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Camp_Grenada t1_je4a8lx wrote

"This black hole is bigger than the majority of galaxies in the universe."

Would this mean that this black hole was able to consume the entirety of its host galaxy, plus some more?

Space really is unimaginably huge.

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carnizzle t1_je4cudq wrote

> Space really is unimaginably huge.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

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PM-me-Gophers t1_je4dj42 wrote

Many thanks for this, you've briefly made me forget about the pain in all the diodes down my left side

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a_tiny_ant t1_je4ts2d wrote

Diodes? Are you a robot?

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Darhhaall t1_je52gzd wrote

He is Marvin, robot older than the universe.

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peter-doubt t1_je5x4qa wrote

I was wondering how long it would take for this reference....

pardon me, .... I'm off to get my towel!

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Power0_ t1_je4bz2i wrote

It means that the black hole already has that much mass in it. There is no known limit to the mass gain of a black hole. It is unlikely to encounter as much matter to grow say twice again it's size since space is so vast and matter so sparsely distributed over it. But if you introduced the entirety of matter in the universe to a single point and it didn't have velocity away from that point it would all merge under gravity to form the biggest black hole possible. Empty space around it would loose all meaning since there would be nothing in it. Also supermassive black holes host the galaxies around them not the other way around.

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Kokopeddle t1_je4ajzk wrote

Yeah that part got me as well. I didn't think they could get that big.

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romansparta99 t1_je5fxwz wrote

Judging by the article above, this is a ~30 billion solar mass black hole. Compared to the Milky Way at 1.5 trillion solar masses, this black hole is 1/50th of the Milky Way. It’s important to remember that there are lots of (comparatively) small galaxies, but this black hole isn’t the size of what most of us think of when we think of galaxies. That being said, it would probably crack the top 10 for largest black holes discovered so far!

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radishboy t1_je769ip wrote

What if it eventually got so big that the heat and pressure created some sort of “big bang” that flung the matter outwards into space, and “the big bang” is just something that happens when an object reaches a certain mass. So it’s just been a series of “big bangs” and “great gatherings” all interacting with each other.

All I know about the Big Bang is that “there was a big bang” so I’m literally just making shit up but I honestly don’t know enough about space to dispute it

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reptillion t1_je4syq4 wrote

Space has no size it’s ever expanding

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Zeustitandog t1_je6svxe wrote

Still has a size dhmbass

My cup can hold 1 gallon

In a year it will hold 2

Rn it holds 1

It has 1 gallon of space

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DEEP_SEA_MAX t1_je7j3w5 wrote

Except, from our perspective, that cup is expanding faster than the speed of light. The observable part of the cup we're in is all we will ever know. Even if we invented a spaceship that went the speed of light, we wouldn't be able to fly it to edge of the observable universe, let alone the edge of the cup.

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reptillion t1_je8a0nh wrote

Hints no measurable size because it’s expanding away from us

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