Black Holes.

According to the general theory of relativity, a black hole is a region of space from which nothing, including light, can escape. It is the result of the denting of spacetime caused by a very compact mass. Around a black hole there is an undetectable surface which marks the point of no return, called an event horizon. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits it, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics. Under the theory of quantum mechanics black holes possess a temperature and emit radiation through slow dissipation by anti-protons.

Despite its undetectable interior, a black hole can be observed through its interaction with matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space. Alternatively, when gas falls into a stellar black hole from a companion star or nebula, the gas spirals inward, heating to very high temperatures and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and Earth-orbiting telescopes.

Astronomers have identified numerous stellar black hole candidates, and have also found evidence of supermassive black holes at the center of every galaxy. After observing the motion of nearby stars for 16 years, in 2008 astronomers found compelling evidence that a supermassive black hole of more than 4 million solar masses is located near the Sagittarius A region in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

How Black Holes Form?

Most black holes are made when a giant star, called a supergiant, at least twenty times bigger than our own Sun dies, and leaves behind a mass that is at least one solar mass. Stars die when they run out of hydrogen or other nuclear fuel to burn and start to collapse.

A supergiant star's death is called a supernova. Stars are usually in equilibrium, which means they are making enough energy to push their mass outward against the force of gravity. When the star runs out of fuel to make energy, gravity takes over. Gravity pulls the center of the star inward very quickly (so quickly that it would have to be repeated several thousand times before it took up a single second), and it collapses into a little ball. The collapse is so fast and violent that it makes a shock wave, and that causes the rest of the star to explode outward. As the gravity pushes the star inward, the pressure in the center of star reaches to such an extreme level that it enables heavier molecules like iron and carbon to interact to release nuclear energy. The release of the energy from the star during a very short period of time (about one hour) is with such a high rate that it outshines an entire galaxy.

The ball in the center is so dense (a lot of mass in a small space, or volume), that if you could somehow scoop only one teaspoon of material and bring it to Earth, it would sink to the core of the planet. If the original star was large enough the densely packed ball is called a singularity, the core of a black hole, but if it was not it would become either a neutron star or a dwarf star.

Even without a supernova, a black hole will form any time there is a lot of matter in a small space, without enough energy to act against gravity and stop it from collapsing.

If supernovas are so bright, why do we not see them often? Actually, there are usually hundreds of years between naked-eye super nova sightings. It is because the period of being a super nova in a star life cycle is only a few hours out of the billions of years in a star's life span. The probability (chance) of looking at a star in sky and that being in super nova state is equal to the ratio of an hour over several billion years.

It is worth mentioning that all of the heavier materials like carbon, oxygen, all the metals, etc, that make the life on the earth possible and are ingredients of all living creatures, can only form in the extreme pressure at the center of a super nova. So we are all a remnant ash from one exploding star several billion years ago.

Black holes have also been found in the middle of every major galaxy in the universe. These are called supermassive black holes, and are the biggest black holes of all. They formed when the Universe was very young, and also helped to form all the galaxies.

Some black holes are also responsible for making things called quasars. A quasar occurs when a black hole consumes all the gas surrounding it. As the gas gets close to the black hole itself, it heats up from a process called friction, and glows so brightly that this light can be seen on the other side of the Universe. It is often brighter than the whole galaxy the quasar is in. When astronomers first found quasars, they thought they had found objects close to us. After using a measuring technique called red shift, they discovered these quasars were actually very far away in the universe.