General Runaway black holes

[Black Vulmea]

"Astronomers have seen clear signs of runaway supermassive black holes tearing through other galaxies, and have uncovered evidence that smaller, undetectable runaways are probably out there too." - from "New fear unlocked: Runaway black holes" on Phys.org

I've long used singularities to create chaotic arrangements in star systems; now I have actual science to back that up.

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[Badenov]

How quickly do these situations evolve? It seems to me that something like a black hole doesn't just drop in by surprise. Tearing through other galaxies, sure, but over what sort of time scale?

 

[mike wightman]

Depends on how fast they are moving, if they can move between galaxies then they must have galactic escape velocity as a minimum...

600km/s doesn't sound like much... it is 0.2%c

The 3,000 km/s quoted in the article is 1.0%c

 

[Badenov]

Depends on how fast they are moving, if they can move between galaxies then they must have galactic escape velocity as a minimum...

600km/s doesn't sound like much... it is 0.2%c

The 3,000 km/s quoted in the article is 1.0%c

Yes, that sounds fast, but our nearest neighbor galaxy is 2.5 million lighy years away. At 1%c, that's 250 million years to get here. That's a lot of time to pack up my things and go, plus inventing a jump drive, etc. It's not really a player on the RPG stage. If you get one that's arriving later this year, I can see where there'd be a concerted effort to GTFO of the system/subsector, though I imagine the same sort of people who don't evacuate for storms or flooding will stay behind for this.

 

[whartung]

from "New fear unlocked: Runaway black holes" on Phys.org

"Thrice upon a time" writ large.

 

[Commander Truestar]

In my discussions with those I've worked with, a "workable theory" is evolving:
1) where a black hole exist, it begins feeding on the local stars
2) The resulting death of those stars also alters the local gravitic forces, which alters how that black hole is moving in its home galaxy
3) dependent on how that gravitic matrix is altered, the movement of the black hole will change, potentially leading to a vector which is more independent of the black hole's home galaxy - thus becoming a rogue.

Per discussions I've had with those mostly using time on the ALMA and NRAO arrays, there is no time frame estimate on this because this is new research and very "unsettled science". There will be more as we learn more

 

[mike wightman]

Yes, that sounds fast, but our nearest neighbor galaxy is 2.5 million lighy years away. At 1%c, that's 250 million years to get here. That's a lot of time to pack up my things and go, plus inventing a jump drive, etc. It's not really a player on the RPG stage. If you get one that's arriving later this year, I can see where there'd be a concerted effort to GTFO of the system/subsector, though I imagine the same sort of people who don't evacuate for storms or flooding will stay behind for this.

What is it is almost at the outer-edges of the Milky Way...

 

[Black Vulmea]

If you get one that's arriving later this year, I can see where there'd be a concerted effort to GTFO of the system/subsector . . .

I'm unlikely to ever use this as an impending natural disaster and more of an explanation for how things got so effed up in this star system/corner of the subsector.

 

[Condottiere]

You could try circling the drain.

Reconfigure your energy input by harvesting the gravitational forces of the black hole, without falling in.

 

[Badenov]

What is it is almost at the outer-edges of the Milky Way...

Depends what you call the edge. Looked at in the usual spiral way, we're about halfway between the center and the edge, and we're about 100,000 ly across, so maybe 25-26,000 ly from that edge, so we'd be 2.5 million years from one coming straight in from the edge. But if it were coming in from outside the plane of the galaxy, it could be as little as 6,000ly, which would still take 600,000 years to arrive at 1%C, so don't dump your season tickets yet, and you have time to pack.

I'm unlikely to ever use this as an impending natural disaster and more of an explanation for how things got so effed up in this star system/corner of the subsector.

It's true, people scramble and panic at different points. Some will surely want to leave as soon as the impending disaster is discovered. Some will leave it to the last moment. Or later. How close you can get to the black hole of course depends on its mass, so this is a big case of the exact answer being 'it depends'.

 

[coliver988]

Depends what you call the edge. Looked at in the usual spiral way, we're about halfway between the center and the edge, and we're about 100,000 ly across, so maybe 25-26,000 ly from that edge, so we'd be 2.5 million years from one coming straight in from the edge. But if it were coming in from outside the plane of the galaxy, it could be as little as 6,000ly, which would still take 600,000 years to arrive at 1%C, so don't dump your season tickets yet, and you have time to pack.


It's true, people scramble and panic at different points. Some will surely want to leave as soon as the impending disaster is discovered. Some will leave it to the last moment. Or later. How close you can get to the black hole of course depends on its mass, so this is a big case of the exact answer being 'it depends'.

Larry Niven's Puppeteers left as soon as they figured out the impending disaster. Packed their home worlds and started scooting along.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson's_Puppeteers