Universal Anomalies: Things in the Universe which don't fit in
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The following might be interesting if you like this page:
Basically the opposite of whats on this page but diiferent.
Dead useful info needed to understand where a black hole comes from.
No it has nothing to with black holes but it is my attempt at getting the south west some regonition.
You might find this interesting, then again you might not.... anyway here it is in all its glory.
INTRODUCTION
Universal Anomalies: Things in the Universe which don't fit in This page is all about things in the Universe which don't quite fit in. Things like black holes. Do they exist in our universe or are they a cosmic doorway. They also might be a cosmic drain, who knows. Hey who cares the fact is that they do not fit in. Another example is a pulsar. Oddly enough they pulse and emit flases of radiation. They are the csomic lighthouses. Again these are part of the interesting side of the universe. This page will hopefully have lots of ideas and "facts" about these anomalies.
BLACK HOLES
This part of the page is all about black holes. Strangely enough. Note that there will be contradictions to this title due to the grave misfortune of the name being related to holes. Most people view a hole on a 2D surface. These holes are 3D. Confusing huh.
Black Holes: Terminology and Facts
How is a black hole created?
Black holes are ususally produced by some dying stars. A star with a mass of about 10 - 20 times the mass of our Sun may produce a black hole at the end of its life. In the normal life of a star there is a constant tug of war between gravity pulling in and pressure pushing out. Nuclear reactions in the core of the star produce enough energy to push outward. For most of a star's life, gravity and pressure balance each other exactly, and so the star is stable. However, when a star runs out of nuclear fuel, gravity gets the upper hand and the material in the core is compressed even further. The more massive the core of the star, the greater the force of gravity that compresses the material, collapsing it under its own weight. For small stars, when the nuclear fuel is exhausted and there are no more nuclear reactions to fight gravity, the repulsive forces among electrons within the star eventually create enough pressure to halt further gravitational collapse. The star then cools and dies peacefully. This type of star is called the "white dwarf." When a very massive star exhausts its nuclear fuel it explodes as a supernova. The outer parts of the star are expelled violently into space, while the core completely collapses under its own weight. This can form a variety of objects depending on the size and make up of the original star. For a small star, they form a brown dwarf, (no light emitted), for a sun sized star they form a white dwarf, for a large star (10 solar masses) they form a neutron star and for much larger stars (30 solar masses or more) they form black holes, infinitely compressing back on themselves. See life of a star for more information.
Event Horizon
The event horizon is the point of no return, it is an invisible line (or sphere), outside of which you could escape the pull of the black hole but past it there is no hope of escaping.. To escape the gravitational pull you would have to go past the speeed of light, which is theoretically impossble.
Accreation disk
This is all the matter the intense gravitational pull the balck hole attracts. It circles slowly inwards towards the event horizon.
Jets of gas
These shoot out from the hole perependicular to the accreation disk. The cause of them is unknown, but it is probably due to charged particles rotating around the magnetic field lines of the black hole.
Black Holes: Links
Life of a Star - How the star starts and stops!
Black Holes: An excellent page about them
PULSARS
This part of the page is all about Pulars, those cosmic lighthouses which emit radiation like a beacon.
The right image shows the Crab Nebula pulsar, visible as the left of the pair of stars near the center of the frame: NASA
Pulsars: Terminology and facts
What is a Pulsar?
A pulsar is a rotating neutron star which emits a narrow band of radiation in a time interval. The nearest anology would be a lighthouse. The light or radiation in the case of a pulsar flashes past us at regular intervals.
Emmisions
The radiation can be picked up by radio telescopes and many observatries around the world are monitering these stars, including Jodrell Bank in the UK.
Pulsars: Links
Link to Jodrell Bank and their research on pulsars.
Jodrell Bank's stellar object finder.
NOTE TO ALL TRAVELLERS:
Please avoid these anomalies at all cost. They can seriously damge your health, ship, socks, friends, perception of life in fact they could probably damage your life. So DON'T PANIC, just go around them. Yes that might lengthen your journey by a few thousands light years but that shouldn't pose much of a problem to anyone in particular.
