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What did you always wonder about #BlackHoles? Something that you always wanted to ask an astronomer working on them?
Collecting questions for a reason, maybe even answering them in the comments (or at a later point).
@vicgrinberg What percentage of "all mass" (if that phrase even has meaning) is in black holes? And is there anything useful we can say about how that percentage evolves in time?
@alzimon A really small part! For example, the mass of the supermassive black hole in our own Galaxy is 4.3 million solar masses, but the mass of the Milky Way are several hundred billion solar masses. Even if we count all the stellar mass black hole in the Milky Way additionally, it will still be a very small part. Similar consideration apply to other Galaxies.
It will grow over time as more stars die and become stellar black holes and as supermassive black holes grow but sloooooowly.
@vicgrinberg Just to have a ballpark figure for the order of magnitude, I'll take that to be around 10 to the minus 5 (a thousandth of a percent). Wow. That is waaaay less then I imagined (thankfully not more; that would have been scary). Thanks!