Interview with Mr. David Hembroff, astronomy teacher at Glacier High.
Question 1)
Do black holes need specific elements to live?
Answer 1)
No they do not. Astronomers are begining to believe there are new stars before the birth of black holes called quark stars but that is new and still unknown information.
Question 2)
What happens to objects that are eaten by black holes?
Answer 2)
A thing called spaghetification, where person A would be watching person B falling into the event horizon and would see person B stretch and continue to stretch. Person B would seem to think that time would stop and would also be able to see infront of them as well as behind them at the same time. Reality becomes distorted. No one really knows beyond this what happens to the objects that black holes eat.
Question 3)
Do black holes die? If so how? If not, what happens to them?
Answer 3)
Astronomers aren't sure if black holes die. A possible theory that black holes evaporate. This is uncertain though.
Question 4)
How do we study something we can't see?
Answer 4)
We study the effects on things around black holes. We watch the radiation of black holes and see how they eat stars and could possible eat entire galaxies. We see the effects the black hole has on stars and galaxies.
Question 5)
What happened to all the black holes that were around in the early universe?
Answer 5)
It depends on what you believe. The jury is still out on this subject. It is unknown and is a very controversial subject.
Question 6)
How long do black holes live?
Answer 6)
This is unknown. Depends on what you believe. The event horizon of black holes may just grow in size as the mass of a black hole grows and never go away.
Question 7)
What is Hawking radiation?
Answer 7)
This is a new theory and is still unknown if it is true. It has to do with quantum physics. There are two particles that will be split by a black hole. One particle will be pulled into the black hole while the other escapes. There is not enough information for this theory though. We have a four million solar mass black hole at the center of galaxy and there are larger black holes out there some billions of solar masses in size.
