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CoolSwim1776 t1_iv3ae2k wrote

Too close for my comfort. Black holes are the ultimate in absolutely destruction.

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arcanum7123 t1_iv3f9p6 wrote

It not only has a literally immeasurably small effect on earth due to its gravity, but at 1600 light years away if it were traveling at the speed of light (which it is traveling nowhere near), it would take 1600 years to reach us

There is absolutely 0 threat to earth from this, especially in our lifetimes. There are plenty more dangerous objects in the universe as far as we're concerned. You should be more worried about the sun than that black hole

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CoolSwim1776 t1_iv3n1jn wrote

See you say that. But the fact is that it is close enough that if it orients in the right direction ( don't know if it isn't mind you) a big enough piece of the it's orbiting star getting ate up could send a massive burst of gamma rays our way. We won't know it either until it hits us either as we are seeing the light of that star 1600 years ago.

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arcanum7123 t1_iv3osyk wrote

Gamma ray bursts are not formed by a black hole feeding (and definitely not one this small). You are much more likely to die to any number of other things, terrestrial or celestial, than something black hole related

If you want to live in fear of something like that be my guest, but as someone who wrote 2 papers on black holes for their degree, you'd do much better living in fear of things that 1) you have any amount of control over whether or not it'll kill you and 2) have any tangible level of a chance of actually killing you

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CoolSwim1776 t1_iv3p2g2 wrote

Fine then. Take away my cosmic horror vibe. I'll just settle on plane old global warming and resource conflicts in the near future. :/

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kobresia9 t1_iv3exv3 wrote

That’s an overkill. We don’t need to worry about black holes with everything we have on the planet

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