|
||
 |
Tara says | |||
| A few years ago I saw this show on Super Massive Black Holes on the Discovery Channel. There's a theory out there that at the center of every galaxy there exists a black hole that is several million (haha, my mother just brought me freshly baked cookies...anyways...) to a billion times heavier than our sun. Many theorists speculate that it is because of these enormous black holes galaxies are formed into existence--in other words, the black holes suck in so much matter and condense it all into such a tiny space (think of how much space one galaxy takes up in terms of the universe) that all of this matter is destined to become multiple solar systems and the what have you's of each galaxy. All the while this is occuring, everything is drifting closer and closer (over the course of billions and billions of years) to the center of the galaxy--the black hole. Scientists were able to collect evidence of this when they gathered (and don't ask me how) estimated measurements of the speed at which the stars are rotating on the outskirts of our galaxy as well as those stars located more toward the center of our galaxy. The latter were travelling at a much faster speed than those of the former. It's a pretty interesting thing to think about and what I want to know is where does all of the energy and matter go once sucked into a black hole? Does it just continue to condense under all of that pressure to the point where even the atoms themselves are squished (for lack of a better word) into none existence? Or is all the matter taken up by a black hole just spit out into another plane of our universe or another universe altogether? Also, how does a black hole form and what happens to it when it dies? All I have to say is that this is some pretty weird stuff, doods. ...Oh wait! Isn't there a theory out there that hypothesizes that black holes are formed by exploding stars? | ||||
| Total Topic Karma: 3 | - More by this Author | |||
 |
Joe says |
|
||||
| First, it might be useful to understand what exactly a black hole is and how it is formed. A black hole is a lot like a star, believe it or not. It is just a large collection of atoms. In order to get off the surface of a star, you have to basically point your rocket away from the center and fire and hope you get off. The velocity at which this occurs is called the escape velocity. The heavier the star is, the higher the gravitational force, and thus the higher the escape velocity. For black holes, the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. Therefore, nothing (not even light) can get out of a black hole. Of course, the further out you start, the less speed you need to escape. We can then find a point at which you need exactly the speed of light to get off the star. So if you go inside this distance, you can never get out of a black hole. This is called the event horizon. So your first question, where does everything go? Everything just goes and sits on the surface of the star inside the black hole. Of course, no one knows exactly what it looks like inside of a black hole, since a) no one has been inside one and b) we don't even have physics to explain it. Do atoms get squished? That is one way of thinking about it. Pretty much, everything gets condensed down to the point where individual atoms take up the same space, which for a fair portion of particles called "fermions" is strictly forbidden. Like I said, we don't have the physics to describe what happens with black holes. Does the matter get spit out somewhere else? That is a very interesting question. Some people think that a black hole forming is actually the start of a new universe. These people think that basically, our universe lives inside of a black hole in a larger universe and so on and so on. I don't personally believe this just because there is no evidence to support it. Although, if we somehow did find out if this was true, I wouldn't stubbornly disagree. How does a black hole form? This one can get complicated. Here is the current idea; As a massive star gets older, it starts fusing heavier and heavier elements together. Eventually, the pressure in the center of the star is no longer big enough to fuse these elements. Since there is no outward pressure from the fusion, the star starts to collapse under the force of gravity. In light stars, there is sometimes a sudden kick on of fusion again and the star will sometimes explode (i.e. supernova). In more massive stars, even this new fusion is not enough to stop the collapse of the star. The star will continue to collapse and break more and more laws of physics and will then hit the "point of no return" and become a black hole. That is how most people think "low-mass" (two to about 50 times our Sun's mass) black holes form. For the supermassive black holes, that is just from having so much mass available that the black hole can suck it all in and weigh a lot. I hope that answered some of your questions. |
||||||
| - 23 February, 2007 | ||||||
 |
Lacey says |
|
||||
| Goddamnit, Tara. I was about to make a thread on this exact same subject! I saw that same program, and I liked that theory ALOT better than some others. It makes more sense to me. I had a few of the same questions you did though.. and thanks to Joe I now have more insight to it. I heard somewhere that black holes never die, they just float around the universe, so i dont know if that answers anything or not. |
||||||
| - 23 February, 2007 | ||||||
|
Joe says |
|
||||
| The only way for a black hole to lose mass (i.e. die) is through a process called Hawking radiation. I don't quite understand exactly how this works, but this is what I think it is: this would occur when you have energy sitting outside of the event horizon and it decides to turn into a particle and an antiparticle. If one of them goes into the black hole and the other doesn't then it is as if the black hole actually lost the other particle, apparently. If this isn't right, I'd appreciate someone letting me know. But anyways, this is a very slow process, so it would take a very long time for a black hole to "evaporate" this way. So it IS possible for a black hole to die, but also very unlikely. | ||||||
| - 24 February, 2007 | ||||||
|
Lacey says |
|
||||
| @ Joe I'm not sure i understand what you are trying to say.. you are saying that in order for a black hole to "Die" it has to take in one particle and not take in another while they are next to eachother? I've never heard of hawking radiation, maybe that's my problem lol. But yeah.. ive never heard of a black hole going away. |
||||||
| - 24 February, 2007 | ||||||
|
Joe says |
|
||||
| That is how I understand it. I'll try to find out more info and clear this up. | ||||||
| - 24 February, 2007 | ||||||
|
Lacey says |
|
||||
| Alright, cool. I guess i could go study up on it... but im lazy =P haha | ||||||
| - 24 February, 2007 | ||||||
|
|
