A black hole is the inverse of a Supernova-a massive explosion

if something goes even near one the object will be attracted by the extreme gravitational pull, the object is squeezed like toothpaste, streched like a rubber band, and spirals towards the center. the extreme forces including heat would kill any living thing.

not sure how it is formed but it might be because it runs out of hydrogen atoms and all the helium collapses into itself



that serious for yeah?

This post was edited by xxxxmaniacxxxx on Feb 19 2010 01:27pm

lmao hes only been here for 2 days and alrdy has 25post/day

This post was edited by LedZeppelin31493 on Feb 19 2010 01:33pm

I think this comment is supposed to be directed at both of us however the consensus in the scientific community is that gravity is a curvature of space and not a force. His description of a "tear in the universe" is really misleading.

It is extremely difficult to "dumb down" a relativity to the point where it is understandable by people who do not have a background in physics. This makes describing the current theories on black holes really difficult. I would recommend reading the wikipedia article on black holes to understand them a bit better.

not sure bout the whole universe but the galaxy definitly seems to ahve all the celestial bodies closely aligned on a plane much like a frisbee flying in space

All spiral galaxies are "flat" with a bulge at the core typically with a black hole located there. They stay flat because they are spinning and under the effects of gravity (its moment of inertia makes it tend to spin in a plane).

Yes. A few = 27,000 light years. The exact distance in this topic doesnt really matter, it's fucking far no matter how you look at it. If it was close, we'd be dead.
As for supermassive black holes forming, nobody really knows. Maybe from huge gas clouds, or stellar black holes merging together into one.. or any number of circumstances.
The largest black hole we know of (At least since the last time I saw anythign on it ) has about twice the diameter of Plutos orbit.. or like 11 billion miles. 3 Billion times the mass of our sun.
Try this, though.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgQJ8mIvKA4 Part 1 of "The Universe" on Cosmic Holes. The other parts are in there somewhere. I'm sure they can explain it a lot better then anyone else here.. and make it more interesting.

this ^

Just remember it's a lot more complex than they make it out to be.

what else do 12 year old kids have to do

This post was edited by 1234lol on Feb 19 2010 03:40pm

u are dislexic

a black hole is basically a ton of matter (like more matter than is in our sun) compacted into an infinitely small amount of space. because of how gravity works, theres a certain distance from the center of the black hole (where all the matter actually is) that sucks absolutely everything into it. this distance is known as the event horizon. the term black hole is coined, because the black hole sucks in EVERYTHING, including light, into it. because it sucks in light, we cant see anything but an apparently black sphere (or from our perspective, hole).
if you really want to learn more specifics, read the book "a brief history of time" by stephan hawking. he has an EXCELLENT chapter on black holes.

This post was edited by Kamikizzle on Feb 19 2010 07:00pm