USATODAY.com – Black holes are actually green
A new study finds that the supermassive black holes at the hearts of some galaxies are the most fuel efficient engines in the universe.
“If you could make a car engine that was as efficient as one of these black holes, you could get about a billion miles out of a gallon of gas,” said study team leader Steve Allen of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University. “In anyone’s book, that would be pretty green.”
The finding, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and announced in a media teleconference Monday, is giving scientists insights into how supermassive black holes generate energy and how they affect the galaxies where they make their homes.