- 1646 - Blackholes - An Evolution Still in Process? This review covers the history of Blackhole discoveries and what astronomers are currently studying. Most all galaxies have an enormous Blackhole at their center. There are 35 more Blackholes being studied in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
-
--------------------- - 1646 - Blackholes - An Evolution Still in Process?
-
- In the year 1676 the speed of light was first estimated to be 300,000 kilometers per second, 186,000 miles per second, or 670,600,000 miles per hour.
-. In 1784 John Mitchell used Newton's theory of gravity and calculated the escape velocity for light. Escape velocity depends on the mass and on the radius of what you are trying to escape from. At some escape speed we would exceed the escape velocity for light. That by definition becomes known as a “Blackhole“. But, first they were called “Black Stars“.
-. Later calculations were made that an object as massive as our Sun, one Solar Mass, would have a radius of 6 kilometers, 3.7 miles.
-. Karl Schwarzschild child later to find an Event Horizon for a blackhole, a radius within which all light was bent back on itself and “nothing” escapes.
-. The Schwarzschild radius = 3 * M
-. Where M is a Solar Mass and the radius is in kilometers. The Sun is one Solar Mass and would have a Blackhole radius of 3 kilometers, 0.6 miles. The radius for the Earth would be 9 millimeters.
-. The more general formula is:
-.----------------- The Schwarzschild radius = 2 * G * M / c^2
-
------------------ “G” is the Gravitational Constant = 6.67*10^-11 m^3 / (kg*sed^2)
-
----------------- “c” is the speed of light = 2 * 10^8 m / sec.
-
-------------------- “M” is the mass of the Earth = 6*10^24 kilograms.
-
-------. The Schwarzschild radius = 2 * 6.67*10^-11 * 6*10^24 / ( 3*10^8)^2
-
-------------------- The Schwarzschild radius = 0.009 meters
-. If the Earth was a Blackhole it would have a radius of only 9 millimeters, about 1/3rd of an inch. Pretty small, it would fit in the palm your hand. However, it would weigh the same ,so, don't try it.
-. Most scientists during that time did not believe that Blackholes were real. It was merely a mathematical curiosity.
-
-. Astronomers had to understand stars first before they could understand Blackholes.
-
- A star exist because it is in a delicate balance between the constant crush of gravity inward and in the fusion radiation pressure outward. When the star burns all of its fuel and fusion stops the pressure stops and gravity wins. The star collapses.
-. Our Sun is a medium-size star. With its mass, when it burns all of its fuel, it will collapse, but, the collapse will be halted, not by radiation pressure, but, by the pressure of the electrons refusing to collapse into the nucleus of the atoms. This quantum mechanical electromagnetic force is called “electron Degeneracy Pressure“. An object like our Sun becomes a dead, collapsed star called a “White Dwarf“.
-
-. In 1930 the calculation was taken further. A calculation was made as to what size mass would collapse electrons into the nucleus creating neutrons. This calculation came out to be 1.4 Solar Mass, 140% the mass of our Sun. Called a Neutron Star it would be held up from collapsing further by “Neutron Degeneracy Pressure“.
-. The next step showed that an even greater mass would crush the Neutron Star into a single point, a Singularity. In 1967 this point of enormous mass, from which not even the speed of light had enough's escape velocity, was first termed a Blackhole. The name stuck.
-
- Today over 18 Blackholes have been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers detect the X-ray emissions from the spinning accretion disk orbiting the Event Horizon. In fact, for one accretion disk orbiting a Blackhole astronomers have tracked an iron emission line in the x-ray spectrum. The Blackhole is 10,000,000 Solar Mass and the accretion disk is spinning at 98.7% the speed of light, some 660,000,000 miles per hour.
-. This Blackhole is a little over twice as big as the Blackhole of at the center of the Milky Way galaxy which is 4,000,000 solar mass.
-. The blackhole of the center of the Andromeda galaxy is 35 times bigger at 140,000,000 Solar Mass, discovered in November 21, 2005. Hubble Space telescope revealed the blue light from hundreds of fast burning stars orbiting a small dark region in space at the center of the Andromeda galaxy. The orbiting velocities were such that the center must be a monster blackhole. 400 blue stars had Doppler shifts used to calculate the rate of rotation. The rate of rotation was then used to calculate the mass at the center of the orbit.
-. The Andromeda, Milky Way, and M106 galaxy centers have confirmed massive black holes at their centers. There are 35 other galaxies being studied that likely also have Black holes at their centers.
-
- A smaller blackhole just 37,000 light-years away has a mass of 10,000 Solar Mass and a diameter just 4.7 times the diameter of Earth.
-. Our might Milky Way galaxy Blackhole Event Horizon has a radius of 12,000,000 kilometers, 7,000,000 mile radius. To fit this Blackhole between the Sun and the Earth it would cover only 15% of the distance.
- M87 galaxy has a Solar Mass of 7,000,000,000 Solar Mass
-
- Quasars are giant Blackholes in the center of distant galaxies. Quasars are so big that there accretion disks outshine the entire galaxies in which they reside. Quasars are found 13,000,000,000 light-years away. That was 13,000,000,000 years ago. I wonder what they look like today?
-. The whole concept of Blackhole has to do with the escape velocity needed is to escape gravity. The bigger the mass the faster an object needs to be traveling in order to escape. Also, the smaller the radius the faster the object needs to be traveling in order to escape.
-. To escape the Earth you need to throw the baseball straight up at 25,000 miles per hour.
-. To escape the Sun you would have to throw it 1,375,760 miles per hour.
-. To escape a Blackhole that is greater than 1.4 Solar Mass it would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light, 670,633,005 miles per hour. That cannot happen. Therefore, not even light can escape the Blackhole.
- All the quantum mechanical information for every particle is saved and never lost in the Blackhole. How this all happens depends on how the physicists construct their space-time equations. Is the evolution history of Blackholes now solved? Hardly! The mind bending properties of Blackholes is still bending minds. Who knows what the next theory, or, the next observation will bring.
-. In 1974 Stephen Hawking used quantum mechanical math to dispute the idea that nothing could ever escape the Blackhole. His math showed that there was a way Blackholes could emit radiation. It had to do with the particles and anti-particles existing right at the edge of the Event Horizon. If one particle got sucked inside the Event Horizon the other would be flung out into space. Action equals reaction, the conservation of momentum. Given enough time Blackholes would evaporate in this way.
-
-. It problem exists with another law in quantum mechanics. Information cannot be destroyed. The particle that slipped into the Blackhole ,what happened to its information? In 2004 this math convinced Hawking that information too was leaking from the Blackhole.
-
-. This issue got further complicating with the idea of particle “Entanglement“. The properties of the two particles are forever linked. If one switches from clockwise to counter-clockwise spin, the other particle instantaneously switches from counter-clockwise spin to clockwise spin. To somehow break this Entanglement would release an enormous amount of energy.
-
-. Recently Hawking has tried to solve the controversy by redefining the Event Horizon, calling it an “Apparent Horizon“, where light does not actually escape, it simply gets stuck in a holding pattern. In that way all the information gets stored in the Apparent Horizon until it finds its way out through evaporation.
-
- In the meantime astronomers are discovering many new Blackholes to study. April 17, 2006, two billion Solar Mass Blackholes were found to be on a collision course. Called Abell 400 there were X-ray jets of superheated material streaming from the polls of two spinning Blackholes. The intertwining contrails of the jets were colliding with interstellar gas creating radio waves.
-
- The super massive Blackholes were still far enough apart to fit the Milky Way galaxy in between them. But, each time a star got slingshot out of the galaxy system the conservation of momentum brought the two galaxies closer together. They are hundred thousands light-years apart now, when they get within a single light-year separation, their lost energy will begin sending out gravity waves. The laser interferometer space antenna is designed to measure these gravity waves someday in the future.
-
-. October 5, 2005, Gamma Ray bursts lasting only tens of milliseconds followed by a long-lasting afterglow of X-rays and visible light are likely to be twin Neutrons Stars spinning around each other faster and closer until they reach the speed of light. When they collide the beams of energy released are equivalent to 1 million -billion suns before collapsing into a Blackhole.
-. November 12, 2005 the most distant, oldest, identified object in the visible universe was 12.7 billion light-years away. It was an imploding star forming a Blackhole. The Universe was only 7% of its current age. The red shift of the light was 6.29, a 629% shift, corresponding to 900,000,000 years after the Big Bang. That light traveled through 90 percent of the history of the Universe. These light waves accumulated dings and scratches along the way which will help astronomers learn how the Universe evolved. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tune
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other reviews about Blackholes available upon request: #1628, 1365, 1587, 1508, 1441, 1350, 1177, 1046, 1140, 903, 848, 846, 819, 774, 592, 578, 453.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, with comments, suggestions, corrections. Index of reviews available ---
--- Some reviews are at: -------------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
---- email request for copies to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ---------
---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/ , “Jim Detrick” ----- www.facebook.com ---
---- www.twitter.com , --- 707-536-3272 ---- Friday, February 7, 2014 ---
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
