In early September of 2001, astronomers announced the detection of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Right on the heels of this discovery physicists also claim that artificial black hole production could become a reality right here on earth.
The usual rules of geometry and physics do not apply near a black hole. When stars or other massive objects collapse from their own gravitation to form an object with infinite density, a black hole is born. A black hole is an extremely concentrated region of mass within a relatively small radius that has an escape velocity greater than the velocity of light.
Even a beam of light could not escape the tremendous force of the black hole's gravitational pull. Once an object enters the horizon of a black hole, it is impossible to get out; furthermore, it would be constantly falling towards the singularity, the center of the black hole where time and space cease to exist.
To observe black holes, scientists look for gas swirls around the edges of darkness. Before entering the horizon of the black hole, matter becomes greatly dense and hot and release intense X-ray emissions.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory, a NASA satellite that for two years has hunted black holes and other exotic energy phenomena, detected an X-ray flare leap from the center of the Milky Way, indicating the plummet of matter into a black hole. The X-ray flare dimmed and brightened for a period of only ten minutes; however, from this particular flash, Chandra researchers calculated that the mass at the center of the galaxy, about 2.6 million times that of the sun, fit into a space no larger than 93 million miles across (less than distance between the sun and Earth).
This dense matter provides evidence for the conclusion that there is a black hole in our own Galaxy.
Physicists have always dreamed of observing a black hole close up. The new generation particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider, currently under construction at CERN, the European physics center near Geneva, could someday create miniature, artificial black holes right here on Earth.
"Future colliders could become black hole factories," said Dr. Steven B. Giddings, a physicist at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Other scientists dispute the claim that black holes can be produced artificially. Dr. Greg Landsberg, a Brown University physicist who also works at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, said, "Despite what cosmologists like to tell the general public," he said, "there is no compelling evidence that they have seen a single black hole. There will essentially be a competition to see who finds a black hole first."
The ability to create black holes on demand could allow scientist to answer many questions about our universe and could provide substantial evidence for the theory that a black hole exists at the center of the universe.
"We've been trying for a century, and we still don't fully understand black holes," said Dr. Andrew Strominger, a physicist at Harvard. "If there is some possibility we actually could make them in an accelerator lab and watch what they do, that would be just fantastic. This could guide us toward understanding the fundamental mystery of how quantum mechanics and general relativity fit together."
Artificial black holes could also be employed to probe the theory that there are multiple dimensions beyond the three that we exist in.
The black holes created by scientists here on earth would not be the result of collapsing stars; rather, miniature black holes can be created simply by smashing two atoms together so that they collapse upon themselves.
However, the energy requirement of the accelerator would be astronomical, therefore a more efficient method was devised. Scientists involved in the project believe that gravity will do most of the work for them.
As the two atoms approach each other, the gravitational forces between them become stronger and stronger, due to the opening of hidden dimensions through which gravity can operate, thus intensifying its strength.
The idea of creating artificial black holes has been published by several scientists since 1999, including Dr. Raman Sundrum of Johns Hopkins.
Eventually a black hole will become a white dwarf or a neutron star. A teaspoonful of white dwarf material could weigh five-and-a-half tons or more while a teaspoon of neutron star could weigh 100 million tons on earth. A white dwarf's electrons and a neutron star's neutrons both resist further compression.
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