Introduction
Black holes are the monsters of the universe. Formed from the brightest of all explosions, supernovae, they soon become the darkest objects in space, emitting no light at all. The gravitational force of a black hole is so powerful that nothing, once caught, can escape. Even light can be pulled off course and into a black hole, where it is trapped for ever.
Neutron stars
When a star explodes into a supernovae, it does not always die away but sometimes gives birth to something new. The incredibly strong gravitational pull of the star means that the core collapses in on itself to form a very small, very dense ball. If the star contains less than three times matter as sun, it becomes a neutron star. Its matter is packed incredibly tightly into a space only a few kilometres in diameter. It is so dense that a singlt timbleful can weigh more than the Eiffel Tower.
Black Holes
If the star's core after a supernova is more than three times the mass of sun, it will collapse even further than a neutron star, shrinking itself into an unimaginably small point called singularity. Its gravity becomes immensely strong, creating a "gravitational well" in space. Anything that passes too close to this well is sucked into it for ever. The force is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light.
Gateways
Some scientists believe that black holes are portals that may connect some parts of the universe with others. Nobody really knows how this would work, but science fiction has long suggested the idea of a worm hole, an artificial black hole that would act as a tunnel through space and time. Black holes are believed to "end" at a singularity inside, where everything is compressed. However, if a tunnel could be held open by an anti gravitational force, then light and matter would not be trapped but able to pass freely from one part of space to another.
Some important facts
1) If you were to drop a small amount of matter from a neutron star onto the surface of Earth, its weight would be so great that it would sink through the crust, down to the planet's core.
2) Black holes emit no light. However scientists can find them if they are located close to another star. The pull of a black hole will tear gas from a nearby star, as shown below. This gas will circle the black hole with such a force that its temperature can exceed 100 millionoC! This is so hot that x-rays will be released, allowing astronomers to pinpoint the black hole's location.
3) Imagine space as a stretched out sheet. If an object is placed on this sheet, it will create a dip,towards which other objects will be drawn if they come too close. A black hole creates such a steep dip that objects that enter can never escape.
4) Satellites such as RXTE are used by astronomers to detect X-rays released by clouds of gas around black holes.
Pereseus Black Hole
A view of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster, one of the most massive object in the universe, shows the most massive objects in the universe, shows the effects that a relatively small but supermassive black hole can have millions of miles beyond its core.
Astronomers studying this photo, taken by the chandra x-ray observatory determined that sound waves emitted by explosive venting around the black hole are heating the surrounding area and inhibiting star growth some 300,000 light-years away. "In relative terms, it is as if heat source the size of a fingernail affect the behaviour of a region the size of "Earth".
Black holes are the monsters of the universe. Formed from the brightest of all explosions, supernovae, they soon become the darkest objects in space, emitting no light at all. The gravitational force of a black hole is so powerful that nothing, once caught, can escape. Even light can be pulled off course and into a black hole, where it is trapped for ever.
Neutron stars
When a star explodes into a supernovae, it does not always die away but sometimes gives birth to something new. The incredibly strong gravitational pull of the star means that the core collapses in on itself to form a very small, very dense ball. If the star contains less than three times matter as sun, it becomes a neutron star. Its matter is packed incredibly tightly into a space only a few kilometres in diameter. It is so dense that a singlt timbleful can weigh more than the Eiffel Tower.
Black Holes
If the star's core after a supernova is more than three times the mass of sun, it will collapse even further than a neutron star, shrinking itself into an unimaginably small point called singularity. Its gravity becomes immensely strong, creating a "gravitational well" in space. Anything that passes too close to this well is sucked into it for ever. The force is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light.
Gateways
Some scientists believe that black holes are portals that may connect some parts of the universe with others. Nobody really knows how this would work, but science fiction has long suggested the idea of a worm hole, an artificial black hole that would act as a tunnel through space and time. Black holes are believed to "end" at a singularity inside, where everything is compressed. However, if a tunnel could be held open by an anti gravitational force, then light and matter would not be trapped but able to pass freely from one part of space to another.
Some important facts
1) If you were to drop a small amount of matter from a neutron star onto the surface of Earth, its weight would be so great that it would sink through the crust, down to the planet's core.
2) Black holes emit no light. However scientists can find them if they are located close to another star. The pull of a black hole will tear gas from a nearby star, as shown below. This gas will circle the black hole with such a force that its temperature can exceed 100 millionoC! This is so hot that x-rays will be released, allowing astronomers to pinpoint the black hole's location.
3) Imagine space as a stretched out sheet. If an object is placed on this sheet, it will create a dip,towards which other objects will be drawn if they come too close. A black hole creates such a steep dip that objects that enter can never escape.
4) Satellites such as RXTE are used by astronomers to detect X-rays released by clouds of gas around black holes.
Pereseus Black Hole
A view of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster, one of the most massive object in the universe, shows the most massive objects in the universe, shows the effects that a relatively small but supermassive black hole can have millions of miles beyond its core.
Astronomers studying this photo, taken by the chandra x-ray observatory determined that sound waves emitted by explosive venting around the black hole are heating the surrounding area and inhibiting star growth some 300,000 light-years away. "In relative terms, it is as if heat source the size of a fingernail affect the behaviour of a region the size of "Earth".
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