Hunting For Black Holes

Hunting for Black Holes

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Hunting For Black Holes

What are Black Holes?

The idea of a black hole - an object so massive that nothing could escape the grasp of its gravity - dates
back to the 1700s.
But the modern story of black holes really starts with Einstein's revolutionary theory of gravity, completed
in 1917.

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In principle, any object - even a rock - can be made into a black hole, by squeezing it into a tiny enough
volume. Under these conditions, the object continues to collapse under its own weight, crushing itself
down to zero size.

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In nature, the only objects that can form a black hole on their own are large stars - stars many times more
massive than our own Sun.

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Can the Sun become a black hole?

The Sun, in another 5 billion years, will end its life as a beautiful planetary nebula. The cinder that
remains is a ball of hot carbon the size of the Earth, called a White Dwarf. Its mass will be far too low to
become a black hole.

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According to Einstein's theory, the object's mass and gravity remain behind, in the form of an extreme
distortion of the space and time around it. This distortion of space and time is the black hole.

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A black hole is a true "hole" in space: Anything that crosses the edge of the hole - called the "horizon" of
the hole - is swallowed forever.

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As you get closer to a black hole, the flow of time slows down, compared to flow of time far from the hole.

At the horizon, time actually appears to stop. An object falling into the hole would appear frozen in time at
the edge of the black hole!

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Our laws of physics break down at the very center of the black hole. Time itself seems to come to an
abrupt end there. For this reason, a black hole is sometimes described as the "reverse of creation."

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Black holes in space

image

The Milky Way- view of a galaxy from the inside

More than a dozen black holes have already been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy - out of more than
a million black holes estimated to exist there.

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Cygnus X-1
Can you find the black hole in this picture? We need to look beyond the range of our eyes to spot a black
hole.

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Chandra X-Ray Observatory

To hunt for black holes we need X-ray vision!

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Though we cannot see black holes directly, they are so powerful that we can see their unmistakable,
dramatic effects on the matter around them. There are three lines of evidence that black-hole hunters
look for.

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We can see a black hole being born!

Using space telescopes such as Hubble and Swift, we can see the supernova explosions that signal the birth
of a black hole.

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NASA’s Swift space telescope was launched in November 2004, and is seeing two gamma-ray bursts a day

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A giant black hole, heavier than millions of stars, has been discovered at the center of our Milky Way
galaxy

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The gravitational field of a black hole tugs on the stars in its vicinity. A super-massive black hole will make
whole swarms of stars whip around as they fall under its influence. By following the motions of the
orbiting stars, astronomers can deduce the location, and size, of the central black hole they cannot see.

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Matter– such as gas and dust, or even a whole star –that comes too close to a black hole is drawn
towards the hole. As the matter spirals towards the edge of the hole, it heats up, reaching millions
degrees before plunging into the black hole. When gas is this hot, it glows in X-ray light.

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Astronomers have evidence that most, if not all, galaxies in the universe are populated by black holes:
smaller ones throughout and a giant black hole at their centers.

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Giant jets of matter – the most powerful beams in the universe – are observed to shoot out from a
galaxy's core at almost the speed of light. The only known source powerful enough to produce such jets,
is a giant spinning black hole.

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Frontiers

What part do black holes play in the evolution of galaxies, and of the universe itself?

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Black holes send ripples of gravity through space.

NASA’s LISA space probe, to be launched in 2015 is designed to detect them.

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Black Holes

Frontiers

A new type of black hole?

The “missing link” between the giant black holes at the centers of galaxies, and the stellar mass black
holes that populate a galaxy, are being discovered by X-ray telescopes

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Black Holes HolesDarkest Prediction
- Einstein’s

Frontiers

Does the inside of a black hole lead to another universe?

Einstein’s theory of gravity allows the possibility of a black hole forming a link - or wormhole - to another
universe, or another part of our universe.

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Frontiers

What happens inside a black hole?

The only way to answer this question is by developing a better, more fundamental theory of space, time,
and matter.

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Credits
WR 124: Y. Grosdidier et al. WFPC2, HST, NASA
Eskimo Nebula: NASA, Andrew Fruchter and the ERO
Team (STScI)
HCG 87: Gemini Observatory - GMOS
Commissioning Team
Centaurus A optical: European Southern Observatory

Gravitational Lens animation: Frank Sumners (STScI) Centaurus A x-ray: Chandra X-ray Observatory/CXC

Spinning black hole animation: NASA/GSFC
Galactic Center: 2MASS Collaboration, U. Mass, IPAC
Cygnus X-1 star field: Palomar Observatory and Space
Telescope Science Institute
Chandra spacecraft: CXC/NGST
Cygnus X-1 animation: NASA/GSFC
BH birth animation: NASA/Dana Berry/SkyWorks Digital
Swift satellite: Spectrum Astro, NASA
Milky Way center: European Southern Observatory
Stellar motion animation: © Infrared and Submillimeter
Astronomy Group at MPE
Stellar destruction animation: ESA
NGC 4261: Walter Jaffe/Leiden Observatory, Holland
Ford/JHU/STScI, and NASA
LISA spacecraft: NASA/JPL
Sound file: Department of Physics and Kavli Center
for Astrophysics and Space Research, MIT
Mid-mass black holes: NASA/SAO/CXC
Artist’s impression of a wormhole: NASA
Particle accelerator: CERN
ALBERT EINSTEIN and related rights ™/© of The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, used under license.
Represented by the Roger Richman Agency, Inc.,
www.albert-einstein.net

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