We’ve covered a lot of incredible stuff, but this week we’re talking about the weirdest objects in space: BLACK HOLES. Stellar mass black holes form when a very massive star dies, and its core collapses. The core has to be more than about 2.8 times the Sun’s mass to form a black hole. Black holes come in different sizes, but for all of them, the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, so nothing can escape, not matter or light. They don’t wander the Universe gobbling everything down around them; their gravity is only really intense very close to them. Tides near a stellar mass black hole will spaghettify you, and time slows down when you get near a black hole — not that this helps much if you’re falling in.
Crash Course Astronomy Poster: http://store.dftba.com/products/crashcourse-astronomy-poster
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
—
Table of Contents
How Stellar Mass Black Holes Are Formed 1:03
The Core 1:43
Nothing Can Escape Once It’s Inside 2:29
Gravity Intensifies The Closer You Get 3:33
Spaghettification 6:01
Time Will Slow Down Near A Black Hole 8:01
—
PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios
Follow Phil on Twitter: https://twitter.com/badastronomer
Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashCourse
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse
Tumblr – http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com
Support CrashCourse on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
—
PHOTOS/VIDEOS
White Dwarf Pulses Like a Pulsar http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/whitedwarf_pulsar.html [credit: NASA, Casey Reed]
Swift Reveals New Phenomenon in a Neutron Star http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/new-phenom.html#.Vc4isflVhBd [credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center]
Black Holes – Monsters in Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Holes_-_Monsters_in_Space.jpg [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Wikimedia Commons]
What if the Sun became a black hole? (artist’s impression) http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast43g/ [credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser)]
Black Hole Animation http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/0203long/animations.html [credit: NASA/SAO/CXC/D.Berry]
Star Destroyer http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11065 [credit: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center]
Black hole deforms space http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hst15_blackhole_grid/ [credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)]
Black hole close-up (artist’s impression) http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic0211c/ [credit: European Space Agency, NASA and Felix Mirabel (the French Atomic Energy Commission & the Institute for Astronomy and Space Physics/Conicet of Argentina)]