There are countless types of celestial bodies in the universe, including stars, planets and various other celestial bodies. If you want to ask which of these celestial bodies is the most powerful and terrifying, I believe many people will think of black holes.
That’s right, black holes are the overlord celestial bodies of the universe known to mankind. Its gravitational force is very large. Any matter can’t escape as long as it enters it, even light. Black holes can be said to be the most special celestial bodies discovered by human beings since they walked out of the earth to explore the universe.
Some friends may ask, black holes can even be swallowed by light, so how did humans discover and prove its existence? In fact, in the early days of black holes, they were just a kind of celestial body that scientists guessed based on the theory of general relativity. I believe everyone is very clear about how great Einstein’s theory of relativity is.
In 1916, German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild obtained a vacuum solution of Einstein’s field equation through calculations. This solution showed that if the actual radius of a static spherically symmetric star is less than a certain value, strange phenomena will occur around it. That is, there is an interface-“Horizon”, once you enter this interface, even light cannot escape. This fixed value is called the Schwarzschild radius, and this “incredible celestial body” was named “black hole” by the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
Although black holes were originally a special celestial body guessed by scientists, with the continuous advancement of human science and technology, the existence of black holes has been observed. So how did scientists observe this powerful celestial body that can even be swallowed by light?
That’s right, the gravity of a black hole is so powerful that it is unimaginable. Once it enters its “horizon”, whether it is a star, planet or light, it means that it cannot escape, and it is ultimately a destiny that is swallowed. If there is no light to escape, we will not be able to observe the hair hole.
It is precisely because of the powerful phagocytic ability of black holes that it is also difficult for them to really hide themselves, especially large-mass black holes. Because they are too powerful, they tend to leave very bright traces when they swallow stars. This trace, scientists say It is an accretion disk.
The center of the accretion disk is the black hole. We cannot see the true face of the black hole, but we can observe the bright accretion disk surrounding it. By observing the accretion disk, we can know that there is a massive black hole there.
Although we know that accretion disks are formed by black holes swallowing stars, it is very difficult to observe the process of stars being swallowed by black holes. Only by observing the process of black holes swallowing stars can we learn more about black holes.
Starting on September 19, 2019, scientists are very lucky to observe the process of a star falling into a supermassive black hole and being swallowed. During this engulfing process, the energy exploded reached 10 billion times that of the sun, which was a spectacular cosmic feast. This event was named AT2019qiz by scientists. At that time, astronomical telescopes from all over the world saw this spectacular celestial phenomenon.
The place where this incident took place is located in the direction of the Era constellation, approximately 215 million light-years away from the earth. There is a black hole 1 million times the mass of the sun, with an event horizon of 6 million kilometers in diameter, which is more than 4 times the diameter of the sun. The black hole horizon, which was originally relatively calm, boiled because of the intrusion of a star.
The supermassive black hole swallows a star very fast. When the star is still 70 million kilometers away from the black hole, the strong gravitational force of the black hole begins to pull. The gravitational force on the outer side and inner side of the star is different, so a huge tidal gravitational difference is formed. At this time, the star is like a ramen, gradually being drawn into a slender noodle.
In addition to this gravitational pull, the star’s outer shell material is constantly being torn apart, and the material is violently rubbed to generate a lot of energy. Some of them fall into the black hole through rotation, and the other is rapidly rotated under the action of a strong magnetic field, and then turned to the poles of the black hole and then ejected at high speed. Go out and form a bright light.
These bright rays are high-energy radiation, including visible light, external rays and X-rays. The black hole swallowing stars reached its peak on October 8. According to scientists’ estimates, the energy radiated at that moment was as high as 10 billion times that of the sun. The entire star is pulled by the black hole’s gravity, half of the matter is swallowed, and half of the matter is ejected at high speed to form huge bubbles.
This is also an evolution of the conversion of matter into energy, and the conversion rate of the sun’s nuclear fusion is only 0.7%, but in the process of the black hole engulfing stars, the conversion rate has reached 10% to 40%, which shows how powerful it is, worthy of it. The overlord of the universe rests.
This observational experience not only gave us a better understanding of how black holes eat matter, but also gave us another experience of the horror of black holes. If the sun one day enters the gravitational range of a massive black hole while it is in motion, it may also follow the same fate as the star.
Stars often do not move alone, and there is often a stellar system besides its motion. We don’t know whether there are planets around the star swallowed by the black hole 215 million light-years away. If there are planets around the star, it is the main star of a star system, and there are living planets or even planets in the habitable zone. The existence of civilization is estimated to be swallowed up by black holes.
In front of the black hole, any celestial bodies and matter appear so weak and feeble. Although the solar system is 25,000 light-years away from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, there is no need to worry about being swallowed by it one day. But let us not forget that in addition to the supermassive black holes in the center of the galaxy, there are more of the small and medium-mass black holes in the universe.
The accretion disks of small and medium-mass black holes are often not obvious, or even without accretion disks. In this case, the black hole is completely invisible in front of us, and we cannot be sure that there is no such small and medium-mass black hole around the solar system. If there is such a black hole, it still poses a great threat to the solar system. Once these small black holes grow up and become a big black hole, it will be difficult for the solar system to escape the fate of being swallowed.
If this day does come, and human beings want to get rid of the fate of being swallowed, they can only leave the solar system and stay away from the black hole. To achieve this, we need to become an interstellar civilization and have the ability to navigate between the stars. Therefore, mankind needs more efforts to develop technology quickly and become an interstellar civilization as soon as possible.
