What is a 'black hole'?

Question

like in space or whatever? somebody said it was like another time zone or something. sounds interesting- what are your theories?

Answer 1

It's just a gravity thing.

Some clouds of gas don't even have enough gravity to pull together, or if they do, they just stay a clump of gas. These are nebulae.

Some have enough mass that the force of gravity and friction can create conditions favourable to fusion of hydrogen into helium. Welcome to star country.

But no star has a limitless supply of hydrogen. Eventually it runs out or is outcompeted by other atoms that get in the way. Then either fusion stops and the star explodes in a huge nova OR if there's enough mass it moves onto something heavier to fuse.

And so on and so on. Some stars, however, have TRULY massive gravities, and so they can start to do things really bizarre when they run out of normal fuel:

Neutron stars have enough gravity to force electrons and protons together... effectively making the star one single atomic nucleus. This is no mean feat, when you consider that the electric force is some 10^36 times more powerful than the gravitic force. A neuton star is also so small as to be practically invisible in stellar terms - if our sun were a neutron star, it would be the size of Manhattan Island instead 1.3 million times the size of Earth. Neutron stars also emit no light. But we can tell the're there because they still exert the influence of gravity and they're so pifflingly small in size.

Black holes are larger yet. A black hole has so much mass that it can distort space around it in such a way that nothing gets out. Even a neutron star will flare up and emit light as it passes through a cloud of new hydrogen as it fuses and rips the atoms to shreds. A black hole will not... things that hit a black hole just seem to disappear.

Thus we have a distinction between black holes and neutron stars. And we HAVE observed things that MUST be black holes, based on this difference. There are also any number of things that MAY be black holes around, but because they are surrounded by so much clutter or because our angle to them is not exactly right, we can't be sure if they are or are not.

Likewise, because black holes and neutron stars (as well is burned out husks of former stars called brown dwarfs) emit no light, it's difficult to be sure exactly how many of them are around, but not near enough to anything else to give signs of their presence.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

It is a very small particle floating in outer space. This particle has an incredible amount of mass. Thus an incredible amount of gravity. When objects get pulled in by it's gravitational force they come in with such speed and force that they disintegrate. Making it appear that the vanish into a "black hole".

Answer 3

an extremely dense celestial body that has been theorized to exist in the universe. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that, if the body is large enough, nothing, including electromagnetic radiation, can escape from its vicinity. The body is surrounded by a spherical boundary through which light can enter but not escape; it therefore appears totally black..

Answer 4

a black hole is what happens when a star collapses and implodes into a hole in space. it creates a enormous gravity pull and some believe goes to another dimension

Answer 5

It is a region in space-time, whose gravity collapsed, and it is so dense that not even light can escape it's gravitational pull. Therefore nothing can escape.

Answer 6

dude, that last guy left a freakin' novel !
here's a fun fact: just so u know for scale, black hole matter the size of a paper clip out- weighs Mt. Raineer.

Answer 7

The situation that the US is in...you know Iraq.