Black holes are a lot smaller than you are thinking. The event horizon isn't much bigger than the earth for moderate sized black holes. Even the event horizon of a super massive black hole is much smaller than 1 light year across, much less a million. A black hole would have to get pretty close to spagettify the planet. If a smallish black hole came into the solar system we might not even notice it for a few weeks/months.

Not sure what you mean by that second bit. Even if we somehow went into orbit around a stellar black hole we'd still be going around the center.

I know how big a black hole is. They are usually extremely tiny (as small as even a football). But the gravitational pull of a black hole is immense and would pull things in from millions of lightyears away. The blackhole in the centre of our galaxy keeps a whole galaxy in orbit due to its huge gravity

I said the gravitational pull of it was 1 million light years not the black hole noob. And it could spaghettify us from several lightyears away.

Ahhahahahahaha hahah its funny seeing you pretend to know stuff about black holes. Do you have any idea how much a light year is? Even the super massive black hole in the center of the galaxy does not spagettify stuff more than a few light hours away from the singularity.

Black holes themselves are smaller than a pixel on your screen. The event horizon is the defining feature of a black hole though, stuff doesn't spagettify for most sized black holes till it passes this plane. You know stars orbit around black holes right? They're much much much closer than a few light years away and just have their material slowly pulled into the black hole.

They may have a gravitational effect a million light years or more but its not different than a star of the same mass would have, or a cluster of stars at that distance.

You claim to know more than me though. Okay Mr.Genius.

i see people throwing around figures that are confusing me. can any black hole really suck something in from a million light years away? is there any reference to this? i mean keeping things in perspective, the entire length of our galaxy is only 95,000 light years. to say for certainty that our super massive black hole can influence something 10 times farther away than the farthest star in our galaxy seems speculative. most likely the object would pass by without being nudged. there are known galaxies out there that are over a million light years in size but they are the eliptical-shaped ones where many galaxies have merged together.

When a galaxy merges so do the blackholes in the centre adding together the total masses of both blackholes.

And yes you are correct. Although things passing by would not be brought into orbit there path of travel could be changed slightly even if that is only by 1 degree. All I'm saying is that a blackhole isnt really a problem. If we came near one, our galaxy would merge with it. Yes we would die if that were to happen but it wont happen for a very long time, and when it does the andromeda galaxy and the milky way will merge brining all new types of life to the biospheres of that galaxy. In other words, it would be worth it for all the possible life.

This post was edited by SnIpErPRO69L337 on Aug 30 2010 07:56am

The effect a black hole has on the objects far away from it, are similar to the effect our sun has on the planets. There is the gravitational force due to the enormous mass of the black hole. (F=G*(m1*m2/(r*r))) Yet the objects do not get pulled in beyond the event horizon, or at least, not at a significant speed. The event horizon is basically the 'point of no return'. Once you pass it, you'll end up in the singularity.

if I was worried I would not spend my last 2 years on this site I would rob a bank and go to some sunny country for 2 years.

So no obviously not that concerned.

everytime i make my rounds to the store i pick up an extra can of diced vegetables and no xplode because i know when this apocalypse strikes i'll be large and incharge