Black Holes

What is a black hole? A black hole is a region of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing
including light can escape from it. How are black holes born? Inside the core of a star the density,
temperature and pressure are so high that nuclear fusion occurs. As a result light is produced in the
core. All the light from the core exert an outward force while the gravity of the star exert a downward
force. These two forces keep the star in balance. But eventually the star runs out of nuclear fuel. Nuclear
fusion no longer occurs. Since there is no longer an outward force the star collapses under its own
gravity which is called gravitational collapse. Then the star explodes which is called supernova. A
supernova can outshine an entire galaxy. However the core of the star remains and it continues to
collapse and it shrinks so much that its radius becomes smaller than its Schwarzschild radius and a black
hole is born!

All the energy of matter of the core is converted to energy of space-time. Black holes do not contain any
matter at all actually. Black holes contain energy and information. Not all stars become black holes. A
star has to be massive enough to become a black hole. If a star is not massive enough then it becomes
either a white dwarf or a neutron star. Our sun is not massive enough to be a black hole. Black holes
have event horizon. Event horizon is the point of no return. Once matter and radiation cross it, they can
never escape. If you want to escape after crossing the event horizon then you have to go back in time, in
other words, you have to travel faster than light because the space around the singularity moves
towards the singularity faster than the speed of light! If you approach a black hole, the intense tidal
force will stretch you drastically which is called spaghettification. Sometimes black holes swallow stars
and planets!

Black holes have three basic properties. Mass, charge and angular momentum. There are three types
of black holes. Stellar mass black holes, intermediate black holes and supermassive black holes. There is
a supermassive black hole in the center of almost all galaxies. All the stars in a galaxy orbit the
supermassive black hole that’s located in the center. Our galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole in its
center and it has the mass of 4 million suns and it’s 26000 light years away. Many supermassive black
holes have the mass of 100 billion suns! Almost every galaxy contains at least 100 million black holes.
There are more than 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe so imagine the number of black holes
in the observable universe. When two black holes get close to each other, they orbit each other and
produce gravitational waves. The gravitational waves take away their orbital energy and as a result they
get closer to each other. When they get too close, both black holes move at 95% of the speed of light
and finally merge. When they merge some of the mass of both black holes is converted to energy i.e.
gravitational waves. Mass and energy are actually two sides of the same coin which can be expressed
mathematically as e=mc^2, in other words, the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content.

Black holes have gravitational field as well as magnetic field. Since black holes are completely invisible,
how do we know they exist? We know because we can observe their effects on their surrounding space.
The curvature of space-time around a black hole is severe so the closer you get to a black hole the faster
you will move and the more your time will dilate. Black holes are so cold that their temperature is on the
order of billionths of a Kelvin. Black holes contain most of the entropy of the universe. Many black holes
have accretion disk which is materials orbiting them and the temperature of those materials can reach
millions of degrees of Celsius which forms some of the brightest objects in the universe. Accretion disks
are accompanied by relativistic jets that are emitted along the poles. Black holes grow by absorbing gas
and dust from their surrounding space. Those gas and dust orbit a black hole at such high speed that
they emit huge amount of X-rays due to friction. Black holes rotate on their axis just like earth rotates on
its axis. Black holes play a crucial role in formation of galaxies. The nearest known black hole is more
than 2000 light years away.

Hawking showed that black holes are not completely black indeed. Space is actually filled with virtual
particles which is called quantum foam. A particle and an antiparticle spontaneously appear out of
nowhere and immediately collide with each other and disappear by annihilating each other and the
collision releases energy. It happens everywhere in space. When it happens near the event horizon of a
black hole, one particle goes into the black hole and the other one escapes. The particle that escapes
carry away the energy of the black hole so the black hole loses mass due to e=mc^2. So an observer
would see that the black hole is actually radiating. This radiation is called hawking radiation. The more
massive a black hole is the slower it will radiate. It takes trillions of years for a black hole to evaporate
completely. Even black holes will die eventually. It should be noted that physicists are still trying to
prove that hawking radiation is a real phenomenon.

Einstein’s general relativity was the first theory to describe how a black hole could form. All the known
laws of physics break down at the center of black holes so we still don’t know what lies at the center of
black holes. To understand their center we need quantum theory of gravity. In principle anything can be
a black hole. If you compress an object so much that its radius becomes smaller than its Schwarzschild
radius it will become a black hole. If you compress earth to the size of a golf ball it will become a black
hole. Eventually all the stars in the universe will die and all the planets and moons and everything else
will decay completely if protons themselves decay and the universe will be populated by black holes
only.

Rafid Alam Khan

1720027