Black Holes
Race SEARCH 2012-2013
The black hole is surrounded with an air of mystery; it is one of the many enigmas of the universe. The reason the black hole is such a mystery is because it is almost impossible to observe.
A black hole is basically a giant garbage disposal; it sucks up everything that comes into reach of its massive gravity. The gravity of a black hole is so strong light can't even escape and, light travels at travels at 300,000 kilometers per second. A young black hole that is about 500 years old weighs the more than Betelgeuse, one of the biggest stars scientists have found to date! The gravity of that black hole would be between 2 and 3 times stronger than Betelgeuse's gravity. If an asteroid were to come within the event horizon, the event horizon is basically the point of no return, past it and even light can't escape. The asteroid would be sucked into the center of the black hole, or the singularity it crushes it to about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Theories
There are many other theories besides the theorie that it just crushes any matter that enters the singularity is crushed. One of those is that it opens into a parallel universe through a " white hole" . But if you do the math behind the white hole it says it should disappear if any mater enters its space, so that draws a big blank over the white hole theory. Another hypothesis is that every black hole contains a parallel universe, and it is expelled into that universe to build the new galaxy inside it, so the earth could be made from matter from a star in another galaxy! With this theory they have invented a theoretical substance called " exotic matter". Supposedly it is repelled by gravity
How a black hole forms.
Black holes form when there is an explosion called a hyper-nova. Hyper-nova are formed when a star about four or more times the size of the sun and the sun is only a medium sized star. The stars explode because they run out of fuel to convert to energy and start collapsing on itself. Eventually the core gets so hot and dense that it explodes and, the dense core forms into a singularity. A black hole in seventy-million easy steps!
The difference between worm holes and black holes.
The most common mistake among people is that confusing a wormhole and a black hole, even though they are pretty much opposites. One of the main differences between worm holes and black holes is that worm holes are only theoretical and black holes exist. Another main difference is worm holes supposedly take you to another deminsion and black holes smush you until you are split into indivdual atoms and it crushes you
How do scientists observe black holes
The only way to observe a black hole is to watch the matter around it. The easiest way to observe it is if there is a big black spot somewhere another way scientists observe them is by watching for gamma ray bursts scientists detect hundreds every day but only one of every ten is a black hole.
Even though black holes are so hard to observe scientists find out something new every almost every day! But it will still be an enigma for a long time because it is so hard to observe, at least until scientists find something that they can use to get closer to a black hole without being crushed.