Download NOVA - Black Holes

NOVA – Monster of the Milky Way
Astronomy
Name:
Period:
Today, scientists are finding black holes are _______________, _______________ and more ___________ than they ever
imagined.
Bigger; stronger; destructive
What was originally thought to be the center of the milky way galaxy?
Sagittarius A
What was the problem with finding the center of the milky way galaxy?
Stars shrouded with cosmic dust
Becklin located the heart of the Milky Way an inconspicuous speck, near the constellation _____________________.
Sagittarius
How far away from the center of the Milky way is our sun?
½ way out
Albert Einstein had this crazy idea that space and time were _____________, and it was the curvature of space that gave the
appearance of _________________.
Curved; gravity
Massive objects, like the sun, actually ____________ and ______________ the fabric of space-time, creating troughs that
smaller objects can fall into.
Bend; warp
If an object is much, much more massive than the Earth or the Sun it could warp the fabric so much, it would create an actual
____________ in space-time.
hole
Space, itself, is ______________ inside the black hole.
falling
What happens to the matter that goes inside the surface of the black hole?
It shrinks down – is destroyed
Over the years, suspicions rose. Stars were found behaving _____________: orbiting ___________ objects, moving
____________ than expected.
Strangely; invisible; faster
Will we ever see a black hole? What WILL we see?
No we will see its paw print
With what precision can we measure something that is 26,000 light years away from us?
2 centimeters
If there were a black hole at the center of the galaxy, its paw print would be found in the _____________ orbits of nearby
stars.
rapid
What should happen to a star that’s orbiting close to a black hole?
Accelerate to great speed and slingshot around
The star that Andrea Ghez found was moving on order of__________________ miles per hour.
10 million
Not only were the stars accelerating to phenomenal speeds, their orbits were perfectly _____________.
smooth
Most black holes are thought to be about ____________ more massive than our Sun, but the object at the center of the Milky
Way was roughly __________________ times as massive. 10x; 3 million
What are some ideas as to how black holes are born? Describe.
From the supernova of supergiants
A teaspoonful of neutron star matter would weigh about ________________________.
A billion tons
Many researchers believe that the Milky Way is littered with small black holes: the dark, dense remains of
____________________
Dead stars
Describe what would happen to your body if you came close to a black hole.
It would get pulled apart again and again until you were spaghetti
Are black holes black inside? Describe.
No there’s a trapped light and energy inside
Virtually every major galaxy bears the signature of a ____________________ black hole.
supermassive
What are the birth ingredients produced by the big bang?
Hydrogen, helium, traces of others
What is galactic cannibalism?
Galaxies consuming other galaxies to grow
When McNamara looked at x-rays of the gas around certain clusters, he saw that vast clumps of it appeared to be
_____________.
missing
Something powerful had pushed the gas away, across vast regions of the universe. McNamara traced the power source to the
center of a giant galaxy, a _______________________________.
Supermassive black hole
How does space material fall into a black hole?
It turns out. It spirals around
What keeps galaxies from getting too large?
Black holes
How do the Chandra teams find out how much the black hole is eating?
By measuring the energy that flares out
The now-you-see-it-now-you-don't flash of light is an explosion of __________, produced when matter rushes ___________
the black hole and some _______________.
Energy; toward; escapes
Two million light years away, our closest neighbor, the _________________ Galaxy, is charging toward us at almost
____________________ miles per hour.
Andromeda; 700,000
When the Milky Way and The Andromeda Galaxy collide, The Milky Way will be destroyed, but what about the black hole
at its center?
It will merge with Andromeda’s