The Cosmic Talk #2: Black Holes

Hey nerd! Welcome back to The Cosmic Talk. In this edition, Halloween draws nearer, so to celebrate this spooky holiday, we focus on one of the scariest things to exist, the monsters of the universe, Black Holes.

This is no candy craving child in disguise, going from door to door looking for treats. No, this is a Black Hole, a real, deadly thing ripping entire galaxies apart as it feasts, making its way through the cosmos. But what exactly is a black hole? Let’s discuss the who, what, when, where, why, and how:

When a star reaches the end of its life, it collapses in on itself, imploding, leaving behind massive amounts of space dust, all the stars remnants, and in the center of it all, a black hole. A black hole is an object in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. The gravity gains its strength when the matter from the star is pulled into a tiny, infinitely dense space, known as a singularity. It devours anything that gets close enough, spaghettifying the object, and trapping it inside of its never ending stomach.

And there goes the alarm, ladies and gents, it’s common misconception time! When it is said that light cannot escape a black hole, this does not mean that the black hole eats light. This isn’t possible because light has no mass, and therefore can’t be absorbed by a black hole. But in the theory of general relativity, energy can be affected by gravity, and so the energy of photons -which make up light- causes them to fall into the black hole’s gravitational pull, where it is then red shifted so much that it is no longer visible, and the light is forever trapped in the infinite pull of the black hole’s gravity. Black holes do, however, eat anything made up of matter that gets in its way.

The idea of a black holes existence was first characterized by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916, based on the theory of general relativity, but the first ever physical black hole was discovered in 1971. The first ever photo of a black hole was taken this year, making 2019 quite exciting for astronomers, who now know more than ever before. This photo of the supermassive black hole, located in the center of the elliptical galaxy Messier 87, was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team.

The closest black hole to Earth we know of currently is V616 Monocerotis, 3,000 lightyears away, coming in at a whopping 9-13 masses of the sun. Wimp scale, especially when compared to the largest black hole we’ve discovered yet. Holm 15A*, located in the center of supergiant elliptical galaxy Holmberg 15A, is 40 billion times more massive than the sun, and this is one we’ve just recently discovered, who’s to say how much larger these monsters get? Do you think we’ll discover one bigger in the future?

Black holes are mysterious, dark, and thought to not even be able to exist, but we know now more about them than ever before, and we’re continuing to discover more with every passing day. Such a terrifying object would definitely make for a great Halloween costume. Hope to see some then. This has been The Cosmic Talk, until next time!