Supermassive black holes can be detected through gravitational lensing and studying the movement of stars and emission of x-rays.
Jets emitted from black holes are powered by electromagnetic energy and play a crucial role in shaping galaxy evolution.
The search for intermediate mass black holes is ongoing, with recent discoveries providing insights into the early universe.
Deep dives
Detecting Black Holes: Stellar and Supermassive
Black holes can be detected by observing the movement of stars around them, determining their mass, and studying the emission of x-rays from the surrounding accretion disks. Supermassive black holes, which have a mass of millions to billions of suns, are found at the centers of most galaxies. They can be detected through gravitational lensing, where their mass acts as a lens magnifying light from more distant objects. The James Webb Space Telescope has played a crucial role in detecting baby black holes in the nearby universe, providing insights into the formation of supermassive black holes. Pandora's cluster, a galaxy cluster in the Virgo supercluster, has been used to study early universe black holes through gravitational lensing.
Black Hole Jets
Jets are streams of high-energy particles that are emitted from black holes. While the exact mechanism behind their formation is still a mystery, it is believed that magnetic fields play a role in accelerating these particles. The jets are powered by electromagnetic energy generated around the black hole and are observed through their emission of radio waves, X-rays, and gamma rays. These jets can be millions of light-years long and play a crucial role in shaping and influencing galaxy evolution.
The Challenging Search for Intermediate Mass Black Holes
While stellar mass black holes (ranging from a few to hundreds of solar masses) and supermassive black holes (ranging from millions to billions of solar masses) are well-studied, the search for intermediate mass black holes (between 100 and 100,000 solar masses) is ongoing. The recent discovery of baby black holes through gravitational lensing by the James Webb Space Telescope provides insights into the early universe, but the origin and formation of these intermediate mass black holes remain uncertain.
Exploring Inside Black Holes
While the exact physics inside black holes is still not fully understood, theories such as general relativity and quantum mechanics provide insights into their behavior. Black holes are surrounded by an event horizon, beyond which not even light can escape. Inside the event horizon, space and time become distorted, leading to the concept of a singularity, where matter is crushed to infinite density. Black holes also have implications for the possibility of wormholes, which are hypothetical shortcuts through space-time, but their existence and stability are still subjects of active research.
Inside a Black Hole: No Drama at the Event Horizon
When crossing a black hole, the event horizon is quite undramatic. From the outside, the shadow cast on the sky could be deceptive, making it appear like a whole bright galaxy behind it, and one might enter the event horizon without even realizing it. However, once inside, terrible things begin to happen, including becoming trapped with no possibility of return. There has been a hot debate about whether information can escape a black hole, but according to the principle of no drama, nothing special should happen at the event horizon. However, recent theories propose that through Hawking radiation, information can ultimately be recovered from a black hole.
The Spaghettification Process and Brightness Within Black Holes
As one falls into a black hole, the gravitational forces cause the phenomenon known as spaghettification or the stretching of one's body due to the disparity in gravitational pull between the head and the feet. This stretching continues until one's body is torn apart into smaller parts, and even the molecular structure disintegrates. Additionally, as one gets closer to the singularity, where spacetime becomes narrower, they experience extreme brightness caused by the crushed light from the entire galaxy falling into the black hole. Furthermore, although the universe is not considered a black hole, black holes and their event horizons share similarities with cosmological event horizons, beyond which light will never reach us, limiting our vision of the universe.
How do supermassive black holes form? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice come to you live to learn about the history of black holes, what’s inside them, and new discoveries with cosmologist Janna Levin and astrophysicist Jenny Greene.
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Thanks to our Patrons Leigh Momii, Molly Jebsen, Gilbert Cruz, Robert Colonel, Oliver Orofino, and Stephen Coleman for supporting us this week.
Photo Credit: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)Derivative work including grading and crop: Julian Herzog, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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