We still have a lot of unknown things about the universe, and black holes are one of those weird mysteries.
Black holes are formed when large stars run out of fuel and collapse on their own. If a star is large enough, it will shrink to the size of an atom, also known as a space-time singularity.
Black holes come in different sizes and types. There are rotating black holes, electric black holes, and a combination of the two. What types of black holes are classified according to the amount of energy they emit.
The area around the black hole, where gas, dust, stars, and planets fall into its orbit, is called the accretion disk. This area is where objects are brought closer to the center of the black hole.
The event horizon is the area surrounding the black hole that any matter, if less than this limit, cannot extend beyond to reach the observer. The name of the event horizon is meant to show that nothing can be seen happening within this limit. Harvard professor Avi Loeb argued that the event horizon is a place where people “can only step in, but never go back”.
The universe has countless black holes that cannot be counted. The Milky Way alone has around 100 million stellar mass black holes. Not to mention the small black holes that exist in our galaxy.
Our star – The Sun will explode one day but it will not be able to form a black hole. For us, the Sun is a giant constellation, but it is still relatively small compared to other stars in the universe. Therefore, the Sun is not large enough to form a black hole.
According to scientists, at the center of galaxies are supermassive black holes that keep all matter in the galaxy in orbit thanks to its enormous gravity. The black hole at the center of our Milky Way is Sagittarius A, located 30,000 light years from the Sun and 4 million times heavier than this star.
The first black hole discovered in 1971 was called Cygnus X-1.
“Hawking radiation” is a theory developed by physicist Stephen Hawking describing the process of “evaporation” of a black hole. As a result, this theory suggests that the black hole has radiation and will lose energy. If this theory is correct, then black holes will actually disappear when they lose all of their mass.
Previous studies have found that the closest black hole to Earth is 1,600 light years away. However, recent studies show that the nearest black hole is 20,000 light years from our planet.
Some theories suggest that black holes could lead us to new universes because black holes can produce the elements necessary to sustain life.
We all know black holes swallow everything in their orbit, but some scientists believe we can use black hole energy to travel through space.
The 2015 Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected a small sound coming from a point in space, where two black holes collide. This collision is believed to have occurred almost 1.3 billion years ago.
