THIS TIME BLACK HOLES

1: A Massive Star Collapsing In Upon Itself

A black hole is formed when a large star starts running out of fuel and begins to collapse under its own gravity. Such a star may become a white dwarf or a neutron star, but if the star is sufficiently massive then it may continue shrinking eventually to the size of a tiny atom, known as a gravitational singularity. A black hole refers to the region in space in which the singularity’s gravitational force is so strong that not even light can escape its pull.

2: Physical Laws Cease To Be Valid At Its Core

The singularity at the core of a black hole may shrink to a size smaller than an atom, and eventually become an infinitely small point in space containing infinite mass. Here the gravitational force is so strong that the spacetime surrounding the singularity is bent to infinite curvature, and scientists are left searching for a goodquantum theory of gravity to explain what is truly going on inside these incredibly dense objects.  As American theoretical physicist Kip Thorne overstates in his description of a  singularity, it is  a “point where all laws of physics break down”.

3: Black Holes Distort Space-Time

The mass of a black hole is so dense and the gravity of its singularity so strong that, in accordance with Einstein‘s theory ofgeneral relativity,  it actually distorts the space-time around it and not even light can escape. The boundary beyond which light cannot escape the black hole’s gravity well is known as the event horizon, while its radius is called the Schwarzschild radius (see picture for details). Once particles and light-rays go past the event horizon their light cones “tip over” and point to the singularity, which now represents all future-directed paths with no escape possible.

4: Objects Appear To  “Freeze”  Near A Black Hole

To an outside observer with a telescope, an object passing the event horizon will appear to slow down then “freeze” in timewithout ever seeming to pass through the event horizon. This is because the light takes longer to escape the black hole’s gravitational pull and light signals won’t reach the viewer for an infinitely long time. As time elapses, the light subsequently becomes red shifted and dimmer as its wavelength becomes longer, eventually disappearing from the sight of the observer as it becomes infrared radiation, then radio waves.

5: A Person Falling Into A Black Hole Would Be Spagettified

If a person was able to survive long enough to describe falling into a black hole, he would at first experience weightless as he goes into free fall, but then feel intense “tidal” gravitational forces as he got closer to the center of the black hole. In other words, if his feet were closer to the centre than his head, then they would feel a stronger pull until he eventually is stretched and then ripped apart. As he falls in he may observe distorted images as the light bends around him and he will also still be able to see beyond the black hole as light continues to reach him from the outside.

6: Gravitational Pull Same As Other Objects Of Same Mass

It is important to realize that a black hole’s gravitational field is the same as that of any other object in space of the same mass. In other words, it won’t “suck” objects in any more than any other normal star, with things being more likely to just fall into them if they got too close to the event horizon. If our Sun was replaced with a black hole of equal mass, for example, the Earth would continue experiencing the same gravitational force as before. Only when objects get too close to the black hole would the stronger gravitational force become apparent.

7: Wormholes Appear Similar To Black Holes

A traversable wormhole, known alternatively as a Lorentzian wormhole, Schwarzschild wormhole or Einstein-Rosen bridge, is a theoretical opening in space-time allowing a “shortcut” through intervening space to another location in the Universe. However, from the outside wormholes may exhibit many of the characteristics usually associated with a black hole and be virtually impossible to tell apart.

8: John Mitchell Developed Theory Of Black Holes In 1783

John Michell (1783) and Pierre-Simon Laplace (1796) were the first people to propose the concept of “dark stars” or object which, if compressed into a small enough radius, would have an escape velocity which exceeded even the speed of light. Later, the term “frozen star” was used to describe the last phase of a star’s gravitational collapse, when light unable to escape from its surface would make the star appear frozen in time to an observer. In the 20th century, John Wheeler eventually coined the phrase “black hole” as the object would absorbs all the light that hits it while reflecting nothing back.

9: Black Holes Eventually Evaporate Over Time

Physicists now believe that black holes actually radiate small numbers of mainly photon particles and so can lose mass, shrink then ultimately vanish over time. This unverified evaporation process is known as “Hawking Radiation”, after Professor Stephen Hawking who theorized its existence in 1974. However, it is a staggeringly slow process and only the smallest black holes would have had time to evaporate significantly during the 14 billion years the Universe has existed.

10: Massive Black Hole Lies At The Center Of Milky Way Galaxy

It is now thought that most galaxies are held together by supermassive black holes at their centers, which cluster hundreds of solar systems around them. In fact, 30,000 light years away at the centre of our own Milky way Galaxy is a black hole with 30 million times the mass of our own sun.