1. Amanda Dabney
January 21, 2010
Black Holes
The universe is full of vast objects, and quite possibly not all have been discovered. Black holes are among
one of these that have been discovered and began to take a life of their own. Hollywood has depicted them as a
space time traveling device. The truth of the matter is though if you were to be “sucked” into one you would never
be able to escape and you would die.
A black hole is caused when a red super giant star begins to run out of fuel. The star loses the force
pushing itself outward and is overcome by the force of its own gravity pulling inward. Eventually, the star has so
much gravity and is so compacted that it "eats itself" until there is nothing left but a hole in the "fabric" of space-
time, created by the gravity left over from the star. Around this star is an immense amount of gravity. In fact, light
cannot even escape the power of a black hole. If light passes the event horizon there is no return and it is taken
into the black hole.
Once an object is sucked into a black hole, it begins to be bombarded with radiation, and crushed at
atomic level. The point however when an object is completely gone is not the event horizon, but rather is the
singularity. The event horizon is one of the layers that surrounds the singularity. Below is a diagram of the different
parts of a black hole.
There are two main types of black holes- stellar and
super massive. Stellar sized black holes are the remnants of
massive dead stars that have imploded. It is estimated that our
galaxy contains millions of these stellar black holes. Super
massive black holes can have a mass millions of times that of the
Sun. It is believed that these massive holes are in the center of
every galaxy. There may be mini black holes, smaller than atoms
in volume but as massive as whole mountains. There are some
black holes lying between stellar and super massive. It is quite
likely that some kind of objects might be found in the universe
having opposite characteristics of a black hole, which spewing
out every matter and radiation into the universe. Although these
have not been found, it is still a possibility that lies within the
universe.
A few theories on what happens to matter have begun
to develop, one of these is presented by a theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawkings. Hawking's
answer is that the black holes hold their contents for eons but themselves eventually deteriorate and die. As the
black hole disintegrates, they send their transformed contents back out into the infinite universal horizons from
whence they came. Some cosmologist however still believe that the matter is completely destroyed once it
reaches the point of singularity. However none of these theories can yet be proven.
Bibliography
"BBC - Science & Nature - Space - Black Holes." BBC - Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/deepspace/blackholes/index.shtml>.
"Black Holes, Black Holes Information, Information on Black Holes at SPACE.com." Learn More at Space.com. From
Satellites to Stars, NASA information, Astronomy, the Sun and the Planets, we have your information here..
N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. <http://www.space.com/blackhole
"Stephen Hawkins revises his opinion about black holes by Ajoy Roy ." Mukto-mona
(মà§ﾁ কà§ﾍ তমনা ) : A Secular site for Bengali humanists & freethinkers. N.p., n.d. Web. 21
Jan. 2010. <http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/ajoy/hawking