Are they’re any black holes that will collide with earth within our lifetimes?

[Ybs_itsurboi]

I’ve been wondering this because someone said this to me one time but I don’t know if it’s true I’m having anxiety over this right now please help

 

[Wolfshadw]

None that we know about as stellar-mass black holes are notoriously difficult to locate. To put your mind at ease, however, think of it this way. In it's 4.5 billion year history, the Earth has been literally bombarded with asteroids and comets. On average, we get a decent sized air-burster about every 15 months. Something large enough to take out a city happens around every 5000 years or so. Something large enough to really devastate the entire planet happens one every 150-200 million years or so.

But in all that time, in all 4.5 BILLION years of the planet's history, no black hole has ever crossed our path. If it had, we wouldn't be here.

-Wolf sends

 

[Helio]

Fortunately, the nearest black hole is about 7 thousand trillion miles away and it's not coming directly towards us.

Alpha Centauri is coming towards us but it won't be a very close pass. Its closest point to us will be about 3.23 lyrs (~ 18 trillion miles), which won't happen until about another ~ 27, 500 years.

 

[Ybs_itsurboi]

Fortunately, the nearest black hole is about 7 thousand trillion miles away and it's not coming directly towards us.

Alpha Centauri is coming towards us but it won't be a very close pass. Its closest point to us will be about 3.23 lyrs (~ 18 trillion miles), which won't happen until about another ~ 27, 500 years.

Thank you very much helped a bunch

 

[dfjchem721]

Clearly the science of black holes is still evolving. That BHs are restricted to stellar collapse necessarily assumes they cannot form in any other way. It has been suggested that micro BHs could be formed with the LHC, and consume the earth. (This is not equivalent to the atmosphere igniting during the first nuclear detonation in 1945.) Certainly sounds ludicrous, and probably is. For a long time, black holes seemed ludicrous themselves. Hawking himself doubted their existence, but later changed his tune - from soft rock to hard metal! The doubter became the biggest adherent! Many examples of such things in science.

All known BHs were detected due to their gravitational effects on objects near them - i.e. objects that we can observe since you cannot "see" a BH. This puts severe constraints on establishing firm aspects of their distribution, etc.

In reality, too little is known about them to be certain of their size and density in the universe.

For an interesting concept largely considered nonsense by most of the "certain" folks in cosmology, try this one on for size:

Primordial black hole - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Stirring up the pot can often yield superior results! And those inside boxes with no windows can miss things of significance.

Before 1938, all the great minds in physics believed that fission was impossible, until radiochemist Otto Hahn proved they were wrong. How could all those brilliant minds have been so wrong? They were very clever people. Sometimes when you get too close to things you cannot see alternatives, indeed, some that might be right in front of your nose!

 

[dfjchem721]

Here in another of those hair-brained ideas on Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). There are a number of high brows out there who insist they are possible, indeed some are sure of it! One of many nice things about them is they are a known component in the universe, and do not rely on exotic new "objects", etc.

Check this out - it relates to mergers resulting in gravitational waves:

Did Astronomers Just Discover Black Holes from the Big Bang?

Gravitational waves attributed to the collision of two neutron stars could have been produced by something much stranger

www.scientificamerican.com

Black hole mergers have revised interest in one of my favorite hypotheses. This is due in part to notions of prior "constraints". Stating firm constraints can lead one to erroneous assumptions and conclusions since locking into constraints locks one out of alternative thinking.

There is some rising anxiety among the anti-PBH die-hards. Careers are at stake here, and egos even more so.

Yes, SciAmer has published trash in the past. But they are far from alone in that! And this might actually be right, and would constrain the "trash" to hypotheticals at best. As the story notes, "only time and more data will tell."

I tend contrarian when everyone is saying "it has to be this way" and there are rational alternatives not well investigated. There is no fun in jumping on a scientific band-wagon. Also have admitted to knowing enough to be dangerous!

 

[Ybs_itsurboi]

Here in another of those hair-brained ideas on Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). There are a number of high brows out there who insist they are possible, indeed some are sure of it! One of many nice things about them is they are a known component in the universe, and do not rely on exotic new "objects", etc.

Check this out - it relates to mergers resulting in gravitational waves:

Did Astronomers Just Discover Black Holes from the Big Bang?

Gravitational waves attributed to the collision of two neutron stars could have been produced by something much stranger

www.scientificamerican.com

Black hole mergers have revised interest in one of my favorite hypotheses. This is due in part to notions of prior "constraints". Stating firm constraints can lead one to erroneous assumptions and conclusions since locking into constraints locks one out of alternative thinking.

There is some rising anxiety among the anti-PBH die-hards. Careers are at stake here, and egos even more so.

Yes, SciAmer has published trash in the past. But they are far from alone in that! And this might actually be right, and would constrain the "trash" to hypotheticals at best. As the story notes, "only time and more data will tell."

I tend contrarian when everyone is saying "it has to be this way" and there are rational alternative not well investigated. There is no fun in jumping on a scientific band-wagon. Also have admitted to knowing enough to be dangerous!

So is their a black hole that will swallow us within our lifetime?

 

[dfjchem721]

So is their a black hole that will swallow us within our lifetime?

If there is, we will likely never know it. Unlike a comet, you would never see it coming. If one consumed the earth, we would disappear in almost an instant. That would be a case where human science meets its ultimate constraint!

Again, as the story notes: "only time and more data will tell."

 

[Helio]

So is their a black hole that will swallow us within our lifetime?

No. No one has had any black hole problems. Micro black holes evaporate at a quick rate, which is why physicists weren’t worried about their risks when the collider came active.

 

[dfjchem721]

If there is, we will likely never know it.

In reconsidering a potential encounter with a hypothetical black hole making a fatal hit on earth, our ability to detect it ahead of time seems largely dependent on the BH size and closing "velocity" of the encounter. Assuming that this encounter remains relatively slow, than the ability to detect it ahead of time would seem to depend entirely on its mass, and, simplistically, the true extent of the most distant objects still orbiting the earth, assuming they have sufficient mass to emit some kind of "signal" when disappearing into the BH. So this all depends on the closing speed and BH mass (and mostly Newtonian physics).

That signal might be as simple as the mysterious disappearance from a specific region in the sky of various objects in the Kuiper Belt that are periodically tracked. One might suppose if a large enough black hole approaches very slowly, it would begin to consume outer components of the solar system as it made its way to earth. Not being an expert on BH "matter acquisition" physics, some or all of these disappearances might result in a brief gamma ray/x-ray burst, or perhaps some other ER, or nothing but their disappearance.

Surely by the time it ate up a big gas giant, there would be no doubt about what is going on! But this is where my physics breaks down. It seems possible that if Neptune is being consumed, so are we. Still, early detection of some kind would be likely if the closing velocity is slow enough for the "right" sized BH.

But perhaps smaller BHs of some size, say 0.1 solar masses (a PBH), could move through the solar system without much interaction unless something substantial is right in its way. If earth is a dead on hit, one imagines we would disappear in an instant without any warning ahead of time.

Clearly one of the biggest issues to model for a predictable collision with earth is the effect of the intense gravitational field the BH has on objects in the solar system, and even beyond. A super massive black hole approaching the solar system at a fairly slow speed should begin to warp images of objects like stars and galaxies etc, that are directly aligned with it, and perhaps even lens objects behind it!

A deep sky survey might pick that up at some point, possibly months or years before the encounter. Again, it would likely depend largely on BH mass and closing speed. Of course most of this is based on Newtonian physics, but it seems, with the exception of mass consumption by the BH, that is mostly what it is. At least it is the best I can do, with the help of Sir Isaac, and a whole lot of modern science, and certainly the "conjecture".

 

[Richard Popovich]

If there is a Black Hole out there on a course to swollow our Solar System, we don't have to worry about it. If one was near us we would feel its' effects on us long before it gobbles us up.