How do black holes work, cant get my head round them, if something gets sucked in where does it end up?

Answer 1

A black hole is just like any other star or planet.

The larger the body's mass, the greater its gravity pull. That's why the lunar astronauts could bounce along on the moons surface, the gravity there is much lower than on Earth as the moon is much smaller.

Our sun's gravity is enough to keep all the planets in their orbits.

A black hole was a very large star, with high gravity, so high that when it ran out of fuel, it collapsed in on itself. Because the material making up this star is now concentrated down to such a degree that the gravity near it is so strong even light cannot escape, we call it a black hole.

If something is sucked into it, the mater does not go anywhere, it just gets squashed into the same place as all the other material making up the black hole.

Answer 2

As Black hole research is all based on theory and assumption. Based purely on a Cosmic Mass Model produced by mankind. It is perfectly possible for it to end up in someones back yard. Eminent Scientists have been arguing the point for many years and there are still as many theories as there are groups theorising!
The only reason we know anything about them at all, is because of the refraction caused to light from other stars passing through its gravitational pull.
One thing is certain. If most of the theories are correct, then I would not like to go and see!
My Theory (All be it from a Lay Person.) is that we are witnessing the nuclear core of a new planet pulling in and compressing matter to construct its Mantle and outer shell or crust.
Why Not The Birth of a Planet?

Answer 3

Suppose you crush a car with a monster truck. You eventually squeeze out all the air. If you are Superman, you crush it in your hands until you squeeze all the metal atoms together in one solid lump. If superman gets hold of a good vice, he crushes it until all the atoms start fusing together into heavier and heavier elements. Eventually, you have one giant nucleus of a super-atom. These super-atoms are called neutron stars, and by now our soda can is microscopic. Suppose Superman keeps squeezing. Eventually he overcomes the repulsive force between the neutrons in the neutronium, and it collapses further.

However, at this point the matter runs out of repulsive forces. It collapses smaller and smaller because all the forces that were holding it apart have been overcome. It collapses until it is basically non-existent and you wouldn't know it was there.

The gravity of the car, once miniscule, is now concentrated all in one spot. It is so concentrated that there is a small circle around the black hole that even light can't get out of. It just gets pulled inwards too strongly. This is why black holes are black: no light that ever passes within the circle of doom (event horizon, in sciencespeak) ever comes back out. The same rules apply for matter, which goes slower than light all the time.

Basically, if you fell into a larger black hole, you check in and you don't check out. You will fall towards the point of totally collapsed matter (the singularity) and be squeezed down by its gravity until your matter collapsed too and merged with the singularity. You don't go anywhere, unless you believe in an afterlife.

Falling into a black hole is an interesting process in and of itself. This will make interesting further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification

I also recommend Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", which is factual and covers a lot of other cool physics in a mostly-understandable way.

Answer 4

You're not the only one who can't get their head around the workings of black holes. Beyond a black hole's event horizon -- that boundary beyond which nothing can return to the 'normal' universe -- science can do nothing more than speculate and guess about what goes on. The reason is that the current laws of known physics just can't be applied deep within any black hole. For instance, one solution as to what lies at the very center of a black hole shows that there's a singularity present, and that's equal to infinite mass contained within zero volume.

Answer 5

It doesn't go anywhere it's trapped with the event horizon of the black hole.

A black hole is a body they is so massive that nothing can stop it's contraction by gravity. Hence black holes have "zero" volume and infinite density.

Anything that gets absorbed just ends up with the rest of the matter. Although this is not true if you are external observer - in which case the object appears smeared across the event horizon.

Answer 6

A black hole really isn't a hole at all. It's more like a giant magnet. It is matter which is so dense that it creates a gravitational pull that is so strong that not even light can escape it. Remember that light is actually a substance; it consists of particles of matter. Maybe we should call them "Light Vacuums" instead. Anything which passes too close to a black hole will be sucked in, adding to the object's mass.

Answer 7

First. lets imagine that space is like drop of water, our universe is full of drops, and these are expanding slowly. now imagine that we are concentrated on the surface of that drop, its like the skin of an orange, but so much larger than us, we are unable to comprehend its gentle curve.

Now if you please, imagine that there is a hole in the surface, and things around it are falling through the hole into another drop of water. the problem is, that the hole is crushing everything that gets close to it, with tremendous gravity, and even light is being sucked through the hole. the Universe - our drop of water is huge, so the effect of this little hole is not really a problem to the massive universe, but around the hole, on our scale, it is problem.

it is like a vacuum cleaner - a wet and dry being put into the surface of the drop, and switched on. everything close to the end of the nozzle is being sucked into it, even light, so it appears black from our side of the hole.

and that is the problem, we can not actually see them...

thus a black hole is an object that has been predicted - by general relativity. And it is predicted that it has a gravitational field so strong that nothing can escape it — not even light.

A black hole is defined to be a region of space-time where escape to the outside universe is impossible. The boundary of this region is a surface called the event horizon. This surface is not a physically tangible one, but merely a figurative concept of an imaginary boundary. Nothing can move from inside the event horizon to the outside, even briefly.

The existence of black holes in the universe is well supported by astronomical observation, particularly from studying X-ray emission from X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. It has also been hypothesized that black holes radiate energy due to quantum mechanical effects known as Hawking radiation.

Answer 8

I'd just like to add to what others have said on the matter of the matter continuing to collapes.

Because physics as we know it breaks down inside of a black hole, meaning we really don't know exactly what happens far inside the event horizon, we are left to speculate. Many scientists believe that the matter doesn't continue to collapes after a point but what does happen is a mystery to us.

Answer 9

The matter gets converted to energy (E=mc^2) but retains the gravity field.
As there is no size to energy, it can all fit into a very small space, if it can be confined.
It Doesn't Go Anywhere, only to the singularity at the centre.
That's the hypothesis, like most of these things, you tend to get more quetions when you get the answers

Answer 10

The Black Hole sucks in all matter near it.
The Matter becomes energy. This energy is released. We see this is the form of jets. One jet opposite the other. This is caused by the way magnetism works.