Elephants in my Closet

Hmmm I suppose after leaving everyone on a cliff hanger with what happens at the end of a stars life I have some explaining to do! Now when most people think about a stars death the think about a big explosion. Well... They are wrong. The star doesn't explode, rather, it implodes.

Picture this. You have a balloon in your hands and it is attached to a (very weak) air compressor. You put the nozzle in the balloon and begin to fill it. While its filling you squeeze the balloon to prevent it from growing but despite your efforts your applied force isn't enough. At this point, the balloon is a star, the air compressor is the core of the star that is fusing elements and providing an outward force, and you my friend, are gravity. Now get a friend to yank the nozzle out of the balloon and what happens? The outward force of the balloon stops and your applied force takes over and you squash the balloon.

The above analogy is exactly what gravity does to a star. The gravitational force crushes the star and causes it to essentially implode into itself! This implosion causes a massive release of radiation which creates a brilliant light show in our massive universe.

In this implosion mass amounts of gamma rays are released. These gamma rays have enough energy to decompose elements into nothing but free neutrons. As a result, the result of a supernovae is an extremely dense core made entirely of neutrons (and not to mention the ridiculous amounts of radiation surrounding). This little bundle of joy is called a "neutron star". These neutron stars can have a mass of twice our sun but have a radius of only 12 kilometers. After solving for the volume of a neutron star with that radius and then using the suns mass (times two) we get a density of approximately 5.5x10^17kg/m^2. To put that into perspective, take 110000000000000 fully grown African Elephants (10 000 pounds each) and put them into your dorm room closet. Thats the magnitude of density we are talking about here!

Now lets say, the remaining neutron star had a mass of over 3 solar masses. Gravity would not be satisfied with this neutron star. It would continue to crush! Remember, the heavier the object, the greater the gravitational force. Gravity would continue to crush and crush and crush until there is nothing left but a tiny spot. A tiny spot of such great mass (around 10^3 solar masses) and such little size (the singularity!) that creates a gravitational force so strong that nothing, not even light can escape (the universal law of gravitation (-Gm/r) can prove this, its just a matter of taking a really big number and dividing it by a really small number).

Now this entry is starting to get pretty hefty so I think I will end it here and pick up with Black Holes in my next installment.

-MrAstrowhat

Food for Thought: When something is dropped into a black hole (assuming it is not disintegrated from the mass outflow of energy) it experiences a phenomenon called spaghettification. (I just thought it was a cool name) This means exactly what it sounds like, the object is stretched vertically and squeezed horizontally. (again, this doesn't seem that amazing but look at the name!!!!)