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Lesson #3: Black holes and Matter
A question arose in the last lesson:
"What happens to something that gets sucked into a blackhole? Is it crushed into nothing?"
One individual replied:
"*wiggles finger mysteriously*
No one knoooooowssss..."
Yes and no.
First there are a couple of things to understand about black holes.
1) Black holes aren't neccessarily "holes". It is actually likely that they are simply super condensed matter with incredible gravitational pull.
2) Black holes have an "Event Horizon".
Basically this is the "point of no return". Technically, this is the point where the gravity becomes so strong that nothing can escape. As you'll read below, this might not be the case.
3) There are two kinds of black hole:
Schwarschild black holes and Kerr black holes. Schwarzchild black holes do not spin. Kerr black holes do. The type of black hole you are looking at might make a difference to what happens to matter.
Now:
If something were to enter the Event Horizon of a Scharzchild black hole, its gonna hit the black hole itself. In otherwords, that piece of matter will become part of the black hole "blob".
Over eons, black holes can actually grow in mass because they have sucked up so much stuff.
The black hole "object", often called a singularity is likely to be a blob of matter that has been squashed to such an extent that the laws of physics gets really wonky. According to black hole theory, you will actually reach INFINTE gravity. In which case all bets are off, and NOTHING can predict what the matter is doing. But thats with current theory and mathematics. We may find some other way to explaining things someday...
Now in the case of Kerr black holes, since it spins it creates a sort of whirlpool effect.
It has been suggested that if a piece of matter were to enter a Kerr black hole at just the right trajectory, it could, in principle AVOID the singularity mass itself and POSSIBLY re-emerge from the event horizon, very likely thousands or even millions of years later.
It has also been suggested that certain Kerr black holes might act like wormholes. If your a Star Trek fan, you'll know a wormhole is a sort of interstellar tunnel linking two distant parts of the universe and act like a shortcut between them.
A Kerr black hole might ALSO be connected to a WHITE hole. A white hole is basically the exact opposite of a black hole (its spewing matter and energy OUT, instead of sucking it in). So you might get spat out somewhere else...
In addition, black holes might lose mass at times. According to Steven Hawking, particles and anti-particles are appearing and vanishing everywhere in space. If this were to happen JUST at the edge of a black hole, one of those particles would be grabbed and the other would fly away. The gravitational field has lost energy to capture that one particle and that energy is given to the other particle which shoots outwards from the blackhole.
(Recall that E=mc^2. So energy and mass are interchangable [in theory]. So in other words a loss of energy = a loss in mass.)
So matter absorbed might actually be released later.
This is called Hawking Radiation.
And along those same lines, if there is a gas being pulled in towards the black hole, as the atoms got closer and closer, they'd start colliding more raising the temperature of the gas to the point where it becomes a plasma. That plasma continues to get excited and spewing out all sorts of radiation, from visible light to, x-rays and just before it hits the event horizon, gamma rays.
And again, energy = mass. So the some of the matter might not even make it to the center.
In summary:
Yes, no one really knows what happens to matter hitting the singularity itself as the laws of mathematics pretty much just collapse there.
On the other hand, matter entering a black hole (usually defined as the area of the Event Horizon...the singularity would be the blob of matter in the middle) MIGHT gew spit back out as radiation, enter another universe, come back out in the future, etc, etc.
Which is why they are often called a "singularity".
I.e. a mathematical point with no length or width or height.
And lets also remember that NOTHING can escepe the pull of the black hole. Even light, which on some small level has weight. Even it is pulled in. Hence the name, Black Holes.
Sounds like SOMEONE didn't read the full assignment :)
The "No Escape" rule MIGHT be wrong.....
Ok, simple question for the sake of absolutes...
What happens when two black holes start tugging at each other? Do neither escape each other's pull? Do they blob into one? Irresistable force/immovable object?....
And if one black hole has presumably stronger pull than the other, then can't anything with stronger pull or stronger resistance, pull away? Say Trogdor or something equally burly. Is light is all that strong? I mean light can't even find it's own way out of a paper bag.
And speaking of wormholes, don't worms leave a trail of 'turned' earth behind them? I mean, granted they aerate the soil slightly, but calling it a hole seems to imply a nice, clean path. If the Enterprise went through a [i]real[/i] worm hole, I suspect they would not get far without firing a crapload of photon torpedoes. I think they might have been better calling it a molehole in space, or gopherhole, or maybe slugtrail, as they look sortof ooze-like-slimy.
[i]"Enter the slugslime, Mr. Checkov" "Aye, Cap'n."[/i]
-Redshirt Lustig
When two black holes approach, they will latch on to each other and spiral inward towards each other until the collide making a black hole with the mass of the TWO black holes.
What will also happen is TONS of energy will be released. Its thought that it will create a Gamm Ray Burst which is a HIGHLY energetic blast of radiation.
What will also happen is when the two collide, they will release an enormous gravity wave. Think of a 3D ripple in a pond that radiates outwards...except in this case the ripple will tear apart planets.
I'm impressed by two things. First by Seth's amazing grasp of Star Trek physics, as one star trek physicist to another, I salute you. Secondly, by the fact that none of the posts are by bored kids at school, but by bored adults at work.
Back to the star trek physics, traveling through a worm hole is the dumbest thing ever. Lets say that a black hole really does spew matter out of a white hole someplace else, imagine what that matter has to go through. We are talking about forces that can suck up stars, you think your just going to fly out the other end? Nope, your matter might come out the other end, after being crushed and such, but you are certainly not coming out the other end.
But true star trek physicists are going to say, "but don't they modulate their shields" or some such technobabble. Lets assume that the force fields work as they do most of the time in the show. First off a reasonably large asteroid will rupture the shields. Flying too close to the sun will melt your ship. Flying into the sun will utterly destroy your ship baring time travel (which is always a caveat when dealing with Star Trek Physics.) Lets recap, colliding with a large object (like your garden variety star trek asteroid, planet, sun) will surely destroy your shields and then your ship, flying too close to a sun will destroy your ship regardless of shields, flying into a sun will destroy your ship, and black holes destroy suns. So logically, blackholes will most certainly destroy your star trek style spaceship.
A more likely dialog between Kirk and Checkov would be "Enter the meat grinder, Mr. Checkov" "No"
[quote="Griff"]I'm impressed by two things. First by Seth's amazing grasp of Star Trek physics, as one star trek physicist to another, I salute you. Secondly, by the fact that none of the posts are by bored kids at school, but by bored adults at work.
[/quote]
LOL!!!!!!
Touche!
However, you're missing an important issue. A black hole does not MAKE a wormhole, it merely ACTS like one.
Theory suggests a wormhole might exist in other places, created by something completely different than black holes.
Any examples of potential wormholes besides blackholes? A skim of the wikipedia wormhole node only mentions black / white holes as potential wormholes creators.
Unfortunately at this point, I start hitting my limit of astronomical knowledge.
What I do know is this:
Wormholes are essentially tears in space-time. To get a tear, all you really need is lots of energy in a small area...i.e. a big boom.
One thing that might be able to cause this big boom is a matter/anti-matter explosion. I'm often surprised that wormholes aren't spontaneously created in italian resautants where Pasta and Anti-pasto are often served near each other.
Now when a wormhole is formed it would also be very unstable. It'd probably be the width of a molecule and the sides would attract each other strongly and thus seal it very fast.
It has been thought that lining the interior with what we call "Exotic matter". Basically this type of matter reverses alot of laws, such as gravity. So essentially the exotic matter wouldn't attract other bits of exotic matter to itself, but would actually repel them, thus keeping the hole open.
Does exotic matter exist? No one is sure at this point. Its really odd stuff...negative mass...negative energy.
Another way to form a worm hole is to reach between the spaces between quarks of an atom. We actually call that space, "Quantum Foam". Now if we were to force the space between two quarks apart, you could also essentially cause a rip in space-time and make a wormhole.
[quote="Charlie"]Unfortunately at this point, I start hitting my limit of astronomical knowledge.
[i]Hehehe.... you do seem to have an extensive array of knowy-things, perhaps astronomical, although I am not prepared to go that far yet.
[/i]
So, if I gather correctly, I could shrink myself really, really, [u]Really[/u] small, remembering to bring my 'quark-spreader', push a couple quarks apart, create a wormhole, zip in, and nearly magically whisk myself all the way across to the other side of an atom in a flash? What a rip! I'm spanning the distance of several atoms, just sitting here typing.
Maybe that invading force from Hitchhikers Guide would be interested in them. You know, the invading force that came half way across the galaxy to take over the world, only to find they had grossly misjudged the size of things and got swallowed by a dog.
-Ensign "Wormfree since 1970" Seth
Yup...I am the Cliff Claven of Greenfield Games.
You're sorta right. Here's the nifty bit: If you use your quark spreader to make a hole in one atom and at the same time make a hole in another atom anywhere else, you could jump from one atom to the next....theoretically.
Also a neat fact about black-holes is that have mass but no volume. They don't take up space. Of course this is a theory on what they are and could be proven wrong.
Joe They fit a lot of corpses in that pot o' blood.
Me They cook down, like spinach.