top of page
Culture_blackhole_1178748615.jpg

What are Black Holes and where do they lead?

Black Holes are one of the most fascinating things humanity has ever discovered. They are so incredibly dense that even the speed of light (fastest thing known to man) which travels at 299, 792,458 m/s cannot escape from it.

 

The idea of a black hole was first discovered by Albert Einstein in 1916, with his world renowned general theory of relativity. The first real black hole was discovered in 1971. Black holes form when massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, where they implode and collapse in on themselves. The size of a black hole depends on the size of the star: the bigger the star, the more massive a black hole.

Screen Shot 2564-05-12 at 16.00.14.png

The event horizon is a boundary and region beyond which no light or radiation can escape.

 

The singularity is a location in spacetime where the mass and gravity is infinite.

There are 3 types of black holes: stellar, supermassive and intermediate black holes. Stellar black holes are small but deadly, and are formed when larger stars collapse in. Scientists do not definitively know how supermassive black holes are formed but it is suspected to occur when a black hole collects gas and dust around it, increasing the size of the black hole. Alternatively it could be many smaller black holes combining together, however there is no proven theory on how they are created. Scientists initially believed that there are only small and big black holes, but recently, they have found that there is a midsize black hole known as an intermediate black hole.

 

One of the biggest questions is where do black holes lead to? Professor Massey, a scientist from Durham University, stated ‘falling through the event horizon is literally beyond the veil - once somebody passes through it, nobody could ever get back.’ But scientists throughout history have come up with multiple theories to decipher where they lead to.


One of the major theories that has been proposed is the possibility of wormholes - the idea of black holes acting as a gateway and breach to other galaxies. Einstein teamed with Nathan Rosen to theorise ideas of bridges that could connect and join 2 points in the space time continuum in 1935. 
 

Another theory states that if a black hole sucks everything in, then a white hole would shoot everything out. Russian scientist Igor Novikov proposed this idea in 1964, theorising that black holes will allow light and matter to leave, but will not allow it to enter (the function of a black hole). Scientists believe that all the material black holes consume could be spewed out, and that they turn into white holes when they die.

Bibliography


Crooks D., Where do Black Holes lead? September 20 2019 (Accessed on 21st November 2020) Available at: 

https://www.space.com/where-do-black-holes-lead.html


 

Image used (23/09/2019) , Accessed 21st November 2020 

Chandra X-ray Observatory

Aarav Roy Chowdhury 12C

Year 12 Student in Bangkok Patana School

bottom of page