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Where are the Black holes in 40k ? They are out there somewhere and you would think that they would eventually play a part in the storyline and some point but they have not done anything yet. Does anybody know any refrence to them in 40k ?

No, I didn't find any reference to them thus far.
Most of them exist in galactic center and he is not so much populated. I believe that BH do exist in 40k, only that they are much rare than we think today.

Black Holes, like a bunch of other fun cosmic anomalies, seemed to be ignored in the fluff. I'm sure they exist and are off handily referenced once or twice but Damnit, where's my star system with a triplet of stars orbiting a black hole that are each surrounded by a large chain asteroid belt that weaves in between the four bodies without breaking?

Azure wrote:Black Holes, like a bunch of other fun cosmic anomalies, seemed to be ignored in the fluff. I'm sure they exist and are off handily referenced once or twice but Damnit, where's my star system with a triplet of stars orbiting a black hole that are each surrounded by a large chain asteroid belt that weaves in between the four bodies without breaking?

I don't know, they mention a nebula made from ectoplasm in the SW codex.

God how I hate the fluff in that book. I think it also mentions attacking someones "astral headquarters" at some point. WTF, was that next to their hyperspace tunnel that leads to Narnia?

My chapter is based in th Galactic core and is near several black holes.


they don't appear in the fluff that often simply because a Black Hole doesn't make for a nice neighbor. Populated worlds arn't usually going to be near a black hole.


Space Battles will also avoid such places for obvious reasons. the large space ships used in 40k would be attracted to the Black Holes at a massive rate and would have to keep their distance.

other Sci-fi worlds, with their puny space ships, can get fairly close to Black Holes without getting tugged on.

Sometimes, we are all idiots.

This was one of those cases.

Size does matter.


Gravitational force is determined by mass and distance. a greater mass will be attracted at a greater distance then a small one and with greater force.


friction has nothing to do with it.

Whoops, just re-checked my facts, and I am totally off.

Sorry, GT. My bad.

thats ok,


darn, Physics does help

The only time I can recall the fluff referencing black holes was in the Necron codex, where it mentioned that as a result of the C'tan fighting amongst themselves, entire star systems were devoured by black holes.

The C'tan aren't bored enough to start randomly spawning them yet.

Damn GW fluff they leave out all of the real life bits

Why bother with black holes when you have the Eye of Terror? Much more fierce.

They never mention supernovas either, which is strange as they would have far more of an impact on the galactic scale than a black hole.

If I remember correctly, the black star in the core of the Processional of the Damned (Kronus Expanse - Heaten Stars - from Rogue Trader rpg) is supposed to be a gravitational anomaly of some sort... particulary powerful, as time warps around it without any influence from the Immaterium; the fluff hints at some savants identifying it as a black hole.

Grey Templar wrote:thats ok,


darn, Physics does help

Bigger ships have bigger engines so it all balances out. Small and big ships only matters if you put a mini engine inside something that big which I doubt

bigger ships having bigger engines means nothing.

the engine is proportional to the ships size so it can move its massive bulk around.


Mass and Inertia are still working in zero gravity so the larger ships are slower then faster ones.


the only difference in space is that there is no friction(unless you hit something) to slow you down or limit your speed(which is only limited to speeds less then the speed of light), but your acceleration is limited.


the large ships in 40k must stay within certain speed parameters or they risk being torn apart by their own mass.

Brother Coa wrote:Most of them exist in galactic center and he is not so much populated.

Not true. The galactic center has a massive population of Orks.

and there are still some imperial outposts.


its not heavily populated due to intense radiation levels and gravitational anomolies cuased by stars being close to each other.

Grey Templar wrote:its not heavily populated

By humans you mean. As I said, there's massive populations of Orks in and around the galactic center.

yeah, and of course thats realitivly speaking. there are still a few billion people.

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, and of course thats realitivly speaking. there are still a few billion people.

Relative, yes... relative to the rest of the galaxy there's a massive number of Orks in and around the galactic center.

Grey Templar wrote:My chapter is based in th Galactic core and is near several black holes.


they don't appear in the fluff that often simply because a Black Hole doesn't make for a nice neighbor. Populated worlds arn't usually going to be near a black hole.


Space Battles will also avoid such places for obvious reasons. the large space ships used in 40k would be attracted to the Black Holes at a massive rate and would have to keep their distance.

other Sci-fi worlds, with their puny space ships, can get fairly close to Black Holes without getting tugged on.

Black holes aren't actually that terrible, it is a common misconception that black holes are 'massive unstoppable vacuum cleaners' that devour everything, if it were true nothing but black holes would exist.

If you replaced our sun with black hole none of the planets in the solar system would be enveloped and their orbits would be relatively uneffected. black holes are only dangerous to space travel if you get trapped in their event horizon (the point at which even light cannot escape, cos if even light cannot escape you are basically ed). The size and power of a ship is meaningless (gravitational forces are more effected by density than size, see black holes) any ship could pass near a black hole as long as it avioded the event horizon.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:My chapter is based in th Galactic core and is near several black holes.


they don't appear in the fluff that often simply because a Black Hole doesn't make for a nice neighbor. Populated worlds arn't usually going to be near a black hole.


Space Battles will also avoid such places for obvious reasons. the large space ships used in 40k would be attracted to the Black Holes at a massive rate and would have to keep their distance.

other Sci-fi worlds, with their puny space ships, can get fairly close to Black Holes without getting tugged on.

Black holes aren't actually that terrible, it is a common misconception that black holes are 'massive unstoppable vacuum cleaners' that devour everything, if it were true nothing but black holes would exist.

If you replaced our sun with black hole none of the planets in the solar system would be enveloped and their orbits would be relatively uneffected. black holes are only dangerous to space travel if you get trapped in their event horizon (the point at which even light cannot escape, cos if even light cannot escape you are basically ed). The size and power of a ship is meaningless (gravitational forces are more effected by density than size, see black holes) any ship could pass near a black hole as long as it avioded the event horizon.

So why aren't there any black holes in 40k?

There are. Most of them are just outside the milky way galaxy.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Black holes aren't actually that terrible, it is a common misconception that black holes are 'massive unstoppable vacuum cleaners' that devour everything, if it were true nothing but black holes would exist.

If you replaced our sun with black hole none of the planets in the solar system would be enveloped and their orbits would be relatively uneffected. black holes are only dangerous to space travel if you get trapped in their event horizon...

Well there's also all the radiation.

But back to the original question, I suspect the reason we don't hear about black holes and the like in 40k fluff is because most stories happen in the parts of the Galaxy where life can be found, which would logically not be where big dangerous cosmic phenomena hang out.

Ad Meliora wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:

Black holes aren't actually that terrible, it is a common misconception that black holes are 'massive unstoppable vacuum cleaners' that devour everything, if it were true nothing but black holes would exist.

If you replaced our sun with black hole none of the planets in the solar system would be enveloped and their orbits would be relatively uneffected. black holes are only dangerous to space travel if you get trapped in their event horizon...

Well there's also all the radiation.

This seems to be a misunderstanding of the word radiation, a black hole is theorised to act like a black body and as so it will emit radiation, most likely infrared radiation (it will not emit radiation in the form most commonaly know to the general public i.e. alpha, beta, gamma).

But this is missing the point that the sun emits a ton of radiation all the time (if it wasn't fot the electromagnetic field created by the Earth we would be in alot of trouble) and space is literally full of radiation flying all over the place. So it really doesn't matter.

Fair enough, I'll not argue anymore as quite frankly you sound like you know what you're talking about, and my position was based on vaguely recalling reading once that they produced loads of x-rays.

Black holes DO emit Gamma-rays but don't do so for very long(anything caught in those rays won't last long either) they mostly emit x-rays from the disks of super-hot matter that surrounds the event horizon. While supernovas and the like SHOULD be atleast mentioned in fluff, black holes wouldn't just appear in a populated area and even Orkz aren't crazy enough to populate planets near them.

Melissia wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Most of them exist in galactic center and he is not so much populated.

Not true. The galactic center has a massive population of Orks.

Warhammer 40000 and real world

What about stars becoming Supernova? Was it ever recorded by Imperials?