Masters Of The Universe :: essays research papers fc

One of the few remaining mysteries of science is the black hole. When a star runs out of fuel to keep it burning, it explodes into a supernova(Intro. to Black Holes 1) After a supernova, some of the matter that was blown off leaves in pockets to different places in space. These pockets contract to from a pulsar, or new born star. The rest of the matter left from the massive explosion of the supernova comes back together forming a neutron star. If the dead star was too massive, the neutron star will be so large that its own gravity will crush it(Intro. To Black Holes 1). This is called its maximum density(Filkin 202). After all of the matter has collapsed in on itself, it becomes a black hole(Filkin 202). After being compressed infinitely, almost to nothing, the point in space that it makes is called a singularity(Filkin 216). The singularity is the bottom of the black hole. Every stellar body has an escape velocity(Intro. to Black Holes 1). The escape velocity is the speed at which one must be going to escape the gravity of the object in question(Intro. to Black Holes 1). The Earth’s escape velocity is seven miles per second(Intro. to Black Holes 1). This means that to leave the Earth’s gravitational pull, you must be able to travel at least seven miles per second(Intro. to Black Holes 1). To escape a black hole, your velocity must reach at least the speed of light(Intro. to Black Holes 1). Because the speed of light(186,000 miles per second) is not possible because you must have infinite force to achieve the speed of light, nothing can escape a black hole’s gravitational field(Intro. to Black Holes 1). This is why a black hole is a black hole. No light can escape from it, therefore, we cannot see it. A binary star system consists of two stars that orbit around each other. They were discovered by Yakov Zeldovitch(Filkin 224). Sometimes, one star in a binary star system will die and become a black hole. When this happens, the force of the black hole’s gravity will literally suck the matter away from it’s sibling, and in doing this emitting X-rays that can be received on Earth(Filkin 225). This is one way that astronomers can find black holes. It is possible that our galaxy is powered by a black hole(Freedman 69). Astronomers Linda Dressel, Tim Heckman, Roeland Van Der Marel and Meg Urry are looking into this(Olson 48).