Analyzing Black Holes

The universe contain many diverse and exotic bodies that we are only beginning to understand. Of the countless exotic bodies, the one that arguably has been the most elusive is the black hole. In astronomy, there have been numerous theories and questions about black holes. The subject of these inquiries have been the properties, processes, effects, and function of black holes. Even now, scientist still do not completely understand black holes because they are very difficult to detect. According to definition, a black hole is a region in space where the collapse of matter results in a gravitational field that is so intense that not even light can escape. This cause by the fact that black holes are able to curve space time to the extreme. Due to this rather unique effect on space time, there arises a point where the curvature of space time becomes infinite. Moreover, this point can be mathematically calculated for black holes.

Indeed, this point was calculated in 1915 by Karl Schwarzschild and is referred to as a singularity. However, the existence of black holes was predicted well before this time. The first idea of a black hole was proposed by a geologist named John Michell in 1783. It was later proposed again by the mathematician Laplace in 1796. It was at this time that Laplace coined the term “dark stars” in reference to the idea of black holes. However, the idea of black holes was largely dismissed at this time because the effect of gravity on light was not understood. Then, in 1915, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of general relativity which was able to prove that gravity has an effect on the propagation of electromagnetic radiation. It was at this point that Karl Schwarzschild was able to find a solution to Einstein’...

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...974 when he was able to use quantum field theory to show that black holes do emit some radiation similar to that of a black body. In other words, he was able to show that black holes are not truly black. In addition, this decade also marked the detection of the first good black hole candidate. Astronomers determined that the X-ray binary star Cygnus X-1 to be a black hole by observing its effect on its companion star. By observing this effect, astronomers were able to determine that Cygnus X-1 is compact and has a mass much larger than the maximum stable mass of a neutron star. By 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope provided the best evidence for supermassive at the center of galaxies. More recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins University provided the first visual evidence of black holes by publishing images of a red giant being swallowed by a supermassive black hole.