The In's and Out's of Black Holes

Most people never think about these kinds of things happening in space. It wasn't until I watched a program on television about black holes that I really started thinking about what really goes on in space and more particularly, black holes. How do black holes form? What do they do? Where does everything go? Will we one day be sucked into a black hole, and gone forever? Here's what I found out about black holes.

To answer my first question, and probably many other people's questions, a black hole forms when a huge star reaches the end of it's life and runs out of fuel. The inner part of the star collapses forming an explosion called a supernova. The mass of what is left of the star gets squeezed into the smallest amount of space, thus forming a black hole. Black holes are regions of space where the gravitational pull is so great that nothing, not even light, can escape. When an outsized sum of mass is in attendance within an undersized area of space, all paths through space are twisted inwards in the direction of the center of the volume forcing all material and energy to collapse toward the inside.

There are different sizes of black holes too. The one we are most aware of is the super-massive black hole. Super-massive black holes are believed to exist in the center of every galaxy, even the Milky Way. Then there are intermediate-mass black holes, which are believed to be a possible power source for ultra-luminous X-Ray sources. Micro black holes are black holes with much less mass than that of a star. A recent program I watched was about scientists believing there is a micro black hole in the Bermuda Triangle, of which would explain why in past centuries of ships being lost and people never being found. But no such hole has been detected as of today.

There are different parts that make up a black hole. The outer event horizon, or accretion disk, the inner event horizon, the point known as the singularity, and gas jets. Let me tell you something about each of them and what happens with each one.

The accretion disk is the part where something begins to fall into the outside of the black hole, leading to the inner event horizon. What lingers close enough to the accretion disk spirals inward. Particles of gas, dust and radiation collide with each other, and may get so hot that they emit X-Rays, which makes us be able to see a black hole. Otherwise, black holes are invisible.

The inner event horizon is the "sphere" around the black hole that when all matter that comes close enough to it, will be trapped forever. Even light cannot escape from beyond this point, which is why a black hole looks like a, well, a black hole! Anything that goes inside this point is compromised, (crushed and stretched) to a point that reaches infinite density, known as the singularity point. The singularity point where everything is crushed infinitely, where space and time do not exist. The gas jets you see coming out from either or both ends of the black hole are powerful jets of plasma that escapes from the black hole.

Ok so what would it be like if you fell into a black hole? What would you see from a distance? Well if a person fell into a black hole he or she would be stretched from head to toe, like spaghetti, then pulverized into tiny bits and pieces. You would be nothing but light, gases, and ashes after that. The same thing happens with surrounding stars and radiation.

If you were to observe an object falling into a black hole, you would see it go towards the point of no return, slow down and appear to stop. It would never look like it even reached the event horizon. Light from the falling object that is crossing the event horizon is delayed by a time that approaches infinity. It will slowly begin to turn red and appear to fade. When the object reaches singularity, everything that made up the object is torn apart from each other. Nothing is known as to what happens to something that passes the singularity point.

Here is what I read in Wikipedia.

"Stephen Hawking made a theory that the matter disappeared into the universe, defying the laws of physics. He later revised his theory to say that the disappearing matter was compensated by parallel universes without black holes, that, in the end, the matter was not lost." That really sounds interesting to me and makes me want to know more about these things. One day I will know more!