What effects will a supermassive black hole have on our sun in the near future?
Answers
Want to hear something cool? There's a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. And not just any black hole, it's a supermassive black hole with more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun.
It's right over there, in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. Located just 26,000 light-years away. And as we speak, it's in the process of tearing apart entire stars and star systems, occasionally consuming them, adding to its mass like a voracious shark.
Wait, that doesn't sound cool, that sort of sounds a little scary. Right?
Don't worry, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, unless you plan to live for quadrillions of years, which I do, thanks to my future robot body. I'm ready for my singularity, Dr. Kurzweil.
Is the supermassive black hole going to consume the Milky Way? If not, why not? If so, why so?
The discovery of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, and really almost all galaxies, is one of my favorite discoveries in the field of astronomy. It's one of those insights that simultaneously answered some questions, and opened up even more.
Back in the 1970s, the astronomers Bruce Balick and Robert Brown realized that there was an intense source of radio emissions coming from the very center of the Milky Way, in the constellation Sagittarius.