There’s been a lot of talk about black holes
lately since Kathrine Bouman figured out how
to take a picture of one. After seeing the
image, I realized I didn’t actually know
that much about them. So instead of working
today, I went down my own black hole of watching
a bunch of science videos (don’t tell my
boss), and I got this thought: what would
happen if a black hole came into our solar
system?
So, I did what most people do when some random
question pops up in their brain: I took to
the internet to find the answer. And oh boy,
did I learn some things!
Our solar system is made up of eight planets,
hundreds of natural satellites like moons,
thousands of asteroids, and billions of comets.
This beautiful space cocktail is constantly
moving around our sun. But it could all be
torn apart if just one stray black hole decided
to drop by…
A black hole isn’t likely going to disturb
the peace of our planet anytime soon. And
even though the closest black hole to our
solar system is 10 to 13 times the mass of
our sun, it’s located 3,000 light years
away. So we’d know way in advance if it
ever decided to start moving closer. But let’s
pretend that some other black hole decides
to take a shortcut through our solar system.
First, I have a confession to make. Before
I did all this research, I thought black holes
were like, just giant space holes. Turns out
that they’re actually huge amounts of matter
crammed into a teeny-tiny space. It’d be
like squeezing the entire mass of our sun
into Manhattan! As a result, they have an
extremely strong gravitational pull. In fact,
it’s so powerful that even light can’t
escape once a hole gets its hands on it.
I also thought that all black holes were basically
the same. A big fat star collapses, then boom,
black hole. Those ones are called stellar
mass black holes. But there are also mega
monsters called supermassive black holes.
Those ones can be found churning slowly at
the centers of galaxies. They gather tremendous
amounts of gas and star dust around them making
them expand to sizes our simple human minds
would find unfathomable.
Now, the chances of us getting close to a
supermassive black hole are infinitesimal.
But if our galaxy, the Milky Way, decided
to rearrange itself, putting us a few dozen
light years away from the center where a supermassive
black hole lives (instead of 26,000 light
years away), we’d be doomed. You see, all
those planets, stars, comets, and space debris
circling around the monster would come flying
into our solar system, crashing into everything
and making a big mess. And whatever’s left
of our little family of planets would get
swept up into the current of the gravitational
pull and circle around the black hole until
the end of time.
But what about a stellar mass black hole?
They may be way smaller than those monstrous
supermassive black holes, but there’s a
lot more of them in the universe! They appear
when stars run out of their star fuel and
basically fall into themselves. This only
happens if a star is big enough, like 3-10
times bigger than our sun. It’ll keep compressing
and compressing until… viola! A baby stellar
mass black hole is born.
Awww…
It may be baby in size, but these puppies
are still 20 times heavier than the sun. So
let’s say, unknown to us, a stellar mass
black hole is nearing the outskirts of our
solar system right now! First to feel its
effects will be the Oort Cloud, named after
Dutch astronomer Jan Oort. This bubble of
icy space debris that surrounds the outermost
rim of our solar system, 100,000 times further
out than we are from the sun, will be popped
by the gravitational pull of the black hole.
As a result, ice-cold comets from this area
get sent toward Earth and other planets of
our solar system. And we keep living our lives
like nothing is wrong. (Whistles)
Here’s the thing I find most terrifying
– we wouldn’t notice the black hole until
it’s too late! The only detail that could
give away the approaching black hole is a
slight blurring of distant stars due to the
hole’s gravitational lensing effect. The
gravitational field of a black hole is so
powerful it actually bends light rays trying
to pass by it. We may miss that clue, but
we’ll definitely notice when the black hole
starts pulling layers from the gas planets,
such as Neptune, Jupiter, or Saturn. It’ll
create such a huge, super-hot cloud of dust
and gas around itself, that people of earth
couldn’t help but notice.
It seems unfair that something that small
(the tiniest black holes can be only 15 miles
in diameter!) can consume things thousands
of times bigger. But before it eats any of
our solar system, it’ll tear it all apart
first. You see, our planets are held in orbit
by our sun’s gravity. As the gravitational
pull of the black hole approaches each planet,
it’ll play tug-of-war with our sun, ripping
them all to pieces. As soon as the black hole
reaches the asteroid belt between Jupiter
and Mars, we’ll start to feel its pull.
Super volcanoes will go off, devastating earthquakes
will shake the ground, and everything will
crumble into dust and debris, Thanos-style.
Also contrary to what I used to believe, black
holes don’t “suck” stuff in either!
Suction can only be caused when something
is getting pulled into the vacuum of space,
and a black hole is the opposite of space.
So don’t worry, if we ever got close enough
to one, we’d never get sucked in, we’d
simply just fall in. (Well, that’s comforting
to know!)
But it’s not a drop kind of fall. Black
holes like to make a show out of it. Before
disappearing into the abyss, anything that
falls into the gravitational pull of a black
hole will go through a process called spaghettification.
(I know, I giggled when I heard the word for
the first time too!) But it’s no laughing
matter! Basically, if anything gets too close
to a black hole, before it falls in, it gets
stretched waaaay out (like a spaghetti noodle!)
due to the hole’s incredible gravity. So,
yeah, there’s some food for thought. Yum-yum!
But don’t worry about all this spaghetti
talk! According to scientific estimations,
the odds of a black hole coming across our
solar system, much less munching on our planet,
are lower than the chance of winning the lottery
ten times in a row. In numbers, that’s one-in-a-trillion!
Whew! That’s a relief!
I have to say, black holes are really cool.
The more I learn about them, the more curious
I get. Like what would happen if two supermassive
black holes collided? Would they create a
mega-super-duper-massive black hole? Like
two monster hurricanes colliding and merging
together to create the most epic hurricane,
but in space?
It turns out that almost all galaxies in the
universe have their own supermassive black
holes in the center of them. In some of these
galaxies, the black holes can be billions
of times more massive than our sun! Now imagine
what would happen when two galaxies become
one. Their black holes would have to somehow
agree to cohabitate and interact like civilized…
well… holes, I guess.
But scientists believe that in the event two
supermassive black holes come in contact,
either by spiraling inward and eventually
touching or by direct collision, it wouldn’t
be a peaceful merge. Instead, because the
forces are so great, one of the black holes
will get kicked away at an incredible speed!
The most powerful kick can happen if the two
black holes have been rotating in opposite
directions. It would be like two discs spinning
incredibly fast coming together. The weaker
of the two black holes would get hurled out
of the newly formed galaxy to never be heard
from again. And the winning black hole will
get rewarded with a huge amount of energy
making the clouds of dust and gas surrounding
it blaze for thousands of years. Now that’s
what I call “Star Wars”!
Sorry.
What’s your biggest “what if” question
that distracts you from work or keeps you
up at night? Let me know in the comments!
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