OUR black hole. Part I

and there is nothing left to counteract gravity, they do collapse and, if the leftover mass is higher than 1.4 solar masses, they become neutron stars (more on this in a later article) or black holes if heavier than about 3 solar masses.

One more quirk. Stephen Hawking, the famous paraplegic British physic, proposes black holes do not last forever. Due to quantum effects in the Event Horizon boundary, black holes should emit radiation, and doing so, loss mass thus evaporating in the long run. Be aware this does not mean radiation is escaping from within the black hole - this cannot happen - but it is materializing on the boundary, and to do so it must take credit from energy within.

What should be left behind is essentially a knot in space time, a so called naked singularity. Hawking is betting a Nobel Prize for him on experimental observation of the so called Hawking radiation.

Coming next:

OUR black hole. Part II

It seems that every galaxy harbors a black hole in its core. The larger the central bulge of older stars, the bigger the hole. Our Milky Way is no exception, but only recently have we developed techniques suitable for peering into the cocoon and measuring the massive, quiet beast lurking inside.

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