August
2010
This Week’s Astronomy Question about Black Holes
The question for our astronomer: Since it’s true that galaxies have black holes at their center and two of these galaxies were on course to collide, would these two galaxies produce one huge black hole?
Our astronomer answers: Astrophysics tells us that all the universe’s galaxies are moving back from all the others. At the same time we acknowledge that locally speaking this isn’t always true. We know that the Milky Way Galaxy will collide with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in 5 billion years. In fact there are a number of potentially colliding galaxies that we can see from Earth that are in fact on a collision course with each other. The gravity of a black hole so intensive that light itself cannot elude. Now, this means that astronomers can’t directly examine black holes. However, today’s strong telescopes are able to show the existence of black holes. We also know that after a big star caves in on itself and creates a supernova which a small black hole can form in its core. Supernovae give us with so much information relating to colliding galaxies and black holes that there is a whole division of astronomy committed to the study of supernovae. The astronomers at Windowpane Observatory are conducting the name a star program, which permits those interested in astronomy the opportunity to participate by contributing to astronomy exploration into supernovae and our ongoing search for earth-bound asteroids.
