Concept art of a black hole pulling apart a neighboring star

Black holes were always something that scared me when I was young.  It always terrified me that they were so strong that not even light – the fastest thing in the universe – could escape its gravitational pull.  While it still slightly worries me that Earth will be consumed by a black hole, I think black holes are fascinating cosmic structures that, if researched further, can provide amazing discoveries about our universe.

So what exactly are black holes?  Despite being called a “hole”, black holes are actually incredibly dense balls of matter.  Black holes can take on many different sizes.  The majority – known as “stellar mass” black holes, are about 20 times the mass of the Sun.  Since these black holes are more easily created, scientist estimate there can be up to one billion of these small black holes in the our own Milky Way.

On the other hand, the large black holes – known as “supermassive” black holes, are massive black holes that can be millions and millions of times more massive than the Sun.  These supermassive black holes are often found at the center of galaxies, such as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A.  This black hole is approximately 4 million times more massive than our Sun and is the driving force behind holding our galaxy together.

Black holes are born when large stars die.  When stars run out of combustible fuel, the core can no longer support the overwhelming pressure of the surrounding mass, and the star collapses into itself.  Thankfully, our Sun will never become a black hole because it does not have enough mass.  In order for a star to become a black hole, the core would have to be at least three times the mass of the sun.  When the star finally explodes in a supernova, it leaves behind a highly dense core which begins to pull the exploded matter inwards.  As more of the star’s mass is pulled back to the core, the gravity becomes stronger and stronger until a fully fledged black hole is created.

A black hole consuming the rest of a nearby star

At the moment we are unable to study black holes extensively because we are unable to see into the singularity – the absolute center of the black hole.  The most we can observe is the event horizon, which is the boundary between where objects can escape the gravitational pull, and where nothing – not even light – can escape.

I think black holes are fascinating because they provide the most drastic example of how mass impacts space-time.  When an incredibly dense object exists in space, it makes large “hole” in the fabric of space-time, which affects how time is experienced.  The entire concept that time is not fixed boggles my mind, and makes me question the composition of our own universe.

Antimatter.  What is it?  We know what matter is – physical substance found throughout the galaxy – but what is antimatter?  Can there be such a thing as inverse matter?  The theory behind antimatter is strangely logical, yet it still pushes the envelope of understanding in this world.  In this post I don’t really hope to make any grand statements about antimatter, but rather bring to light some of the more fascinating facts about the subject.  After all, antimatter is an incredibly complex idea and there is currently very little information known about antimatter.

Paul Dirac

Personally, I think the development of the theory of antimatter is the most interesting.  In the late 1920s, physicist Paul Dirac created an equation that mapped out the behavior of the movement of an electrons.  His equation worked very similarly to a quadratic function.  As the mathematical expression X^2 = 9 has two solutions (X = 3, and X = -3), Dirac’s equation mapped that there were two potential states that would explain the movement of electrons: a state in which the electron was negative, and a state in which the electron was positive.

Essentially, Dirac’s claim was that for every particle, there was another particle that exists with the same mass, same composition, but with an opposite energy sign.  For example, an electron would have the same mass, same structure, same energy, and same quantum characteristics, but the charge would be flipped.  The sign would be positive and therefore create a positron.  By this token, the collision of these anti-particles can create antimatter.  Should an antiproton and a positron fuse, they would create an antihydrogen antiatom.

I think this is amazing in itself because it means there could potentially be an entire “anti” universe that exists simultaneously with our own universe.  One of the strange details of antimatter is the imbalance of antimatter compared to normal matter in the universe.  There is drastically more normal matter than there is antimatter.  According to scientist’s original beliefs, the Big Bang theoretically should have released equal amounts of anti and normal matter during its explosion, so the reasoning behind the discrepancy between the two – known as baryon asymmetry – is still unknown.

To further study the characteristics of antimatter, scientists have created the Antiproton Decelerator, which actually manages to create antiprotons in order to study and experiment with.  Also with this machine, they are able to construct antiatoms and antimatter with the created antiprotons.  In 2011, engineers were able to create another decelerator that, paired with the initial Antiproton Decelerator, was able to prevent an antihydrogen atom from disappearing for 16 minutes.  Antimatter is extremely unstable, so being able to observe this phenomenon for even 16 minutes was an amazing achievement.

Unfortunately, it is simply a matter (ha) of fact that we do not know much about antimatter.  I wish we would put greater emphasis on the studies of these complex astronomical phenomena because I believe there must be many benefits to be derived from these studies.  I think with the continued discovery of things such as antimatter and dark matter, we will one day be able to harness the benefits that may come with each discovery.

 The Moon.  The fifth largest satellite in the solar system.  The mysterious space egg that glows brilliantly at night.  Is it really made of cheese?  Why does the cow have such a burning desire to jump over it?  Either way, the Moon is a staple in our lives – always waxing and waning over the course of approximately a month.

Despite appearing and being much closer than other objects in the night sky, the Moon is still a healthy distance away from the Earth.  The moon is approximately 240,000 miles away from the Earth.  This means about 30 Earth-sized objects can fit in between this distance.  Regardless of its generally close proximity to Earth, only 12 people have set foot upon the Moon’s surface.  This being said, the Moon is the only non-Earth object upon which humans have set foot.

There are a few hypothesis about the formation of the Moon.  The Giant-Impact theory almost seems self explanatory; a giant object, dubbed Theia, collided with the Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago.  When the debris settled, we were left with the Moon and Earth we know today.  However, there are doubts about this theory.  Dirt samples from the Moon are nearly the same as similar samples on Earth.  This would suggest that Theia and the Earth were composed of the same materials.  While this is still a possibility, scientists deemed this unlikely.

A few other theories about the formation of the Moon are the Capture Theory and the Co-Formation theory.  Under the Capture theory, the Moon was theorized to be formed elsewhere in the solar system, and the gravitational orbit of the Earth would lasso the Moon into the Earth’s orbit.  Likewise, the Co-Formation theory suggests that both the Earth and the Moon formed at the same time, and simply formed into two independent objects.  These theories have their strong points, but they also have many holes.  The Capture Theory makes little sense when acknowledging that the composition of both the Earth and the Moon are nearly identical, which is highly unlikely if the Moon were to come from a long distance away.  The Co-Formation Theory, on the other hand, makes little sense when observing the densities of the Moon vs. the Earth.  If they were to form together at the same time, their densities would be more similar to one another, but the Moon is significantly less dense than the Earth.

I am a firm believer that the Moon is actually just a giant space egg. The only question is: what grows inside???

Since humanity has had many advancements in technology, I still believe we should have done more with the Moon at this point.  It has been almost 50 years since the United States first landed on the Moon (it happened), so I am surprised that especially with the surge of new technology during the early 2000s up until now there were not more events involving the Moon.  Even if it was something like creating a small lab on the surface of the Moon, I am surprised we have not done more.  I imagine this lack of Moon experimentation has much to do with international politics.

I had meant to do a section about the mythology of the Moon, but I became too invested in investigating the origin of the Moon.  Perhaps next week I will dive into some mythology!

Never forget – the Moon is merely a space egg waiting to hatch…

This week has been a relatively stressful week, so I deemed it appropriate to discuss something that adds additional stress into my life: Pluto.

I can understand why many officials would argue that Pluto should not be classified as a planet.  For starters, Pluto was discovered in 1930 because of a mathematical error.  Based on calculations, scientists theorized that there must be a large object further away from the Sun than Neptune that was causing the orbital and gravitational patterns of Neptune.  Their calculations, however, contained an error.  Should this error have been fixed, they would have realized that the object they were looking for was not nearly as large as they originally thought.

Pluto!

Regardless, Clyde W. Tombaugh, an astronomer at Lowell University, decided to investigate.  Thankfully, during his search based on incorrect calculations, Tombaugh discovered Pluto!  He discovered Pluto by comparing images called photographic plates.  Taken over the course of weeks, these plates contained images of the night sky that were then compared with one another to make it easier to ascertain whether objects of interest were actually moving throughout the sky.

Almost right after Pluto’s discovery, astronomers started to realize just how small Pluto was.  Having a diameter of approximately 2,400km, Pluto is still one of the larger objects found beyond the orbit of Neptune.  However, this is still considered to be a tiny size for a planet.  For reference, Mercury – currently the smallest planet of the eight remaining planets – has a diameter of nearly 5,000km.  Our own Moon even has a larger diameter of approximately 3,500km.

Unfortunately, the nature of Pluto caused astronomers to question the definition of a planet, and in 2006 they created a new definition of a planet that ruled Pluto out of planet-dom.  According to the International Astronomical Union, a planet is now dictated by the following characteristics:

• Must orbit the sun
• Must have enough mass to become spherical
• Must not be a satellite to another object
• Must remove all debris surrounding its orbit

Many astronomers believe that Pluto does not satisfy the requirement of removing all debris from its surrounding orbit.  This is because of Charon, Pluto’s satellite/moon.  Charon has a diameter of around 1,200km, which makes it roughly half the size of Pluto.  This causes concerns to astronomers believing that Pluto and Charon should be considered a double-planetary system instead of a planet and a satellite.

Also Pluto!

If Pluto and Charon were classified as the solar system’s only double-planetary system, I believe that would be a suitable merit to replace its loss of planet status.

According to my horoscope, Scorpio, Pluto is one of my planets!  Since Pluto has been stripped of its status as a planet, I feel like all the Scorpios in the world have been cheated!  While Leos technically do not have a planet themselves, they have the Sun, which I think compensates for the lack of a planet.  Scorpio, on the other hand, is left with only Mars.  While Mars is definitely a cool planet, I still believe Pluto should be classified as a planet as to not leave the Scorpios with less than the other horoscopes.  I am also very interested in maintaining connection with Pluto the dog.