Source: Firefly- Majestic Black Hole with Accretion Disk A swirling vortex of hot gas and dust forms a colorful accretion disk around a supermassive black hole at its center.
Explore the realms of outer space to learn more abut Black Holes. Address the questions in your mind about them and understand why they aren’t as dangerous as they seem.
Space is extremely mysterious and captivating, and easily captures the interest of anyone who tries to learn about it. It is no mystery why people of all age groups find themselves immersed in this topic- thinking about the vast, unknown universe does that to you.
Amongst all the amazing phenomena present out there, there is one which is interesting but equally (kind of) scary. If you thought about Black holes, you are absolutely correct! Black Holes are easily one of the top most popular interstellar objects we study about and the phenomenon has also made its debut in all sorts of media- be it written, printed, digital, or verbal. The whole idea of a big vacuum cleaner-like hole existing in the universe is super interesting and no writer can pass up on the opportunity to talk about them. Maybe make some conspiracies too while they are at it.
But surprisingly, most of the times, Black Holes are portrayed in a way more negative light as compared to how they really are. From the time of their formation until the moment of detection, no known (or unknown) black hole has ever caused us any harm. And if we go by what the scientists tell us, they aren’t going to do that anytime soon in the future either.
What is a Black Hole?
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_6397_BlackHole.jpg
According to NASA, you can define a Black Hole as “an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.” The fact that light cannot escape a black hole’s gravitational pull is exactly what inspires fear in the minds of the readers. But let’s try to understand it properly.
Let’s first understand what a Black Hole looks like and consists of:
- It has a boundary, called the event horizon, where the speed of light falls behind and can’t overcome the value of velocity required to escape the pull of the Black hole. As a result, matter and radiation do fall inside and can’t get out.
- After being born, a Black Hole can keep on growing by “accreting” the matter around them or the matter that falls into them. An example of such matter is the gas which gets stripped from nearby stars and falls inside.
- A very cool property of a Black Hole is that as we travel closer to the center of a Black Hole, our physical and mathematical laws start going haywire. When we finally reach the center, we find that our mathematics doesn’t work there anymore!
- And lastly, the difference between a large Black Hole and a smaller one lies in the strength of each hole’s tidal force. The Tidal Force of a Black Hole can be defined as the force with which matter and/or radiation are pulled inside. The intensity of this force decreases with increase in power. So, larger holes have weaker tidal forces.
Should you fear them?
While we prepare to debunk some of the most popular myths about Black Holes, we should also know about the actual terrifying facts about Black Holes:
- If someone starts falling into a black hole, it’s going to end very badly. Unlike popular assumption that your whole body will just fall into a void of nothingness, the whole process is more agonizing. As you descend into a Black Hole foot first, your legs start to feel the effect of the gravitational pull of the hole while your head feels a different kind of force altogether in the opposite direction. This opposite force is a result of the centrifugal force acting on your body which makes it feel a tug upwards. As you get closer to the center, your body starts getting stretched and there’s suddenly one point when it has exceeded the limit of humanely possible elasticity. This is the process of spaghettification which ensures that anyone who fall inside a black hole dies a painful death.
- Mentioned earlier was the fact that Black Holes consume matter and radiation from nearby resources and keep on growing in size. This has severe implications for anything in between because then the weather is super turbulent. The surroundings of the black holes can become extremely hot and bright, and form accretion disks. Even if you don’t fall inside the hole, being near the hole is dangerous because debris travels very fast and there’s always the danger of getting hit.
- The light and heat from the accretion disk and nearby stars will also be dangerous. Light from the stars will get amplified because of the gravity of the sun and as a result, would get amplified and very concentrated.
- The inside of a Black Hole and what goes on inside is still unknown and this will likely be the case until we find a method of communicating which surpasses the escape limit as well the speed of light. Unfortunately, it will be a while before we achieve this.
Why shouldn’t you fear them
Hopefully, you didn’t get very scared after reading the facts above. But even if you did, there’s nothing to worry because we will address each of them. It’s debunking time!
- Not all Black Holes are completely black! That’s right, we said it. Many black holes have an accretion disk formation which is bright and hot. The light from this black hole does reach us and hence, many black holes have a visible outer boundary.
- The most prevalent myth about Black Holes is that they suck everything inside. If this were true, the universe wouldn’t be what it is today. While it is true that Black Holes make it hard for even light to escape from its pull, these interstellar objects don’t necessarily suck in everything that comes into their path. The only way of getting stuck inside the hole is by traveling very, very close to a Black Hole. So, even if you encounter or find a Black Hole in your vicinity, it will cause you no harm until you test the waters and go super close to it.
- Spaghettification doesn’t start directly at the event horizon (the boundary) of a Black Hole. This is a popular misconception but it actually depends on how far down you have gone the (rabbit) hole. You can cross the event horizon, feel a bit of a tug, and go away without risking your life.
- The LHC is not going to make Black Holes on Earth! Misinterpretation and fear have riddled into the minds of many people because of this rumor but there is no way the LHC would be able to achieve this as of yet. The reason? The creation of a Black Hole requires lots of mass which you wouldn’t acquire even after collecting all the mass in our solar system!
Resources
- Thorne, K. S. (1995). Black holes and time warps: Einsteins Outrageous Legacy. National Geographic Books.
- Black Holes are Nothing to Fear*. (2020). California Academy of Sciences. https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/black-holes-are-nothing-to-fear
- mischa. (2016, August 8). Black hole truths, myths and mysteries. Curious; Nova. https://www.science.org.au/curious/space-time/black-holes
- Five Reasons You Wouldn’t Want to Live Near a Black Hole – NASA Science. (2019, September 25). Nasa.gov. https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/five-reasons-you-wouldnt-want-to-live-near-a-black-hole/
- 3 jaw-dropping reasons you should be terrified of black holes. (2024, February 20). Inverse. https://www.inverse.com/science/black-holes-are-scary
- What Are Black Holes? – NASA. (2020, September 8). NASA; NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/universe/what-are-black-holes/
