A PROJECT WORK ON

STUDY ON BLACK HOLES

SOS Hermann Gmeiner Secondary School Gandaki

Deparment of Physics

Presented by Bibek Pariyar

XI , Science

Roll no. 14
 Certification

This is to certify that the project entitled “Study of Black Holes” submitted by Mr. Bibek
Pariyar of class 11th-A in partial fulfillment for the project in ‘PHYSICS’ is an authentic
work carried out by him under my supervision and guidance.

……………………………..

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 Declaration

I, Bibek Pariyar, student of SOS Hermann Gmeiner Secondary School Gandaki is doing
Physics project report entitled “study of black holes” being submitted to Department of
Physics is an original work done by me.

………………………………

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 Acknowledgement

Taken this opportunity to express my respect and gratitude to my esteemed guide Mr.
Bijay Pariyar for his valuable guidance in making this project a reality. I am thankful to
him, my parents and my teachers for their constant support and encouragement and
valuable supervision, guidance and encouragement throughout this project completion
period.

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 Table of figures

Figure 1 Parts of a black hole..........................................................................................................2

Figure 2 Cygnus X-1........................................................................................................................4
Figure 3 ESO 243-49 HLX-1.............................................................................................................4
Figure 4 M104.................................................................................................................................5

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 Index

Certification..........................................................................................................................i
Declaration..........................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgement..............................................................................................................iii
Table of figures...................................................................................................................iv
Index....................................................................................................................................v
OBJECTIVE........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1
DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES....................................................................................................................8

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OBJECTIVE
 STUDY WHAT A BLACK HOLES AND VARIOUS PHYSICS RELATED
TO IT

INTRODUCTION
Black holes are one of the most fascinating topics in science since its discovery. This
topic has been fascinating among students for its mysterious interpretation. This report
delves into the basic introduction of black holes, their properties, their functionings and
the fascinating questions that appear in every human who has heard the term ‘Black
Hole’. Various questions and answers are given in the project report so that an individual
can have basic understanding of the concepts of black holes.

DISCUSSION
We will learn about black holes from answering the questions that come in our mind
when we hear the term ‘Black Holes’.
1. What exactly is a Black Hole?
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing,
including light and other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it.
Because no light can get out, they are invisible. Space telescopes with special
tools can help to find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very
close to black holes act differently than other stars.

2. Explain the concept of a black hole in simple way?

The simplest definition of a black hole is an object that is so dense that not even
light can escape its surface.

The concept of a black hole can be understood by thinking about how fast
something needs to move to escape the gravity of another object – this is called
the escape velocity. Formally, escape velocity is the speed an object must attain to
"break free" of the gravitational attraction of another body.

There are two things that affect the escape velocity – the mass of object and the
distance to the center of that object. For example, a rocket must accelerate to 11.2
km/s in order to escape Earth's gravity. If, instead, that rocket was on a planet
with the same mass as Earth but half the diameter, the escape velocity would be
15.8 km/s. Even though the mass is the same, the escape velocity is greater,
because the object is smaller (and more dense).

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 If we squished the Earth's mass into a sphere with a radius of 9 mm, the escape
velocity would be the speed of light. Just a wee-bit smaller, and the escape
velocity is greater than the speed of light. But the speed of light is the cosmic
speed limit, so it would be impossible to escape that tiny sphere, if you got close
enough.

The radius at which a mass has an escape velocity equal to the speed of light is
called the Schwarzschild radius. Any object that is smaller than its
Schwarzschild radius is a black hole – in other words, anything with an escape
velocity greater than the speed of light is a black hole. For something the mass of
our sun would need to be squeezed into a volume with a radius of about 3 km.

3. What are the parts of a black hole?

Or, describe its structure?
There are 2 basic parts of a black hole. They are: (i) Event horizon and,
(ii) Singularity

(i) Event horizon

The event horizon is the boundary that marks
where the escape velocity from the mass is the
speed of light. It’s not a physical surface, but a
sphere surrounding the black hole that marks where
the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light.

Figure 1 Parts of a black hole

(ii) Singularity
The singularity is at the center and is where the mass resides. Singularity
is just a point – a tiny, tiny volume with a crazy-big density. It is the point
where the known laws of physics breakdown whose discussion will be
continued later.

4. How is a Black Hole formed?

A black hole is formed when a massive star undergoes a supernova explosion at
the end of its life cycle. A supernova is an incredibly powerful and luminous
stellar explosion that occurs at the end of a star's life cycle. When a massive star
runs out of nuclear fuel, it can no longer support itself against its own gravity. The
core collapses under its immense gravitational force, causing supernova
explosion. If the remaining core of the star is massive enough—typically about

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 three times the mass of our Sun or more—gravity overwhelms all other forces,
compressing the core into an extremely small and dense region, creating a
singularity. This singularity has infinite density and zero volume, surrounded by
an event horizon, beyond which the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing,
not even light, can escape. This is what we call a black hole.

5. How does a Black Hole die?

Black holes are thought to undergo a process called Hawking radiation, a
theoretical prediction by physicist Stephen Hawking. According to this theory,
black holes can slowly lose mass and energy over time.

Hawking radiation arises from quantum effects near the event horizon of a black
hole. Pairs of particles and antiparticles continuously pop in and out of existence
near the event horizon. Occasionally, one particle falls into the black hole while
the other escapes, stealing a tiny amount of energy from the black hole. Over
immense periods—especially for smaller black holes—this process could lead to
the gradual evaporation of the black hole.

However, the time scales for this process are immense. For stellar-mass black
holes, this evaporation process would take an incredibly long time—much longer
than the current age of the universe (approximately 13.8 billion years old). Larger
black holes, like supermassive ones at the centers of galaxies, would take even
longer to evaporate.

As of now, no black hole has been observed to completely evaporate through

Hawking radiation, and it's uncertain if and how this process might manifest in
the universe's far future.

6. How was the Black Hole discovered and what is its history of discovery?
Before 20th century, the concept of Black Holes was not in the trends of physics.
The journey to discovering black holes began with Einstein's theory of general
relativity in the early 20th century. Initially, these strange objects were solutions
to his equations, but he himself was skeptical about their existence. Later, in the
1930s, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated that when a massive star
exhausts its nuclear fuel, it can collapse into a dense remnant, now known as a
black hole. However, the concept faced skepticism at first. In the mid-20th
century, the work of physicists like John Wheeler and others helped popularize
the idea of black holes. The breakthrough came with the discovery of Cygnus X-1
in the early 1970s, an object thought to be a black hole due to its behavior in a
binary system. Observational evidence, such as the detection of gravitational
waves by the LIGO observatory in 2015 from merging black holes, solidified

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 their existence as cosmic phenomena. Since then, astronomical observations and
technological advancements, including the Event Horizon Telescope's image of
the shadow of a black hole in 2019, have continued to deepen our understanding
of these enigmatic cosmic entities.

7. What are the types of Black Holes?

The Black Holes are generally divided according to their mass by astronomers.
The mass ranges that define each group are approximate, and scientists are always
reassessing where the boundaries should be set. They are:
a) Stellar black holes
b) Intermediate black holes
c) Supermassive black holes
d) Primordial black holes

a) Stellar black holes

These are formed when massive stars,
typically at least three times to 50 times
the mass of our Sun, collapse under their
gravity at the end of their life cycles. The
core collapses, forming a black hole. Some
examples are Cygnus X-1, A0620-00,
XTE J1650-500, Sagittarius A, Cygnus X- Figure 2 Cygnus X-1
3,etc.

b) Intermediate black holes

These are theorized to exist between stellar
and supermassive black holes in terms of
mass. They are formed from the massive
stars, typically at least 50 to 50,000 times
the mass of our Sun. They could form
from the collapse of massive stars or by
merging smaller black holes. Scientists are
actively hunting for examples of these Figure 3 ESO 243-49 HLX-1
so-called missing-link black holes. Numerous candidates have been
identified but have proven difficult to confirm. Example: ESO 243-49
HLX-1.

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 c) Supermassive black holes
These are much larger and can be 50,000
to billions times the mass of Sun. They
reside at the centers of most galaxies,
including our own Milky Way. The one at
the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A is 4
million times the mass of the Sun –
relatively small compared to those found Figure 4 M104
in some other galaxies. For examples, the
black hole at the center of galaxy Holmberg 15A holds at least 40
billion solar masses. Observations of distant galaxies show that some
supermassive black holes formed in the first billion years after the
birth of the universe. It’s possible these black holes began with the
collapse of supermassive stars in the early universe, which gave them a
head start. While their origins are mysterious, scientists know
supermassive black holes can grow by feeding on smaller objects, like
their stellar-mass relatives and neutron stars. They can also merge with
other supermassive black holes when galaxies collide. Some examples
are: 3c273, M104, M105, M31, M32, etc.

d) Primordial black holes

Scientists theorize that primordial black holes formed in the first
second after the birth of the universe. In that moment, pockets of hot
material may have been dense enough to form black holes, potentially
with masses ranging from 100,000 times less than a paperclip to
100,000 times more than the Sun’s. Then as the universe quickly
expanded and cooled, the conditions for forming black holes this way
ended.

Now, 13.8 billion years later, scientists haven’t yet found definitive
proof these primordial black holes ever existed. It’s possible, however,
that they could have evaporated as the cosmos aged due to quantum
mechanical processes occurring at the edges of their event horizons.

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 According to theoretical predictions, lower-mass black holes (those
with less mass than a mountain) would evaporate more quickly than
larger ones, which could mean many of these early black holes have
completely dissipated(process in which energy is used or lost without
accomplishing useful work). But more massive primordial black holes
could still linger across the universe.

The table given below summarizes about the concepts of types of

black holes:

Stellar Intermediate Supermassive Primordial

Mass 3 to 50 50 to 50,000 50,000 to Any mass
times times solar billions of including
solar mass times of solar from very
mass mass microscopic
to hundreds
or thousands
times solar
mass
Abundanc common Rare or Common Unknown(not
e none detected till
date)
Formation Collapse unknown Part of unknown
of a star galaxy
formation
Physically yes yes yes maybe
allowed
Table 1: Types of black holes

8. What are some laws of known-physics that breakdown inside the singularity
of a black hole?
Inside the singularity of a black hole, our understanding of physics breaks down
because the conditions become so extreme that our current theories cannot
properly describe what happens. The breakdown occurs primarily due to the clash
between general relativity (which describes gravity) and quantum mechanics
(which describes the behavior of particles on a very tiny scale).

Here's how some of the known laws of physics break down within the singularity:

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 Infinite Density: The singularity is believed to have infinite density, meaning that
the mass is compressed into an infinitely small point. This contradicts our
understanding because infinite density doesn't align with our known laws of
physics.

Space and Time: The singularity is a point where both space and time lose their
usual meanings. Space-time, as described by general relativity, becomes highly
curved and distorted near the singularity, making it impossible to accurately
predict or describe what occurs within this region.

Quantum Gravity: At the singularity, the gravitational forces become so strong

that quantum effects, which govern the behavior of particles on a very small scale,
are thought to become significant. However, our current understanding of how
gravity behaves at these tiny scales, known as quantum gravity, is incomplete.
The clash between quantum mechanics and general relativity at this extreme point
prevents us from fully explaining the physics within the singularity.

9. What might happen when a human or an object falls into the black hole?
Following things happen when a human or an object falls into the black hole are:
1) Spaghettification:
This is a phenomenon where the gravitational forces near the black hole
become incredibly strong. As someone or something gets closer to the
black hole, the difference in gravitational pull on different parts of the
object becomes extreme. This causes the object to be stretched out
vertically and compressed horizontally, like spaghetti. This happens due to
tidal forces, where the gravity at your feet can be significantly stronger
than at your head, stretching you out.
2) As the person or object comes near the event horizon, the gravitational
pull becomes so intense that light and matter can't escape. Time dilation
occurs, meaning time passes differently near the black hole compared to
farther away. From an outside observer's perspective, it would appear that
the person or object falling into the black hole is slowing down and
almost freezing in time as they approach the event horizon.
3) Once past the event horizon, according to our current understanding of
physics, it's believed that nothing can escape the black hole's gravitational
pull. For an outside observer, the person or object falling in appears to
fade away and get stuck at the event horizon due to the extreme time
dilation. However, from the perspective of the falling person or object,
they would continue their journey into the black hole, but their fate
beyond this point is not understood, as our current physics cannot
describe what happens inside the black hole's singularity.

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CONCLUSION
This project report studies about various concepts related to black holes and enhances the
fascination in an individual. The topics like time dilation, spaghettification, singularity,
etc. are given so easily that enhances the knowledge of an individual. Answers to various
questions are given.

REFERENCES
Following sources were considered while preparing the report:
 https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-black-
hole-grades-k-4/
 https://youtu.be/e-P5IFTqB98?si=YWoRfW3_ps8KLHIf
 https://www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html
 https://universe.nasa.gov/black-holes/types/#:~:text=IntroductionTypes%20of
%20Black%20Holes,the%20boundaries%20should%20be%20set.
 https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2022/08/02/are-there-different-types-of-black-
holes/
 https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/black_holes1.html#:~:text=Structure
%20of%20a%20black%20hole,to%20the%20speed%20of%20light.
 https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/cygx1/
 https://blackholes.stardate.org/objects/type-supermassive.html

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