Global Lords: I Have Information System

Chapter 665 442: Evidence of an Affair, Equipment Repair Hammer [Anti-Piracy Chapter]

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Xinfan Technology News, August 27, Beijing time: Among all astronomical concepts, black holes might be the most peculiar. The density of black holes is extreme, so much so that even light cannot escape, resembling a dark and terrifying giant eater. Due to the usual laws of physics being applicable in black holes, black holes appear as though specifically designed for science fiction novels. However, numerous direct and indirect evidences indicate that black holes indeed exist in the universe.

Einstein's Prophecy

Black holes are an inevitable outcome of Einstein's general relativity.

German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild first predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, believing that it was an inevitable result of Einstein's general relativity. In other words, if Einstein's theory is correct (all evidence points to this), then black holes must exist. Research by Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking further solidified the theoretical foundation of black hole existence. Their studies show that whenever a star collapses into a black hole, a singularity will form, and conventional physics laws completely fail at this point.

Gamma-ray bursts

Earth's observational equipment has already detected some gamma-ray bursts produced during the formation process of black holes.

In the 1930s, Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar conducted research on the outcomes after stellar nuclear fuel is exhausted. He discovered that the final result depends on the star's mass. If a star is very massive, say twenty times the mass of the Sun, the star's dense core (with a mass two or three times that of the Sun by itself) will keep collapsing inward until it becomes a black hole. The collapse speed of the stellar core is extremely fast, taking only a few seconds, during which it releases a tremendous amount of energy in the form of gamma-ray bursts, equivalent to the total energy released by an ordinary star throughout its lifetime. Earth's telescopes have detected multiple gamma-ray bursts, some even emitted from galaxies billions of light-years away, showing that indeed, the black hole formation process is being observed.

Gravitational waves

The image shows an artist's depiction of the gravitational wave concept. Gravitational interaction between two black holes forms temporal ripples, spreading out as gravitational waves.

Black holes are not always solitary; sometimes, they appear in pairs, rotating around each other. Gravitational interactions between two black holes form temporal ripples, spreading out as gravitational waves, also part of Einstein's theory. With the help of observatories like LIGO and Virgo, we now have the ability to detect gravitational waves. In 2016, scientists for the first time announced the discovery of gravitational waves created by the merger of two black holes. Since then, multiple gravitational wave events have been detected. As the precision of detectors continues to improve, scientists have also detected gravitational waves produced by other events apart from black hole mergers, such as black holes merging with neutron stars, and more.

Invisible companion star

The image shows the imagined orbital paths of several celestial bodies in the triple system HR6819.

Gamma-ray bursts or gravitational waves are impactful events occurring over short durations, perhaps visible across half the universe. But considering their nature, most black holes go undetected. Black holes do not emit light or radiation, so they can lurk silently in the void, unnoticed by astronomers. However, there is a way to detect their presence: using the gravitational influence black holes exert on other stars. In 2020, astronomers observing the seemingly ordinary star system HR6819 found the orbital tracks of two stars to be peculiar, explicable only if there's a completely invisible celestial body present in the system. After calculating its mass, researchers realized there was only one possible explanation: this celestial body must be a black hole. It is located only a few thousand light-years away, within the Milky Way Galaxy, making it the nearest black hole discovered from Earth to date.

X-rays

The black hole Cygnus X-1 is voraciously consuming material from its huge blue-star companion.

In 1971, scientists studying a star system in the Milky Way called Cygnus X-1 first observed evidence indicating the presence of a black hole. The X-rays produced by this system are exceptionally bright, but these rays come from neither the black hole nor its visible companion star; they originate from the accretion disk when the black hole greedily siphons material from the star. Just like the aforementioned star system HR6819, astronomers can estimate the mass of the unseen celestial body in the Cygnus X-1 system using the orbital trajectory of the visible star. The final calculation results show about twenty-one times the mass of the Sun, and considering the small space occupied by this celestial body, it can only be a black hole, leaving no room for other possibilities.

Supermassive Black Holes

There is also a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

In addition to black holes formed by stellar collapses, evidence indicates the possible presence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, possessing masses millions to billions of times that of the Sun, likely existing since the early universe. In the so-called "active galaxies," evidence of such supermassive black holes is truly spectacular. NASA states that around these central black holes are circles of accretion disks releasing intensely powerful radiation across all wavelengths. The center of the Milky Way Galaxy also contains a black hole, as we have observed the rotation speed of stars in the region to be startlingly fast, reaching 8% of the speed of light, indicating they are orbiting a celestial object with considerable mass yet extremely small in size. Current estimates suggest that the black hole at the center of the Milky Way holds about four million times the mass of the Sun.