Chapter 903: Supermassive Black Hole |
At this moment, Xiao Yu had already arrived beside this quasar. At a distance of roughly several hundred billion kilometers from the edge of the quasar, he was observing this strange thing at close range.
A distance of one hundred billion kilometers was truly nothing compared to the might of a quasar. Here, Xiao Yu detected a radiation output equivalent to that of an entire galaxy combined. Violent energy surged outward like raging waves, even shaking space itself into vibrations. Conducting curvature flight here was a highly risky matter, because space here was extremely unstable. But for Xiao Yu, it was still barely within a range he could handle.
Another enormous threat was the tidal force caused by the quasar’s immense gravity. Xiao Yu’s warships generally had lengths measured in kilometers, so the end farther from the quasar and the end closer to the quasar were subjected to greatly different gravitational forces. That enormous tearing force was enough to rip a star to pieces. Even with Xiao Yu’s current technology, he still had to be extremely cautious when facing a quasar.
A quasar could be said to be the most violent mode of energy release in the universe. When a supernova explodes, its brightness can overwhelm an entire galaxy in an instant, while a quasar continuously maintains a radiation intensity even stronger than that of a supernova explosion.
Xiao Yu observed this little thing, which had a diameter of only slightly more than one light-day, that is, a diameter of roughly more than twenty billion kilometers, and his heart was filled with shock and yearning. In such an empty and boundless place, the wonder and power of the universe were displayed before Xiao Yu in such a naked manner, making him feel that he was still so tiny.
Xiao Yu saw two bands of light erupting along the poles of the central black hole inside this quasar, shooting all the way into infinite distance. Far away, this jet stream had even connected with another galaxy. The matter and energy within the jet stream were colliding violently with the matter of that other galaxy, and countless strange phenomena were occurring there.
That galaxy was a full one million three hundred thousand light years away from the quasar before Xiao Yu. Yet this little thing, only one light-day in diameter, could emit jets that crossed a distance of more than one million light years.
That galaxy was orbiting their common center of mass with this quasar. A medium-sized galaxy spanning more than twenty thousand light years, in terms of total mass, could not even compare with this little thing only one light-day in diameter. It and this quasar formed a structure somewhat like a binary star system. At the same time, a large amount of its mass was continuously being stripped away and drawn into the quasar itself, forming in the universe a stream of matter similar to the Magellanic Stream.
Infinite amounts of matter were whirling madly around the massive black hole inside the quasar. Their speed was too high, they were compressed too densely by the central black hole’s gravity, and their collisions were too frequent and too violent. The level of energy they possessed simply surpassed the limits that intelligent beings could imagine. Xiao Yu even saw a dwarf planet about the size of the moon rushing toward the quasar at a speed extremely close to the speed of light. Its extremely high approach speed slightly offset the tearing of the tidal force, but it still could not escape the fate of being ripped apart. When it was still nearly one trillion kilometers away from the quasar, it had already been stretched into an elliptical shape. It passed by Xiao Yu’s fleet and slammed headlong into the quasar’s accretion disk.
This was an almost unimaginable form of existence. The most important thing was that although matter had become like this, it was still rotating around the black hole at extremely high speed. It was like a bowl of clear water. If you stirred it into rotation, it would not take much effort. But if you replaced that bowl of clear water with porridge, stirring it would become much harder. If you replaced that porridge with molten steel, stirring it would become extremely difficult.
But… what if you replaced that bowl of molten steel with neutron star matter weighing several hundred million tons per cubic centimeter? What kind of scene would it be to stir neutron star matter?
Now, the central black hole inside this quasar was doing exactly that. It was frantically stirring up neutron star matter whose total mass had to be measured in hundreds of millions of neutron stars, and devouring it wildly. Majestic and incomparable extreme stellar bodies such as neutron stars and white dwarfs were things even more insignificant than ants inside a quasar.
This could no longer be described as madness. This was a miracle, the greatest and most wondrous place in the universe.
That dwarf planet dragged over by the quasar’s gravity thus crashed into the quasar at extremely high speed, colliding with the frenzied matter inside the quasar’s accretion disk. Such a collision would be enough to pierce straight through several stars, yet inside the quasar, it did not produce the slightest visible sign. The quasar was too bright, and the energy radiation too violent. A mere dwarf planet truly could not stir up much here.
Such mad scenes were unfolding here every moment. And the tremendous energy carried by their extremely high speeds made Xiao Yu deeply wary. Xiao Yu was not a quasar and could not ignore such powerful energy eruptions. Even Star Cluster-Class battleships would suffer a certain degree of damage if struck by such insane things.
And so Xiao Yu remained beside this quasar, quietly and cautiously observing it, watching its two enormous jets that had blasted out for a million light years, watching the high-speed, frenziedly rotating accretion disk…
“Quasars are too rare, and their rate of devouring matter is too fast. Generally speaking, quasars can hardly exist for very long. If this quasar did not have a galaxy beside it supplying it with matter, it probably would already have consumed all the matter in its accretion disk and dimmed long ago.” Xiao Yu silently thought to himself. “I wonder what form a quasar takes after its accretion disk disappears? Just a single gigantic black hole with a mass several tens of billions of times that of the sun, wandering through this empty space?”
A quasar was destined to dim, because the matter available for it to devour was not infinite. Once it lost matter, the black hole’s jets, brightness, and violent energy radiation would all disappear, and it would eventually calm down. A quasar existing outside any galaxy, wandering alone through such empty space, was a scene that made Xiao Yu feel cold just imagining it.
The black holes inside quasars were too powerful, and once they lost their accretion disks they became extraordinarily silent. They were like peerless ferocious beasts hidden within this empty and void dark space. Encountering such a black hole during a long-distance voyage through the universe was obviously not a pleasant thing.
The quasar before him, because it had a supply of matter, was still in its prime. But just how many quasar black holes that had already calmed down existed in this universe, where they were wandering, and where they would move next, Xiao Yu knew nothing about any of it. But Xiao Yu knew that such things definitely existed in the universe, and their numbers might not even be small.
During the long course of travel, such abnormally massive black holes might by chance approach a galaxy. At that time, they would be activated once again and begin another gluttonous feast. Supermassive black holes of this mass scale were devastating even to galaxies. Whichever galaxy they approached, they would absolutely not leave until they had devoured that galaxy completely.
These were true destroyers of galaxies.
If, before Xiao Yu had become a Level 7 Civilization, the Milky Way had encountered such a black hole, then Xiao Yu, along with all civilizations living in the Milky Way, whether Sweepers or Guardians, none would have escaped, and all would have died.
At that time, first of all, through mutual attraction with the galaxy’s central black hole, the supermassive black hole would charge straight into the galaxy. It would first merge with the galaxy’s central black hole and become an even larger black hole, and then it would begin the process of devouring the galaxy. Of course, before that, along its path inward it would already have thoroughly disrupted the order of the galaxy, and no one knew how much matter it would already have swallowed. After merging with the galaxy’s central black hole, the change in gravity would alter the orbital paths of the stars. They would fall madly into the supermassive black hole, and this would continue until the last star, the last planet, asteroid, dwarf planet, interstellar dust, white dwarf, neutron star, and so on had all been devoured.
At that point, this supermassive black hole might perhaps let out a satisfied burp and continue on its journey.
This was a magnificent event that made Xiao Yu’s heart turn icy just thinking about it. And now it seemed that the pitiful galaxy forming a binary system with this quasar probably could not escape such a fate of being devoured. If life also existed within that galaxy, then they ought to hurry and develop as quickly as possible and leave that galaxy early.
“Getting close to this thing is just too dangerous. I’d better just stay nearby and take a look.” Xiao Yu thought silently, quietly giving up the idea of entering the interior of the quasar to observe it. Xiao Yu had no chance of seeing the true appearance of the supermassive black hole inside the quasar.