Black hole- Mysterious place in space
Athira AP
Space is a pretty dark place. Even so, some areas are darker than the others. Nothing is darker than a black hole. Black holes are one of the most fascinating objects in our universe and also the most mysterious one.
A black hole is a region in space that has immense gravity that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. A star many, many, many times larger than our sun, when it runs out of fuel and can no longer keep itself hot enough, it collapses to a single, infinite extremely small point known as a singularity. The energy that holds the stars together, disappears and it collapses in on itself producing a magnificent explosion. All the materials left off from the explosion, falls into an infinitely small point. Its density will be infinite and so its gravitational pull will be so strong that nothing can escape, not even light.
Singularity
Black holes are formed in many ways. A large black hole can have 10 to 10,00,000 times the mass of the sun trapped in a point smaller than the tip of a pin. Some black holes trap more and more materials as their mass increases. The point where all that mass is trapped is called singularity. It is an infinitely small, infinitely dense point where space, time and laws of physics no longer apply.. It may be infinitely small but its influence is enormous.
Event horizon
The boundary of a black hole is called the event horizon, a point of no return, beyond which we truly cannot see. Imagine a circle with a singularity at the centre. The gravity present inside the circle is so strong that nothing can escape, it sucks in everything, even light, that is why it is black. This circle is the event horizon. When something crosses the event horizon, it collapses into the black holes singularity.
Types of black hole
- Stellar black hole
- Supermassive black hole
- Intermediate black hole
- Miniature black hole
Scientists have theorized several different types of black holes, with stellar and supermassive black holes being the most common.
Stellar black holes are born when massive stars die and collapse. They are roughly ten to twenty times the mass of our sun and scattered throughout the universe. There could be millions of these Stellar black holes in the Milky way galaxy alone.
Supermassive black holes are giants by comparison, measuring millions even billions of times more massive than our sun. Scientists can only guess how they form, but we do know that they exist at the centre of every large galaxy, including our own. Jets of particles that blasts out of supermassive black holes are called Quasars.
Sagittarius A
Sagittarius A is a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky way galaxy. It has a mass of roughly 4 million suns and has a diameter of about the distance between the earth and our sun.
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Check your knowledge
A black hole is a region in space that has immense gravity that nothing, not even light, can escape from it.
Jets of particles that blasts out of supermassive black holes are called Quasars.
The boundary of a black hole is called the event horizon.
At the heart/ centre of galaxy.