Conjecture about the formation of black holes and neutron stars
I have no background in this field, have done no research, and have done no experiments with this. Therefore, I do not claim that I am right about this in any way. I brought it up in hopes that it would generate some conversation with the other bloggers. I know that math doesn't really conduct good conversation, so I'll throw in a toss-up here.
A black hole is a concentration of mass that is so great that not even light can escape it's event horizon [Wikipedia]. A neutron star is the remnant of a supernova that has a density of approximately the nucleus of an atom, which is along the lines of 5x1013g/mL [Wikipedia].
First, let's talk about neutron stars, because while they have amazingly high densities, they do have a measurable density. Neutron stars form after the supernova of a medium sized star, perhaps about 3 times the size of the sun in diameter. They then get crushed down into a 10 or 20 km neutron star, called such because they have the same density as the nucleus of an atom. But why? How come a neutron star only consists of atomic nuclei with no space inbetween atoms?
Well, first, we must bring up math. Yeah I know... get over yourself. The universal law of gravitation is the following equation:
Fg=G*M*m/d2
Where Fg is the force of gravity, G is the gravitational constant [6.67x10-11], M and m are the masses of two objects, and d is the distance between those two objects.
It is a curious question to ask about what happens when distance is zero. Theoretically, the force of gravity would approach positive infinity, and math breaks... intuitively at least. "But when I touch things, they don't suck me into them with their awesome gravitational powers." Well, yes, that's because the distance never actually reaches zero [at least in your experience]. You have never touched anything in your life because of electrostatic forces that repel atoms and molecules from coming in contact with eachother. These forces exceed 10100 newtons at the atomic level [Abtained by a rough calculation of Coulomb's law.] The only thing keeping atoms from collapsing and allowing gravity to fuse them together is the electrostatic forces.
Now, what I think happens during a supernova is that the forces of the explosion are so great that they overcome the electrostatic forces [occurs at around 10106N] and allow the atoms to become close enough to touch. This touch perhaps interferes with the electrons in orbit and electrons from different atoms attract the protons of other atoms. Therefore, with the electrostatic forces "disabled," the force of gravity is then allowed to pull the atoms together. It will pull them closer and closer with forces increasing quadratically as the distance decreases. Eventually, the atoms stop coming closer when the nuclei make contact with eachother. This is my conjecture. I'm sure that there are many theories out about the topic, but that's where Dave and Ed come in. I don't really feel like reading about it. I just like throwing out ideas.
This basically outlines my thoughts about neutron stars, but what about black holes? Black holes are so dense that they have what is called an event horizon, or a sphere that requires an escape velocity beyond the speed of light in order to get away from the black hole's pull. How the black holes actually form is very similar to what they do in general [take stuff and never give it back]. Let's think about the example with the neutron star. The only thing keeping the star from getting any more dense is some force caused by the protons and neutrons with which the star is made. According to my philosophy, there is an event horizon, whereby if the atomic nuclei are crushed with a certain amount of force and contract to a particular distance, gravity is increased to a point where it can continue to contract the nuclei even further... and in fact, without bound. As the matter contracts closer and closer together, gravity continues to increase without bound. Therefore, distance decreases without bound and the whole star becomes a single point in the cosmos, or a black hole. A black hole has no density and no radius. It is just an infinitly small chunk of matter sitting in space. The black hole is the result of a chain reaction of two nuclei that converged close enough so that gravity could pull them infinitly close to eachother. As the point of mass grew larger and larger, the event horizon grew basically to a measureable radius. The mass of the black hole is inversely proportional to the square of the event horizon radius, which basically means that the event horizon grows immensely from the single two atomic nuclei that it was born from.
Any questions, comments, or refutations... all are welcome.
posted by Unknown @ 11:34 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Um, interesting Dave. I don't really know much of anything about black holes. I used to be kind of sort of interested in them, but that stage of my life's passed. Though, once again, your article was interesting and made intuitive sense. Then again, science is rarely intuitive.
Keep up the good work.
And stuff.
Yep.
Pretty good thinking, but what about when the force of gravity is so strong that it overcomes the force holding elementary particles (your quarks and the like) together into atomic particles (your protons etc.)? And who says that that is the smallest you can get...
And furthermore, who says that gravity cannot get so intense as to cause an infinite amount of mass to occupy an infinitesimal space... I give you the singularity.
Also -- black holes don't just suck... active black holes can also spit out loads of energy... but light is the fastest thing, right, and even that can't escape?
/mindexplode
Yeah I'm done. And stuff.
Go Sparticles!
Thanks for adding more depth to the concept Ed. Although you could have been more... not sucky with the delivery man... that hurts, lol. Most of the things you've said, I've basically assumed without really writing them. I didn't really think that there was any need to state the fact that an infinite amount of matter can occupy a single point in space.
Hey guys. Just joined today-kind of exploring around right now. Anyway, the post seems fairly accurate, althought a bit wordy. At least the people use proper grammar rather then AIM talk (lol lik dis pots is so awesum!!!1!1!!1!1!1) >_>
Off topic: I hope this place uses size 10 Arial font...We'll find out soon.
I just wrote a 30-minute post because someone asked a question on what they were. I ranted -_-. Oh well. Here it is:
A black hole, put simply, is an object with the mass several times that of our sun packed into an infinitely small volume.
It begins when the star ends its main sequence stage, after the nova/supernova stage. If the star "core" is about 4 times more massive then our sun, it will become a black hole. If it was anywhere between 4 and 1.4 times as massive, it will become a neutron star. Anything below 1.4 forms a white dwarf.
White dwarfs are formed when a star the size of our sun ends its life. After the main sequence, it starts to lose volume because the force of fusion in the core has stopped due to running out of hydrogen and not having the energy needed for Helium fusion. The star collapses in upon itself, and the friction between molecules gives added heat. This heat is enough to start nuclear fusion of Helium atoms, which forms oxygen atoms and releases a lot of energy. This sudden output of energy makes the star expand to many times its size, in the case of our sun it will expand anywhere between the Orbit of Venus to past the orbit of Mars(it is debated umong scientists). It will remain in this stage for a few thousand years, then the heat from the helium fusion will dissipate. It will continue to shrink is size, while growing in density. It will push its atoms so close that the atoms are touching each other, but the atoms are still their own individual particles. The density is so great that 1 teaspoon of white dwarf material would weigh approx. 10 tons. The atoms can not be compacted past the point they are at now while still remaining atoms. The friction from this contraction will make the start white-hot for several thousand/million years, then it will eventually cool down and become a brown dwarf, and will remain so for eternity, unless something else comes along that is a HUGE celestial event.(another solar system randomly colliding with ours)
If the remains is between 1.4 solar masses and 4 solar masses, it will become a Neutron star. At the end of its main sequence, it will also contract, and helium fusion will begin. Red giant stage again. After this, the heat caused by the second contraction will cause the fusion of even heavier elements, and this will react very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that the outer matter of the star is forced outwards at such a force the star actually "explodes"-and this is what we know as a nova. The core will then contract to the White Dwarf stage. The force that holds atoms apart, forming a "sheild" in which the atom is located, will no longer be able to stop the overwhelming force of gravity from reducing the atoms further. You know how atoms are mostly empty space? In a neutron star, that empty space is gone. It is completely solid matter. The protons and electrons in the star touch, and negate each other's charges. The proton effectively becomes a neutron, and so the entire star is made up of neutrons. Thus the name. The dessity of this is about 100 tons per teaspoon. These are usually spinning very fast(~60 times per second. These are about 10 km in diameter, so that is pretty good.), and give off HUGE amounts of radiation. We call neutron stars that occasionally give off radiation towards earth (because they have their poles pointed towards us) pulsars.
For black holes, it is basically the same as neutron stars. The original star is MUCH more massive though, and it forms a "supergiant" instead of a red giant. A supergiant would go out to about the size of Saturn's orbit. It also explodes as a supernova, which release millions of times more energy then novas. A single supernova can outshine the rest of the galaxy, yes, even the really bright core. The force that holds the neutron subatomic particle together and keeps it from collapsing is overcome similarly to the force holding the atom together was overcome. Once is starts collapsing at this point, there is nothing to stop it.
A black hole has an event horizon, which makes it famous. It can keep even light in. If light were moving with a constant "push" from behind it, it would escape though. It is similar to shooting something out of a cannon in the hope to get it out of earth's orbit. If the object was constantly moving at a constand pace, it would get out. But since light is particles like any projectile, it has no source of propulsion that can help it. The cannonball falls back down to earth, the light goes back to the singularity, or center of the black hole. The farther away you get from the earth, the easier it is to throw something out of it's gravitational field, right? The event horizon marks where the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light. If you go in there, you're ****ed.
If you were falling into a black hole and could somehow avoid getting ripped in half, then you would appear to slowly fall into the the hole by a bystander on the outside. You would move slower...and slower.....and slower.......and infinitely slow until you appear to touch the event horizon. At that point, the light that left you from when you were at the event horizon has equaled the force of gravity trying to keep it in, and the light has essentially no speed. The person on the outside will never see you go past the event horizon. You will no longer be able to contact them via transmission, because they use light waves to contact. You are completely cut off from the rest of the universe.
If you didn't get ripped in half before, you will be. The difference of the force of gravity acting on your feet opposed to that on your head will be too high, and you will literally be ripped in half feet first. You will be crushed into a volume equal to that of the black hole, infinitely small, then get added to the singularity, which will gain your mass, but retain its volume, or lack thereof.
That was a good 30 minute post all from memory.
Just saw Ed's post. Sorry, I gotta comment.
Pretty good thinking, but what about when the force of gravity is so strong that it overcomes the force holding elementary particles (your quarks and the like) together into atomic particles (your protons etc.)? And who says that that is the smallest you can get...
That force is near the force that holds neutrons as the seperate particles ans seperates a neutron star from a black hole. Basically, if it gets past neutron star, it's gonna be a black hole.
And furthermore, who says that gravity cannot get so intense as to cause an infinite amount of mass to occupy an infinitesimal space... I give you the singularity.
Ok...didn't he say that? Maybe if I have some more time I'll reread it @_@
Also -- black holes don't just suck... active black holes can also spit out loads of energy... but light is the fastest thing, right, and even that can't escape?
/mindexplode
They can release energy, but by only the smallest amounts. The radiation we use to detect their presence comes from the accretion disk, the area of spinning matter around the black hole. It has so much friction between the other particles that it superheats it and gives off a lot of radiation from all over the spectrum.
As for releasing energy like I said before, it doesn't really. It releases the smallest amount of matter at a time, by a process I need to get better aquainted with. They're called Hawking physics, and it allows black holes to secrete very small amounts of matter out at a time. I don't know many details on it.
Yeah I'm done. And stuff.
Go Sparticles!
Post a Comment
<< Home