Super Massive Black Holes essays

Super Massive Black Holes essays Black Holes are one of the most enigmatic objects in the universe. Shrouded in mystery, Black Holes (a.k.a. BH) have been the focus of science fiction writers and astronomer alike. But now there is a new kid on the block that has put your everyday BH to shame. This new kid is called a Supermassive Black Hole (a.k.a. SMBH). SMBHs are a new area of wonder and fascination in the astronomy field and have caused us to rethink many of our previous thoughts on the universe and how it evolved into what it is today. Supermassive Black Holes are some of the biggest and smallest objects in the known universe. Big because SMBH and normal BH have such a incredible gravitational pull that it causes matter anywhere in its vicinity to be attracted to it and be pulled into its orbit. This orbit is called a Accretion disk. This disk is the only way to visually see where a BH or SMBH is located in the universe (though there are other ways, using radio telescopes or measuring the ripple effect in the surrounding space). The Accretion disk can be sometimes as small as a planet or as big as a thousand solar systems. They are some of the smallest objects in the universe because in actuality even though the Accretion disk and Event Horizon are considered part of the BH, they are only by-products of the real BH and that is the singularity. Supermassive Black Holes have a tremendous effect on the surrounding universe. But before we go into all of that lets get the basics down first, like what is a SMBH? A SMBH is exactly what it sounds like: a very big BH. A BH itself is measured from three AMUs (astronomical mass units. These are equal to the mass of our sun. i.e. Our sun = 1 AMU) to a few hundred thousand AMU s, while a SMBH is measured from about one million AMUs to several billion. A BH is the resulting effect after a star, at least three AMUs, goes super novae. In the case of a SMBH, the star in question would...