Black holes..are they going to destroy earth?? All you want to know about black holes.

                   BLACK HOLE

The first thing which comes in our mind on hearing this word is what is a black hole??. 

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.

Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

Credits: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Now the next big question that arises in our mind is

   HOW ARE THESE BLACK HOLES FORMED??

A common type of black hole is produced by certain dying stars. A star with a mass greater than about 20 times the mass of our Sun may produce a black hole at the end of its life.

In the normal life of a star there is a constant tug of war between gravity pulling in and pressure pushing out. Nuclear reactions in the core of the star produce enough energy and pressure to push outward. For most of a star’s life, gravity and pressure balance each other exactly, and so the star is stable. However, when a star runs out of nuclear fuel, gravity gets the upper hand and the material in the core is compressed even further. The more massive the core of the star, the greater the force of gravity that compresses the material, collapsing it under its own weight.

For small stars, when the nuclear fuel is exhausted and there are no more nuclear reactions to fight gravity, the repulsive forces among electrons within the star eventually create enough pressure to halt further gravitational collapse. The star then cools and dies peacefully. This type of star is called a "white dwarf."

When a very massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel it explodes as a supernova. The outer parts of the star are expelled violently into space, while the core completely collapses under its own weight.

If the core remaining after the supernova is very massive (more than 2.5 times the mass of the Sun), no known repulsive force inside a star can push back hard enough to prevent gravity from completely collapsing the core into a black hole.

From the perspective of the collapsing star, the core compacts into a mathematical point with virtually zero volume, where it is said to have infinite density. This is called a singularity.

Where this happens, it would require a velocity greater than the speed of light to escape the object's gravity. Since no object can reach a speed faster than light, no matter or radiation can escape. Anything, including light, that passes within the boundary of the black hole -- called the "event horizon" -- is trapped forever.

The step by step formation of black hole takes place in the following way.

Now the next main question is that could a black hole destroy earth and other planets??

The ans is no. Black holes do not go around in space eating stars, moons and planets. Earth will not fall into a black hole because no black hole is close enough to the solar system for Earth to do that.

Even if a black hole the same mass as the sun were to take the place of the sun, Earth still would not fall in. The black hole would have the same gravity as the sun. Earth and the other planets would orbit the black hole as they orbit the sun now.

The sun will never turn into a black hole. The sun is not a big enough star to make a black hole.

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