A friend of yours who is a science fiction fan hears you talk about the fact that astronomers now believe tha?

Question

A friend of yours who is a science fiction fan hears you talk about the fact that astronomers now believe that the mechanism for the large energy output of quasars involves a supermassive black hole. He challenges you, saying something like "Oh come on, every science fiction fan knows that nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole! How can a black hole be an energy source!?" How would you respond to his objection?

Answer 1

Matter falling into a black hole produces strong radiation just before it disappears into the black hole. So the energy is not technically coming from the black hole itself.

Answer 2

It is the black hole feeding on the matter around it that causes the extreme light output of the quasar. It is the matter falling into the black hole, in the case of a quasar a supermassive black hole, as it is flattened into an accretion disk around the hole and then accelerated close to the speed of light, that gives off the tremendous energy in quasars, exotic "stars" the size of a small galaxy that we can see 12 billion years back in time.

Answer 3

The standard theoretical model is that the energy is generated by matter falling onto a supermassive black hole of between 106 and 1010 solar masses. As the material falls into the black hole, angular momentum causes the material to flatten into an accretion disk. Frictional heating causes the infalling material to turn into plasma and emit strongly in the optical, ultra-violet or X-ray bands. Frequently, one observes jets emanating from the accretion disk, although the mechanism of formation of those jets is poorly understood. The accretion mechanism is highly efficient at turning matter into energy, and can convert almost 50% of the mass-energy of an object into energy as compared with only a few percent with nuclear fusion.

Answer 4

It could be 2 spinning black holes which would create an area between the black holes where large ammounts of energy could escape.

Answer 5

I think I've read in a book that one quasar or galaxy it's fairly small started to form or travel 6 x the speed of light. I am pretty sure I read something like that.

Answer 6

I thought there was recently pictures of gas jets emitting from opposite sides of a black hole, and that "Hawking radiation" was also posited to escape from one