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When you hear the word ‘hunt’, images that are conjured up in the beholder’s mind are usually those of old white Victorian gentleman, with outrageous moustaches, scouring the plains of a foreign land in search of a new mantelpiece. However, hunting isn’t just reserved for the search of animals, or even living things. Now that may be quite an obvious statement but it is important to note that traditional use of words when dealing with extra terrestrial phenomena shouldn’t be taken literally.. Especially black holes.
Now, the idea of hunting/searching for something that nothing in the universe can escape, even light, seems almost a contradiction. But, If you flip that notion round and search for absence of matter and forces that have no visible variables acting on it. In other words, star systems that seem to have a great force pulling them into an unnatural shape; the chances are, nearby, lies a black hole removing everything than comes within its grasp!
Spiral galaxy known as NGC 1097
The above is around 50 million light years away, the pupil however, is a black hole weighing in at 100 million solar masses. Astonishingly though, that bright white iris around it is a flurry of star forming activity. It’s thought to be produced by material falling inwards towards the central black hole and is “forming stars at a very high rate,” according to NASA’s Kartik Sheth.
This has far reaching implications for our understanding of the observable universe, Einstein stated nothing in the universe could travel faster than the speed of light, and consequently nothing could remove it. However, black holes contradict this fact! So, what happens to objects when they enter a black hole? Where does the matter go? Do they still adhere to laws of our universe? Could they be transported to an alternate reality (wormholes)? These notions have long been the subject of sci-fi films and Star Trek episodes but it is beginning to become apparent that the reality is far more beautiful, and fearsome, than the fiction.
