Course Project | Report

Summer 09/10
Course # 140303101
Astronomy & Space Sciences

Instructor
Dr. Humaid Majol Al-Nuaimy

Student
Shatha Mohd. Karrar
ID # 20720984
Medicine
Serial # 39

University of Sharjah
College of Medicine


Introduction

How can we observe something we
cant see? This is a basic question
that rises up when studying black
holes, because according to the
general theory of relativity, they are
regions of space of massive huge
gravity from which nothing,
including light, can escape. The
reason this is interesting is if these
exotic objects really do exists it
gives us the opportunity to know
how they interact with their
environment and helps us
understand how they affect the
formation and the evolution of the
galaxies in which they reside in.
On this paper report I cared to raise several issues concerning Black Holes, after
reading several articles, recent researches and theories. Most of these questions till
today riddles most of our lead astronomers and researchers, with only new answers
and theories emerging every single day. Which only just adds a new little piece of a
whole uncompleted puzzle of how it all started, and from what, and where is it all
going!
Trying to cover all the endless articles was a pure exciting challenge, because newer
questions simply never seize to end, and the theories and scientific basics theyre
answers relay on were even spectacular. Even after managing to gather all the
following information about black holes, some other questions still remained
unanswered, such as if black holes do evaporate, or are black holes the central
nuclei of most galaxies known, especially ours the Milky Way, and if they contribute
to the formation of the galaxy it self.
But Lets not to try to jump the gun, and save these questions for later, and begin
mostly with the basics to keep it simple, cause for all I can say only relying on these
basics, we can step further from the ground to reach our unveiled answers, one day
hopefully soon!
What i s a bl ack hol e?
There were many popular myths concerning black holes, many of them perpetuated
by Hollywood. Movies have portrayed them as time-traveling tunnels to other
dimensions, cosmic vacuum cleaners sucking up everything in sight, and so on. It
can be said that black holes are really just the evolutionary end point of massive
stars. But somehow, this simple explanation makes them no easier to understand or
less mysterious.
(1)

To begin with we need to understand what a black hole really is. In many ways a
black hole is of an incredibly simple structure, in which you shall only describe 3
characteristics : the mass, the spin, and the charge, but in another sense its at the
same time a very complicated object that needs relatively complicated physics to
understand it.
Black holes are the evolutionary endpoints of stars at least 10 to 15 times as
massive as the Sun. If a star that massive or larger undergoes a supernova explosion,
it may leave behind a fairly massive burned out stellar remnant. With no outward
forces to oppose gravitational forces, the remnant will collapse in on itself. The star
eventually collapses to the point of zero volume and infinite density, creating what
is known as a "Singularity". Around the singularity is a region where the force of
gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. Thus, no information can reach us
from this region. It is therefore called a black hole, and its surface is called the
"event horizon".
(1)

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole actually can only be observed through its
interaction with other matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the
movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space(especially with a
companion star).
Alternatively, when gas
falls into a stellar black
hole from a companion
star, the gas spirals inward,
heating to very high
temperatures and emitting
large amounts of radiation
(X-ray) that can be
detected from earth bound
and Earth-orbiting
telescopes before it is
swallowed completely and is
lost forever.
(2)

The Anatomy of a Bl ack Hol e
Event Horizon

All matter that comes within a certain distance of a black
hole will be trapped forever - even light, the fastest
phenomenon known to exist. That distance, which can be
represented as an imaginary sphere around the black hole,
is known as the event horizon. Although objects outside
the event horizon will feel the intense gravity of the black
hole, they will be able to escape it.
(6)


All matter that ventures inside the event horizon is
crushed down to a single point, at which the matter is said
to have reached infinite density. That point is known as
the singularity, which comprises the center and the very essence of the black
hole.
(6)



Accretion Disk
Matter that lingers close to the black hole will spiral
inward and form an accretion disk. The particles of gas
and dust collide with each other as they spin around the
black hole. These collisions heat up the accretion mater,
which may get so hot that it emits X-rays.
(6)


Jets of Gas

Jets of hot gas are occasionally found streaming out of the
region surrounding a black hole. The gas jets flow
perpendicular to the accretion disk, and they can be
million of light years in length. This phenomenon most
likely result from charged particles spiraling around the
intense magnetic field lines thought to rotate around a
black hole. Jets of Gas are seen around many but not all
black holes.
(6)

There are other virtual concepts, boundaries and regions such as the Ergosphere
and the Photon sphere that coincides with the above main structures of a black
hole.
Black holes have a broad range of masses, from the smallest (miniature) to the
largest (supermassive). Therefore there are basically three types of black holes:
(6)


1) Stellar Black Holes: are such as explained above with the Companions stars.


2) Supermassive Black Holes: Fast-
moving gas jets and gravitational forces
equal to millions or billions of Suns point
to the existence of huge black holes in the
center of some galaxies. There might
even be one in the center of our own
Milky Way galaxy. These supermassive
black holes might be the result of the
collapse of a dense cluster of stars.
(6)





3) Miniature Black Holes: Theory suggests that miniature black holes might
have formed in the early universe. But astronomers do not have any evidence
of their existence. Miniature black holes have event horizons as small as the
width of an atomic particle and might have been created during the Big Bang.
Between 10 and 20 billion years ago, all matter and energy was compressed
into a single point. Then this
tiny point exploded (the Big
Bang) and expanded rapidly.
Some parts might have
expanded more rapidly than
other parts, compressing some
matter and squeezing it into
miniature black holes. These
Miniature Black Holes contain
as much matter as Mt. Everest
(a lightweight compared to
nine times the mass of the
Sun!).
(6)

Can any obj ect become a bl ack hol e?
Many theories suggested
that a black hole is a result
of an exceptionally very
compact mass, and as Prof.
Andrea Ghez suggested, in
order to take a first step in
understanding a black hole,
we shall assume that it is an
objects of a mass confined
to zero volume. Though
fortunately there is a
known virtual size that
confines it, known as the
Schwarzschild radius. At this radius, the escape speed is equal to the speed of light, and
once light passes through, it cannot escape. This Radius is of an amazing importance
because it tells us that any given object can become a black hole! That you, your
neighborhood, your car, even your mobile device can turn in to a black hole. That is
if you can simply figure out how to compress it down to the size of the
Schwarzschild radius. At this point this only opens vast doors of how the
gravitational force (gravity) can win over all known forces and the object would
only be forced to give in and collapse to an infinitely small object or Id rather say a
black hole.
This same gravitational pull makes surrounding celestial objects orbit around it.
And this itself, helps us by far miles. Because once you knew how fast it orbits, you
can know the mass, and by the scale of the orbit also simply know the radius.
The Schwarzschild radius can be calculated using the equation for escape speed:
(1)

vesc = (2GM/R)
1/2

For photons, or objects with no mass, we can substitute c (the speed of light) for Vesc and
find the Schwarzschild radius, R, to be
(1)

R = 2GM/c
2
What i f t he Sun became a bl ack hol e?

If our Sun was suddenly replaced with
a black hole of the same mass, the
Earth's orbit around the Sun would be
unchanged. Of course the Earth's
temperature would change, and there
would be no solar wind or solar
magnetic storms affecting us. But to
be "sucked" into a black hole, one has
to cross inside the Schwarzschild
radius. Now if the Sun was replaced
with a black hole that had the same
mass as the Sun, the Schwarzschild
radius would be of only 3 km
(compared to the Sun's radius of
nearly 700,000 km). Hence the Earth
would have to get very close to get
sucked into a black hole at the center
of our Solar System.
(1)

To Be More Scintefic based we can
rather be assured that the Sun has no
intention of doing any such thing.
Only stars that weigh considerably more than the Sun end their lives as black holes. The Sun
is going to stay roughly the way it is for another five billion years or so. Then it will go
through a brief phase as a red giant star, during which time it will expand to engulf the
planets Mercury and Venus. After that, the Sun will end its life by becoming a boring white
dwarf star.
(3)


But to digress. What if the Sun did become a black hole for some reason? The main effect is
that it would get very dark and very cold around here. The Earth and the other planets
would not get sucked into the black hole; they would keep on orbiting in exactly the same
paths they follow right now. Because the horizon of this black hole would be very small and
as we observed above, as long as you stay well outside the horizon & the schwarszchild
radius, a black hole's gravity is no stronger than that of any other object of the same mass.
(3)


" Are bl ack hol es act ual l y whi t e? "
St ephen Hawki ng' s t heory s ays " yes " !
Hawking has said that "black holes are not really black after all: they glow like a hot
body, and the smaller they are, the more they glow."

Stephen Hawkings great discovery was that
the mysterious regions in space we call black
holes radiate heat through quantum effects.
Hawking's famous theory says that the
temperature of a black hole varies inversely
to its mass. The mathematician Louis Crane
proposed a scifi-like scenario back in 1994
that billions of years in the future, after all the
stars have burned out, that small black holes
could be created to generate heat and
guarantee survival of the species.
(4)

"Hawking famously showed that black holes
radiate energy according to a thermal
spectrum," said Paul Nation, an author on the
paper and a graduate student at Dartmouth.
"His calculations relied on assumptions about
the physics of ultra-high energies and
quantum gravity. Because we can't yet take
measurements from real black holes, we need
a way to recreate this phenomenon in the lab
in order to study it, to validate it."
(4)

The new method to create a tiny quantum sized black hole would allow researchers to
better understand what physicist Stephen Hawking proposed more than 35 years ago: black
holes are not totally void of activity; they emit photons, which is now known as Hawking
radiation.
(4)

I s Thei r a Way To Reproduce A
Bl ack Hol e?
Despite their popularity in the
science fiction genre, there is
much to be learned about
black holes, the mysterious
regions in space once thought
to be absent of light. In a paper
published in the August 20
issue of Physical Review
Letters, up in Hanover, New
Hampshire a bold team of
Dartmouth researchers
proposed a new way of
creating a reproduction black
hole in the laboratory on a
much-tinier scale than their
celestial counterparts.
(5)

Meanwhile, at Dartmouth College propose a new way of creating a reproduction black hole
in the laboratory on a much-tinier scale than their celestial counterparts.
The researchers showed that a magnetic field-pulsed microwave transmission line
containing an array of superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs, not only
reproduces physics analogous to that of a radiating black hole, but does so in a system
where the high energy and quantum mechanical properties are well understood and can be
directly controlled in the laboratory.

The paper states, "Thus, in principle, this setup enables
the exploration of analogue quantum gravitational effects."
(4)(5)

"We can also manipulate the strength of the applied magnetic field so that the SQUID array
can be used to probe black hole radiation beyond what was considered by Hawking," said
Miles Blencowe, another author on the paper and a professor of physics and astronomy at
Dartmouth.
(4)
This is not the first proposed imitation black hole, says Nation. Other proposed analogue
schemes have considered using supersonic fluid flows, ultracold bose-einstein condensates
and nonlinear fiber optic cables. However, the predicted Hawking radiation in these
schemes is incredibly weak or otherwise masked by commonplace radiation due to
unavoidable heating of the device, making the Hawking radiation very difficult to detect.
(5)

"In addition to being able to study analogue quantum gravity effects, the new, SQUID-based
proposal may be a more straightforward method to detect the Hawking radiation," says
Blencowe.
(4)

HUBLE HUNTS DOWN BLACK HOLES!
Black Hole Signature
The colorful "zigzag" is not the work of an artist.
Discovered by Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (STIS), these spectrographic data
suggest the existence of a supermassive black
hole. This black hole is in the center of galaxy M84.

Hubble Finds a Black Hole
Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera
(WFPC2) can image a distant area in visible light.
The telescope's Faint Object Camera (FOC) is used
to observe objects seen in ultraviolet
wavelengths. A composite of the core of a galaxy
was produced by combining these two images.



How to Feed a Black Hole
Astronomers have caught a nearby giant galaxy
in the act of consuming a smaller galaxy. These
collisions between galaxies were common in the
early universe, when galaxies were closer
together. At the center of the giant galaxy is
believed to be a massive black hole.Finds a Black
Hole


Fireworks in Seyfert Galaxy
Gas blobs streaming through space at
hundreds of thousands of miles per
hour can be imaged by Hubble's
Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (STIS). This is the
center of galaxy NGC4151, which is
thought to house a massive black
hole.
REFERENCES
1- http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/black_holes.html
2- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
3- http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html
4- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iOL1Drs8us4J:ww
w.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/01/are-black-holes-actually-white-
stephen-hawkings-theory-says-
yes.html+stephen+hawking+black+hole&cd=12&hl=ar&ct=clnk&gl=ae
5- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090821163513.htm
6- http://amazing-
space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/blackholes/lesson/whatisit/index.h
tml
7- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox
8- http://blog.ted.com/2009/07/twitter_snapsho_17.php
9- http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/black_hole_big.jpg
10- http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010/05/26/NASA-satellite-reveals-
new-black-hole-info/UPI-71731274897541/
11- http://www.csupomona.edu/~nova/scientists/articles/hawk.html
12- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080917145139.htm
13- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100601142421.htm