What are black holes? How are black holes
formed? Are they really black?
When a massive
star, about 8 times bigger than our sun dies the star explodes, this is called
a Supernova. The core that was at the centre of the star gets left behind, this
core is so massive that it can’t hold itself up anymore, the massive gravity
forces on it squash it down so much that it gets squashed into a very small
invisible point known as a black hole. Black holes are actually more
‘invisible’ than black, but because space is black then this makes sense. They
are invisible because they don’t give out light (like the Sun) or reflect it
(like the Moon).
Are there any black holes in space? If so, how
many are there? Is there a black hole in the Milky Way?
Yes! There are loads of black holes in
our Universe; in fact there may be as much as 100 million black holes (which
are each about the size of 8 suns, squashed into a very small volume) inside
our own Milky way galaxy.
There is also a
supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky way galaxy, which has a mass
as big as 400 million suns. We know how big it is by looking at the speeds of
stars moving around this invisible object at the center of our galaxy.
We don’t know the
exact value for the number of black holes in our galaxy (or the Universe) because
black holes are black, they don’t give out light like stars, or reflect it like
planets, so we only know they are there when we can see stars orbiting the
black hole, or being eaten by a nearby black hole.
Did any spaceships go into any blackholes?
No, we have not
sent any spaceships to any black holes. Firstly they are all extremely far away
and it would take many hundreds of years to get to the nearest black holes with
the current technology. Also from using Mathematics and Physics formulas we can
predict that any spaceship would get ripped apart by the strong gravity forces
before it go to the black hole. Even if the spaceship was able to enter the
black hole the signals it would send back to Earth, to tell us what was going
on as it fell into the black hole, would also get sucked into the black hole.
No information (not even light which is the fastest thing ever) can leave a
black hole when it goes in. So basically, we will never known what goes on
inside black holes exactly. They are very bizarre environments where our
science theories fall apart, but we will keep trying to understand them.
Is there life on Mars? Is there life in the
Andromeda galaxy and the rest of the Universe?
We have found
water on Mars (mainly as ice or vapour) but at the moment we have not found any
life, on Mars or anywhere else in the Universe. I personally believe that there
IS such a thing as ‘Life on other planets’ or Aliens because from using the
Kepler telescope to look at stars inside the Milky way we have found over 2,000
planets orbiting these stars.
You can actually
help us find planets from this Kepler data by going on the website http://www.planethunters.org/
Current scientific
research tells us that at least 1 in 5 stars that exist, have at least one
planet. And there are 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky way and 100,000,000,000
galaxies in the Universe, so there are a lot of places for Aliens to live. The
Universe is SO big I think there has to be life out there somewhere.
What planets are we most likely to find life
on?
If we assume that
‘Aliens’ are like us humans then we are more likely to find them on planets
like our own Earth. This means the planets should have liquid water on them,
and their distance from their star (which is probably like our Sun) is in what
we call the ‘Habitable Zone’ or ‘Goldilocks Zone’ where the temperature is such
that water is liquid on that planet.
Although, if these ‘Aliens’ don’t need liquid water then it is quite
possible they could live on any kind of planet, hot or cold and their planet
could orbit a star which is nothing like our Sun.
Did any things fall on the Earth? What are the
things?
Rocks from space land on Earth all the time. When the rocks fall
through our atmosphere they burn up and we see them as shooting stars, these
are called Meteors. When these rocks actually land on the Earth they are called
Meteorites. Meteorites are usually made of stones or iron and we think most of
them come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
A famous meteorite called ‘Alan Hills 84001’ fell to Earth in 1984 and
landed in Antarctica, it came from the planet Mars. It was thought to show
evidence of fossilised life from Mars inside the rock. After further
investigation from the scientists it was decided that the fossils were not
proof of life on Mars and possibly a result of contamination from Earth life.
What is negative energy and is it real?
I think you mean
‘Dark Energy’. This energy is very real, and is responsible for giving the
Universe the energy to expand outwards at a higher rate than expected.
Is it true that in space your spine grows in
length?
Yes, astronauts on the International Space Station who spend time living
in microgravity have been known to grow taller in space, for example, someone 6
feet tall can grow by as much as 2 inches.
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