Online:
Visits:
Stories:
Profile image
By The Unsilent Majority
Contributor profile | More stories
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Blackholes – #9 Seems Impossible!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:39
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

CHECK OUT OTHER STORIES BY THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY HERE:

 

BLACK HOLES… 

“Journey that begins where everything ends…”

If you’re my age, and if you’re a guy, then I’m willing to bet Disney’s “The Black Hole” made it onto your television set on more than one Saturday afternoon growing up; after all, who could forget the terrifying evil robot Maximillian and that evil stare. I managed to find a copy of the original trailer below for anyone interested in reliving their childhood for a moment or two. 

Compared to what we know today, back then space was still largely uncharted territory, and we knew very little, which made movies like the Black Hole so fun. Today when I think of Black Holes, I think about CERN, the the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, the largest, most complex experimental facility ever built, and the largest single machine in the world.

According to Wikipedia: It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries, as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland, and some scientists have theorized it could actually create tiny black holes here on earth, obviously causing us quite a problem. TODAY, when I hear about black holes, I think of Cern, and I think to myself, “As long as some black hole comes and sucks aways Obama, then perhaps the project won’t have been in vain… even if it sucks the whole planet it with it. I’m kidding.

WELL, NOT REALLY. THERE’S BARACK NOW… 

CHECK OUT OTHER STORIES BY THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY HERE:

BE SURE TO GO MY PROFILE’S BELOW AT OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST | STUMBLE UPON | TUMBLER

 

If you managed to stay awake in astronomy class, or if you saw that fairly decent Matthew McConaughey movie, you’re familiar with black holes by now. These interstellar vacuum cleaners have such an insanely strong gravitational pull that anything that gets sucked inside has no chance of ever escaping. Our understanding of black holes has increased dramatically since Einstein made them a thing in 1915, but they remain some of the most mysterious and powerful phenomena in the known universe. Here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about them.

 

1. They’re completely invisible

There’s a reason black holes are called black. Their gravity is so intense not even light can escape, so without any light emissions, they’re impossible to observe. We can, however, see some of the effects that this extreme gravity has on objects nearby.

 

2. You’re most likely orbiting one right now

The reason our celestial home, the Milky Way galaxy, looks kind of like water swirling down a drain is that, well, there is a drain. It’s called Sagittarius A* and all evidence suggests that it’s a super-massive black hole, right in the center of the galaxy.

 

3. They form from the remnants of massive exploding stars

When a big star (and by big I mean many, many times larger than the size of our sun) dies, it explodes violently in a supernova. The star’s core is left to collapse in on itself, and if that core is massive enough, there will be nothing to stop it from collapsing into a spot of infinite density. And that, kids, is how black holes are born.

 

4. They come in all different sizes

Astronomers hypothesize that they can range from micro black holes with masses as low as 22 micrograms, to super-massive objects with masses 40 billion (no that’s not a typo) times that of our sun.

CHECK OUT OTHER STORIES BY THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY HERE:

BE SURE TO GO MY PROFILE’S BELOW AT OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST | STUMBLE UPON | TUMBLER

 

5. Black holes eat stars for breakfast

With their inescapable gravitational pull, anything that drifts too close will be devoured, including stars.

 

6. They fire off powerful jets of plasma

Sometimes a black hole tries to eat too much matter at once, and it produces some blowback. Imagine trying to fill a tiny bucket with a powerful firehose. Similarly, the black hole shoots off huge plasma streams called relativistic jets, which can reach hundreds of thousands of light years in length.

 

7. They make Quasars, the brightest objects in the universe

Quasars are the most energetic and luminous objects in the known universe. The Quasar known as S5 0014+81 is 300 trillion times brighter than the sun, or 25,000 times brighter than all the stars in the Milky Way combined. And it generates all that power by feeding off the energy of a super-massive black hole, found in the center of every Quasar.

CHECK OUT OTHER STORIES BY THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY HERE:

BE SURE TO GO MY PROFILE’S BELOW AT OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST | STUMBLE UPON | TUMBLER

 

8. A black hole isn’t a hole at all

It’s a sphere. And, at least as far as we know, there are no tunnels to alternate realities either. We’re looking at you, Matthew McConaughey.

 

9. They’re powerful enough to alter time itself…

The gravity well of a black hole is so intense that time itself moves slower (relative to an outside observer) the nearer you get to the event horizon

 

10. … and collapse the laws of physics

Inside a black hole, for all intents and purposes, space and time no longer exist. Zero volume, infinite density, you get the idea.

David Burbach rides motorcycles for a living and won the science award in sixth grade. Find him lame-o tweeting @welivefreephoto.

Want more of the Culture you actually care about delivered straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for our daily email.

See the original article here at Supercompressor:

 

FOR OTHER POSTS ON MYSTERIES IN SPACE:

4 Weird “Clues” That Parallel Universes Exist 

Video: Hear the Erie Sound Every Planet Makes In Outer Space 

10 Insane UFO Conspiracy Theories That Might Actually Be True 

15 Space Pictures That Will Actually Make You Think 

Breaking Video: Crazy HAARP Weather Explosion In Mid Air

HAARP? A UFO? Time Warp? Top Secret Military Experiment? (Video)

Secret Military Spy Plane (TR-3A) Videotaped in Space (Video)

Cloaked UFO Or HAARP? Lights Over Indiana Top Secret or Cosmic?

This “Alien” Discovery is Throwing NASA Into a State of Bewilderment! 

Elusive Planet X Caught on Video in the U.S. After Sundown (Video)

13,000 Year Old Satellite Orbiting Earth Sending Radio Signals (Video)

Aliens on the Moon: The Truth Exposed

Possible Alien Structures Spotted on NASA’s Image of Ceres 

 

FOR MORE CONSPIRATORIAL TYPE LISTS:

The 20 Most Restricted Areas On Earth – #1 is Insane! 

12 Places You Will Never Set Eyes On – What Could #1 Be? 

6 Mind-blowing Experiments Science Cannot Explain 

6 Mysterious Deaths That’ll Make You Believe in Conspiracies 

6 Insane Coincidences You Won’t Believe Actually Happened (Video) 

25 Strangest Disappearances In History That Are Still Unanswered 

Top 8 “Conspiracy Theories” That Turned Out Completely True

14 Believable Conspiracy Theories 

Top 10 Obscure Conspiracy Theories 

10 Insane UFO Conspiracy Theories That Might Actually Be True 

10 Reasons the Moon Landings Could Be a Hoax 

Ten Crazy Conspiracy Theories About Celebrity Deaths 

 

CHECK OUT OTHER STORIES BY THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY HERE:

BE SURE TO GO MY PROFILE’S BELOW AT OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST | STUMBLE UPON | TUMBLER

 

~ THE UN-SILENT MAJORITY ~

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.