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Understanding Black Holes Essay

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Understanding Black Holes A Black hole is a theorized celestial body whose surface gravity is so strong that

nothing, including light, can escape from within it's surface. Gravity is the key to a

black hole's immense power. The black hole's strong gravity keeps captured material

from escaping. For example, if Earth were the same mass it is now but had only

one-fourth its present radius, the escape velocity of someone standing on its surface

would be twice what it is now. Black holes have a power far greater than our minds

can imagine. This report will go into further discussion on these massive holes in space.

Now, though, astronomers have uncovered a much better candidate for a …show more content…

But traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible, so once you

get into a black hole you can’t get out.(Levitt 83)

Black holes may form during the course of stellar evolution. As nuclear fuels

are exhausted in the core of a star, the pressure associated with their heat is no

longer available to resist contraction of the core to ever higher densities. Two new

types of pressure arise at densities a million and a million billion times that of water,

respectively, and a compact white dwarf or a neutron star may form. If the core

mass exceeds about 1.7 solar masses, however, neither electron nor neuron pressure

is sufficient to prevent collapse to a black hole. Knowing more about galactic black

holes will help astronomers learn more about the evolution of galaxies and the

relationship between galaxies, black holes, and quasars.

Astronomers Holland Ford, Richard Harms, and colleagues have used data from

the Hubble Space Telescope to develop strong evidence that a black hole exists in

the center of the elliptical galaxy M87 in Virgo. Ford and Harms have shown that a

small mass, fast rotating disc lies at M87’s heart.(Powell 12) There is also a black holethat is eating the Milky Way. The core of the Milky Way galaxy, 180 quadrillion

miles from Earth, exerts enough force to hold together a system of 100 billion stars.

Astronomers trying to determine the

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