torn apart by the titanic equivalent of 100 million supernovas. So, did any civilizations experience the end of their worlds in that galaxy? If so, they would have been able to calculate the moment of their destruction down to the last second, an to have known about it for a very long time.
At the center of every galaxy – according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity – sits a light-sucking black hole that weighs the equivalent of millions or even billions of suns. Though normally quiescent, they can eat stars and gas for breakfast and belch quasars brighter than their own galaxy. read more