Black Holes

Black Holes

Fascination with space is omnipresent. Whether it takes the form of amateur stargazing, science fiction books and films, horoscope readings or scientific endeavors, interest in the stars and the sky is abundant. The fact comes as no surprise, since after all, space is by far the largest part of the world, at least as humanity knows it. To illustrate, all the planets, stars, intergalactic gas, comets and debris in the Universe comprise only an approximate 5% of its totality ( the rest being 3 quarters dark energy, and 1 quarter dark matter, as depicted graphically in another entry). So, how small is Earth compared to the rest of the Cosmos? Insignificantly tiny, indeed! Well, at least in size. But aside from the celestial bodies mentioned, there are also black holes. Now these, exemplify the definition of mysterious…

Dancing With the Stars is a television show portraying celebrities as dance competition contestants. Nonetheless, the phrase can convey other meanings such as in this dancing couple constellation (fictional). Notwithstanding, most constellations requires quite a bit of imagination to be reconstructed. Image: Copyright ©  Elena

Along these lines, Horowitz (2011) explains that the mystery surrounding black holes, which constitute thermodynamic entities, started to be elucidated in the 1970s. The author also outlines the fundamentals of string theory, crucial to understanding the puzzle. Also, the gauge set of principles may provide an alternative explanation to the formation and evaporation of such objects. Interestingly, the supersymmetry characteristic of the postulate is hoped to be shown for the first time in history by the famous Large Hadron Collider (particle accelerator) being built at CERN.

Amazingly, the area of a black hole cannot decrease (Hawking, 1971). But it can, however, evaporate, although the memory of what was drawn into it disappears with the event. Still, theoretically the information could be recovered from the remnants.

A giant planet. Light and Dark or Space Exploration. In a black hole, the ‘event horizon’ is the point of no return, beyond which light cannot escape due to velocity properties. Image: Copyright © Elena

Depending on one’s opinion, black holes may be the most interesting elements in the Cosmos. The mystery continues to fail to be completely understood, despite significant progress with telescopes such as Hubble, Voyager and theoretical advances in knowledge.

References:

• Hawking, S. W. (1971). Gravitational radiation from colliding black holes. Physical Review Letters, 26, 1344 -6.
• Horowitz, G. T. (2007). Black holes, entropy, and information. ArXiv, 1: 1-8.

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