Star Collapses To Singularity And A Blackhole example essay topic

The term blackhole is misleading, as they are not holes, but heavy, dense stellar bodies. The more dense, and massive an object, the more it warps the fabric of space-time, creating ever deepening gravity wells. These gravity wells draw in other stellar bodies, adding their mass to that of the blackhole, increasing it's gravity, and the size of what is called the event horizon. The event horizon is the distance from the singularity that the gravitational effects weaken to the point where light can escape from the blackholes gravitational field. Objects like unaware astronauts and stray light particles can fall through the event horizon, but nothing can ever get out of the blackhole through the event horizon. Anything or anyone who falls through the event horizon will soon reach the region of infinite density, and the end of time.

The existence of the event horizon proves the wave-particle theory of light. This states that light has properties of both particles and energy waves, which is why the course of a light beam can be manipulated by extreme amounts of gravity. These light particles are commonly referred to as photons. If blackholes do not allow light to escape from their event horizon, how do we know they " re there? You might think it would be like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar. The gravity of a blackhole effects its environment, and its effect on its surroundings is how astronomers detect them.

Astronomers have observed solar systems in which two stars orbit each other. They have also observed systems in which there is only one visible star orbiting around some unseen companion. It's entirely possible that this unseen companion could be a faint star. However, some of these systems are also strong sources of X-rays. The explanation for this is that matter is being blown, or sucked, off the surface of the star. As it accelerates toward this unseen companion, it develops a spiral motion, (a lot like a toilet being flushed) and it gets hot, emitting X-rays.

For this to be viable, the unseen object has to be very small, like a white dwarf, neutron star, or blackhole. From the orbit of the visible star, one can determine the lowest possible mass of the unseen object. Some are considered too large to be either white dwarfs or neutron stars, leaving only blackholes as a suspect. Some blackholes, called primordial blackholes, were created during the Big Bang Event, by pockets of super heated gas colliding with each other, causing massive nuclear reactions which created gravitation collapse, in turn creating a blackhole.

Other blackholes are formed when a star over one and a half times the size of our sun runs out of nuclear fuel. When a star runs out of nuclear fuel, it begins to cool, and contract, if there is no mass reducing explosion, called a supernova, or, if the supernova does not expel enough matter to reduce the stars mass to under the Chandrasekhar limit (one and a half times the mass of our sun) the star collapses to a single point, called a singularity. A singularity is made up of super compressed star matter. This matter is so dense that one teaspoon has more gravitational pull than our entire solar system!

A third way in which blackholes are formed is when dense stars such as white dwarfs and neutron stars (also called dark stars) have mass added to them. This pushes their mass closer and closer to the Chandrasekhar limit. When the limit is passed, the star collapses to singularity, and a blackhole is born..