Black Holes: The Point Where Our Knowledge Ends
Name: Rohit Panwar
Date : 9th October 2022
Title of the Post: Black Holes : The point where our knowledge ends
Content of the post:
I first found out about black holes when I was about 10 years old. Black holes simply fascinated me more than anything. Where do they come from? Why can't we see them with telescopes? Where are they? What can one do? All these questions used to keep me awake at night. Now I know most of the answers to these questions. A black hole is formed when a star, which has at least 3 times the mass of our sun, explodes. This process is called a supernova.
Credits:https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2Fsupernova-warning-system-star-explosions&psig=AOvVaw3FmfuvWEuvupanpvfQ2FFF&ust=1665384646413000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCIj8l77H0voCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
The stars which are not big enough to form a black hole, form a very dense neutron star.
Very little is known about black holes. They are formed when a massive star goes supernova. They have a very very strong gravitational pull from which even light cant escape. This is why they are so difficult to see and locate. Since they cannot be located with light, they are located from the absence of light. Imagine a random section of space that can be seen with a telescope. It’s filled with stars and nebulas (huge clouds of different gasses which are released from a supernova) but there is a big section of darkness where there are no stars and no light. This is usually a black hole, blocking our view and not letting light reach us. Black holes usually have rings of radiation moving around them.
Black holes are classified according to their size:
Stellar mass black holes: These are the smallest black holes that have been observed.
Supermassive black holes: These are the black holes which are just huge.
Ultramassive black holes: These black holes are even bigger than supermassive black holes.
A very important fact about supernovas is that the neutron stars or the black holes formed are smaller than the original star.
That would mean that the original star of a supermassive black hole would be too big to be true. So how are they formed?
One single black hole can merge with another, forming another bigger black hole.
So supermassive black holes must have been formed from the merging of many black holes.
The largest black hole that has been discovered till date is TON-618 which is in the center of a quasar. TON-618 has 66 billion times the mass of our sun which is even more than some galaxies!
(There is another black hole named Phoenix A which is suspected to be even bigger than TON-618 but it hasn't been confirmed yet and there are conflicting sources. Supposed size below. The smallest dot is the orbit of Neptune.)
Black holes are what inspired me to become an astrophysicist. Their complexity, size and age are all baffling.
But the most important question:
What's inside them?
Comments
Post a Comment