Hello,
Yep, it’s time for
another edition of Tyler’s Random Science Topics:
One of the most elusive and most misunderstood space objects to the everyday person is the concept of black holes. Still not fully understood by science, nor will it be for quite some time, today’s understanding is becoming more and more complete advanced of these amazing and violent beasts.
Black hole with corona, X-ray
source (artist's concept).(Credit Wikipedia Commons)
What is a black hole? Now that
is a very difficult question to answer with just a single definition.
Why? Because a
black hole can be many things, and none of these things.
Wait, what? Exactly, let me try
to explain.
In the simplest definition,
it is an area of space-time that exhibits an extreme gravitational distortion.
The gravitational distortion being so strong such that particles and even
electromagnetic radiation (light) cannot escape the distortion and become
trapped or effected by this gravitational effect.
The interesting thing to note here,
is at the center of our very own milky way galaxy in which our own solar system
is nestled, there is what is called a “Super Massive Black Hole” with the mass
of roughly 4 million times that of our own Sun. Don’t worry though, we are
billions and billions of years away from ever having to worry about that black
hole. We are on a collision course with the nearby galaxy Andromeda in only 4
billions of years of which in computer modeling, our own solar system will be
flung out of our galaxy. But, again, don’t worry about that, our Sun will run
out of nuclear fuel and go dark way before that and destroy Earth in that
process.
Now, I discussed the warping of
space-time by gravitationally massive objects in my General Relativity email.
We can see this in light on a massive scale around massive black holes below:
This lensing effect is cause by
light passing around and being warped by the black holes gravity. Some of the
light does fall in and get trapped, but some is basically distorted from its direct
path and creates this view to us when view the night sky with a powerful
telescope. This is also one means that scientist can indirectly detect black
holes, as direct observation is near impossible as black holes do not reflect
any light, rather than absorb or warp it.
Now, I’m sure most of you have
heard of the “Event Horizon”, which is a snazzy way of saying the point of no
return from a black hole for both mass objects and light. An observer outside
the event horizon cannot detect any events that occur inside this event horizon
as that information (light) never escapes this region, so the observer never
sees it. So as an object passes this point, its light information fades away
from the observer’s perspective.
Next month, I will continue this discussion, to provide what it would be like for a person in a spacesuit to fall into a black hole and what this would look like to an observer orbiting the black hole outside of the event horizon. This is where physics gets really weird.
Today’s Science Topic is dedicated to the Crew of
STS-51-L (Challenger) which lost their lives 30 years ago today (January 28,
1986):
Francis R. Scobee,
Commander
Michael J. Smith, Pilot
Ronald McNair, Mission Specialist
Ellison Onizuka,
Mission Specialist
Judith Resnik,
Mission Specialist
Gregory Jarvis, Payload Specialist
Christa McAuliffe, Payload
Specialist
Thanks,
-Tyler W.