Black Holes Really Are Holes -- AMIGA Astronomy

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Subject: Black Holes Really Are Holes

Author:
Mikebuzz

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Date Posted: 23:50:10 03/31/03 Mon

A Study Shows

They are black because light can't escape once inside.
They are holes because they have no surface, only a sphere of influence, called the event horizon, beyond which nothing can get out.

That's the theory of black holes. In reality, it's been difficult to prove the "hole" part. A new study by Christine Done and Marek Gierlinski of the University of Durham in the UK provides support.

The study compared known black holes to neutron stars, the densest objects known except for black holes. Neutron stars do have a surface, and incoming matter bounces spectacularly off of it. Both neutron stars and black holes generate copious amounts of X-rays as matter is accelerated to significant fractions of the speed of light as it spirals toward the objects.

The researchers analyzed six years of data from NASA's orbiting Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, comparing characteristics of energy output as sources grew brighter and dimmer over time.

"What we see is that neutron stars and black holes behave in distinctly different ways as more material falls onto them," Done says, "and the only big difference we know of that can account for the observations is that neutron stars have a surface, while black holes don't."

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Black Holes Really Are Holes	Mrs.Stahr	23:19:35 05/14/03 Wed