Author: Emily Conover / Source: Science News for Students
Black holes have been sucking up scientific attention from the very beginning. They were hinted at as early as the 1780s. Albert Einstein predicted them in his general theory of relativity.
But they didn’t get the name we know today until the 1960s.Black holes were once thought to be only a mathematical curiosity. They were bizarre beasts that squashed gobs of matter into infinitely dense abysses. But bit by bit, astronomers tallied up evidence for black holes’ existence. They puzzled over where these behemoths live and how they gulp down matter. They questioned what the existence of black holes means for other physics theories.
For more than a decade, a team of researchers has been engrossed in an ambitious effort to snap a picture of a black hole for the very first time. Now, they’ve done it. What better time to think back to black holes’ origins and the journey so far?
Power Words
American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS) Formed in 1848, it was the first permanent organization formed to promote the development of science and engineering at the national level and to represent the interests of all its disciplines. It is now the world’s largest such society. Despite its name, membership in it is open to anyone who believes “that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics can help solve many of the challenges the world faces today.” Its members live in 91 nations. Based in Washington, D.C., it publishes a host of peer-reviewed journals — most notably Science.
archive (adj. archival) To collect and store materials, including sounds, videos, data and objects, so that they can be found and used when they are needed. The term is also for the process of collecting and storing such things. People who perform this task are known as archivists.
astronomy The area of science that deals with celestial objects, space and the physical universe. People who work in this field are called astronomers.
behemoth A term for anything that is amazingly big. The term comes from a monstrous animal described in the Bible’s book of Job.
black hole A region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation (including light) can escape.
data Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.
equation In mathematics, the statement that two quantities are equal. In geometry, equations are often used to determine the shape of a curve or surface.
evaporate To turn from liquid into vapor.
event horizon An imaginary sphere that surrounds a black hole. The more massive the black hole, the bigger the sphere. Anything that happens inside the event horizon is invisible, because gravity is so strong that under normal circumstances even light can’t escape. But according to some theories of physics, in certain situations small amounts of radiation can escape.
field An area of study, as in: Her field of research was biology. Also a term to describe a real-world environment in which some research is conducted, such as at sea, in a forest, on a mountaintop or on a city street. It is the opposite of an artificial setting, such as a research laboratory. (in physics) A region in space where certain physical effects operate, such as magnetism (created by a magnetic field), gravity (by a gravitational field), mass (by a Higgs field) or electricity (by an electrical field).
galaxy A massive group of stars bound together by gravity. Galaxies, which each typically include between 10 million and 100 trillion stars, also include clouds of gas, dust and the remnants of exploded stars.
gravity The force that attracts anything with mass, or bulk, toward any other thing with mass. The more mass that something has, the greater its gravity.
Hawking radiation The particles emitted from the event horizon on the outer edges of a black hole. Energy can be converted into a pair of particles. If that happens very close to outer edge of a black hole, one of those particles can tunnel out and become detected — providing the only direct physical clue to the black hole’s presence. These emissions are called Hawking radiation for Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist who came up with the idea that black holes can emit particles.
haze Fine liquid or solid particles scattered through the atmosphere that make it hard to see. Haze can be caused by harmful substances such as air pollutants or by water vapor.
information (as opposed to data) Facts provided or trends learned about something or someone, often as a result of studying data.
information paradox (in physics) A problem…
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