Black Holes

2. an explosion caused by the collapse of the core of a massive star.
5. the end-state of a high-mass star; an extremely massive concentration of matter so dense that even light cannot escape its gravitational field.
7. a black hole with a mass comparable to approximately 5-10 times the sun's mass
9. the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation, with the shortest wavelengths.
10. the outer boundary of a black hole, at which the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light.
13. theoretical “tubes” in space-time, which could be entered from a black hole, and were predicted based on the simplest solution of Einstein’s equations. However, the turbulence predicted inside black holes leads most scientists to agree that wormholes can’t really exist.
14. the attractive force between any two bodies that is the result of their masses.
16. a black hole with a mass comparable to over 100 times the sun’s mass
17. the distance light travels in one year, approximately 9.46 trillion meters (5.88 trillion miles).
18. the slowing of the flow of time, which may be observed for objects that approach the event horizon of a black hole.
19. a flattened disk of matter orbiting around an object. Friction between the matter in the disk causes the matter to gradually spiral in and accrete onto the object.

1. interact with this “fabric” of space-time, appearing to create depressions termed “gravity wells' ' and drawing nearby objects into orbit around them
3. the radius of an object with a given mass at which the escape velocity equals the speed of light. Itis the radius corresponding to the event horizon of a black hole; this radius is three times the mass of the black holemeasured in solar masses. Named for German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild.
4. the speed at which light travels, 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second).
6. the velocity required for one object to be launched from the surface of a body in order for it to escape the gravitational attraction of that body.
8. a burst of gamma rays from space, possibly triggered by the birth of black holes.
11. 1915 General Theory of Relativity deals largely with the effects of gravity, and in essence predicts the existence of black holes and singularities.
12. the center of a black hole, an infinitely dense remnant of a massive star’s core collapse.
14. a structured grouping of billions of stars, gas, and dust, bound together by their collective gravity and orbiting a common center.
15. the gradual accumulation of small objects to form a larger object due to their mutual gravitational attraction.