For example, some giant “planet” the size of our sun which has a surface like the moon, floating through space in darkness.
Tangentially, how are we sure that black holes aren’t these? Are we misinterpreting absence of light as black holes when instead they could just be large dark objects?
In: 9
Depends on your definition of an object and what you consider to be supermassive. There are plenty of phenomenon in the universe that are huge and not hot or bright, like giant gas and dust clouds. If by object, you mean a single solid object, then, depending on how you consider a black hole’s temperature, there’s supermassive black holes. Otherwise, there’s an upper limit on mass because anything that gets more than roughly 75-80 times the mass of Jupiter becomes a star.
I’m not sure what you mean by your second point. Black holes *are* supermassive and not hot or bright. A black hole is exactly what happens when you get that much mass concentrated in one place. What would we be confusing them for?
Latest Answers