The world could get its first real glimpse of a black hole on April 10

[seeprime]

Yeah, but think of the toxic fumes coming back at us! Kind of like burning styrofoam on the campfire.

I presume that's a joke. There are no toxic fumes from the sun. Everything would be turned into plasma and heat. It's a bit hotter than a campfire.

 

[captaincranky]

In my not so humble opinion, they formed as the remnant of a 3D object - a star. Who is to say that what is left over is not another 3D object, I.e., a ball of highly condensed matter in space?

That's pretty much the most widely accepted theory of their formation. I had Astronomy 101 as an elective at Phila. Community College. The instructor had a fascination with stellar physics. One thing that stuck was the fact that you can't have a supernova event, unless the star's mass is at least 10 times that of our sun's.

Another extremely interesting fact, is that a star's mass dictates the final element it would be capable of fusing. In the case of our sun, that element is oxygen. Iron is the last element any star, regardless of mass, to which it can fuse.

A star can fuse hydrogen for billions of years. The star's shape and diameter is maintained by opposing forces, the outward expansion of gas, (super heated plasma), and pure energy, versus the inward force of gravity. However, when the star reaches the silicon fusion stage, (the precursor to iron), it uses that element up in a matter of a few hours.. Iron requires more energy to fuse than it releases, the star collapses, and then novas. (assuming sufficient mass).

As a star's mass increases, its life expectancy drastically decreases. Our sun will likely live, (and has already lived), for billions of years. However, a super giant star in the blue spectrum (high temperature hydrogen fusion stage), may nova in a mere 100,000 years......and leave behind a "black hole" ("Black hole", IMO, is a misnomer)

That said, one thing that is consistent about gravity, is that it always tends to produce spherical objects. Odd shaped interstellar objects, are more than likely formed via collisions or explosions of already formed spherical objects.

It's difficult for me to imagine that objects formed by a hyper gravity event, would be any different. If anything, (IMHO), they would likely be most accurately spherical.

We simply do not have enough factual scientific information on them yet as they are so difficult to study due to the fact that most of whatever comes out of them is in regions of the electromagnetic spectrum that are very difficult to observe.

That's just it, nothing can escape past what we're calling "the event horizon". Any observable radiated energy is the death rattle of an object crossing that boundary.

 

[wiyosaya]

That's just it, nothing can escape past what we're calling "the event horizon". Any observable radiated energy is the death rattle of an object crossing that boundary.

Hawking calculated that a black hole can evaporate; however, AFAIK, that's a prediction that science cannot validate ATM, and who knows how long it might take humanity to come to a point where that prediction can be validated, if ever.

 

[Manrubio]

Ok...

 

[captaincranky]

Hawking calculated that a black hole can evaporate; however, AFAIK, that's a prediction that science cannot validate ATM, and who knows how long it might take humanity to come to a point where that prediction can be validated, if ever.

I actually think Hawking had a gift for synthesizing the research of many others, and get it credited as his own.

The sticking point of all astrophysics, is "the Big Bang". We're asked to believe there was nothing before it, not space or time or distance. It's incomprehensible, (at least to me), how to imagine a "nothing" that doesn't go on forever, Then there's the whole premise about where the "material" for the big bang might have come from in the first place. So, no matter how valid the theory of our universe's creation might be, it always leaves you hanging as to what was before it, or what exists outside of it.

And FWIW, I thing "string theory", is just a bullsh!t fantasy, concocted to garner grant money to study it. Or as Mark Knopfler so indelicately said, "that ain't workin' that's the way ya do it".

Any of that notwithstanding, you have to wonder if the big bang theory could turn into a lively stoner discussion on existentialism. Maybe, "if an infinitely small point of the densest matter imaginable exploded, and animals hadn't evolved yet, did it make a sound"?