April 8, 2010 • 11 mins
A black hole forms when a star's core collapses, increasing in density until its gravitational pull becomes too powerful for light to escape. This creates a singularity -- and it happens in less than a second. Learn more about black holes in this podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey, this is also I don't know,
the science editor at how stuff works dot com. And
this is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works
dot com. So today it's kind of a fun way
(00:23):
to start off our podcast about black holes. Yeah, how
many people can you fit into a ninety one Volkswagen
Beetle Um sixteen? Well that may have been the record
at one point, but the record I read was actually
seventeen in seventeen. According to what record tracking body would
(00:45):
this beginness, This would be Guinness. Uh, and they insist
that all the people that you cram into the Beetle
are neither under five ft tall or younger than eighteen
years of age. So no filling it with midgets or
babies because this are probably a lot of babies in
a Beatle, but especially premies. Yeah, you could really load
up on premies. Yeah. Um, well, I I think that
(01:08):
record that you just spouted off this is kind of
it's kind of weak. Actually, because I was wandering around
online and I came across the International World Record Breakers Club.
Oh yeah, this is kind of cool because if you
want to join, you have to be a world record breaker.
I like that aspect of it anyway. I was just
perusing this record club's knowledge and they said that back
(01:30):
in nine, three hundred and fifty four pupils three hundred
and fifty four, not a single less, not a single
more from the middle school located in Chunet. And this is, uh,
this is somewhere in the UK. I'm assuming, yes, three
fifty four pupils piled into a standard fifty six theater
(01:51):
London double decker bus. Well that's a lot, of course,
that's bigger than a Beatle. Yes, yes it is. So
it kind of depends on the car. And but even
more there was a there was all so, yeah, a
British Leland Metro, a car by the new Have you
ever heard of such a car? No, neither of us.
I looked it up. It's it's a small car and
I guess they kind of like the sort of thing
in the UK. And they're about twenty one members of
(02:13):
the Plymouth Young Wives Association who packed themselves into a
to this tiny Leland Metro. Yeah, so that beats your record.
Well you just got me thinking, um, have you heard
the dance hit Too Many Men by Boy Better? No?
You know, there's too many men, too many many men,
and then fly the concords to a parody of it
that I can't actually say that the title of the song,
(02:34):
but that got me thinking that the song is basically
saying that there are too many men on the dance
floor and that they need more women. I was just thinking, like,
how many men is too many men? And apparently like
I was looking into it, like out the Fabric nightclub
in London has a capacity of eighteen hundred, so I
think eighteen hundred and one would probably be too many men.
(02:54):
I agree, I agree, and probably all of them are
in Spandex as well. That's what you have to do
to squeeze yourself into a car is making at pictures.
And if you allow babies in like we said, that
like doubles the capacity. But seriously, if you really want
to compress something into a tiny space, you're not going
to look at these babies in Spandex or people piling
into a car. You're gonna look to the black hole,
which is the universal standards. Oh, I thought you met
(03:16):
the nightclub. Sorry no, no, not the nightclub, but the
cosmic phenomena. Yesh, Yeah, with the power of a black hole. Uh,
you could. There's really no limit to the number of
of college students or dancers or babies or what have
you if you could fit into a space. Um, you could.
You could get them all into an area no larger
(03:38):
than an Adam's nucleus and still have a few room
for say, you know, a solar system or two. The
key to the black hole is its gravitational pull. The
same force that holds us onto on the Earth um
same force and mixes trip and fall on our face occasionally.
Or maybe that's just my clumsiness exactly. Yeah, but with
a black hole, this force is infinite al right. Not
(03:59):
even light can escape it. It's it's that heavy. And
to understand how this happens, we have to to start
up talking about the origins of a black hole and
take us to a black hole forms when a star dies.
Basically what happens is the core of the star runs
out of fuel and collapses. This sets off a shock wave.
It blows out the outer layer of the star. Uh,
(04:21):
and we call this a supernova, huge blast, very bright,
and then the star's heart collapses while the rest of
it explodes, and it's the core core collapses it's gravity increases. Okay,
because it's getting denser, it will eventually reach the point
where the core is massive enough. There's so much mass
just just crunched down, and it reaches the point where
it has as much mass is about three sons, and
(04:43):
gravity gets so strong that right at the surface of
the collapsing core, the escape velocity increases to the speed
of light. Light cannot escape it. When a star burns
to the last of its nuclear fuel, its own gravitational
pool causes it to cave in on itself. And if
it's if the core mass is large and off, the
enormous star instantly collapses to a sub atomic size called
(05:04):
a singularity. Right, so instantly, we're not talking about, say,
the aging process among humans, when some little old lady
is just getting smaller and smaller and more wizzen by
the year. This is instantly we're talking The estimates are
tenth of a second to half a second. That's crazy.
So a black hole is some anatomical parts that will
(05:26):
take you through. Um, it's not just this massive darkness
that's swallowing up things willy nilly. It has an event horizon,
which is basically signifying the opening or the surface of
the black hole. Now it's important to note that we're
not talking about the surface of the singularity, but this
is the point at which everything speeds up to the
to the speed of light as it approaches the singularity
(05:48):
good point. And then, as as Robert is talking about,
you have the singularity, which is just this ridiculously tiny
point smaller than you know, an atom's nucleus, and to
which all that dying star stuff is condensed. And then
you have the swartz Child radius. And the idea roughly
here is that if you're thinking about the black hole,
so you're looking at it, you know, top down, if
that were possible to do. The swords Child radius is
(06:11):
just marks the radius of a spear pass which we
can't get light, we can't get particles, we can't get
any information. And it was thanks to a scientist by
the name of schwartz Child. And the swartz Child radius
is also really important in our ability to determine where
a black hole might be located. And we're only talking
(06:32):
about suspected black holes because it's physically impossible to to
see them, so we can we can only look and
sort of look at the area surrounding where this black
hole suspect is suspected to be. This includes radiation given
off my by material rushing towards the event horizon. Uh.
This includes the bending of light from other stars, so
(06:53):
we can basically see how the light um moves in
towards where the black hole be and the movement of
objects around a black hole, and the light speed jets
of ejected material, so you have, you know, everything surrounding
it rushing rushing in, so we're able to perceive some
of that energy moving so interact observation and UH. We
(07:18):
of course have to mention Einstein here because the black
hole really comes out of his nineteen fifteen theory of
general relativity UH. And this is basically involves the idea
that that motion, the gravity and motion can affect the
intervals of time and space. The first really good black
(07:38):
holes suspect that we found was UH, Sickness x one
and it's about seven thousand light years from Earth UM.
And ironically, Einstein himself did not believe the exist in
the existence of black holes, even though they were predicted
by his theory, So the Sickness isn't the only black hole.
Of course, black holes are all over the place. As
(07:59):
as far as we can indirectly observe. Astronomers have found
a small black hole inside a star heavy cluster of
space in the Elliptical galaxy by the name of n
g C four four seven two. It's an enchanting name,
if ever there were one, I imagine that'll be climbing
up the Social Security Administration ranks of most popular birth
names any day now. But typically scientists think that supermassive
(08:20):
black holes UM are found in the center of most galaxy.
And what's the supermassive black hole? I mean black holes
are ginormous, ginorous type things. So to quantify that UM,
a supermassive black hole is believed to be between one
million and one billion solar masses. So it's the scale
that is almost incomprehensible. And our beloved Milky Way galaxy
(08:42):
may have millions of black holes cool, so UM this uh,
you know, these are the question what happens to these
black holes? Because it's easy to sort of think of
this enormous event occurring, a black hole forming, and it's
just going to eat and eat and eat till it
just absorbs everything. It starts absorbing other black holes, except
but it it doesn't really work like that. On one hand,
(09:04):
like you mentioned, we have supermassive black holes, uh in
the center of of of of you know, vast systems,
and they're not they haven't eaten everything, and they're not
even in the process of eating everything. And it's because
everything sort of stabilizes after a while. They think, uh,
you have a lot of matter falling into these into
these things, and it gets very hot, gives off a
(09:25):
lot of light, and in the same way that a
solar wind can can move an object. They say that
this actually kind of like ends up eventually canceling it
everything out to where, you know, not as much stuff
as coming in, but the black hole sort of maintaining
and holding its own kind of like Sean Connery stops
being in movies, though he's still a big star, you know.
(09:45):
But but even a black hole has a finite life.
And we owe this to Stephen Hawking, who discovered that
black holes should radiate energy due to a quantum mechanical
process called that we call a Hawking radiation. How However,
um we're talking when we're talking about a black hole
eventually dying, we're talking a long long time in the future. Um,
(10:09):
A black hole of the mass of our son, for instance,
would take more than a billion times a billion times
a billion times a billion times a billion times a
billion times the age of the universe to evaporate um completely.
So that's you know, don't try and wait one out.
That's what we're seeing. So that's the basics on black
(10:29):
holes are our knowledge and our theories regarding them continues
to change as we make new observations and discoveries about
the observable universe. But uh, but that's all. That's it
in a nutshell, a very compact, um dense nutshell. So
there you have at Mark when Cincinnati, your wishes our podcast.
(10:51):
If you guys have any suggestions or any thoughts about
black holes, send us an email at science stuff at
how stuff works dot com and check out the blogs
where we will keep you guys updated on what we're
podcasting about and what's happening in the scientific world around us.
And you can find all that and more on our
homepage how stuff works dot com. Thanks for listening. For
(11:18):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com.
Home page,
Welcome to stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey, this is also I don't know,
the science editor at how stuff works dot com. And
this is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works
dot com. So today it's kind of a fun way
(00:23):
to start off our podcast about black holes. Yeah, how
many people can you fit into a ninety one Volkswagen
Beetle Um sixteen? Well that may have been the record
at one point, but the record I read was actually
seventeen in seventeen. According to what record tracking body would
(00:45):
this beginness, This would be Guinness. Uh, and they insist
that all the people that you cram into the Beetle
are neither under five ft tall or younger than eighteen
years of age. So no filling it with midgets or
babies because this are probably a lot of babies in
a Beatle, but especially premies. Yeah, you could really load
up on premies. Yeah. Um, well, I I think that
(01:08):
record that you just spouted off this is kind of
it's kind of weak. Actually, because I was wandering around
online and I came across the International World Record Breakers Club.
Oh yeah, this is kind of cool because if you
want to join, you have to be a world record breaker.
I like that aspect of it anyway. I was just
perusing this record club's knowledge and they said that back
(01:30):
in nine, three hundred and fifty four pupils three hundred
and fifty four, not a single less, not a single
more from the middle school located in Chunet. And this is, uh,
this is somewhere in the UK. I'm assuming, yes, three
fifty four pupils piled into a standard fifty six theater
(01:51):
London double decker bus. Well that's a lot, of course,
that's bigger than a Beatle. Yes, yes it is. So
it kind of depends on the car. And but even
more there was a there was all so, yeah, a
British Leland Metro, a car by the new Have you
ever heard of such a car? No, neither of us.
I looked it up. It's it's a small car and
I guess they kind of like the sort of thing
in the UK. And they're about twenty one members of
(02:13):
the Plymouth Young Wives Association who packed themselves into a
to this tiny Leland Metro. Yeah, so that beats your record.
Well you just got me thinking, um, have you heard
the dance hit Too Many Men by Boy Better? No?
You know, there's too many men, too many many men,
and then fly the concords to a parody of it
that I can't actually say that the title of the song,
(02:34):
but that got me thinking that the song is basically
saying that there are too many men on the dance
floor and that they need more women. I was just thinking, like,
how many men is too many men? And apparently like
I was looking into it, like out the Fabric nightclub
in London has a capacity of eighteen hundred, so I
think eighteen hundred and one would probably be too many men.
(02:54):
I agree, I agree, and probably all of them are
in Spandex as well. That's what you have to do
to squeeze yourself into a car is making at pictures.
And if you allow babies in like we said, that
like doubles the capacity. But seriously, if you really want
to compress something into a tiny space, you're not going
to look at these babies in Spandex or people piling
into a car. You're gonna look to the black hole,
which is the universal standards. Oh, I thought you met
(03:16):
the nightclub. Sorry no, no, not the nightclub, but the
cosmic phenomena. Yesh, Yeah, with the power of a black hole. Uh,
you could. There's really no limit to the number of
of college students or dancers or babies or what have
you if you could fit into a space. Um, you could.
You could get them all into an area no larger
(03:38):
than an Adam's nucleus and still have a few room
for say, you know, a solar system or two. The
key to the black hole is its gravitational pull. The
same force that holds us onto on the Earth um
same force and mixes trip and fall on our face occasionally.
Or maybe that's just my clumsiness exactly. Yeah, but with
a black hole, this force is infinite al right. Not
(03:59):
even light can escape it. It's it's that heavy. And
to understand how this happens, we have to to start
up talking about the origins of a black hole and
take us to a black hole forms when a star dies.
Basically what happens is the core of the star runs
out of fuel and collapses. This sets off a shock wave.
It blows out the outer layer of the star. Uh,
(04:21):
and we call this a supernova, huge blast, very bright,
and then the star's heart collapses while the rest of
it explodes, and it's the core core collapses it's gravity increases. Okay,
because it's getting denser, it will eventually reach the point
where the core is massive enough. There's so much mass
just just crunched down, and it reaches the point where
it has as much mass is about three sons, and
(04:43):
gravity gets so strong that right at the surface of
the collapsing core, the escape velocity increases to the speed
of light. Light cannot escape it. When a star burns
to the last of its nuclear fuel, its own gravitational
pool causes it to cave in on itself. And if
it's if the core mass is large and off, the
enormous star instantly collapses to a sub atomic size called
(05:04):
a singularity. Right, so instantly, we're not talking about, say,
the aging process among humans, when some little old lady
is just getting smaller and smaller and more wizzen by
the year. This is instantly we're talking The estimates are
tenth of a second to half a second. That's crazy.
So a black hole is some anatomical parts that will
(05:26):
take you through. Um, it's not just this massive darkness
that's swallowing up things willy nilly. It has an event horizon,
which is basically signifying the opening or the surface of
the black hole. Now it's important to note that we're
not talking about the surface of the singularity, but this
is the point at which everything speeds up to the
to the speed of light as it approaches the singularity
(05:48):
good point. And then, as as Robert is talking about,
you have the singularity, which is just this ridiculously tiny
point smaller than you know, an atom's nucleus, and to
which all that dying star stuff is condensed. And then
you have the swartz Child radius. And the idea roughly
here is that if you're thinking about the black hole,
so you're looking at it, you know, top down, if
that were possible to do. The swords Child radius is
(06:11):
just marks the radius of a spear pass which we
can't get light, we can't get particles, we can't get
any information. And it was thanks to a scientist by
the name of schwartz Child. And the swartz Child radius
is also really important in our ability to determine where
a black hole might be located. And we're only talking
(06:32):
about suspected black holes because it's physically impossible to to
see them, so we can we can only look and
sort of look at the area surrounding where this black
hole suspect is suspected to be. This includes radiation given
off my by material rushing towards the event horizon. Uh.
This includes the bending of light from other stars, so
(06:53):
we can basically see how the light um moves in
towards where the black hole be and the movement of
objects around a black hole, and the light speed jets
of ejected material, so you have, you know, everything surrounding
it rushing rushing in, so we're able to perceive some
of that energy moving so interact observation and UH. We
(07:18):
of course have to mention Einstein here because the black
hole really comes out of his nineteen fifteen theory of
general relativity UH. And this is basically involves the idea
that that motion, the gravity and motion can affect the
intervals of time and space. The first really good black
(07:38):
holes suspect that we found was UH, Sickness x one
and it's about seven thousand light years from Earth UM.
And ironically, Einstein himself did not believe the exist in
the existence of black holes, even though they were predicted
by his theory, So the Sickness isn't the only black hole.
Of course, black holes are all over the place. As
(07:59):
as far as we can indirectly observe. Astronomers have found
a small black hole inside a star heavy cluster of
space in the Elliptical galaxy by the name of n
g C four four seven two. It's an enchanting name,
if ever there were one, I imagine that'll be climbing
up the Social Security Administration ranks of most popular birth
names any day now. But typically scientists think that supermassive
(08:20):
black holes UM are found in the center of most galaxy.
And what's the supermassive black hole? I mean black holes
are ginormous, ginorous type things. So to quantify that UM,
a supermassive black hole is believed to be between one
million and one billion solar masses. So it's the scale
that is almost incomprehensible. And our beloved Milky Way galaxy
(08:42):
may have millions of black holes cool, so UM this uh,
you know, these are the question what happens to these
black holes? Because it's easy to sort of think of
this enormous event occurring, a black hole forming, and it's
just going to eat and eat and eat till it
just absorbs everything. It starts absorbing other black holes, except
but it it doesn't really work like that. On one hand,
(09:04):
like you mentioned, we have supermassive black holes, uh in
the center of of of of you know, vast systems,
and they're not they haven't eaten everything, and they're not
even in the process of eating everything. And it's because
everything sort of stabilizes after a while. They think, uh,
you have a lot of matter falling into these into
these things, and it gets very hot, gives off a
(09:25):
lot of light, and in the same way that a
solar wind can can move an object. They say that
this actually kind of like ends up eventually canceling it
everything out to where, you know, not as much stuff
as coming in, but the black hole sort of maintaining
and holding its own kind of like Sean Connery stops
being in movies, though he's still a big star, you know.
(09:45):
But but even a black hole has a finite life.
And we owe this to Stephen Hawking, who discovered that
black holes should radiate energy due to a quantum mechanical
process called that we call a Hawking radiation. How However,
um we're talking when we're talking about a black hole
eventually dying, we're talking a long long time in the future. Um,
(10:09):
A black hole of the mass of our son, for instance,
would take more than a billion times a billion times
a billion times a billion times a billion times a
billion times the age of the universe to evaporate um completely.
So that's you know, don't try and wait one out.
That's what we're seeing. So that's the basics on black
(10:29):
holes are our knowledge and our theories regarding them continues
to change as we make new observations and discoveries about
the observable universe. But uh, but that's all. That's it
in a nutshell, a very compact, um dense nutshell. So
there you have at Mark when Cincinnati, your wishes our podcast.
(10:51):
If you guys have any suggestions or any thoughts about
black holes, send us an email at science stuff at
how stuff works dot com and check out the blogs
where we will keep you guys updated on what we're
podcasting about and what's happening in the scientific world around us.
And you can find all that and more on our
homepage how stuff works dot com. Thanks for listening. For
(11:18):
more on this and thousands of other topics, is that
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com.
Home page,
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