“The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” - Carl Sagan
Space. The final frontier. Its nature and mystery run our everyday lives. We know a minuscule amount of information about such a wonder, yet we have studied the vast cosmos throughout history.
Many stellar objects baffle astrophysicists and everyday citizens. It's an immensely complicated part of nature yet so beautiful. To look up at the night sky and see hundreds of stars and wonder what is going on out there. This is a common curiosity that we share with every human that ever lived on Earth.
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So why is it so fascinating? The human eye can only gather so much light, this makes us unable to see every star or galaxy after dark. The Andromeda Galaxy, for example, is our closest barred spiral galaxy. It would appear three times as big as the full moon if our eyes could gather enough light! This all correlates with the distance and luminosity, or the brightness, of the star.
Our closest Star, Proxima Centauri, was not found until 1915 due to its low luminosity. This shows how little we know of our home neighborhood. What else is out beyond our Solar System's boundaries? What crazy physics defying object will we find this time?
It makes Physicists want to drop everything they know and start new yet it fuels our wonder for more. We are living in a century of space exploration, whether it's human or probes. The 21st century still holds so many possibilities that are ready to be uncovered at any time.
One of the most defying objects we know of right now is the black hole. An object so incredibly dense not even light can escape its powerful grip. The closer to the center you travel, the more violently the black hole will fight physics. In the center, the singularity, matter is condensed so greatly that its mass is turned infinite and time appears to slow to a stop. This is due to its gravitational effects on its surroundings.
Time and space are relative to one another. This means that the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time will appear. So, theoretically, if you were to go faster than the speed of light, the universal speed limit, we could go back in time!
Back to black holes, they are formed like a glitch in the universe. When an area in space is so overwhelmed with density that it can't hold itself, it forms a black hole. The collapse of a huge star or gravitational binding of a galaxy being born are the two most common birthplaces of these magnificent beasts.
As of now, we have detected many black holes, not counting super massive ones at the center of galaxies. What happens if you survive to the singularity of a black hole? Can anything escape black holes? The border where light cannot escape is called the event horizon. This is where the accretion disk, orbital debris around a centering mass, appears to vanish.
The physics behind the event horizon is so mind blowing and violent that it rips particles apart. These particles that are ripped apart can sometimes be pushed out of the event horizon and into space. This idea is called Hawking Radiation, founded by the brilliant Stephen Hawking! These particles are part of the quantum field of physics and can show a lot.
The particles are classified as antiparticles and its counterpart...the particle. Hawking radiation is the only way we can really observe black holes. This is the most abundant radiation that is given off by black holes before it is all swallowed by the black hole itself. For now, we know so little about them and most likely will never know everything unless we physically observe them up close, which would be near impossible.
Another unknown element to the universe is the idea of Dark Matter. Theoretically, dark matter is a state of matter that gravitationally affects everything and is everywhere. Dark matter consists of ninety-nine percent of all matter in the observable universe, yet we are unable to determine what it is or observe it directly.
Now, if there is so much in the universe, why is space mostly empty? Why isn't there black holes everywhere? This is when physics turns to uncertainty. As far as we know dark matter is only gravitationally affecting the cosmos. There is a theory, however, that dark matter is just microscopic neutral black holes that gravitationally equalize matter and can't be detected.
The first instance of dark matter being recognized was with the famous astronomer, Edwin Hubble. Hubble saw that galaxies were moving away from the Milky Way at an alarming rate. This was the first idea of a force of matter that was gravitationally affecting galaxies.
Dark matter could consist of many different states of matter or it could not be a real idea. This is just the beginning of a long road ahead full of discoveries. These discoveries will change the way we look at life and nature.
