The Black Hole Concept and Existence - Essay Example

THE BLACK HOLE CONCEPT AND EXISTENCE By Location Discovery of the black holes In the quest to explore the outer space, astronomers came across some of the strangest objects, and one of the unusual features is the black hole (Almheiri et al., 2013). As the astronomers explored the outer space, therefore, they considered that black holes are one of the fascinating objects existing in the outer space with their extreme density. Another of the outstanding features of the black is that they have the strong gravitational attraction that even makes it impossible for light to escape if it becomes near enough to the objects). On the other hand, they discovered that the black holes are the only objects with event horizons extending from their surfaces making it possible to suck objects. Albert Einstein was the first to predict the existence of these unique objects in 1916 through his much celebrated general theory of relativity (Almheiri et al., 2013). Therefore, the term or the black hole concept was John Wheeler’s word, an American Astronomer, in 1967 (Braunstein, Pirandola & Życzkowski, 2013). Thus, the first black hole would later be discovered in the year 1971. In this regard, this essay discusses the black hole concepts and explores the three distinct types of the objects namely stellar black holes, supermassive black holes and the intermediate black holes. The Black Hole Concept In a layman’s language, a black hole can be described as the place in the space where there is strong gravitational pull and objects that get into the space cannot be regained, even light cannot escape from the region (Almheiri et al., 2013). The strong gravitational pull is because there has been the squeezing of matter into a very tiny space and always occurs when a star is wearing out or dying. Therefore, because even light is unable to get out of the region, it is nearly impossible to see the black holes thus astronomers have considered them to be invisible objects. Nonetheless, scientists use special tools that enable them to see how stars close to the black holes have different characteristics or act differently from other stars. The space images reveal that black holes are actually spherical in shape and are perceived to be spinning thus dragging the space continuum around in a motion same to honey in a spinning spoon (Braunstein, Pirandola & Życzkowski, 2013). The confused regions of the spacetime make it difficult to determine if one is travelling through space or time. Though there has been a common belief that nothing can escape from the black holes, it is open to contention as Stephen Hawking once suggested that the objects eventually undergo evaporation and die thus releasing particles in form of radiation (Hawking, 2014). In fact, the particles should be measurable but the current telescopes have never recorded any readings when pointed towards the black holes because the regions are void of information. Therefore, one unique feature of the black hole is the absorption of information that makes it difficult to study them and relay any relevant information for discussion (Braunstein, Pirandola & Życzkowski, 2013). Scientists have also tried to estimate the size of the black holes and they found out the objects may be small or big where the tiniest could be the size of an atom (Hawking, 2014). Though some black holes may be small, their masses are equal to that of a mountain. On the other hand, other black holes are big and by far larger than the current planets of the universe. Another question that arises when discussing the black is the possibility that they can destroy the earth which is not the case (Braunstein, Pirandola & Życzkowski, 2013). The implication is that the objects do not travel the space, eating planets, moons and the stars. Besides, the earth at no point will ever fall into black holes because the objects are not near the solar system. Moreover, the black holes have the same gravity as the sun; thus the earth and other planetary objects can orbit the black hole the same as they orbit the sun (Braunstein, Pirandola & Życzkowski, 2013). Describe the different types of black holes and the ideas about their formation and evolution The stellar black holes Astronomers have studied stars and found out that they can actually burn to exhaust their fuel and collapse or burn to extinction. However, for the smaller stars, almost three times the mass of the sun, a new core is formed, the neutron star or the white dwarf as fondly referred to by the astronomers. Nonetheless, when larger stars collapse, they continue to fall on themselves thus creating stellar black holes (Johnson et al., 2012). Therefore, stellar black holes are formed from the individual collapse of the stars. Though they may be relatively small, they are incredibly high dense (Morscher et al., 2013). In return, there occurs strong gravitational force action that pulls all the objects around the stellar black holes. Eventually, the black holes take up the dust and gas from the surrounding galaxy and grow into size. Reports indicate that the Milky Way has a few millions; hundreds of millions of the stellar black holes (Johnson et al., 2012). Supermassive black holes Though the small black holes are the most populated in the universe, the super-massive black holes are the dominant of the black holes. The super-massive types are million times massive as the Sun with a radius almost similar to the star closest to the earth (Nayakshin, Power & King, 2012). On the other hand, the super-massive black holes seemingly lie at the centre of every galaxy, even the earth’s visible galaxy, the Milky Way. However, there is not a clear word from the scientists on how these black holes originate. In effect, after their formation, they are believed to quickly gather their mass from the gas as well as the dust around them as the materials that are in abundance in the center of all galaxies (Schnittman, 2013). Therefore, they grow into enormous size by absorbing the dust. The other possible theory on the formation of the super-massive black holes is that they may have occurred due to the merging of hundreds or even thousands of the tiny black holes that merge to form a single super-massive black hole (Nayakshin, Power & King, 2012). Another possible theory of their formation is that large clouds could have easily collapsed together thus rapidly accreting their mass. Nonetheless, there is the option that the falling of the stellar stars could have formed these super-massive black holes (Schnittman, 2013). In this case, a group of the stellar stars falling together could have led to the formation of these supermassive black holes. Intermediate black holes Though the scientists had stuck to the common belief that the black holes were in large and small sizes, recent studies have shed some light on the possibility of midsize or the intermediate black holes. In effect, the bodies are believed to form when stars within a cluster collide through a chain reaction (Abadie et al. 2012). Besides, several of the black holes forming in the same way and region can eventually fall in the galaxy center and create the super-massive black hole. As recent as 2014, astronomers did find an object that appeared to them like an intermediate black hole, because of the intermediate mass. On the other hand, there is substantive evidence with hints that the intermediate mass black holes are present in the universe. However, the problem with finding the intermediate black holes is that they are long-lost relative that could be quite difficult to find out (Sutton et al., 2012). Describe how we detect black holes Black holes are massive, but all cover a small region of the universe. Therefore, the relationship between mass and gravity implies that the large mass renders the black holes with strong gravitational force (Volonteri, 2012). In this regard, nothing escapes from the black holes and even light is trapped thus making observation and detection quite homework for the astronomers as well as the ordinary scientists. However, scientists rely on radiation that is always emitted in the form of dust and gasses that are always drawn to these objects. For instance, super-massive black holes, situated at the centre of galaxies may be surrounded by the gas and dust thus blocking the radiations making it difficult to detect them. Sometimes, as the particulate matter, gas and dust, in this case, are drawn to the centre of the black holes, they ricochet off the horizon and eventually hurled outwards instead of being absorbed into the object (Almheiri et al., 2013). In effect, there is the creation of bright jets as the materials travelling at the near-relativistic speed. Therefore, although the black hole may remain unseen, the powerful jets are observable from great distances thus scientists and astronomers can view the activities of black holes. Nonetheless, it is imperative to understand how the scientists know the size of the black holes yet they have a strong gravitational pull that swallows all the light hitting them. However, the scientists observe and study the effects of the gravitational effect of the black holes on the surrounding stars and gases (Almheiri et al., 2013). In this case, if a star has been orbiting a particular point in the space, then the scientists can study its motion and figure out if indeed it orbits a black hole. The implication is that when black holes and stars orbit close to each other, then there is the light of high-energy produced and scientists have instruments to observe the high-energy light. On the other hand, the gravity of a black hole is sometimes so strong that it pulls off the stars outer gases thus growing a disk around itself; the accretion disk. However, gases from the accretion disks of stars move around the objects spiral into the particular black hole and in turn heats up to high temperatures thus releasing X-ray light (Volonteri, 2012). Therefore, the NASA telescopes can measure the resulting X-ray light, and the information is again used by astronomers to learn about the black hole properties (Almheiri et al., 2013). What is the Hawking radiation and how it affects the black hole mass? Hawking radiation is the radioactivity effect from the black holes, and the idea was first coined by Jacob Bekenstein then improved by Stephen Hawking. According to the radiation theory, black holes were predicted to decay eventually or still, evaporate with time (Hawking, 2014). On evaporation was based on the idea of the thermal radiation where black bodies are perfect emitters of radiation energy. In this effect, the black holes have the potential to radiate the Hawking radiation from the rest of their mass energy. Therefore, if a black hole is not getting mass from outside, then it may lose it through the Hawking radiation and eventually evaporation is set to occur. In simple terms, Hawking radiation may not be the radiation from the black hole but rather happens when an anti-particle pair of a particle occurs where the antiparticle is absorbed into a black hole, and the real particle escapes (Hawking, 2014). In this case, matter escapes the hole thus it is losing part of its mass, and this is what astronomers referred to as evaporation. What unusual effects one would experience in the vicinity of a black hole? If one found him or herself in the vicinity of a black hole, the gravitational force would stretch the body because the quantum effect causes the event horizon to act as a firewall, and can instantly burn to death (Almheiri et al., 2013). Another unusual effect in the vicinity of the black holes is the bright jets that astronomers believe are the particulate gas and dust materials travelling at near relativistic speed. In fact, a black hole cannot be seen, and it is the movement of the bright jets that makes it possible to infer that one is in the vicinity of a black hole. Nonetheless, the black holes have been presumed to have three layers; outer, the singularity and inner event horizon (Almheiri et al., 2013). The event horizon layer is the boundary within the black holes mouth, and this is where the light has no ability to escape because once a particle crosses the layer, it cannot be released. However, the region has a constant gravity. Singularity is the inner part of the black hole and has been defined as the region where the black holes mass is concentrated. Bibliography Abadie, J, et al. 2012, ‘Search for gravitational waves from intermediate mass binary black holes’, Physical Review D, vol. 85, no. 10, p. 102004. Almheiri, A, Marolf, D, Polchinski, J, & Sully, J 2013, ‘Black holes: complementarity or firewalls?’, Journal of High Energy Physics, vol. 2013, no. 2, pp.1-20. Braunstein, SL, Pirandola, S, & Życzkowski, K 2013, ‘Better late than never: information retrieval from black holes’, Physical review letters, vol. 110, no. 10, pp. 101-301. Hawking, S 2014, ‘Singularities and the Geometry of Spacetime’, The European Physical Journal H, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 413-503. Johnson, J. 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