How to get rid of a Black Hole.

[DanDeFool]

I have the solution: gravitational towing.

You don't need to destroy it necessarily, just make it not hit your solar system. With enough warning you could theoretically change it's path so that it misses the solar system or just misses all objects and slips through harmlessly.
Build a GIGANTIC spaceship and have it move right next to the black hole, but outside of it's event horizon. Black holes are still affected by gravity like everything else so gradually the black hole will be pulled towards the spaceship's gravity. Gradually the spaceship will be able to tow the black hole in whatever direction it wants. This method [a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0509/0509595.pdf"]is already an idea being considered for avoiding asteroids[/a]; a black hole would work the same way, just on a much larger (though is some ways smaller) scale.

Actually, after finishing my last post, I just realized something. The rogue black hole could have a mass several times that of our entire solar system. It'd probably be easier to just use this idea on our own sun, thus pulling the entire solar system out of harm's way.

Thinking outside the box.

 

[johnnyLupine]

I would say that anything works in sci-fi as long as it sounds even vaguely routed in science and thats assuming you even explain it. Take light speed for example, ive not heard it explained anywhere in the starwars films but it sounds legit so it fits the bill, you don't even have to follow science as perfectly as you might think, if we ever did manage to reach such speeds in reality we probably wouldnt be treated to the light show which we are used to in the film since stars are so far away that they would simply drift by (at least thats what the discovery channel had to say!). You could probably just get away with telling the reader that your guys are going to drop a science thing into the black hole and its going to save the day, no need to explain the mechanics of it as long as you give them an awesome description of what happens after the device is activated.

If you really want to have someone explain it, black holes are formed when stars collapse under their own mass right? (or something like that) I was watching something on youtube the other day about how a person might survive passing through a super-massive blackhole, or whatever it was, because someone theorised the gravity would not be strong enough to spaghettify you if a black hole was big enough (I think it had something to do with the bigger ones not posessing as much mass as the smaller ones so their gravity is weaker or something). have your guys use a device which lowers the black holes mass enough for earth to be able to pass through it intact, even if it isnt perfect science it at least soudns somewhat plausable.

 

[Korolev]

Nothing can stop a black hole - a bomb would just get sucked into it. If a blackhole is coming our way, there is literally nothing we can do.

Fortunately, the odds are pretty low. While there are "roving" blackholes, space is so vast that the likelihood of one hitting us is very low indeed. Also, a blackhole is only dangerous if you get close to it - otherwise, it's not that big a threat.

But if we were unlucky enough to have one blunder into us, all you can do is get your affairs in order, make peace with loved ones and go to sleep knowing that any death-by-blackhole will be ludicrously quick. You won't even feel any pain. It's that fast.

 

[Alistair_Darkheart]

Bind a gods power to yourself and pray that it doesn't turn out like Karsus's Folly perhaps?

Other then that, I'd think you'd just want to abandon earth.

Al.

 

[Joccaren]

1) Open a wormhole to an alternate universe that is exactly the same as ours except from the fact that anti-matter won over matter in that universe inside the black hole.

2) The wormhole will suck in both the anti-matter black hole, and the matter black hole, into the space between the universes.

3) Black holes will cancel each other out and create a massive awesome explosion (Because when antimatter touches matter it reacts violently and there is an awful lot of matter/anti matter inside the two black holes so the magical space portal is necessary so that the black holes don't end up blowing up the galaxy.)

4) Optional: find some way to harness the energy released by the massive awesome explosion mentioned above (Which will be a massive amount of energy because all of the mass inside the two black holes is completely destroyed, and releases tons of energy).

5) ???

6) Profit!

Sadly as I pointed out in a previous post, this won't work.

Its the same reason that firing a laser at a black hole won't work, even though theoretically a powerful enough laser could cut through matter, thus tearing the black hole apart: What is in a black hole is not matter, nor antimatter. It is a singularity.

Matter and Antimatter are made of the same stuff at lower down levels, simply different arrangements. All that adding an equally sized "Antimatter Black Hole" to this "Matter Black Hole" would do is make the black hole twice as massive as the singularities inside each black hole combine to form a larger one.

Theoretically matter-antimatter cancellation is the most viable solution to allow the general public's suspension of disbelief, however it is impossible and would not work. As has been said numerous times in this thread: The only things you can do if a black hole is headed your way is to;
-If you have enough time, pull the black hole away with another black hole, or other massive object
-Again if you have enough time, move the solar system out of the black hole's way with a massive and hopefully relatively harmless object
-Put your head between your knees and kiss your bum goodbye, or head off on an exodus from Earth. You leave, or you die.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

You seem to have missed the grand truth,
In soviet universe, black hole stops you.

 

[Gabriel Dragulia]

call in The Doctor!

 

[OneCatch]

This was going to be my reply. In "A Brief History of Time" Hawking mentions briefly the possibility of having a black hole in orbit around the Earth (The reason for actually doing that, I can't remember - either research or as an energy source, I think).

I come bearing wikipedia article!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_process

This allows the use of rotating black holes as an energy source, or even as a kind of really big battery, albeit one that needs to be fed matter before energy is absorbed or released.

Alternatively, you could use the more conventional forces produced by a rotating black hole (magnetic, electric and gravitational fields) to power some kind of generator.

Lastly, you could use really small black hole's hawking radiation emissions to power stuff.

 

[GoldenDragon14]

1) Open a wormhole to an alternate universe that is exactly the same as ours except from the fact that anti-matter won over matter in that universe inside the black hole.

2) The wormhole will suck in both the anti-matter black hole, and the matter black hole, into the space between the universes.

3) Black holes will cancel each other out and create a massive awesome explosion (Because when antimatter touches matter it reacts violently and there is an awful lot of matter/anti matter inside the two black holes so the magical space portal is necessary so that the black holes don't end up blowing up the galaxy.)

4) Optional: find some way to harness the energy released by the massive awesome explosion mentioned above (Which will be a massive amount of energy because all of the mass inside the two black holes is completely destroyed, and releases tons of energy).

5) ???

6) Profit!

Sadly as I pointed out in a previous post, this won't work.

Its the same reason that firing a laser at a black hole won't work, even though theoretically a powerful enough laser could cut through matter, thus tearing the black hole apart: What is in a black hole is not matter, nor antimatter. It is a singularity.

Matter and Antimatter are made of the same stuff at lower down levels, simply different arrangements. All that adding an equally sized "Antimatter Black Hole" to this "Matter Black Hole" would do is make the black hole twice as massive as the singularities inside each black hole combine to form a larger one.

Theoretically matter-antimatter cancellation is the most viable solution to allow the general public's suspension of disbelief, however it is impossible and would not work. As has been said numerous times in this thread: The only things you can do if a black hole is headed your way is to;
-If you have enough time, pull the black hole away with another black hole, or other massive object
-Again if you have enough time, move the solar system out of the black hole's way with a massive and hopefully relatively harmless object
-Put your head between your knees and kiss your bum goodbye, or head off on an exodus from Earth. You leave, or you die.

Perhaps "antimatter" was a wrong choice of words on my part. I had intended for my solution to suggest merging an object that is completely opposite to a black hole, and therefore they are both cancelled out, but I didn't realize that antimatter and matter singularities are indistinguishable from each other XD. Perhaps open a wormhole to a universe exactly opposite ours in every way rather than just antimatter winning over matter...

 

[Olas]

I have the solution: gravitational towing.

You don't need to destroy it necessarily, just make it not hit your solar system. With enough warning you could theoretically change it's path so that it misses the solar system or just misses all objects and slips through harmlessly.
Build a GIGANTIC spaceship and have it move right next to the black hole, but outside of it's event horizon. Black holes are still affected by gravity like everything else so gradually the black hole will be pulled towards the spaceship's gravity. Gradually the spaceship will be able to tow the black hole in whatever direction it wants. This method [a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0509/0509595.pdf"]is already an idea being considered for avoiding asteroids[/a]; a black hole would work the same way, just on a much larger (though is some ways smaller) scale.

Actually, after finishing my last post, I just realized something. The rogue black hole could have a mass several times that of our entire solar system. It'd probably be easier to just use this idea on our own sun, thus pulling the entire solar system out of harm's way.

Thinking outside the box.

Or we could just do nothing.

A black hole is not as dangerous as it's reputation has made it out to be. A Black hole's force is just gravity, the same gravity that everything in the universe exerts, which at a distance is incredibly weak. A black hole with the mass of the sun is no more dangerous to us than the actual sun is; in fact less so.
Sure if the black hole came VERY VERY close (like closer than the moon)it could swallow us, but the solar system is HUGE and very spread out. the chances of it actually hitting a planet is super low. All the black hole is likely to do is disrupt the orbits of some objects it passes nearby.
We're at more risk from asteroids and comets that the black hole would dislodge from their natural orbits.


Also, how would we know the black hole is even coming? They are freakishly hard to detect.

 

[Samantha Burt]

I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing it's a white hole.

"A white hole?"

Frankly, this is my favourite scene in all of Red Dwarf. O:

OT: I have no words. My brain can't function around the concept of "stopping" a point so dense it warps the very space-time around it.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Why try to stop the black hole? Just move the solar system out of its way. Much easier.

Seriously, this thread is silly. It's like standing on train tracks and asking about the best way to stop the train.

Well, if Hancock could do it...

 

[Brendan Stepladder]

Maybe you can deflect it by creating an artificial rogue blcak hole moving in a different direction.

 

[Jegsimmons]

So I have this idea for a short story. It mainly involves a mission by astronauts to get rid of a Rogue Black Hole (that's a Black Hole that moves, incase you didn't know) that will swallow up the Earth and Sun if it isn't stopped. How would one hypothetically do this?

My current idea is a bomb so powerful that (with a touch of space-magic) it counteracts the gravitational force of the Black Hole and basically fizzles it out. But I then thought that such a bomb would have to infinitely powerful, and an infinitely powerful explosion would just blow up the universe.

So, hypothetically, how do you think we could solve this problem?

no way in any sci-fi is this possible.

firstly, a black hole is nothing more than a condensed star. its matter with a fuck ton of gravity, so it doesnt really 'swallow' you just get crushed.
See if our sun just randomly went black hole on us the only thing that would happen would be us freezing and shit getting dark...other than that we'd still remain in orbit since the black holes mass would be exactly the same and have the same gravitational pull.

In fact black holes are actually estimated to be (get this) 4 meters across in diameter.


Science...cooler than fiction.


So, the only way you could defeat a black hole going rouge (how you'r going to even write that is any ones guess but what ever) would be to exploit the fact the matter in suns and stars is Hydrogen. So.....make a form of hydrogen bomb and scatter the matter.

how ever this would also be impossible since in space bombs even nuclear need matter to transfer energy to transfer their energy weather its kinetic or other wise, i guess radiation energy transference would work but it would work very well.

So if its a a solution to knocking it somewhere else or destroying it.....you're fucked....all you can really do is just wait the millions of years it takes for a black hole to reform into a star or loose its energy....which ever comes first.


so unless you pull a star trek 9 red matter out your ass.....your stumped.... what could work is preventing a relatively close star near say...a colony thats about to super nova or collapse....or preventing one of our gas giants from combusting.

 

[yuval152]

You throw an avocado inside, works every time.

 

[halfeclipse]

The sci in your sci-fi is so soft you could spread it on a bagel. Get rid of it however the heck you want.

 

[Tanis]

It's been done...

All you need to do is reverse the polarity of the jelly babies and you're good to go!

 

[Mikeyfell]

Chuck Norris.

Isn't that the go-to answer in these situations? Just make Chuck Norris roundhouse kick the black hole back to where it came from?

Oh a serious answer... Well fine. A black hole is just a singularity of gravity so I suppose you could, in your hypothetical science, build an anti-gravity device to slowly dissipate the black hole. Hard mode: don't mention Black Mesa.

 

[Gormech]

First, you would have to launch an explosive behind the black hole so that the black hole is between earth and the explosive. The explosive would have to create a detonation strong enough to make a second black hole, just large enough to pull the rouge one back from its trajectory and cause it to remain rather in a single position, or go in reverse. The first black hole should serve as a shield, absorbing the blast that would reach earth and leaving us relatively safe. Only problem is blowing our gravitational orbit off whack and sending us into the Sun or out too far away from it, probably shredding us in the asteroid belt. At least it'd be a good show.