Black Holes One of the Biggest Mysteries in the Universe

The universe is a wide and complex place with billions of planets and stars, as well as countless theories and unanswered questions. Scientist may know most of what is going on in space. One of the few things, that until this day scientists cannot explain, are black holes. For years black holes have been a mystery to the people who have studied them. From the great minds of Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking, there have been several studies to try and understand these unknown cosmic entities. It all goes back to the late 1700’s where scientists thought about what would happen if an object had a gravitational pole so great that not even light could escape it. Two centuries and countless theories later, mankind has finally been able to produce the first image of a black hole. Fifty million light years from earth at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy lies a supermassive black hole.

Black holes have been identified as the strangest result of star-death, it also produces neutron stars, and phenomena such as pulsars and quasars. Some scientists say that it will happen to our sun someday. When the star dies its mass increases to such an extent that there no outward force that can resist it. This causes the star to collapse in on itself to a focus of one small point. The gravitational pull of these centers of darkness constantly increase as you approach it. Beyond a specific point “known as the event horizon” nothing can ever come back. Scientists have given it this name because no one knows about any events that may happen beyond that point on. Thanks to today’s technology, scientists were finally able to get an image of the black hole. The latest image of the black hole was a success for astronomers. It’s very difficult to get an image of these because black holes don’t radiate light. Astronomers had to use not one but eight telescopes all around the world and had to work for about two years in order to get the image that was recently shown to the public.

This image also proved that Albert Einstein’s Theory of relativity was correct. In his theory of special relativity, Einstein determined “that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels. As a result, he found that space and time were interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time. Events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another. As he worked out the equations for his general theory of relativity, Einstein realized that massive objects caused a distortion in space-time. Imagine setting a large body in the center of the trampoline. The body would press down into the fabric, causing it to dimple. A marble rolled around the edge would spiral inward toward the body, pulled in much the same way that the gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space” Which it behaves itself like a black hole. He also said that it would have an 'edge'. The 'edge' is what Scientists call “The Event Horizon” This black hole is called NGC 4486 and is a supermassive black hole.

In the universe there are different types of black holes: Stellar Black Holes, Supermassive Black Holes and Miniature Black Holes. Stellar black holes have masses less than 100 times that of the Sun, they are believed to be made of the possible evolutionary endpoints of high mass stars. If the core is greater than about 2-3 solar masses (which is the maximum mass of a neutron star), the pressure of neutrons is unable to stop the collapse and a stellar black hole is formed. It is expected that the original rotation of the massive star would keep going during the collapse, and that it may contain little electric charge. Supermassive black holes contain between million and billions of masses more than the stellar black holes. Astronomers aren’t exactly sure how these black holes form. Some suggest that they were formed by the different gas clouds from the early stages of the formation of a galaxy since most are in the center. Most supermassive black holes are unable to be seen by a telescope because of their distance. Astronomers believe that miniature black holes are real, yet they haven’t confirmed their existence. Theory suggests that these have been formed when the universe was formed. These miniature black holes may contain as much matter as Mt. Everest. Which is very little compared to Stellar and Supermassive black holes.

Now that scientists have known black holes for decades, but don’t fully understand them, surely theories have been made over the years. For our first theory we can talk about Einstein and Hawking’s “Time traveling” Einstein's theory of special relativity says that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move relative to something else. Approaching the speed of light, a person inside a spaceship would age much slower than his twin at home. Also, under Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity can bend time. It actually makes sense since black holes have a gravity that increases constantly as you get closer, but in reality what happens is for the observer that is falling near the event horizon, time will freeze and eventually time will become meaningless.

In conclusion black holes are still one of the biggest mysteries in the universe. Astronomers work hard day and night to get a bit closer to fully understanding these cosmic entities. I for one would like to study them more. I have notebooks full of space stuff and information which I always keep updating and learning more as I write. In the future I would want to find a way to see black holes up close without being in danger. Nobody will know where the future will take us, but I know for a fact that we won’t give up until we learn more of what is out there in the dark cold space.