Black Holes

Black holes are objects so dense that it is not possible for even light to escape their gravity. There are two main processes continuously going on in massive stars. 1. Nuclear fusion: This process takes place in the stars which tends to blow the star’s hydrogen outward from the star’s center. 2. Gravitation: This process tends to pull all hydrogen back in the direction it had come. In general, these two processes balance one another until the entire star’s hydrogen is exhausted, allowing gravitation to take over and once gravitation dominates, and the star becomes unstable and starts to collapse.

Once the star starts to collapse, it does not stop, and the star (and ultimately its atoms) will cave inward upon itself, resulting in the formation of a black hole (Hewitt, 1992). Where is the nearest black hole? The closest known black holes are stellar mass black holes in the galaxy. These black holes have so far only been seen when they are in close contact with another star which is orbiting around them. When jets are produced the systems are known as microquasars and can be observed at many wavelengths, but usually are most distinctive in X-rays (Masters, 2002). What happens if you fall into a black hole?

Just because nothing can travel faster than light, nothing can escape from inside a black hole. If a person jumps into a black hole, they won’t be able to see anything within the event horizon. The person will see strange optical distortions of the sky around him from all the bending of light that goes on. But as soon as the person falls through, they are doomed. They will die. References Hewitt, Paul G. (1992) Conceptual Physics. 2nd ed. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Masters, K. (2002) Where is the nearest black hole? Curious About Astronomy? Retrieved on 9 November 2007 from http://curious. astro. cornell. edu