Black holes are hard to find. They have such strong gravity that light can’t escape them, so scientists must rely on clues from their surroundings to find them.
When a star weighing more than 20 times the Sun runs
out of fuel, it collapses into a black hole. Scientists estimate that there are tens of millions
of these black holes dotted around the Milky Way, but so far we’ve only
identified a few dozen.
This image from 2001 is an artist's impression
of a black hole accretion disk. Around many black holes is an
accretion disk of material emitting energy as it falls into the black
hole.
Image
Credit: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA
No comments:
Post a Comment