Black Holes Essay
The universe is full of vast objects, and quite possibly not all have been discovered. Black holes are among one of these that have been discovered and began to take a life of their own. Hollywood has depicted them as a space time traveling device. The truth of the matter is though if you were to be “sucked” into one you would never be able to escape and you would die. A black hole is caused when a red super giant star begins to run out of fuel. The star loses the force pushing itself outward and is overcome by the force of its own gravity pulling inward. Eventually, the star has so much gravity and is so compacted that it "eats itself" until there is nothing left but a hole in the "fabric" of space-time, created by the gravity left over from the star. Around this star is an immense amount of gravity. In fact, light cannot even escape the power of a black hole. If light passes the event horizon there is no return and it is taken into the black hole. Once an object is sucked into a black hole, it begins to be bombarded with radiation, and crushed at atomic level. The point however when an object is completely gone is not the event horizon, but rather is the singularity. The event horizon is one of the layers that surrounds the singularity. Below is a diagram of the different parts of a black hole. There are two main types of black holes- stellar and super massive. Stellar sized black holes are the remnants of massive dead stars that have imploded. It is estimated that our galaxy contains millions of these stellar black holes. Super massive black holes can have a mass millions of times that of the Sun. It is believed that these massive holes are in the center of every galaxy. There may be mini black holes, smaller than atoms in volume but as massive as whole mountains. There are some black holes lying between stellar and super massive. It is quite likely that some kind of objects might be found in the universe having opposite characteristics of
Bibliography: "BBC - Science & Nature - Space - Black Holes." BBC - Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. . "Black Holes, Black Holes Information, Information on Black Holes at SPACE.com." Learn More at Space.com. From Satellites to Stars, NASA information, Astronomy, the Sun and the Planets, we have your information here.. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.