Black Holes

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

do you think it would be possible to travel through them? Do they go some place? Or is it just a collection of collapsed gasses that are breaking down, and isn't really a "hole" in that sense.

I don't know that much about them. I do know they move through space though. Right now I don't think it would be possible to travel through one, because we would be stretched and ripped apart, atom by atom.

Well, it really is a hole in space. Gas clouds that collapse under gravity form a star, but if the gas cloud falls too quickly into the star that was created, it creates some sort of shock wave that heats the star, which causes it to expand. The gas envelope traps the heat and squeezes the star making it even hotter. Like I was saying earlier, I think the extreme heat causes some kind of reaction inside the star, and then it starts to cool down. I guess I star needs heat in order to keep from falling in on itself because of the extreme gravity. I think once it cools down to the point where it can't resist the gravity, it collapses in on itself which forms into a small black hole from the start. It only gets larger by consuming gas and other objects around it. If two black holes collide then the new black hole becomes one huge behemoth.

What I don't understand is what's the difference between a black hole star and a star? I guess if our Sun were to die, it would expand, and then turn into a white dwarf star and die. I don't know if it would form a black hole or not.