In my science class, we have a project called Explore Science. You have to do something science related every quarter for 25 points. 25 x 4= 100. Makes sense. I did my first Explore Science this past week about black holes. Here is the report in it;s entirety.
Black Holes. You think of them as a dark void filled with nothing. They have been cloaked in mystery. Scientists don’t know much about the subject. Today, we are still learning more about it. Here are some things we have learned so far.
Black holes are formed by the deaths of stars. They only can be formed by stars at least 5 times the size of our sun. After all of it’s nuclear fuel is used up, it shuts off and cools down into a white dwarf. For stars the size of our sun, that’s what happens. But for stars way bigger than our sun, the nuclear fusion process continues going through the periodic table until it gets to iron,our 26th element. Then gravity wins out, and the star collapses in itself creating a supernova, which can outshine an entire galaxy. Once the dust clears, you got yourself a black hole.
A black hole literally rips a hole through space and time. Since it rips a hole through space and time, there are some strange effects for being too close to a black hole. Once you get past the event horizon of the black hole, which is the point of no return, time completely stops. Since the gravity is weaker the further away from the source, an astronaut who would venture into a black hole’s grasp would stretch out and become longer. Scientists actually have a name for this phenomenon. It is called spaghettification.
There are also lots of crazy theories about black holes. One says that black holes don’t exist at all. Even Einstein himself said it was mathematically impossible for a black hole to form. Another theory says that black holes are gateways to different universes. This concept would take me too much time and energy to explain, but here is the extremely short version. These different universes could be the same universe but with very slight changes or they could be entirely brand new universes itself. Some physicists say that black holes could be wormholes, which are holes that burrow through space and time to get to a location that would normally take thousands of light years to get to. There are also super-massive black holes, which are in the centers of galaxies.
Black holes are still one of the many things in the cosmos that astronomers don’t know the answer to. Maybe it holds the secret to the beginnings of the universe itself, or can be used to travel through time. Who knows? We just have to wait and see.
Black Holes. You think of them as a dark void filled with nothing. They have been cloaked in mystery. Scientists don’t know much about the subject. Today, we are still learning more about it. Here are some things we have learned so far.
Black holes are formed by the deaths of stars. They only can be formed by stars at least 5 times the size of our sun. After all of it’s nuclear fuel is used up, it shuts off and cools down into a white dwarf. For stars the size of our sun, that’s what happens. But for stars way bigger than our sun, the nuclear fusion process continues going through the periodic table until it gets to iron,our 26th element. Then gravity wins out, and the star collapses in itself creating a supernova, which can outshine an entire galaxy. Once the dust clears, you got yourself a black hole.
A black hole literally rips a hole through space and time. Since it rips a hole through space and time, there are some strange effects for being too close to a black hole. Once you get past the event horizon of the black hole, which is the point of no return, time completely stops. Since the gravity is weaker the further away from the source, an astronaut who would venture into a black hole’s grasp would stretch out and become longer. Scientists actually have a name for this phenomenon. It is called spaghettification.
There are also lots of crazy theories about black holes. One says that black holes don’t exist at all. Even Einstein himself said it was mathematically impossible for a black hole to form. Another theory says that black holes are gateways to different universes. This concept would take me too much time and energy to explain, but here is the extremely short version. These different universes could be the same universe but with very slight changes or they could be entirely brand new universes itself. Some physicists say that black holes could be wormholes, which are holes that burrow through space and time to get to a location that would normally take thousands of light years to get to. There are also super-massive black holes, which are in the centers of galaxies.
Black holes are still one of the many things in the cosmos that astronomers don’t know the answer to. Maybe it holds the secret to the beginnings of the universe itself, or can be used to travel through time. Who knows? We just have to wait and see.