For all of you curious about science: Everything you ever wanted to know about black holes, but were afraid to ask. Here is a recently published article that will revolutionize the way we think of black holes and their place in the universe.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/37403/title/Ultramassive_as_big_as_it_getsHere is a short excerpt:
Well listen up, this just in: It looks like there is a limit to the superlatives. Black holes can�t eat everything. If a new analysis from a Yale astronomer is correct, even black holes run out of steam, and at a fairly precise point. The biggest black holes may reach only a few tens of billions of times the mass of the sun....
A budding new paradigm is that black holes�in a dance of mutual self-regulation�may influence almost everything about galactic origins, growth, form and ultimate fates. They are not just the overstuffed kernels in the middle of galaxies. For reasons not fully understood, it appears that the sizes of central black holes and the masses of their galaxies, especially the central bulges, are almost perfectly in step.
It is a very nice article, and great for adding to parents' store of scientific knowledge. It will help you answer your kid's questions on how big can black holes get. Don't all kids ask such questions?
