General Astronomy - Spring 2006
Homework #10 - due April 24



1. What is the Schwarzschild radius of a 3,000,000 solar mass black hole?

2. What is the maximum possible amount of energy which could be released by dropping 1 kg of hydrogen gas onto a maximally rotating black hole?  How long would this energy power the US?

3. A black hole is observed at a luminosity of 1033 W.  What does this tell us about the black hole mass?

4. Calculate the peak temperature of the blackbody radiation from a 100 solar mass black hole radiating at the Eddington luminosity.

5. The brightness of a quasar varies by a factor of 10 over 2 days.  What does this tell us about the quasar?