Black Holes: Enigma of the Known Universe

The millions upon millions of stars in our known universe are constantly burning hydrogen, creating an intense amount of energy that can be felt within the near reaches of the star’s gravity. This process, called fission, started 6 billion years ago when our universe came into existence and has continued to this day. But a question can be asked: how long can these stars burn with such intensity? We know now that these stars are capable of surviving billions of years on the energy supply that they have. Knowing this, another question arises: what happens to the star when it runs out of energy? Does it just shut off like a light bulb into the night sky? These questions were the leading factors in the discovery of the phenomenon known as a black hole. Black holes are defined as regions of space so tightly packed with matter that nothing, not even light, can escape.

The research that went into perceiving black holes was sometimes controversial, especially among astronomers and physicists. Sir Isaac Newton took the first step take towards understanding black holes, however indirect it may have been. His book, Principia, written in 1687, outlined the basics of Newtonian physics, including the laws of motion, gravity, and other areas of physics. Also included in the text was the idea that time and space are absolute, meaning that the same laws applied to time and space wherever one went in the universe. This idea, however, was discredited years later and a new idea came about.

In 1905, physicist Albert Einstein, before his renowned career, looked over the ideas of Sir Isaac Newton and theorized that Newton was wrong in that space and time were not absolute but were indeed relative. This was the start of a new thought process in regards to time and space, which are referred to as spacetime because the two words are not separate entities. Einstein soon came up with more concrete thoughts on his theory, which we refer to now as relativity.