Dark Matter Solves Longstanding Black Hole Problem, Astrophysicists Say

Physicists say that they might have solved a long standing problem: How do supermassive black holes manage to merge to larger ones. Their idea: dark matter gets the job done. Or does it? I've had a look.

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#science #sciencenews #physics

[blauemadeleine]

The item you found, looks like the spike that is used to anchor a small(ish) solar light in your garden

[Ermuggo]

Turns out the weird ground spike is the only thing I understood in this video.

[LordSlag]

That object is called a yard pin. The longer cross shaped section gets pushed into the ground as an anchor, and something fits into the cylindrical hole at the top.

[polytopes_and_light]

I work in the pulsar field, and over the last 20 years I got pretty tired of seeing hundreds of papers per year speculating on what the pulsar timing arrays could be telling us. It could be hundreds of different things, which means that we'll likely never be able to say anything definitive about any of them in particular. Even the most mundane thing (BH mergers) has ten parameters we can teak to get the right power and spectrum that might eventually be detected. Thus, a combination of ten parameters that gives us two observables. However, not being able to say for sure what something is is great for citations: the longer the uncertainty goes on, the more theoretical speculation can be made without the need to exclude theories. This is also, of course, great for funding!

[anibalsinalma]

Modern physics: something that no one saw solves something no one understands.

[brianswift]

That spikey thing looks like a ground spike for a solar energized garden light. That is, a little weak light that has a solar cell on top that provides a little light around a garden or walkway for part or all of the evening.

[geoffreyhhill]

Q: How do black holes get so big?

A: They take Asteroids 😂😂😂

[markmeridian]

To summarize; we don't know what dark matter is, we don't know if it interacts with itself, we don't really know that few galaxies have two super massive black holes because we haven't yet looked for their lower frequency gravitational wave radiation, but this theory solves a long-standing problem.

[ibji]

It's a plastic spike used to kill plastic vampires....duh!

[leifotto]

A true statement…

that spikey thing is either:

• A fragment from a coronal mass ejection, or

• A prop for a ploy for more favorable ranking by the all-powerful YouTube algorithm, which ploy I am more than happy to support.

🙏🏻😉🌿

[crazyedo]

Your item is the ground part of a Fremen "thumper". It is commonly used to attract sandworms.😁

[eyeofthasky]

LOVE how u created this whole discussion of black holes just to fill out the time for this video which was originally called "what did i find here, please tell me" 😆

[Thomas-gk]

Wow, that's interesting, didn't ever hear about that supermassive BH merger problem. Thank you

[simontemplar]

Thanks, I learned of the final parsec problem from this video.

[moriahgamesdev]

It's a thing that goes on the end of a cheap solar garden light. You're husband pulled it out when the light stopped working and thought 'Oh, vielleicht wird sich das eines Tages als nützlich erweisen' so he stuck it a random drawer and never did anything with it. I have about twelve of them.

[garyfilmer]

Thank you, Sabine, the enigma of Dark Matter continues to fascinate me, but I know many others are just plain fed-up with it, or dismiss its existence entirely, as is reflected in some of the comments made here. As for the artefact found in your door, it does lead me to speculate as to whether it is the kind of spike used to help secure a small alien probe to the surface of a planet, or even an asteroid. If you show it to Avi Loeb, he might be able to confirm its extraterrestrial origins, or not. Lol!😂

[jehoney]

it looks like the spike for putting a low voltage yard light in the ground.

[erikskupce]

Certainly the spike attracts more attention than a supermassive black hole and by far - amazing 😮 Nice trick Sabine - it worked !

[patrickarchbold]

Amazing how an invisible and undetectable thing manages to plug holes in so many theories.

[eljcd]

Great to see "The Final Parsec Problem" adressed. It effectivelly falsifies Galaxy mergers as a way for SMBHs to grow. And SIDM, absolutelly no way. Is incompatible not only with observed galaxies dynamics, but also things like clusters collisions. LCDM already has a hard time acomodating such high collisions speeds. Throw SIDM on It, and It breaks apart.