How Dangerous Is the Black Hole Closest to Us

Black holes are mysterious anomalies in space whose nature we're only just starting to understand they are hard to detect and even harder to explore space itself around these captivating objects changes beyond recognition and the physical laws we're used to do not apply there by studying black holes we find out more about the deeper meaning of our universe however at the same time it also poses a certain threat so how dangerous are black holes

First it goes without saying that to detect a celestial object that absorbs all light shed on it is a challenging task to say the least that is why there are not that many confirmed black hole candidates today still mathematical modelling shows that their number in our galaxy may reach 100 million this may seem an incredibly big number but since there are 200 to 400 billion stars in the milky way it makes us realize that in all these expanses black holes or objects one doesn't come across that much in one of our previous videos on the topic we mentioned that a star the progenitor of a black hole has to have a mass of at least 18 to 20 solar masses only this will ensure a powerful enough supernova to compress the scorching hot core of the star to an exceptionally dense clump of material after this has occurred nothing will be able to stand up to the object's gravity force and escape beyond the boundaries of a conventional sphere predefined by the so-called schwarzschild radius what used to be a star transforms into a bizarre object with an inner makeup that would defy description by the physical laws we're familiar with

Closest black hole

The object referred to as a0620-00 or v616 is one of the black holes closest to our earth that we know of it lies 3 300 light years away from our planet and forms part of a binary star in the constellation monoseries the other object in the system is an orange dwarf with a mass half that of the sun every 7.75 hours it completes a full orbit around an invisible object of unknown nature estimates show the mass of this invisible object to be around 6.6 times that of the sun it is admittedly too much for a neutron star this leads one to believe that the bizarre invisible object is more likely than not a black hole in addition to getting deformed and elongated by the more massive neighbor's gravity the orange dwarf is also getting stripped of the outer layers of stella mata spiraling streams of scorching gas gradually flow to the black hole and form a bright accretion disk it is thanks to this dazzling disk that the black hole was detected there are at least several dozen stars in the environs of v616 some of which almost certainly have their own planetary systems it is highly likely that in the future one of these stars will get dangerously close to the black hole and as a result will be sucked in by the object's insane gravity this unfortunate star will have no choice and in this case the same slow demise is eventually awaiting the black hole's new companion as that of its current one the process of interaction of a black hole with other objects largely depends on their mass ratio the smaller the distance between them and the more massive the black hole the stronger the influence of its tidal forces over its companion the star may be deformed by them and gets stretched towards the system's common mass center they can also form channels that would carry stellar matter closer to the black hole adding up to its accretion disk if the tidal forces happen to be strong enough they may well destroy the object that is being sucked in by turning it into a fiery ring it is assumed that there may be planets orbiting a black hole just as if it were a regular star in contrast to a widespread opinion black holes are actually not able to suck in all objects around them indiscriminately from the point of view of gravitation in astronomical terms they behave just like any star with the same mass that is why incredibly though it may seem a black hole may well have a stable planetary system

Black hole formation

There are several ways for them to form firstly new celestial objects may originate in a nebula of gas and dust that is formed after a supernova influenced by gravitation they're first form clumps of material that collide with each other and attract cosmic dust as a result they eventually turn into planets and satellites as well as large numbers of small celestial objects like asteroids and comets the radiation of the black holes accretion disk may be powerful enough to warm them and even melt ice on their surfaces hypothetically a planetary system like that could be favorable enough for life to originate and with any luck evolve secondly when a black hole captures and destroys another planetary system some of its objects may choose to take up stable orbital positions around their new host of course this makeover would bring about dramatic changes on the celestial object's surfaces thus a nice giant may transform into an ocean planet and a gas giant may lose almost all of its hydrogen and turn into a thonian planet thirdly space wanderers like rogue planets or interstellar asteroids may also be ensnared by the massive object's gravity even though systems like that have not yet been discovered in practice there is no reason to suppose they are non-existent

Approaching a black hole

If on the other hand a planet is too close to the system's center and the black hole is massive enough other factors come into play a scorching hot stream of material forming the accretion disk will strip the celestial object of its atmosphere and its friction will slow it down and pull it still closer to the black hole eventually extremely powerful tidal forces will rip the planet to tiny shreds the debris will be pulled into the accretion disk and gradually melt in the hot gas around in the end they will inevitably get swallowed up by the black hole and in essence become part of it

 

Types of black holes

It is posited that there are three main types of black holes to be found in the universe at are different first and foremost in terms of their mass the first type can be found in the center of most spiral galaxies these are gargantuan black holes with masses reaching several billion solar masses the density of matter in the central part of a galaxy is generally extremely high which is the reason why they originate a big number of large and bright stars  quite closely packed as they rapidly burn out they transform into black holes which in their turn rapidly grow and often merge with each other as a result supermassive objects are born which are surrounded with giant accretion disks made of scorching hot material they illume in space so brightly that it makes them seen from billions of light years away even if their galaxy is completely unobservable to us these objects are known as quasars the second type is much more widespread but at the same time black holes like these are not that easily detectable their masses are close to those of stars and they form out of large stars at the end of the latter's life cycle by devouring other celestial bodies and interstellar gas these objects gradually gain in size and eventually turn into intermediate mass black holes they can also merge together which generates gravity waves that distort space many light years around the third type is the hypothetical primary black holes their existence has been inferred from today's theory of universe's origins and evolution fluctuations and matter that filled space in its early stages of evolution may have been favorable for black holes of infinitely small size to originate it should be mentioned that according to estimates the smaller an object of this type the faster it evaporates and at the end of its life cycle it turns into a tremendously powerful electromagnetic impulse modeling shows that primary black holes with masses around 10 to the power of 12 kilograms are supposed to be flaring up sometime around now but to date no such event has been registered yet according to a certain hypothesis a microscopic black hole may form on collision of extra high energy elementary particles this variety is referred to as quantum black holes still the conditions necessary for such an event to happen are impossible to be reproduced in lab conditions and estimated life expectancy of these hypothetical objects is so small that it can hardly be measured with today's latest and most advanced methods that is why quantum black holes still officially exist only in theory of course it is extremely difficult to detect such dark and compact objects some of them happen to have a star companion whose anomalous trajectory of movement gives telltale prompts of there being an invisible thing in close proximity

Black Hole Closest

Another popular method of detection is observation of accretion disks these objects spectra have some typical features that allow telling them from other sources of light in space sometimes we're lucky enough to get a snapshot of a disk with a black spot in it that is evidence that the observed object's structure is quite unusual a black hole may also be detected thanks to the gravitational microlensing effect this involves detecting the massive invisible object as it transits between the earth and a remote star this changes the star's spectrum in a special way but admittedly this method requires a number of rare factors to successfully work there is hardly any doubt that space is filled with great numbers of objects that are dark and not easily noticeable there may be wandering black holes among them

these mysterious objects roaming around in interstellar space and absorbing every bit of light they come across will probably never reveal their secrets to us….