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Discover the awe-inspiring power and beauty of the cosmic phenomena in our latest video.
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00:00Black holes are massive, the densest objects in the universe.
00:04They have such a great mass that their gravitational pull doesn't let anything, even light, escape their clutches.
00:10But in this terrifying world of black holes, there are monsters that are in a league of their own.
00:18Recently, astronomers discovered a black hole that is 33 billion times as heavy as our sun.
00:24This space giant sits at the center of a supergiant elliptical galaxy called Abel 1201, which is located 2.7
00:33billion light years away from our planet.
00:38This black hole is so large it was given a rare designation, an ultra-massive black hole.
00:45No wonder, it's more than 8,000 times heavier than the supermassive black hole at the center of our home
00:51Milky Way galaxy.
00:53This ultra-massive black hole was the first one to be discovered with the help of gravitational lensing.
01:00This method is based on the fact that very massive objects such as galaxies bend the light from a more
01:06distant object, magnifying it.
01:09A great thing about this method of research is that it allows astronomers to study inactive black holes too.
01:15It could help us detect loads of new black holes beyond our universe.
01:19That's what the area surrounding our galaxy is called.
01:23Probably, it would help us find some exotic objects we've never seen before.
01:31Now, let's speak about another awesome instrument that efficiently helps us explore space, the James Webb Space Telescope.
01:40When it stares at young galaxies, which would look like mere red specks to you,
01:45it sees an astonishing number of cyclones churning at their centers.
01:50Those are black holes.
01:53Interestingly, giant black holes were believed to be big players in early cosmic history.
01:59But, James Webb regularly finds an unexpected number of these beasts.
02:05For example, using the telescope, astronomers have detected a supermassive black hole from when our universe was less than 600
02:14million years old.
02:15In universe terms, it's just a baby.
02:18This is the most distant, actively feeding supermassive black hole ever observed.
02:24It's located at the heart of its host galaxy called Sears 1019.
02:32The black hole is surprisingly small and not massive at all.
02:36It's actually one of the smallest found in the early universe.
02:39It's equal to approximately 9 million suns.
02:43It might sound like a lot, but in reality, supermassive black holes tend to grow to billions of times the
02:50mass of our star.
02:52There's another unusual thing about this find, and scientists are having a hard time trying to explain it.
02:59You see, it's supposed to take way longer than 600 million years for a supermassive black hole to grow to
03:06its full potential.
03:07The development happens when a black hole either feasts on surrounding matter or merges with a larger black hole.
03:15Even black holes similar to the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, which is almost 4.3
03:22million times the mass of our sun, are supposed to be seen in the more recent universe.
03:31Actually, scientists have long suspected that supermassive black holes probably existed in the early universe.
03:38But this theory has been proven only thanks to the JWST and its infrared eye.
03:43It's shown that the black hole Sears 1019 is actively munching on all the matter it can lay its hands
03:50on.
03:51Such feeding black holes are usually surrounded by swirls of gas and dust, falling inside them, called accretion disks.
03:59The gravitational force of a black hole heats this matter, and it makes the disk shine.
04:05And that's not all.
04:07Extra-strong magnetic fields produced in this process channel the matter to the poles of the black hole.
04:13From time to time, this matter is released into space in twin, powerful jets.
04:19They move at a speed that is close to the speed of light, which generates incredibly bright light.
04:29Astronomers were watching the galaxy hosting the unusual old black hole as part of the cosmic evolution early release since
04:37survey.
04:37They saw the galaxy as it was when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was just 570 million years
04:45old.
04:46Besides the super-old black hole, scientists spotted two other ones.
04:51Those probably appeared 1 and 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.
04:56They also discovered 11 ancient galaxies that existed between 470 and 675 million years after the beginning of cosmic history.
05:11Now, how about having a look at the biggest black holes astronomers have found so far,
05:17and finding out what would happen to Earth if one of them was to enter the solar system?
05:23NGC 6166 is a monster that has grown to have a mass of 30 billion solar masses.
05:29It's an elliptical galaxy that has an active nucleus at the center.
05:34It's also one of the most luminous sources of X-rays.
05:38The galaxy's supermassive black hole powers two symmetric radio jets in the opposite direction,
05:44which is the result of the infall of gas into its center.
05:48Another peculiar thing about NGC 6166 is that it shows a blue shift,
05:55which means it's moving towards us.
05:57Is it time to pack up and move out of our solar system?
06:03The next supermassive black hole is located in the constellation of Draco,
06:09approximately 10.4 giga light-years from us.
06:13The mass of this supergiant is more than 30 billion solar masses.
06:18Besides being incredibly massive, the black hole is also really big.
06:23If it replaced our sun, the diameter of this hole would extend to the orbit of Pluto.
06:29The next black hole is one of the most interesting on our list.
06:34It has a mass of 40 billion solar masses and is actually a blazar.
06:38It's the most energetic of all quasars, super bright distant objects.
06:44The blazar's luminosity is 300 trillion times that of the sun,
06:48and more than 25,000 times as great as the luminosity of all 100 to 400 billion stars of the
06:56Milky Way galaxy combined.
06:58But since the distance to this quasar is about 12.1 billion light-years,
07:04we can't see it directly.
07:05But we know that the central black hole of the quasar consumes huge amounts of matter,
07:11about 4,000 solar masses of material every year.
07:19IC 1101 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy.
07:23It's the most massive known galaxy so far.
07:26Since this galaxy is elliptical, it isn't filled with gas.
07:30That's why the star formation in that region is very low.
07:34As for the black hole at the center of this galaxy,
07:37it lies in the mass range of 40 to 100 billion solar masses and emits clear radio signals.
07:45But wait for this champion.
07:47Astronomers have discovered a gravitational space wonder that has grown to really unimaginable proportions.
07:53The black hole I'm talking about is ton 618,
07:58and it's a mind-boggling 66 billion solar masses.
08:02Yep, we've got another ultra-massive black hole here.
08:07Imagine gathering all the stars in our home Milky Way galaxy
08:11and squishing the matter they're made of into one black hole.
08:15And it still won't be enough to create a ton 618.
08:18If this monster of a black hole replaced the sun,
08:22its radius would be more than 40 times the size of Neptune's orbit.
08:30You know that black holes are incredibly dense.
08:33But it doesn't mean they're some kind of space predators
08:36roaming galaxies and munching on everything they come across.
08:40Ton 618, for example,
08:42still has a whole galaxy filled with stars and other stuff
08:45happily orbiting it without getting pulled inside.
08:48So, the perception of black holes as giant vacuum cleaners is wrong.
08:53In reality, it's incredibly hard to grow a black hole.
08:57Try and you'll see.
08:58And now, what if a supermassive black hole,
09:01like the one that dwells at the center of our home Milky Way galaxy,
09:05moved a bit closer to our solar system?
09:08The answer is simple.
09:10We'd be doomed.
09:11The distance between this huge thing and Earth
09:13would be several dozens of light years.
09:15And still, it would wreak total havoc on our planet.
09:18Earth, along with other objects making up the solar system,
09:22would be tugged into the black hole's orbit
09:24and doomed to spin around it for eternity.
09:27But you can relax and breathe out.
09:30Such massive black holes stay away from us at the moment.
09:36Okay, here's the deal.
09:37Something is bound to happen that can affect everything
09:40we've ever known about space and time.
09:43You've heard about black holes, right?
09:45That denser-than-life type of phenomenon
09:47that usually exists in the center of galaxies?
09:50Two of them, located 9 billion light-years away from Earth,
09:54are expected to collapse into each other.
09:57And my oh my, I do not want to be around to see that.
10:01Let's get one thing straight.
10:02Black holes are the most powerful things in the entire universe
10:05that we know of.
10:07If they decided to go all revenge of the Sith on us,
10:10we'd be doomed.
10:11A black hole was once a massive star that went supernova,
10:15meaning that the star collapsed onto itself
10:18and the sheer magnitude of the explosion
10:20created a black hole in its place.
10:23Oh, by the way,
10:24black holes do not pull things inside like a vacuum cleaner.
10:28That's just a popular myth.
10:29Say we were to replace our sun with a black hole at the center of the solar system.
10:34Not much would change, except that maybe we'd all freeze.
10:38Yeah.
10:38But black holes can do something much worse than vacuum stuff.
10:42They can delete the universe itself.
10:44If a black hole was to follow a normal timeline,
10:47it would go from its creation to total disappearance.
10:51But this process is very, very slow.
10:54I'm talking about billions and billions of years
10:57before a black hole loses its mass entirely.
11:00That happens because they're constantly losing their mass every single second.
11:04Black holes radiate their mass away,
11:07like a boiling teapot loses its water as steam.
11:11Yet, things rarely go as planned,
11:13both in our lives and apparently in the universe itself.
11:16So, it wouldn't be that much of a surprise
11:19to find out that two black holes are en route to collapse.
11:23That's what scientists have found out recently.
11:25And let's just say that this is one of the reasons
11:28why the scientific community is freaking out just a little bit.
11:32The first question that comes to mind is,
11:34what does that mean for us humans?
11:36Total annihilation?
11:38Now, now, no need to be this dramatic.
11:40The best-case scenario,
11:42we'd be in for an interstellar type of experience.
11:45Roll me in, please.
11:46Let's rewind a little bit to understand how this would happen.
11:5045 years ago, a group of scientists
11:52began noticing a weird behavior
11:55coming from a galaxy far, far away.
11:57The galaxy is found 9 billion light-years away.
12:00And its scientific name is a mouthful.
12:03But let's just call it super-far-away galaxy.
12:06You might be asking yourself,
12:08well, how did scientists observe this black hole
12:11so far away if it doesn't emit any light?
12:14Good question.
12:15That's because black holes gather disks of gas around them,
12:18and they emit some of this material into space.
12:21These jets can be detected
12:23from a distance of millions of light-years.
12:25Now, if these hot gas jets are directed towards space,
12:29then scientists give these black holes a special name,
12:32blazars.
12:33A particular blazar has been gaining
12:35worldwide attention recently.
12:37Long name, but let's just call it Andy.
12:40Imagine you're a scientist at Caltech,
12:43and you're looking at a blazar in your radio telescope,
12:46and you notice its strange behavior.
12:48Its brightness goes on and off,
12:50like the ticking of a clock.
12:52At first, you don't understand what's happening over there
12:55in a distant corner of the galaxy.
12:56But then, you realize there must be another black hole
13:00circling the first one.
13:02In other words, scientists discovered
13:04that Andy was being orbited by another blazar, Gomer.
13:08And the regularity of their twinkling
13:10can only mean they are close to a total collapse.
13:14It gets worse.
13:15Each of the two blazars is estimated
13:17to be a few hundred million times the mass of our sun.
13:21Have you seen our sun?
13:22It's huge.
13:23It's already 333,000 times the mass of our Earth.
13:27This means we're destined to face something out of our league.
13:31Now, this is not the first time scientists
13:33have detected something like this.
13:35In September 2015,
13:37the LIGO observatory detected a collision of two black holes.
13:41Each of them was as heavy as 30 suns,
13:44and an equivalent of three solar masses
13:46was released once they crashed into each other.
13:49And guess what?
13:50This gravitational wave passed through Earth
13:53at the speed of light.
13:54But we really weren't affected by it.
13:57Maybe you were sleeping and felt something weird in the air,
14:00but nothing significant happened to us
14:02as a species or to our planet.
14:04But that's because the blast was weak.
14:07The thing is,
14:08the expected collision between Andy and Gomer
14:11will send unprecedented gravitational waves
14:14throughout galaxies,
14:15and they will reach the solar system.
14:17But what is this shock wave actually capable of doing?
14:21Well, it could stop our sun from releasing gas for a few minutes,
14:25which means it would stop heating the solar system.
14:27So, let's say you were going about your summer day,
14:30and out of the blue,
14:31the atmosphere froze for a few seconds.
14:34Doesn't sound too nice, huh?
14:36But that's actually a better possibility than the next one.
14:39In one of the worst-case scenarios,
14:41a blast from the collision between Andy and Gomer
14:44could break bonds between atoms
14:46and make everything disintegrate.
14:48You, me, your cat,
14:50we'd all turn into flying particles
14:51floating in the vacuum of space.
14:54This may sound scary,
14:55but scientists say that an atom
14:57is made out of 99% empty space.
15:00This means that everyone on this Earth,
15:02all 8 billion of us,
15:04and everything that exists,
15:05planets, objects, animals,
15:07are all made up of 99% empty space.
15:10So, perhaps all that Andy and Gomer would do
15:13is separate all of our atoms and desolidify us.
15:17Then again, the blast could mess
15:19with the fabric of space and time as we know it.
15:21You remember Albert Einstein, right?
15:24Crazy hair?
15:25He's the name behind the theory of relativity.
15:27Einstein discovered that time is relative.
15:30It's always dependent on the observer.
15:33This would mean that time is not the same
15:35throughout the cosmos.
15:36Why, though?
15:37Well, because Einstein's theory of relativity
15:40is also a theory of gravity.
15:42Einstein discovered that gravity
15:44is the effect that objects have
15:46on the fabric of space-time.
15:48Every object that has a mass,
15:49including you, me, your cat, and our planet,
15:53creates a warp or a distortion
15:54in the fabric of space-time
15:56that causes it to bend.
15:58The bigger the mass,
15:59the bigger the gravitational force,
16:01and the bigger the distortion on the fabric.
16:03It may sound complicated,
16:05but, hey, this is what creates
16:07different perceptions of space and time
16:09throughout the cosmos.
16:10This is why you'll age differently
16:12on Earth and on Jupiter.
16:14This is why time passes completely different
16:16for astronauts on long missions
16:18and for people that remain on Earth.
16:21And this is why a collision of two mega-blazars
16:24could mess with our perceptions of space and time
16:26due to the sheer force
16:28of its gravitational shockwaves.
16:30Got it?
16:30Not to mention that black holes
16:32are already a huge warp
16:34in the fabric of space-time.
16:36You remember that interstellar scene, right?
16:38Where the lead character
16:39bends the space-time continuum
16:41through a black hole?
16:43Now, don't try this at home, though.
16:44As far as we know,
16:46anyone who chooses to go inside a black hole
16:49has no guarantee of making it home again.
16:52Scientists say that this blazar explosion
16:54will happen in approximately 10,000 years.
16:57But wait a minute.
16:58If this blazar lies 9 billion light-years away from Earth,
17:02it means that these two black holes
17:04should have already collided
17:06long before our solar system
17:08and home planet were born.
17:10You see, the solar system
17:11was born around just 4 billion years ago.
17:13And since it takes us 9 billion light-years
17:16to receive the light emitted from the blazars
17:19in the first place,
17:20this means that the collapse of the two blazars
17:22already took place,
17:24and it'll reach Earth 10,000 years from now.
17:28This means the shockwaves are already
17:30making their way through the galaxies
17:32at this very moment.
17:33But still, it's not something
17:35even your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren
17:39will be around to see.
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