The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you'd like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com .
To solve the mysteries of black holes, a human should just venture into one. However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire universe.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Extreme black holes may have "hair," find scientists - Big Think
Researchers discover black holes that violate the uniqueness theorem and have "gravitational hair."
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Black holes are wonderfully weird, sparking the imagination with the many mysteries surrounding their formation and functions in our universe. Now scientists found a new kind of extreme black hole, one that breaks the so-called "ho hair" theorem. In other words, this black hole has "hair".
The idea of the "no hair" or "black hole uniqueness" theorem was encapsulated by the American theoretical physicist John Wheeler who claimed: "Black holes have no hair." What he meant is that black hole solutions to Einstein's field equations of general relativity can be completely characterized by only three physical quantities: mass, spin and charge. There aren't supposed to be any other "hairy" traits that can make one black hole different from another.
There Is One Way Humans Could 'Safely' Enter a Black Hole, Physicists Say
However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire Universe.
We are both physicists who study black holes, albeit from a very safe distance. Black holes are among the most abundant astrophysical objects in our Universe .
A person falling into a black hole and being stretched. (Leo Rodriguez/Shanshan Rodriguez/CC BY-ND)
When Galaxies Collide, Black Holes Don't Always Get the Feast They Were Hoping for -
What happens when galaxies collide? Well, if any humans are around in about a billion years, they might find out. That’s when our Milky Way galaxy is scheduled to collide with our neighbour the Andromeda galaxy. That event will be an epic, titanic, collision. The supermassive black holes at the center of both galaxies will feast on new material and flare brightly as the collision brings more gas and dust within reach of their overwhelming gravitational pull.
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The idea of two galaxies colliding in an epic, calamitous conflagration is more science fiction than science. There’s so much space between the stars that it’s unlikely two stars would ever touch, even when galaxies like the Milky Way and Andromeda meet, with their hundreds of billions of stars each. There would be lots of gravitational shenanigans. But no explosions.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Backreaction observed for first time in water tank black hole simulation | EurekAlert!
IMAGE: Lab experiment using water tank simulation to demonstrate backreaction. view more
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Scientists have revealed new insights into the behaviour of black holes with research that demonstrates how a phenomenon called backreaction can be simulated.
The team from the University of Nottingham have used their simulation of a black hole, involving a specially designed water tank, for this latest research published in Physical Review Letters . This study is the first to demonstrate that the evolution of black holes resulting from the fields surrounding them can be simulated in a laboratory experiment.
Physicists Observe Backreaction in Analogue Black Hole Experiment | Astronomy, Physics |
Physicists from the University of Nottingham and the University of Cambridge have for the first time demonstrated that the evolution of black holes resulting from the fields surrounding them can be simulated in a lab experiment. Their results are published in the journal Physical Review Letters .
Lab experiment using water tank simulation to demonstrate backreaction in an analogue black hole. Image credit: University of Nottingham.
Dr. Sam Patrick from the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Nottingham and his colleagues used a water tank simulator consisting of a draining vortex, like the one that forms when we pull the plug in the bath. This mimics a black hole since a wave which comes too close to the drain gets dragged down the plug hole, unable to escape.
Deepening Mystery: Astronomers on the Hunt for a Missing Supermassive Black Hole [Video]
Artist’s impression of a disc of material circling a supermassive black hole. Credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
Nearly all large galaxies contain a supermassive black hole, with a mass that is millions or billions of times that of the sun in their centers. Since the mass of a central black hole usually tracks with the mass of the galaxy itself, astronomers expect the galaxy in the center of Abell 2261 contains a supermassive black hole that rivals the heft of some of the largest known black holes in the Universe.
Astronomers just found the oldest supermassive black hole yet - CNET
Just 670 million years after the Big Bang, the quasar J0313-1806 was born. It's the most distant black hole ever discovered.
A quasar has been discovered in a dark corner of space more than 13.03 billion light-years away, and it contains a supermassive black hole 1.6 billion times bigger than the sun at its heart.
Quasars are extremely bright objects -- the brightest in the universe. They lie at the center of galaxies, but at their own center lies a supermassive black hole, millions to billions of times more massive than the sun. The intense gravity surrounding the black hole captures gas and dust and potentially even rips apart stars, leaving a trail of debris in a disk that encircles it.
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