Week 2 - What is a Black Hole?

 Hello! It's been a week since our last science blog about plane flight, and now after a 19-participant poll, we have concluded with the winning question discussed today: What is a Black Hole?, with an astonishing 47% votes, and 9 votes. These are the exact results:

9 responses, 47.4%: What are Black Holes?

6 responses, 31.6%: What is color?

4 responses, 21.1%: What is temperature?

Ok, let's study the question: What are Black Holes?

Basically, black holes are astronomical objects in space which has so strong gravity that light cannot escape it (that's why its called a black hole). Black holes are invisible (since light can't escape it). Black holes are extremely heavy, and their huge gravitational strength means things can be sucked by it.

Black holes form generally at the end of stars' lives (obviously stars aren't living organisms, lives here means timespan of existence for stars). Stars don't last forever (especially the larger ones), and how a star  ends is to put it simply, the star needs hydrogen to turn to helium to generate energy to keep it together. When its hydrogen runs out, it starts the process to die, and eventually it explodes. 

One of the results of a star's death is a black hole, which forms at what used to be its core (the center of a star). Black holes "live" for an extremely long time, but it eventually slowly dies because of something called Hawking Radiation, a phenomena which lets it lose mass and energy, and eventually explode.

Fun Fact: The largest blackhole, Ton 618, is measured 2606 AU (astronomical units). Compared to the entire solar system, which is 80 AU, it is around thirty two times larger.  The largest  star is 10 AU in diameter, our sun is less than 1% of 1 AU.

Poll for next week (please vote)

https://forms.gle/2pbU8f9Wa5quZ7iu7

Below: A visualization of a black hole (not a real image, just a visualization).




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ScienceForDummies: Electricity

 Hello! Today's episode is about electricity. Electricity relies on the idea of electrons. Electrons is a subatomic particle - a particle which makes up of an ato . It has a negative charge and there are sixteen of them in a single atom. So how do they relate to electricity? Electricity is a physical phenomena where something moves that has an "electric charge". This idea of electricity is related to magnetism, because it is related to movement. Simply, it is a type og energy that consists of the movement of electrons. Electricity generates an electric current, and things can conduct electricity to make it move faster and insulate it to make it slower.
Read more

ScienceForDummies: Heat and Light

 Hello!  Heat - Heat is an energy that is transferred from one body to another because of a difference in temperature. Heat flows from hot bodies to cold bodies ("bodies" meaning objects or matter). Hear energy is created when aroms move faster and collidep. It is also known as thermal energy, and heat is the transfer of said energy. Light - Light is a kind of radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. It has wavelengths which can differ, forming what we know as colors. It can travel, refract, reflect, diffract, interfere, and disperse, etc. These things is possible by light.
Read more

ScienceForDummies: Matter and Energy

 Hello! Today is about matter and energy, and the second week of the Physics series. What is Matter? Matter is a physical substance which occupies space and has mass, distinct from energy. Matter is physical, so it does not have a rational nor conscious nature, at least itself. The popular understanding is that there are three states of matter, which is true, though there are other things considered as states of matters, the most popular of which being plasma. Basically, matter is a physical object. But it says "distinct from energy". What is energy, then? What is Energy? Simply, energy is a capacity to do something, especially moving something else. Energy falls into two central categories: kinetic energy and potential energy. What is the difference between the two types? Kinetic energy is in movement, while potential energy is not used, but usable to work.
Read more