Black Hole

10 Pages 2382 Words

he core of a star, the pressure associated with their heat is no longer available to resist contraction of the core to ever higher densities. Two new types of pressure arise at densities a million and a million billion times that of water, respectively, and a compact white dwarf or a neutron star may form. If the core mass exceeds about 1.7 solar masses, however, neither electron nor neuron pressure is sufficient to prevent collapse to a black hole. Knowing more about galactic black holes will help astronomers learn more about the evolution of galaxies and the relationship between galaxies, black holes, and quasars. Astronomers Holland Ford, Richard Harms, and colleagues have used data from the Hubble Space Telescope to develop strong evidence that a black hole exists in the center of the elliptical galaxy M87 in Virgo. Ford and Harms have shown that a small mass, fast rotating disc lies at M87’s heart.(Powell 12) There is also a black hole Peters 3 that is eating the Milky Way. The core of the Milky Way galaxy, 180 quadrillion miles from Earth, exerts enough force to hold together a system of 100 billion stars. Astronomers trying to determine the origin of this force think they may have found the answer-a black hole at the center of the galaxy with the mass of three million suns, sucking in matter and emitting odd radio waves and other signals. Astronomers first noticed a glow of gamma radiation at the center of the galaxy in the 1970’s. But the most convincing evidence was a motionless source of radio waves that were detected at the center of galaxy. All of these factors indicate a supermassive center that is absorbing matter into it’s gravitational field at great speed.(Sawyer 38) Using a series of radiotelescopes stretching 5,000 miles across the United States from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii, an international team of astronomers have discovered strong evidence of an incredibly powerful black hole as massive as 40 million sun...