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Daily Current Affairs for UPSC

Rotating black holes

Syllabus- Science and Technology (GS Paper-3)

Context- Rotating black holes (a.k.a. Kerr black holes) have a unique feature that is a region outside their outer event horizon called the ergosphere. 

What is a Black Hole?

  • A black hole is an exceptionally dense item whose gravity is so robust that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
  • A black hole does not have a surface, like a planet or star. Instead, it is a region of area where count has collapsed in on itself.
    • This catastrophic collapse results in a large quantity of mass being concentrated in an exceedingly small area.
  • Formation: A black hole is formd when a certainly huge star runs out of gas to fuse, blows up, leaving its core to implode below its weight to form a black hole.
    • The center of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a point wherein the overall concept of relativity breaks down, i.e. wherein its predictions don’t observe. 
    • A black hole’s great gravitational pull emerges as if from the singularity. 

Rotating Black Hole

  • A rotating black hole is also known as a Kerr black hole. 
  • There are two event horizons, the outer and the internal. 
  • The region of space in-between the two horizons is the ergosphere.
    • Anything inside the ergosphere will be dragged by the black hole and rotate with it however it can still escape.  
    • However, whatever is inside the inner event horizon can by no means escape.
  • Scientific Significance: We can extract rotational power from a rotating black hole.
    • If something is sent inside of the ergosphere, and split it up into components, one goes inside the black hole while the alternative comes out. 
    • The part coming out may be made to have a far better pace, hence higher energy. 

Note

  • Known black holes fall into two instructions: 
  • Stellar mass: 5 to 10 of times the Sun’s mass; 
  • Supermassive: 100,000 to billions of instances the Sun’s mass;
  • Middleweight black holes can also exist among those training, however none have been found to date.
  • Spaghettification: As objects technique the event horizon of a black hole, they’re horizontally compressed and vertically stretched, like a noodle.
  • Sagittarius A*: Sagittarius A* is greater than 25,000 light years from Earth –  nearest supermassive black hole, with an expected mass millions of times that of Sun.
  • Often abbreviated through researchers to Sgr A* (mentioned “Sagittarius A star”), it sits within the constellation of Sagittarius on the heart of the Milky Way.

Source: Indian Express

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