November 29, 2024

Vincent Hoang 

12th Grade

Fountain Valley High School 

Sitting alone in the dark, cold expanse of space sits a supermassive celestial giant, capable of eating anything and everything that manages to make its way into its inescapable gravitational pull. Its incomprehensible size and mass dwarf all that exists in our observable universe. Black holes are a widely discussed topic among many notable physicists, such as Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, who devoted their lives to studying this astronomical phenomenon. 

What makes a black hole such a frightening force? Aside from its unfathomable mass, black holes have a powerful gravitational pull. According to Sir Issac Newton’s Law of Gravitation, the strength of an object in space is determined by the mass of the object and the radius of the object and to visualize this Newton created this rather simple equation to represent all of gravity in the universe: Fg=GM/r2. In other words, a large mass and a small radius give an object a strong gravity. A black hole has what is called a “singularity point” which is defined by NASA in their article titled, “First Image of a Black Hole” as the point where “matter has collapsed into a region of infinite density”. The singularity point has an infinitely small radius close to zero and an infinitely large mass giving a terrifyingly large gravitational pull. The fastest naturally occurring object that we know of today; light which has a speed of 3.0 x 105 km per second; is not fast enough to escape the gravity of a black hole which means a black hole is truly a black hole with no visible light. 

Like everything in this universe, black holes are created and have an origin. The birth of a black hole falls nothing short of an epic. Its destructive existence is just as spectacular as its creation. In an article called, “What Are Black Holes?” science writer Francis Reddy details the formation of a black hole. A black hole forms once a supermassive neutron star with a size of at least 20 solar masses exhausts its nuclear engine and dies. The death of a neutron star is marked by a cataclysmic event known as a “supernova”. Upon a supernova, the neutron star scatters its guts in every direction and leaves behind its core, its heart. If it contains the mass of three times our sun, the once neutron star is reborn as a black hole.

On April 10, 2019, the first image of a black hole was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. It showcases a blurry image of an orange disc with a black circle in the middle. Although this image doesn’t seem like much, it is a huge stepping stone toward our understanding of space. According to NASA, the bright orange disc is called the “event horizon” which is where matter and light are sucked into the gravitational pull of the black hole and cross the “point of no return”. Outlining the singularity is the “photon sphere” where photons are emitted from plasma jets and bent to form the infamous “black hole” or shadow that we see in the center. The outermost edge that can be seen in the photo as a faint red outside the event horizon is called the “accretion disc”. This disc consists of superheated dust, gas, and radiation that is whirled around at incredibly high speeds. If matter is caught in the accretion disc, it has a chance to escape however, it is very unlikely. Also within the accretion disc is the “innermost stable orbit” which is where matter can escape from the grasp of gravity. Finally, although not visible in the image, are the “relativistic jets” which are jets of radiation and particles left over from a star eaten by a black hole. These jets are found at the poles of the black hole and can span thousands of light-years in length. 

The impending fate of the universe lay in the hands of these celestial beings. With their might surmounting and the passage of time, it is unmistakable that eventually, all observable matter will be consumed, forever encompassed in the singularity. But is it truly forever? This is a topic black hole expert Stephen Hawking challenges in his book A Brief History of Time (1988). Hawking proposed that black holes “ought to emit particles and radiation as if it were a hot body”, a concept known as “Hawking Radiation”. He argued that black holes had entropy and heat meaning they must emit radiation like any other object with entropy. Additionally, black holes with lower mass emit more heat and more radiation than those with more mass. As a black hole emits more heat and loses more of its mass, it speeds up emitting even more heat and losing even more mass. Eventually, when its mass has completely depleted “it would disappear completely in a tremendous final burst of emission” freeing all the mass it has been accumulating all across the universe. However, to get to that point, it would take an egregious amount of time that would even surpass that of the universe’s current age. 

Could it be that the universe originated from a black hole? Is it a coincidence that the Big Bang, the creator of our universe, is also an infinitely dense point similar to that of a singularity? Imagine that, at the end of time, a single black hole containing all the mass and energy of the universe finally explodes giving way for new stars, planets, and life to take place. If true, black holes could be a window into our past as well as the key to our future. This idea opens a world of incredible possibilities: one of endless recycling and destruction, the rebirth of our universe.