In our Galaxy astronomers have found an enormous concentration of stars.

The plot of the drama

In our Galaxy and in other too, stars sometimes gather in the form of a giant star of swarms of hundreds of thousands of stars. This is a globular cluster, which move in elongated orbits, sometimes away from the center of the huge distances. For this reason most of his life away from the center of the Galaxy. What attracted such a bunch of stars in a small volume of space?

A group of researchers from Litskai Observatory in the USA, studying one of globular clusters, located in the accumulation of Pegasus, were able to get so close to its center as no one before them. And what they "saw”? The closer they approached the core clusters, the greater the number of stars they could count. The head of Puragra of Guhathakurta believes that the grotesque concentration of stars is because they are under the influence of supermassive object is a black hole, which itself is not visible.

In space as on Earth - strong wins weak?

And another fact that is associated with a more massive inhabitants of the Universe, galaxies, families which have seen a couple of hundred billion stars. Studying 27 such family, located from our neighborhood, scientists from the University of Michigan concluded that each galaxy has a supermassive black hole. And the more the mass of a galaxy is, the more weight and heavenly "monster”. Very interesting and a model that explains how in the Central parts of galaxies, something unusual. First black hole was small and .It was at the dawn youth of any galaxy. But over time, the appetites of the black hole grew and she swallowed as much gas and dust that turned into a huge number, something like heavenly Gargantua. But still, these monsters nowhere could absorb all the substance of his "parent”.

So, two seemingly terrible fact. In nature there are some objects called black holes, which threaten the whole surrounding the substance (gas, dust, stars and their planets, and , means, and by beings similar to us) their voracious - kind heavenly piranhas. What are black holes? Not engulf us, if not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, some space ruffian?

White and black in space

The color of the stars, like the skin of a person defined by what they are born. Than hot star, the pigeons. In the colors of the stars presents all the colors of the rainbow. But here ' death ' of the stars to reduce the whole palette of colors to just two - and-white and black. This attempt will remind episode of tales by Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland”in which the King asks Alice:

- Look on the road! Who do you see there?

"Not one, " said Alice.

"I should like such a sight! "remarked the King with envy. - To See Anyone! Even at this distance.

To see directly black holes through a telescope or to capture them on pictures impossible for the reason that because of the strong gravitational nothing, not even light, can not leave the limits of the influence of black holes. However, this is true only for black holes, which do not rotate or rotate very slowly.

Then how is it possible to prove the existence of such objects in the Universe? And how to present what is happening around or inside black holes? This can help theoretical conceptions, developed by scientists.

In addition, black holes do not exist in isolation from other bodies - they interact with dust, gas of interstellar space, with other stars, galaxies, creating in the surrounding area surrounding the field unusual patterns.

A bit of history

The story of black holes, which American physicist K. Thorne was called"the monsters of the Universe”, very long, because the prediction was made by the French mathematician and astronomer Psalom in 1795 in the book "Statement of system of the world”.

In it the Creator of the first scientific cosmogony of the planetary system wrote that ' shining star with a density equal to the Land and diameters of 250 times the diameter of the Sun, does not give any ray of light to reach us because of their gravity; it is therefore possible that the brightest celestial bodies in the Universe are for this reason invisible”.

And are there any such body, on which surface the escape velocity equals the speed of light? If Yes, then the gravitational field of such a facility nothing to leave, because one must have a speed greater than the speed of light. It means that the black hole does not issue even outside light, and this means that the object no one will be able to see the part! It turns out that the space formed hole, however, it is better to avoid it!

Terrible Association

Where did the strange term "black hole”? With his pronunciation in humans is associated with something extremely unusual and not very pleasant. The notion of "the black hole” appeared even earlier reasoning Laplace in 1757 in Calcutta. The Governor of Bengal Nawab Siraj - Daulah by force wanted to resolve the dispute with the British East _ India company. A small garrison was unable to withstand a 50-strong army of Nawabi, which lost thousands of lives because of the desperate resistance of the defenders of the Fort. Survivors waited nightmare: a room of 5 to 6 meters ruler of Bengal ordered to push 146 prisoners. For 10 hours in the night of 20 to 21 June, the hottest time in India 123 prisoner died. This camera has two small Windows, and called "the black hole of Calcutta”. The objects of the Universe, which, in particular, one of the final stages of the life of stars, back in 1968, American astrophysicist J.. Wheeler and called "the black hole”. So what do too much in the heavenly black hole?

The sun will become a white

What makes in nature to withdraw the star thing itself, i.e. to become isolated object? The reason "disappearance” of the body to the outside world is the manifestation of the forces of gravity. This force, while inside the stars go thermonuclear reactions , resists the pressure of the gas and radiation. But "fuel” in every star a limited amount and the time comes when in it there can be no conversion of hydrogen into helium. And then reduce the gas pressure, which occurs due to loss of energy star (she keeps shining!) unable to withstand the force of gravity. The star shrinks! And the dimensions of the object, passing from one state to another, decrease in hundreds and thousands of times. It all depends on what the initial mass of the star.

If the mass of a star, not exceeding 1,4 mass of the Sun, compression can stop because of what he resists helium gas. The density of a substance is increased in millions of times! One cubic centimeter of such a star is hundreds of tons of the substance. And at such densities of matter behaves differently! Objects of this kind were called white dwarfs and they opened for a long time: a satellite of the brightest stars of heaven Sirius was even captured not far from it. White dwarfs can Shine, cooling down, many billions of years, becoming already in the cold body, which could be called black dwarfs.

Signals green men

In the early 60-ies of the opening of the astronomers were agitated almost all were detected signals from space that has changed with strict periodicity. Not only as a kind of civilization lets you know about your existence. Their so called "green” little men! But everything turned out to be much easier - unusual maccamy in space was small in diameter about 15 kilometers stars, which were rapidly spinning. And the lighthouse was associated with the same object! What is that light? Astronomers remembered that in the early 1930-ies of our compatriot L.D. Landau predicted the existence of such objects - neutron stars. They must have small dimensions due to the fact that after exhausting star "fuel” also began to contract, but because of their mass, this compression is not stopped when the star "for a moment” has become a white dwarf.

It continued up until the matter of the star became so dense that was almost equal to the density of atomic nuclei. For this reason, neutron stars have such a small mass. By the way, because of the variability of the radio beacons on such stars called pulsars. Now they found a few hundred. Our Sun will never become a pulsar because of the smallness of their mass. Now if it were twice as massive, that is another matter. Show off would be on our skies little star, but very hot.

The fate of a very fat stars

But if a star more massive, well, for example, more than 3 times more massive than the Sun, what then? As the fat man is hard to keep himself on his feet, and "fat” star only until a certain time can be in equilibrium. When you have limited domestic fusion heat such stars, they're as white dwarfs or neutron stars begin to shrink. But in this case, the compression will already be catastrophic - star strives to occupy as little space as possible in the space!

And at any stage of compression star would disappear as for an external observer. So there are black holes! If it was possible to compress the Sun to the size of 6 km, it would become a black hole.

How to see the invisible?

Hero of the famous novel by H. G. wells "Paxavec invisible”to live among men, wrapped himself gauze. However, then instead of the person you could see something strange, but at least tangible! And black holes to "see”, they too must be something shrouded.

Single black holes is very hard to find, although they fall interstellar dust particles and atoms of the gas. But the energy they emit a bit so that their appeals SOS too weak. However, supermassive black holes and find out, but these objects are not "relatives” of stars. In the cores of galaxies such objects can contain as much of the substance from which it would be "blind” hundreds of millions and billions of ordinary stars.

And where on the black hole, which was once a star could fall so much substance, that it will be capable o announce themselves? Of course, in that case, if there is another star. Space monster literally rips with a normal star of its substance that with increasing speed falls into the black hole, and get heated up to temperatures of millions of degrees! This gas and glows! Thus in our Galaxy, there are a number of black holes. How many of them can be? The answer to this question depends on what is the fate of the star rogue. Now almost no one knows what will happen in the future with black holes. In principle, all matter in the Universe must evolve into white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. But we, you can see the whole sky in stars. Then with a star "corpses” something is happening is that allows them to turn to ordinary matter, from which arise the new generations of stars. But what exactly?

Was a star and not her

If you take a dozen stars and to follow them, then surely some of them will turn into a black hole. Why the result is a truly Titanic work for decades in our Galaxy is only open a few black holes? Could be a picture of the disappearance of the star is invisible to the outside world? The fact of the matter is that before you go over to the other star is experiencing great disaster in your life - it explodes, relieving sometimes a large part of its matter. But of the remaining substances stars like leaves behind a gravestone in the form of a black hole. But we know that flare stars are rare. And if you would like to know what it is for them in heaven will know about his end with grandiose fireworks, we could observe the birth of empty space and in space and in time. Why hole in space is already clear, and that is why and in time?

Recall that in moving systems time goes wrong, how on Earth is it slows down. The closer the speed of compression stars to light speed, the slower the time flows there. It as it freezes, if the star crosses the gravitational radius. Time for a black hole ceases to flow - isn't that a hole in time! It turns out that we should not notice the passage of a star into oblivion?

The light from the stars will diminish due to the fact that the substance of the black hole moving away from us with ever greater speed. This will lead to shrinking star will disappear for this world long before it will become a black hole.

If we had the equipment able to keep track of millions of stars at the same time, the discovery of the stars who parted with their brothers, ceasing to send them the light, would have been done long ago. It is possible that just the other day, we'll find out about the discovery of such phenomena. American scientists have introduced a system by which they watch as the sky. The purpose of this system is quite practical - early detection of objects that could collide with the Earth. But it is also suitable for open black holes!

"The black holes have no hair”

Describe the properties of black holes J.. Wheeler, having in mind that two black holes would be very difficult to distinguish from each other. Of the various properties of stellar objects will only mass, electric charge and a spin. Imagine gatherings of black holes: they would be very boring-they would all be on one "face”. Imagine that two very different object, say, Quasimodo and Narcissus falling on the black hole. After some time, to distinguish them from each other already will be.

Black holes may differ because one hole may spin faster than the other, and in 1 second they can make hundreds of thousands of times around its axis.

In addition, they can be differently charged. The last property defines a very exotic property of black holes: they can light up! But this space flashlight is very weak.

Roller coaster near black holes

Thrill-seekers can be in the distant future to test their nerves, traveling in the vicinity of black holes. Sometimes in science fiction novels described the terrible situation capture spacecraft black hole: caught in the gravitational field of the monster, the spacecraft falling uncontrollably in "hell”. Chaos and confusion reign then among zvezdoleta - they inevitably have to be broken by drops of gravity in the monstrous field of gravitation of a black hole. But this description is only partly true! The spaceship came from afar to the orbit with a radius twice the gravitational, will turn around the black hole, and then goes out into space, of course, if the crew is not thirst themselves to fall into the arms of a black hole! He will be captured, if you will come close to the orbit sizes in two gravitational radius.

This pattern of possible due to the fact that the movement of the heavenly bodies around the black hole is amazing. From Newton's mechanics known that any body can move around more massive in a very limited number of curves - ellipse, parabola or a hyperbola. If the ellipse curve is closed, the others are open. The planets move around the Sun in elliptical orbits is known first of Kepler's law, set in 1609. Course no body in the Solar system may not be worn outside the gravity of the Sun. And any body passing by the Sun as a comet, cannot be captured them. This object needs to get rid of excessive energy to hyperbolic orbit go on the elliptical. This means that for engagement requires the presence of the third body. And around the black hole movement on a circle for a long time may not be exercised, as any movement there unstable. Small perturbation can "shoot down” body from orbit, so it will either fall into the black hole, or it will leave its limits.

Future superweapon?

The Englishman R. Penrose suggested way of extracting energy from black holes. However, in this case, a black hole must be rotating, but that the Universe does not revolve. If the spacecraft gets into the sphere of influence of the black hole, called ergosterol, which is located vortex gravitational field, including there the motor ship will fly out of it with more energy than it had previously. The ship seemed to capture some of the energy "monster”, thereby decreasing its weight. This property can be created unique objects, which were named gravity bombs. To create such a Unicum you need to surround the black hole artificial field and to guide them to radiation. It may be reinforced by a black hole, and go away, but it prevents the mirror surface of the sphere. A beam of light will again return to the black hole, after the interaction with which again will increase your energy and so as long as the amount of energy will be so large that will break the sphere. Than non prescription weapons for the sci-Fi Thriller about the struggle of two civilizations! To make now such a bomb is impossible, since we still do not know how to create black holes and is unlikely to be able to do this in the near future. To fly to the nearest black hole, we will be able too soon.

A journey through time?

With black holes is due journey through time and space. According to I. D. Novikov collapsing substance, not reaching zero volume, can start to expand, and the object may reappear in the field of view of an external observer, but in a different Universe. And I. S. Shklovsky believed that after crossing the gravitational radius of observer in a short time you will see all the future of the Universe ! "Popping out” in the "new” Universe traveler will see the entire past history of the new Universe. However, recent studies show that if such transitions and possible, it is only in rare cases.

Some just not black holes!

Is there a limit for the mass of the black hole, that is, whether to meet space "monsters” with the masses, for example, thousands of times greater solar. No limits for the masses of black holes not, except as minimum mass. Astronomers believe that they long ago "discovered” black holes: the sources of activity of some galaxies can be supermassive black holes. Other explanations why quasars emit such a huge amount of energy from a small volume , as highlighting it in the fall surrounding substance, may even be as much as stars, on a supermassive black hole practically not. Even in the center of our own Galaxy, scientists suspect a huge black hole.

Supermassive black holes are found dozens and where their only not. Near the Central part of the globular cluster M15 our galaxy, the stars move at extremely high velocities. This shows the enormous weight in the compact object around which the stars and have to rush with terrible imagination speeds, in order not to fall into the black hole.

And the activity of many galaxies can't be explained, not allowing in their Central regions Nalihaving very massive black holes. The masses of some of them are measured in billions of Solar masses.

There are no nearby black hole?

About black holes interesting to know, but to be near these "monsters of the Universe,” as they were called, K. Thorne, a well-known researcher, is not always safe. And there are no nearby from the Solar system such object? This would be nothing unusual, because black holes in our Galaxy lot. But no evidence of their close presence. After all, before the advent of the black hole must be a phenomenon of a supernova. In the memory of mankind such outbreaks stars were noticed, but all these disasters occurred very far from Earth. There is evidence that 65 million years ago dinosaurs have died out because of the fact that not far from the Sun broke out some kind of star. Deadly radiation has destroyed much of what existed on the Earth in those days. But where is that black hole, which was supposed to stay? Not rushing whether she is now on us?

Finish our story about black holes episode from the same book about Alisa, who asks the Cat ' disappear and appear not so suddenly,” because otherwise it makes your head spin. And then the cat disappeared, but very slowly, the latter has disappeared smile. "It has long been soaring in the air, when everything else is gone.

- D-Yes! "thought Alice. - I've seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a Cat! This my life I have never met".

Vladimir Kartashov