Black Hole — The Scariest Object in the Universe

If you were scared by the likes of Valak, Sadako, or even the due dates to pay your credit card debts, wait until you learn about the inescapable black holes of the universe.

Black holes – entities in space where gravity is inexplicably strong that nothing, even light is incapable of escaping. According to the mathematical work of the Nobel Prize winner, Roger Penrose, these regions in space are products of the theory of general relativity by Albert Einstein. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez showed that there is an astronomical black hole placed in the middle of our very own Milky Way galaxy.

There are three reasons why black holes are significantly scary. First, these are remnants of a dead star, and falling into it would rip you to shreds. Second, these are planes in the universe where the laws of physics are not working. Lastly, all the black holes at the center of every galaxy are voracious to an unimaginable degree.

Active black holes in galaxies are called quasars, but these scary sucking objects are usually inactive, but when they are not, they constantly consume everything around them, whether it is a planet, stars, space rocks, and even gas.

Something has to pass before their birth

Black holes are reportedly formed after a massive star, like our Sun, loses its life. When the nuclear fuel of a star wears out, its core falls into its densest state, which is a “hundred times denser than an atomic nucleus.” It’s dense enough that electrons, protons, and neutrons are not discrete particles anymore. The fact that they are dark, it’s common to find them when there is a normal star, as they tend to orbit around it. A normal star’s properties enable our astronomers to understand the attributes of its mysterious partner, which is the black hole.

Cygnus X-1 is the first confirmed black hole, which is also the brightest source of X-ray in the constellation of Cygnus. From its discovery, around 50 of the same kind have been found, where a star has this dark companion, and it is believed that 10 million more are sprawled throughout the Milky Way. The nearest black hole we identify, as of now, is the V616 Monocerotis, in short, V616 Mon. It’s situated approximately 3,000 light-years away and weighs between 9-13 times the Sun.

In addition to the idea that nothing can escape the wrath of a black hole, Stephen Hawking popularized the term spaghettification, which is what might happen to a person if he’ll be victimized by it. The strong gravity would pull one apart, segregating his muscles, bones, and even his molecules.

A beast in every galaxy with an insatiable appetite

For over three decades of investigations with the Hubble Space Telescope, it has revealed that all galaxies are coupled with black holes at their centers. The bigger the galaxy is, the bigger the black hole. Aside from the one in our home galaxy, there is also a massive region in the center of the M87 galaxy, which is a thousand times bigger and certainly more dangerous and powerful.

However, nothing compares to when they are in their quasar phase, as they’ll blast radiation to an unfathomable degree, but it’s also worth noting that quasars are the brightest in the universe. Currently, the largest black hole ever found is 20 times larger than the size of our solar system, or 40 billion times the weight of our Sun.

In the unforeseeable future, we might get the chance to know about these space objects, from a distance, of course! We might never get to understand its interior but we might get to learn how it works on the outside, though it’s very scary to know.

Photo Sources:

Cover Photo – Twitter
Photo 1 – Twitter
Photo 2 – NASA
Photo 3 – NASA