what is the black hole?

Answer 1

First, a black hole is neither black nor a hole as we commonly think of them. But we'll get back to that. Black holes were first theorized by Karl Schwarzchild in 1916. He demonstrated that were a star to collapse under its own gravity to less than a certian radius, then it would cease emitting any radiation, hence the "black" part. This particular aspect was addressed by Stephen Hawking in 1976. He theorized that after the initial formation of the singularity (what used to be the star) and it's black hole, that the hole would then start to lose mass by emission of radiation, now known as Hawking radiation. Since it does emit some form of radiation, we can't strictly call it black, but, let's face it, the name has stuck.

Ok, now that brings us to the hole part. One other outcome of Schwarzchild's work was that of the infinite solution. Under certain conditions (to lengthly to go through here, but please use the references) there exists a solution to the Einstein Field Equations where the curvature of the system becomes infinite.

This is where conventional modes of speech break down. Ok, a hole to us is a pit, a dug out area. This is easy to visualize. A black hole is not like this. If you were to travel through space and happen across a black hole (Let's assume that you could see it), it wouldn't appear like a pit that things can fall into. Instead, the fabric of space would seem to distort; everything would get streched off into infinity and compressed into a point. (I'll apologize about the bad imagery now.)

This is a hard concept for us 4-D beings. It's a worthy topic of study, just mind-bending.

Answer 2

It is now believed that at the center of each galaxy there is a super-massive black hole that is millions to billions of times heavier than our sun. The massive black hole captures nearby stars and drags them into a swirling accretion disk. A "torus" in the inner accretion shields the black hole in those systems that are viewed edge on (which is probably the case for our galactic center). In many of these systems (which are called AGN = active galactic nucleus), a jet is ejected perpendicular to the disk and is seen in the optical and radio wavebands. In the very central regions the disk becomes so hot (tens of millions of degrees) that the emission is in the X-ray and Gamma-ray bands. This animation shows an artist's impression of the view from an approaching spaceship. The HEASARC data archives contain many observations of these systems made with orbiting X-ray and Gamma-ray observatories.

Answer 3

"the black hole" is not an accurate description. There are several. Nobody knows exactly how many. When a star is old it implodes. This creates a reverse gravity pit in space. It can suck things into it. It also looks totally black seeing as to how light can't reflect off of it. There are no air particles to reflect the light.

Answer 4

a black hole is a concentration of mass so dense that it has a force of gravity so large that nothing can escape its event horizon. That is that the escape velocity of the black hole is faster than the speed of light so that not even light can escape...

Answer 5

a hole that is black

Answer 6

A void in space where stars and planets are sucked through and are crushed by enormous pressures. This is a very short and to the point description given by a NASA engineer.

Answer 7

It's a celestial body that devours light. Eventually, they will consume the universe.