Two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbital dance at the core of the distant galaxy OJ 287. This diagram shows their sizes relative to the solar system. The larger one, with about 18 billion times the mass of our sun (right), would encompass all the planets in the solar system with room to spare. The smaller one is about 150 million times the mass of our sun (left), which would be large enough to swallow up everything out to the asteroid belt, just inside the orbit of Jupiter.

https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/image/ssc2020-11b-sizes-of-black-holes-in-galaxy-oj-287-relative-to-the-solar-system

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Cool, but only if you could somehow do it very quickly (which would violate the laws of physics) or had some sort of suspended animation system you repeatedly went into. Even the nearest star to us would take you well over 4 years to reach at the speed of light.

    As for OJ 287, it would take you five billion years to get there. Longer than the Earth has existed.