Black holes: a staple of quality science fiction for decades now ... but what actually *are* they? Awesome, is one answer. Astronomers reported a few weeks ago fresh evidence for a black hole tearing a star apart in a distant galaxy — gruesome, sure, but fascinating too. In this eipisode we chat about black holes and come to the conclusion that they warp our brains like the fabric of space-time itself.
SHOW NOTES
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPod
Or just visit us at home: syzygy.fm
Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
To view the podcast chapter list and artwork in this episode, you could do worse than use the Overcast app on iOS, or Pocket Casts on Android. (Other podcast players are available, though they may not handle mp3 chapters nicely.)
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
- This week’s black hole paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/06/13/science.aao4669
A good article about the story: https://www.sciencealert.com/arp-299-supermassive-black-hole-tidal-disruption-event-relativistic-jet-direct-image
Black holes: what are they, exactly? A basic primer: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html
A bit more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
Want to blow your mind? Star Size Comparison 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoW8Tf7hTGA
Prof. Andrea Ghez looks at the supermassive black hole at the of the Galaxy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y9_g4b1PlA
Prof. Ghez’s group: http://www.galacticcenter.astro.ucla.edu
Galaxy collisions: https://phys.org/news/2016-10-galaxies-collide.html
Gravitational singularities: https://www.universetoday.com/84147/singularity/
Stephen Hawking: http://www.hawking.org.uk
- John Archibald Wheeler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler