It’s Black Friday, but for us, it’s the annual Black Hole Friday! Today, we’ll post awesome images and information about black holes.
A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space…sort of like all of those shoppers trying to fit into the department stores today.
Because no light can get out, you can’t see black holes with the naked eye. Space telescopes with special tools help find black holes (sort of how those websites help you find shopping deals).
How big are black holes? Black holes can be large or small…just like the lines in all of the stores today. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom. These black holes are very tiny but have the mass of a large mountain!
So how do black holes form? Scientists think the smallest black holes formed when the universe began. Stellar black holes are made when the center of a very big star collapses. When this happens, it causes a supernova.
A supernova is an exploding star that blasts part of its mass into space.
Supermassive black holes are an altogether different story. Scientists think they were made at the same time as the galaxy they in they reside. Supermassive black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, are
notoriously good at clearing out their immediate surroundings by eating
nearby objects. When a star passes within a certain distance of a black
hole, the stellar material gets stretched and compressed – or
“spaghettified” – as the black hole swallows it. A black hole destroying a star, an event astronomers call “stellar
tidal disruption,” releases an enormous amount of energy, brightening
the surroundings in an event called a flare. In recent years, a few
dozen such flares have been discovered.
Then there are ultramassive black holes, which are found in galaxies at the centers of massive galaxy clusters containing huge
amounts of hot gas.
