Discovery Review
Section Summary
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Black holes were imagined over two centuries ago by Mitchell and Laplace.
Right concept, wrong theory.
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Einstein's Relativity is the basis behind cosmology and black hole. Shown
to predict black holes by Schwarzschild.
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A star's resistence to gravity was shown to have limits.
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John Wheeler coined the phrase "black hole" in 1968.
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X-ray astronomy was a breakthrough that allowed astronomers to observe
things previously unseen.
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We can see only see black holes because of how they affect their surroundings.
We can only see stellar black holes with a companion star or nearby matter
to accrete.
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Cygnus X-1 is the first black hole candidate.
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We believe quasars and other Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by
a supermassive black holes with over a billion suns.
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A new "middleweight" class of black holes, with masses ranging from 100
to 10,000 suns, were discovered recently.
In Your Opinion
Feel free to share your opinion about anything related to black
holes. Here are some ideas:
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Black holes were conceived by humans without any evidence to causes us
to think about their existence. What does that say about the human imagination?
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How might we discover black holes in the future?
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Do you think there could be any other causes for what astronomers believe
are black holes?
Read the Message Board.
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