Is a black hole really a hole?

Answer 1

A black hole appears black because not even light can escape the gravity of the hole. So it looks black, as there is no light coming off of it.

More answers:

• A black hole is not black. It only apears so. There is no color, no light escaping it. What you "see" is only the "event horizon." This is the point of no return and to where time is "stopped" at the moment that the star collapsed. And truthfully, you can't even see a black hole. You can find the readings of X-rays and Gamma rays from it, and possibly see the accretion disc.
• The answer to your question depends on your definition of "black" and "color." If color is defined by what your eyes see, then no, black holes do not have color due to the absence of light that enables your eyes to see black. On the other hand, if you meant color in a more abstract sense, black holes are really black, since there is no light bouncing of the black hole to enable your eyes to see it (i.e., if there was light that allows you to see the "blackness" of the hole, it wouldn't be black). Having said this, a black hole in the first example should be defined by the color "null".
• Black holes really are black. However, the area of space NEAR a black hole glows with many types of radiation, because the particles of mass that fall into the black hole are accelerated to the speed of light. So while the black hole is itself black, the area around it would glow brightly in x-ray and gamma ray frequencies.
• Black here meaning they (inside a certain region - the event horizon) give off no light nor do they reflect any; if a black hole is not actively "ingesting" some celestial object it will not be visible. All light we get from around it will be warped (gravitational lens effect) and nothing will be coming from the dead star itself. About the warping (bending light) - imagine space is a stream, and you place a perfectly clear pole in the water - then you take your camera and point at it closely - the change in flow seen by the camera is like the light bending around a black hole.
• If the black hole is near a celestial body (another star, a comet, even a large planet) you will be able to see the effect and if they are close enough you can see a huge jet of material feeding into the black hole: it should get brighter and brighter as it approaches the black hole then very quick disappear. However, one theory is that black holes will continuously give off what is known as Hawking radiation: as virtual particles and antiparticles are spontaneously created (and then immediately recombined), there will be some perfect distance away from the black hole in which one half of the set is swallowed up by the black hole, while its partner lives to fly away, now fully-realized. Dr. Hawking himself believes that this phenomenon occurs at the black hole's event horizon, and that as a result of it, the black hole will continually glow with a detectable stream of energy caused by collisions between energetic particles and antiparticles.

Answer 2

Black holes might not exist - or at least not as scientists have imagined, cloaked by an impenetrable "event horizon". A controversial new calculation could abolish the horizon, and so solve a troubling paradox in physics.

The event horizon is supposed to mark a boundary beyond which nothing can escape a black hole's gravity. According to the general theory of relativity, even light is trapped inside the horizon, and no information about what fell into the hole can ever escape. Information seems to have fallen out of the universe.

That contradicts the equations of quantum mechanics, which always preserve information. How to resolve this conflict?

One possibility researchers have proposed in the past is that the information does leak back out again slowly. It may be encoded in a hypothetical flow of particles called Hawking radiation, which is thought to result from the black holes' event horizons messing with the quantum froth that is ever-present in space.

But other researchers argue the information may never have been cut off in the first place. Tanmay Vachaspati and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, US, have tried to calculate what happens as a black hole is forming. Using an unusual mathematical approach called the functional Schrodinger equation, they follow a sphere of stuff as it collapses inwards, and predict what a distant observer would see.

They find that the gravity of the collapsing mass starts to disrupt the quantum vacuum, generating what they call "pre-Hawking" radiation. Losing that radiation reduces the total mass-energy of the object - so that it never gets dense enough to form an event horizon and a true black hole. "There are no such things", Vachaspati told New Scientist. "There are only stars going toward being a black hole but not getting there."

Dark and dense

These so-called "black stars" would look very much like black holes, says Vachaswati. From the point of view of a distant observer, gravity distorts the apparent flow of time so that matter falling inwards slows down. As it gets close to where the horizon would be, the matter fades, its light stretched to such long wavelengths by the dark object's gravity that it would be nearly impossible to detect.

But because the pre-Hawking radiation prevents the formation of a black hole with a true event horizon, the matter never quite fades entirely. As nothing is cut off from the rest of the universe, there is no information paradox.

The idea faces firm opposition from other theoretical physicists, however. "I strongly disagree," says Nobel laureate Gerard 't Hooft of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "The process he describes can in no way produce enough radiation to make a black hole disappear as quickly as he is suggesting." The horizon forms long before the hole can evaporate, 't Hooft told New Scientist.

Answer 3

no yes. a black hole is true because on the news it said TODAY A BLACK HOLE COULD APPEAR IN THE SKY BECAUSE OF SCIENTISTS TESTING THEIR NEW INVENTION. THE EARTH COULD BE SUCKED UP AND NEVER SEEN AGAIN. if that answers your question say tar.... BII

Answer 4

Not in the ordinary meaning of the term, but they act pretty much as if they were a hole in reality. No they are spheres Answer: A blackhole is a place where enough matter has gathered so that the force of gravity allows nothing to leave at a certain distance from the center of the mass (critical distance - the event horizon) - it's black because even light can't escape. As a metaphor, the curved sheet of spacetime shows a blackhole as a place in the fabric where the bend in the fabric is so strong nothing can escape; a well or very sharp drop. Most of the laws of low energy ('normal') physics no longer work at the center of the blackhole - the singularity. Since physics depends on gravity for defining force and mass, yet at the singuality gravity is infinite, regular physcial laws can't apply - the equations make no sense compared with 'normal reality."
A black hole is a singularity, an incredibly large amount of mass reduced to a very small volume, essentially a single point. At that compression, the ordinary rules of atoms and motion cease to exist. Anything that approaches the black hole, even light, will eventually be pulled into that central singular point. The visible "width" of a black hole is where material falling into it radiates away energy from its increasing velocity. This is called the event horizon.

In terms of what it does, a black hole is very much like a hole : things fall in and don't come back out. If you think of space and time as a trampoline, a black hole would be like putting something that has unlimited weight on that trampoline. It would bulge the center of the trampoline completely out of view.

Answer 5

Yes, they are. In fact there is a super-massive one in the center of our galaxy. As well as a few smaller ones scattered around.

That is wrong, what yu r calling a black hole which sucks in our glaxy is actually making our galaxy and the rest of space grow. Since the big bang these "white holes" have been expanding our universe. :)
yes, black holes are definately real and in billions and billions of years earth and our oother planets will be affected by one.(if you have some sort of fear about the end of the world then pllease do not read on) the black hole that will affect us will be our sun. in billions of years the sun will run out of gas and will come into itself, forming a black hole. the blackholes got extremely strong gravitational pull, and will suck in the planets causing the end of the world.(i bet 50 percent of people who did have phobias read on btw)
Yes, black holes are very real. Several objects have been seen that - according to current astronomical knowledge - can only be black holes. Some of them have a few solar masses (multiples of the Sun's mass), others have millions of solar masses (for example, the supermassive black hole in the center of our own galaxy), or even billions of solar masses (in some other galaxies).

Answer 6

Yes, black holes in space are broadly accepted as real. Despite our incomplete understanding of them, the body of evidence supporting the reality of black holes, both theoretical and observational, is too significant to dismiss.

Answer 7

Yes, black holes are very real. Several objects have been seen that - according to current astronomical knowledge - can only be black holes. Some of them have a few solar masses (multiples of the Sun's mass), others have millions of solar masses (for example, the supermassive black hole in the center of our own galaxy), or even billions of solar masses (in some other galaxies).

Answer 8

Most astronomers believe black holes are real, yes.

Answer 9

Yes, they are even blacker than a black body (which re-emits radiation). A black hole absorbs everything and emits nothing.