Space's Deepest Secrets (2016–…): Season 4, Episode 5 - Wrath of the Black Hole - full transcript
New discoveries change everything known about black holes, and using the latest science and technology, experts reveal secrets to the mysterious behind these strange and deadly places
black holes
the most mysterious objects in the
cosmos the universe is bizarre but if
you were to make a list and say what's
at the top black holes my calls excite
the imagination the fact that we see
them at all is extraordinary their
immense gravity makes black holes the
most destructive objects in the universe
they can rip apart a star in seconds but
they have another side these are not
horrible dangerous things
these are wonderful mysterious parts of
a universe to unlock the secrets of
black holes we will strip them apart
we will reveal how black holes are born
how they waged the most violent battles
in the cosmos
and how one day humans could travel
through them
[Music]
black holes
[Music]
the most powerful objects in the
universe
capable of destroying entire worlds
for decades they have terrified us
with their mystery and darkness the
reason why we call a black hole black is
because light cannot be emitted from
inside the black hole it's a one-way
street it can go in but it can't come
out if you're close to a black hole
they're terrifying there's huge amounts
of matter that can fall into them this
matter gets very hot it gets torn apart
it falls into this basically infinitely
deep hole in the universe itself but
there's more to black holes than chaos
and destruction the more we learn about
black holes the more we understand they
have a real purpose in our universe
there's sort of cosmic organizers they
bring things together could new
discoveries change how we see black
holes I definitely think it's time for
an image makeover for black holes black
holes are more than darkness
stripping away a doughnut-shaped shroud
of cold dust on the outside
reveals a huge disc of cosmic debris
spinning at millions of miles an hour
this is where the black hole feasts
gasps dust shattered stars and planets
all descend into the gaping mouth of the
black hole it's called the event horizon
it's a perfectly dark sphere from which
no light can escape inside the laws of
the cosmos break down
black holes are a place where some of
the rules we think about in the universe
don't apply as well as they do out here
when you're falling into a black hole
you move faster and faster and faster
and you finally reach the speed of light
as you pass into the black hole itself
but then what happens inside of that we
don't know we are confronting something
that the human brain doesn't understand
where space and time itself break down
don't behave the way we think of them
that's going to push us to evolve to
understand the very nature of reality
better thirty years ago black holes were
purely theoretical a mathematical
prediction made by Einstein
but now we know they're very real
this is our galaxy the Milky Way
and stripping away at stars planets
rocks and dust
reveals a dark secret
lurking in the shadows is a massive
black hole Sagittarius a star
four million times the mass of our Sun
and just 26,000 light-years from Earth
studying this tightener offers us a
chance to understand how black holes
truly work
on top of Hawaii's tallest mountain
Mauna Kea scientists at the Keck
Observatory do just that
[Music]
astronomer James like studies
Sagittarius a star
[Music]
it's so unique to have a black hole that
massive that close to us because all the
other ones that are that massive are so
far away and other galaxies getting to
his office requires a 14,000 foot climb
along a steep and winding dirt road
I've loved telescopes for a long time
and these are the these are the biggest
and the best so if you want to get the
faintest objects in the universe if you
want to look at the finest detail you
have to come to cut takes your breath
away today James prepares ax 300 ton
telescope to monitor Sagittarius a star
the telescope's can come very close
right behind me you know it takes a
dedicated crew of funny guys to get this
thing running every night of the year
it's a very complex machine the constant
movement of the Earth's atmosphere bends
light and makes stars twinkle
this distortion stopped scientists from
getting a clear view of the Milky Way
but the team at Keck has cracked this
problem as night falls James shoots a
bright laser 50 miles off into the
atmosphere we take pictures of the
return from that laser it gets fuzzed up
by the atmosphere just the same way as
the natural star does by altering the
telescope's mirrors James brings this
beam of light into focus this allows him
to calibrate the telescope and obtain
the sharpest images ever seen of objects
in the Milky Way it's a revolution in
astronomy this is a technology that was
dreamed about for years it's a bit of a
game changer and we now can see things
that we never could see before James and
his team are making startling
discoveries that are changing our
understanding of how black holes work
they have detected a mysterious object
close to Sagittarius a star
it's called g2
a cloud of interstellar gas which may
contain a star
bitch future is bleak
scientists believe the black hole will
slingshot part of the cloud into space
and then Gorge on their remains growing
even more massive and powerful
jeetu happens to be one of the closest
objects to the black hole anytime you
get that close to that extreme of an
environment you'll get to see new
physics so you get to see fantastic
things soon the team will see a black
hole feeding for the very first time
Sagittarius a star is four million times
more massive than the Sun but 300
million light years away there's a black
hole five thousand times larger
deep inside a galaxy called NGC 4889
is the biggest black hole ever found
it's so powerful it can shred supergiant
stars that come too close
[Music]
what gives black holes the power to
destroy entire worlds
[Music]
26,000 light-years from Earth
a black hole called Sagittarius a star
is about to shred and swallow a gas
cloud
why do black holes have such massive
power
and how do they form
the way that a black hole can form is by
the death of a massive star you need a
star that has at least 8 10 20 times the
mass of the Sun
and they can actually produce millions
of times the energy that the Sun
produces putting out in just a few
seconds as much energy as the Sun does
in an entire year
these are the hypergiant the biggest
stars in the universe
as they run out of fuel they begin to
die
when they can no longer hold up their
own weight they collapse releasing a
massive burst of energy
a supernova so powerful that only the
Big Bang was bigger
the remaining core keeps collapsing and
squeezing into a single point in space
smaller than an atom
a black hole is born this Observatory in
Southern California is the workplace of
one of the few people on earth to
witness this process Doug Leonard hunts
for black holes in 2005 an alert went
out that a new supernova had appeared in
the galaxy NGC 266 my reaction was to
try to get a very close-up detailed
picture of the supernova right around it
and that's what we did with this picture
Doug scoured the archives of the Hubble
Space Telescope and discovered that
before the star collapsed it was a hyper
giant and this made me very excited
because it's just the kind of star that
we think after it dies leaves behind a
black hole if Doug looks at this point
in space now it is no longer bright and
according to our best theories and
calculations right there is a brand-new
black hole
that looks good beautiful night no
clouds
despite nine years of searching Doug
hasn't found another supernova big
enough to form a black hole all right
we're ready to roll let's go now he
studies the biggest black holes in the
universe those like Sagittarius a star
with millions of times the mass of our
Sun the supermassive black holes
a supermassive black holes grow there
increasing gravity pulls more and more
objects into a gigantic revolving disk
inside friction builds up
and the disk starts to glow
the faster the disk spins the greater
the friction and the brighter it becomes
Doug's team can measure the intensity of
this glow and then calculate the power
and size of a black hole
very simply the faster things orbit the
black hole the more massive the black
hole has to be because more gravity has
to be tugging harder on the object to
make it orbit more quickly
using this technique Doug is finding
black holes tens of millions of times
the size of the Sun
hopefully we can push these kinds of
studies to greater and greater distances
and better understand the dynamics of
all supermassive black holes black holes
are the Dark Horse's of the cosmos but
supermassive black holes are linked with
far far brighter lights
back in the 1960s when people were
pointing radio telescopes and x-ray
telescopes in the sky they were
detecting really powerful sources of
energy
scientists call them quasars
they weren't explosions just very
intense lights that outshined entire
galaxies when we first realized how
bright quasars really were
we couldn't account for the amount of
energy what could possibly be creating
that much energy so imagine you've got a
source of energy which you know is very
far away and is very bright which means
it's incredibly powerful it must be
fantastically luminous something must be
generating that energy what could
possibly be an engine big enough to
power something so big you can see it
clear across the universe the answer is
a supermassive black hole
if too much matter squeezes into its
mouth collisions become so violent they
release gigantic amounts of energy
immense luminous jets spray out hundreds
of thousands of light years into space
this is a quasar
the brightest light in the cosmos
black holes are such voracious eaters
but they eat like the cookie monster
most of what they eat does not end up
inside a lot of it gets spit out and it
gets heated to these immense
temperatures and that matter glows very
very brightly as material falls down
this giant gravitational well into a
black hole it's almost like it's in a
particle accelerator accelerates faster
and faster it's hotter and brighter and
all of a sudden you can see these things
from clear across the universe some
quasars are epic
three billion light years from Earth
astronomers have discovered a quasar
called 3c273 the brightest known object
in the universe at its heart is a
supermassive black hole a billion times
heavier than the Sun it consumes 600
times the mass of the earth every minute
and spits out a hundred times more
energy than all 300 billion stars in the
Milky Way combined astronomers are now
detecting these bright lights all over
the universe
as we scan the cosmos and we look ever
deeper we see more and more quasars and
there's only one way to form a quasar
that's a supermassive black hole and
we're finding them by the millions so
these things are everywhere
once we thought black holes were purely
theoretical now we know that billions
exist across space why are there so many
black holes in the universe
you
black holes once scientists thought they
were extremely rare but now they're
discovering billions of them across the
cosmos why are there so many
there's this idea and it's it's strange
that every major galaxy in the universe
has a supermassive black hole in its
center and then people started to look
over their shoulders and wonder could
there be one at the heart of our own
Milky Way galaxy at four million times
the mass of the Sun Sagittarius a star
is a supermassive black hole could this
be the center of the Milky Way
in Los Angeles a team of scientists
tackles this question
[Music]
astronomer Andrea Ghez pins down the
role of Sagittarius a star black holes
themselves are very dark objects you
can't see them directly what is
available to us is the influence of its
gravitational field so we're studying
the Stars that are the closest to the
black hole and watching how these stars
move after two decades the team is
discovering something remarkable about
Sagittarius a star all these stars that
we measure are all going around the
black hole they're just going around on
different timescales the immense gravity
of Sagittarius a star holds all these
stars in their orbits
stripping back the dust and gas in the
Milky Way reveals these stars are not
alone
every single object in the Milky Way
orbits around a single point in space
the supermassive black hole Sagittarius
a star
the center and master of our galaxy
it is 26,000 light-years away from Earth
but even at this distance we cannot
escape the grasp of this supermassive
black hole
the earth is also moving around the
center of the galaxy and we are
traveling at 500,000 miles per hour
[Music]
Sagittarius a star is not the only black
hole that controls the galaxy as
scientists scan more and more galaxies
across the universe they're discovering
a supermassive black hole at the center
of every single one far from being rare
supermassive black holes are everywhere
there's millions and hundreds of
millions of galaxies in the observable
universe and there's a supermassive
black hole at the center of each one
that is insane
but it gets better
[Music]
supermassive black holes don't just
anchor galaxies
they may also build them
a black holes intense gravity pulls
passing stars into orbit
their combined mass attracts more and
more stars
and slowly forms the galaxies we see
today with a supermassive black hole at
their centers that's both master and
maker this is forcing us to reevaluate
the way we thought galaxies formed in
the first place and it also is making us
reevaluate the role that black holes
have in the universe
so you think black holes to get galaxies
you need galaxies to form stars you need
stars to form planetary systems you need
planets to host beings like us and so
the black hole is in fact an anchor for
our very existence
black holes are shaping our universe but
could they also threaten the future of
our galaxy
[Music]
our universe may seem like a serene and
peaceful place but looks are deceptive
[Music]
space looks really tranquil we look at
it from Earth it looks beautiful and
peaceful but really is a lot of violence
going on out there
stars are exploding galaxies are
colliding so I see myself surrounded by
a universe of drama our galaxy the Milky
Way is heading for one of the most
dramatic events in the cosmos
in four billion years it will smash into
our nearest neighbor the Andromeda
galaxy
at 250,000 miles per hour
the two galaxies will start to merge
into a new super galaxy called milk
dromeda and their black holes are
predicted to collide
across the universe black hole
collisions are common but their dark
nature makes it impossible to see what
happens during these impacts
[Music]
Jamison Rollins hunts for these
collisions
he doesn't look at black holes he
listens to them
these are his ears
like Oh a 1 billion dollar network of
tunnels and lasers we're really opening
up a new window on the universe we're
starting to listen to the universe in a
way that we've never listened to it
before the immense gravity of a black
hole causes ripples in the fabric of
space once online LIGO we'll listen out
for these gravitational waves LIGO is an
l-shaped instrument where the lengths of
the arms of the L are two and a half
miles long and we essentially shoot
laser beams down the arm and we can very
very very precisely measure the length
of the space in the arm when a
gravitational wave comes by it causes
that space to very slightly shrink and
expand and we can measure that
[Music]
this movement is tiny less than the
width of an atom but once the team
completes LIGO in a few months they will
be able to hear the sound of black holes
colliding when they're orbiting around
each other in a sort of constant rate
you hear a single tone and but as they
emit the gravitational waves they get
closer together they move faster and the
signal goes up in pitch and in amplitude
so it makes a chirp and until they
eventually collide and explode
the sounds they will detect are just
faint echoes of the real event
the violence of a black hole collision
is inconceivable
deep inside a bean shaped cloud of hot
dense stellar debris
the black holes fight for supremacy
they accelerate as they get closer and
closer
finally they smash into each other
sending a massive shockwave tearing
through the cosmos
it's hard to say what I'm gonna be
feeling when the first signals come in I
mean I've been working on this my entire
career and it will be incredibly
exciting I'm sure we'll have a big party
but if LIGO confirms our theories on
black hole collisions the future looks
grim for our galaxy when the black holes
of the Centers of the Milky Way and
Andromeda merge they will create a
monster
a black hole powerful enough to consume
millions of stars
the survivors will face brutal
reorganization under the new master
the black hole's extreme gravitational
pull will throw planets into new orbits
and cause stars to collide
chaos will reign
a single black hole will control the
fate of trillions of stars and planets
you might think the Sun is powerful you
might think even a big massive star is
powerful but the most powerful of all is
a black hole scientists have discovered
how black holes form galaxies and
dictate their futures
[Music]
but one big mystery remains what happens
deep inside a black hole
black holes were once just a theory a
prediction made by Einstein
now we know they control galaxies and
power the brightest lights in the cosmos
but they still hide a secret something
that even Einstein couldn't see
what happens if we venture inside the
event horizon the boundary surrounding a
black hole from which light cannot
escape
I think that would be a pretty cool
mission just the idea of exploring
something like that I think that would
be quite an opportunity for the
astronauts of the future we actually
have a pretty good understanding of what
happens outside of a black hole but we
don't know what happens at that final
split-second that shaves slice of time
when you pass that point of no return
and hit the event horizon in Scotland a
remarkable experiment intends to reveal
what's beyond the event horizon
[Music]
it's the brainchild of Daniela fagio
it's basically unexplored territory and
that's where we can really push the
boundaries of our knowledge
fatiah doesn't use a telescope and he's
not an astronaut instead he makes black
holes in his lab his key ingredient is
light we have extremely powerful lasers
which forced the light to start to
behave and start to flow as if it were a
fluid
near a black hole space also flows like
a fluid it moves towards the event
horizon like a river heading downstream
imagine a flowing body of water and
you're trying to swim against this flow
what you'll feel is the vapor will try
to drag you along with it and this is
exactly what a gravitational field is
doing outside a black hole
Biagio forces light into a tight
whirlpool just like matter descending
into a real black hole and he's making
scientific breakthroughs
when he fires a wave of light towards
one of his black holes something strange
happens he can see these waves which are
moving they're essentially frozen at the
boundary of the horizon that we've
generated these frozen waves confirm a
prediction of Einstein's most famous
theory relativity Einstein thought that
near a black hole gravity would start
stretching time a second would expand to
years or even centuries seeing from a
distance objects would seem frozen in
time exactly what Fangio sees with his
experimental black holes he is confident
the same thing happens in space few were
to observe a spaceship or someone
falling into black holes from very far
away you would actually never see that
person passed through the event horizon
you would see them approach the event
horizon time as seen from us would slow
down and we'd see them slowed down and
essentially remain frozen on the event
horizon forever
but the astronauts inside the spaceship
wouldn't notice time being stretched
they'd experience the same gravity
changes as their surroundings
for them time passes normally while
gravity drags them to the event horizon
even Einstein didn't know what happens
next
but Fat Joe thinks his experiment will
one day solve this scientific mystery
it's as if this was a slice directly
through the spear of a real black hole
this allows him to see beyond the event
horizon and prove the inner workings of
a black hole for the first time this is
really exciting I think this is where or
the new physics is hiding with this new
scientific knowledge we would finally
explain what happens inside a black hole
for now what lies beyond the event
horizon
remains a mystery
some think there's a fiery Inferno it
could be like a giant firewall that
everything gets sucked in at once that
old smashes together and kind of
vaporizes in a big explosion others
predict something called a singularity
it's where all space and time converge
into a single point and time to time
comes to a stop which is crazy to think
about while some think the blackhole
spaghettify z-- everything that enters
if you go into a black hole
feet-first then the force of gravity at
your feet will be much stronger than a
force of gravity at your head and you
get stretched out into this long thin
strip till eventually your molecules
break apart and your atoms break apart
and you basically go into the black hole
as a thin strip of vapor
[Music]
black holes defy understanding
but theoretically there could be
something even stranger out there
a black hole reversed
a white hole
instead of sucking matter in
it spits it out into a frantic volcano
of energy
white holes could open up new horizons
for Humanity
one of the amazing properties of black
holes and white holes is that sometimes
they can link to form a wormhole and
when that happens you can enter the
black hole at one place in the universe
and exit the white hole at a very
different place so in an essence the
black hole sucks you in and the white
hole spits you out if these bridges
exist they offer a tantalizing
opportunity
[Music]
could we travel through these wormholes
and what would this journey be like
[Applause]
once they were a science fiction writers
wildest dream but now scientists believe
wormholes are very real and they could
revolutionize space exploration
[Music]
the beauty of a wormhole is that it
allows us to travel vast distances it
almost no time at all imagine if I
wanted to travel to the Milky Way galaxy
that in this example is that this end of
the paper to the Andromeda galaxy at
this end of the paper that's 2 million
light years even if I travel it at the
speed of light it would take me 2
million years but with the wormhole you
can bend space sufficiently that you can
go from this side to that side in almost
no time at all
entering the wormhole would make
unimaginable journeys possible
we could take trips in days or even
hours that would previously take
billions of years
barreling through this tear in the
fabric of space
the white hole would catapult you out in
a completely different place and maybe
even time
if we can overcome one technical
obstacle
the problem is as soon as you enter the
mouth of a wormhole it collapses it's
like trying to get inside of a soap
bubble as soon as you pierce that bubble
it pops so there have been some
scientists who say gee maybe there's a
way we can stop them from disappearing
what do you do if you're at a restaurant
and your table is a little bit wobbly
and your drinks keep spilling well
you've wedged something under it to make
it so it doesn't shake and it's nice and
stable it's possible that something like
that might exist for wormholes the
cosmos is full of my new particles like
electrons and protons when they interact
they project short-lived bursts of
energy
scientists called them virtual particles
and believe these surges and power could
pry open a wormhole it sounds like
science fiction but in Los Angeles a
group of scientists is attacking the
problem
Umar Mohideen is building a device he
hopes could allow humans to enter a
wormhole
it's exciting to be doing this kind of
research I mean it's very motivating and
there is the opportunity to make new
discoveries you know that's part of the
excitement of doing the research a
component deep inside his machine has
the power to revolutionize space
exploration a microscopic metal ball
boom arm mounts this sphere next to a
metal plate leaving only a minut gap
between them the separation is very
small in this case on the order of a
micron which is about a 50th of the
width of your hair so it's awfully small
separation distance
this tiny gap traps virtual particles
and Umar thinks we can use these bursts
of energy to try and force open a
wormhole this is a frontier that you're
trying to understand physical phenomenon
and properties of nature that are still
under debate that's part of the
excitement
Lamar's device only generates minut
forces
but a scaled-up version could work
to pry open a wormhole we'd have to
build a huge metal sphere millions of
miles wide
[Music]
then build another one right next to it
no further away than a single atom
finally we'd have to drop both spheres
right into the mouth of a black hole
then we could travel to the farthest
corners of the universe
when humanity has been able to expand
the range over which we can travel and
look and see and come to comprehend that
has always led to new knowledge that
we've used to increase the quality of
human life mastering wormholes would
likely continue that process just
because we don't have the technology
today that doesn't mean we're not gonna
have in the future think about it it was
just about a hundred years ago that the
Wright brothers took to the air even if
wormholes don't exist even if wormholes
can't exist the mathematics the science
the physics of figuring them out
theoretically can lead to new
discoveries and things that we can use
things that do exist and it can benefit
humanity it is always worth
investigating things like this it's why
we call it exploration
[Music]
black holes can devour planets and stars
in the blink of an eye
but now we know they have a more
positive role as well
[Music]
they build and control galaxies keeping
order in the cosmos
and one day they may propel us to the
distant corners of the universe
far from fearing black holes
maybe we should learn to love them
you
the most mysterious objects in the
cosmos the universe is bizarre but if
you were to make a list and say what's
at the top black holes my calls excite
the imagination the fact that we see
them at all is extraordinary their
immense gravity makes black holes the
most destructive objects in the universe
they can rip apart a star in seconds but
they have another side these are not
horrible dangerous things
these are wonderful mysterious parts of
a universe to unlock the secrets of
black holes we will strip them apart
we will reveal how black holes are born
how they waged the most violent battles
in the cosmos
and how one day humans could travel
through them
[Music]
black holes
[Music]
the most powerful objects in the
universe
capable of destroying entire worlds
for decades they have terrified us
with their mystery and darkness the
reason why we call a black hole black is
because light cannot be emitted from
inside the black hole it's a one-way
street it can go in but it can't come
out if you're close to a black hole
they're terrifying there's huge amounts
of matter that can fall into them this
matter gets very hot it gets torn apart
it falls into this basically infinitely
deep hole in the universe itself but
there's more to black holes than chaos
and destruction the more we learn about
black holes the more we understand they
have a real purpose in our universe
there's sort of cosmic organizers they
bring things together could new
discoveries change how we see black
holes I definitely think it's time for
an image makeover for black holes black
holes are more than darkness
stripping away a doughnut-shaped shroud
of cold dust on the outside
reveals a huge disc of cosmic debris
spinning at millions of miles an hour
this is where the black hole feasts
gasps dust shattered stars and planets
all descend into the gaping mouth of the
black hole it's called the event horizon
it's a perfectly dark sphere from which
no light can escape inside the laws of
the cosmos break down
black holes are a place where some of
the rules we think about in the universe
don't apply as well as they do out here
when you're falling into a black hole
you move faster and faster and faster
and you finally reach the speed of light
as you pass into the black hole itself
but then what happens inside of that we
don't know we are confronting something
that the human brain doesn't understand
where space and time itself break down
don't behave the way we think of them
that's going to push us to evolve to
understand the very nature of reality
better thirty years ago black holes were
purely theoretical a mathematical
prediction made by Einstein
but now we know they're very real
this is our galaxy the Milky Way
and stripping away at stars planets
rocks and dust
reveals a dark secret
lurking in the shadows is a massive
black hole Sagittarius a star
four million times the mass of our Sun
and just 26,000 light-years from Earth
studying this tightener offers us a
chance to understand how black holes
truly work
on top of Hawaii's tallest mountain
Mauna Kea scientists at the Keck
Observatory do just that
[Music]
astronomer James like studies
Sagittarius a star
[Music]
it's so unique to have a black hole that
massive that close to us because all the
other ones that are that massive are so
far away and other galaxies getting to
his office requires a 14,000 foot climb
along a steep and winding dirt road
I've loved telescopes for a long time
and these are the these are the biggest
and the best so if you want to get the
faintest objects in the universe if you
want to look at the finest detail you
have to come to cut takes your breath
away today James prepares ax 300 ton
telescope to monitor Sagittarius a star
the telescope's can come very close
right behind me you know it takes a
dedicated crew of funny guys to get this
thing running every night of the year
it's a very complex machine the constant
movement of the Earth's atmosphere bends
light and makes stars twinkle
this distortion stopped scientists from
getting a clear view of the Milky Way
but the team at Keck has cracked this
problem as night falls James shoots a
bright laser 50 miles off into the
atmosphere we take pictures of the
return from that laser it gets fuzzed up
by the atmosphere just the same way as
the natural star does by altering the
telescope's mirrors James brings this
beam of light into focus this allows him
to calibrate the telescope and obtain
the sharpest images ever seen of objects
in the Milky Way it's a revolution in
astronomy this is a technology that was
dreamed about for years it's a bit of a
game changer and we now can see things
that we never could see before James and
his team are making startling
discoveries that are changing our
understanding of how black holes work
they have detected a mysterious object
close to Sagittarius a star
it's called g2
a cloud of interstellar gas which may
contain a star
bitch future is bleak
scientists believe the black hole will
slingshot part of the cloud into space
and then Gorge on their remains growing
even more massive and powerful
jeetu happens to be one of the closest
objects to the black hole anytime you
get that close to that extreme of an
environment you'll get to see new
physics so you get to see fantastic
things soon the team will see a black
hole feeding for the very first time
Sagittarius a star is four million times
more massive than the Sun but 300
million light years away there's a black
hole five thousand times larger
deep inside a galaxy called NGC 4889
is the biggest black hole ever found
it's so powerful it can shred supergiant
stars that come too close
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what gives black holes the power to
destroy entire worlds
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26,000 light-years from Earth
a black hole called Sagittarius a star
is about to shred and swallow a gas
cloud
why do black holes have such massive
power
and how do they form
the way that a black hole can form is by
the death of a massive star you need a
star that has at least 8 10 20 times the
mass of the Sun
and they can actually produce millions
of times the energy that the Sun
produces putting out in just a few
seconds as much energy as the Sun does
in an entire year
these are the hypergiant the biggest
stars in the universe
as they run out of fuel they begin to
die
when they can no longer hold up their
own weight they collapse releasing a
massive burst of energy
a supernova so powerful that only the
Big Bang was bigger
the remaining core keeps collapsing and
squeezing into a single point in space
smaller than an atom
a black hole is born this Observatory in
Southern California is the workplace of
one of the few people on earth to
witness this process Doug Leonard hunts
for black holes in 2005 an alert went
out that a new supernova had appeared in
the galaxy NGC 266 my reaction was to
try to get a very close-up detailed
picture of the supernova right around it
and that's what we did with this picture
Doug scoured the archives of the Hubble
Space Telescope and discovered that
before the star collapsed it was a hyper
giant and this made me very excited
because it's just the kind of star that
we think after it dies leaves behind a
black hole if Doug looks at this point
in space now it is no longer bright and
according to our best theories and
calculations right there is a brand-new
black hole
that looks good beautiful night no
clouds
despite nine years of searching Doug
hasn't found another supernova big
enough to form a black hole all right
we're ready to roll let's go now he
studies the biggest black holes in the
universe those like Sagittarius a star
with millions of times the mass of our
Sun the supermassive black holes
a supermassive black holes grow there
increasing gravity pulls more and more
objects into a gigantic revolving disk
inside friction builds up
and the disk starts to glow
the faster the disk spins the greater
the friction and the brighter it becomes
Doug's team can measure the intensity of
this glow and then calculate the power
and size of a black hole
very simply the faster things orbit the
black hole the more massive the black
hole has to be because more gravity has
to be tugging harder on the object to
make it orbit more quickly
using this technique Doug is finding
black holes tens of millions of times
the size of the Sun
hopefully we can push these kinds of
studies to greater and greater distances
and better understand the dynamics of
all supermassive black holes black holes
are the Dark Horse's of the cosmos but
supermassive black holes are linked with
far far brighter lights
back in the 1960s when people were
pointing radio telescopes and x-ray
telescopes in the sky they were
detecting really powerful sources of
energy
scientists call them quasars
they weren't explosions just very
intense lights that outshined entire
galaxies when we first realized how
bright quasars really were
we couldn't account for the amount of
energy what could possibly be creating
that much energy so imagine you've got a
source of energy which you know is very
far away and is very bright which means
it's incredibly powerful it must be
fantastically luminous something must be
generating that energy what could
possibly be an engine big enough to
power something so big you can see it
clear across the universe the answer is
a supermassive black hole
if too much matter squeezes into its
mouth collisions become so violent they
release gigantic amounts of energy
immense luminous jets spray out hundreds
of thousands of light years into space
this is a quasar
the brightest light in the cosmos
black holes are such voracious eaters
but they eat like the cookie monster
most of what they eat does not end up
inside a lot of it gets spit out and it
gets heated to these immense
temperatures and that matter glows very
very brightly as material falls down
this giant gravitational well into a
black hole it's almost like it's in a
particle accelerator accelerates faster
and faster it's hotter and brighter and
all of a sudden you can see these things
from clear across the universe some
quasars are epic
three billion light years from Earth
astronomers have discovered a quasar
called 3c273 the brightest known object
in the universe at its heart is a
supermassive black hole a billion times
heavier than the Sun it consumes 600
times the mass of the earth every minute
and spits out a hundred times more
energy than all 300 billion stars in the
Milky Way combined astronomers are now
detecting these bright lights all over
the universe
as we scan the cosmos and we look ever
deeper we see more and more quasars and
there's only one way to form a quasar
that's a supermassive black hole and
we're finding them by the millions so
these things are everywhere
once we thought black holes were purely
theoretical now we know that billions
exist across space why are there so many
black holes in the universe
you
black holes once scientists thought they
were extremely rare but now they're
discovering billions of them across the
cosmos why are there so many
there's this idea and it's it's strange
that every major galaxy in the universe
has a supermassive black hole in its
center and then people started to look
over their shoulders and wonder could
there be one at the heart of our own
Milky Way galaxy at four million times
the mass of the Sun Sagittarius a star
is a supermassive black hole could this
be the center of the Milky Way
in Los Angeles a team of scientists
tackles this question
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astronomer Andrea Ghez pins down the
role of Sagittarius a star black holes
themselves are very dark objects you
can't see them directly what is
available to us is the influence of its
gravitational field so we're studying
the Stars that are the closest to the
black hole and watching how these stars
move after two decades the team is
discovering something remarkable about
Sagittarius a star all these stars that
we measure are all going around the
black hole they're just going around on
different timescales the immense gravity
of Sagittarius a star holds all these
stars in their orbits
stripping back the dust and gas in the
Milky Way reveals these stars are not
alone
every single object in the Milky Way
orbits around a single point in space
the supermassive black hole Sagittarius
a star
the center and master of our galaxy
it is 26,000 light-years away from Earth
but even at this distance we cannot
escape the grasp of this supermassive
black hole
the earth is also moving around the
center of the galaxy and we are
traveling at 500,000 miles per hour
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Sagittarius a star is not the only black
hole that controls the galaxy as
scientists scan more and more galaxies
across the universe they're discovering
a supermassive black hole at the center
of every single one far from being rare
supermassive black holes are everywhere
there's millions and hundreds of
millions of galaxies in the observable
universe and there's a supermassive
black hole at the center of each one
that is insane
but it gets better
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supermassive black holes don't just
anchor galaxies
they may also build them
a black holes intense gravity pulls
passing stars into orbit
their combined mass attracts more and
more stars
and slowly forms the galaxies we see
today with a supermassive black hole at
their centers that's both master and
maker this is forcing us to reevaluate
the way we thought galaxies formed in
the first place and it also is making us
reevaluate the role that black holes
have in the universe
so you think black holes to get galaxies
you need galaxies to form stars you need
stars to form planetary systems you need
planets to host beings like us and so
the black hole is in fact an anchor for
our very existence
black holes are shaping our universe but
could they also threaten the future of
our galaxy
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our universe may seem like a serene and
peaceful place but looks are deceptive
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space looks really tranquil we look at
it from Earth it looks beautiful and
peaceful but really is a lot of violence
going on out there
stars are exploding galaxies are
colliding so I see myself surrounded by
a universe of drama our galaxy the Milky
Way is heading for one of the most
dramatic events in the cosmos
in four billion years it will smash into
our nearest neighbor the Andromeda
galaxy
at 250,000 miles per hour
the two galaxies will start to merge
into a new super galaxy called milk
dromeda and their black holes are
predicted to collide
across the universe black hole
collisions are common but their dark
nature makes it impossible to see what
happens during these impacts
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Jamison Rollins hunts for these
collisions
he doesn't look at black holes he
listens to them
these are his ears
like Oh a 1 billion dollar network of
tunnels and lasers we're really opening
up a new window on the universe we're
starting to listen to the universe in a
way that we've never listened to it
before the immense gravity of a black
hole causes ripples in the fabric of
space once online LIGO we'll listen out
for these gravitational waves LIGO is an
l-shaped instrument where the lengths of
the arms of the L are two and a half
miles long and we essentially shoot
laser beams down the arm and we can very
very very precisely measure the length
of the space in the arm when a
gravitational wave comes by it causes
that space to very slightly shrink and
expand and we can measure that
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this movement is tiny less than the
width of an atom but once the team
completes LIGO in a few months they will
be able to hear the sound of black holes
colliding when they're orbiting around
each other in a sort of constant rate
you hear a single tone and but as they
emit the gravitational waves they get
closer together they move faster and the
signal goes up in pitch and in amplitude
so it makes a chirp and until they
eventually collide and explode
the sounds they will detect are just
faint echoes of the real event
the violence of a black hole collision
is inconceivable
deep inside a bean shaped cloud of hot
dense stellar debris
the black holes fight for supremacy
they accelerate as they get closer and
closer
finally they smash into each other
sending a massive shockwave tearing
through the cosmos
it's hard to say what I'm gonna be
feeling when the first signals come in I
mean I've been working on this my entire
career and it will be incredibly
exciting I'm sure we'll have a big party
but if LIGO confirms our theories on
black hole collisions the future looks
grim for our galaxy when the black holes
of the Centers of the Milky Way and
Andromeda merge they will create a
monster
a black hole powerful enough to consume
millions of stars
the survivors will face brutal
reorganization under the new master
the black hole's extreme gravitational
pull will throw planets into new orbits
and cause stars to collide
chaos will reign
a single black hole will control the
fate of trillions of stars and planets
you might think the Sun is powerful you
might think even a big massive star is
powerful but the most powerful of all is
a black hole scientists have discovered
how black holes form galaxies and
dictate their futures
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but one big mystery remains what happens
deep inside a black hole
black holes were once just a theory a
prediction made by Einstein
now we know they control galaxies and
power the brightest lights in the cosmos
but they still hide a secret something
that even Einstein couldn't see
what happens if we venture inside the
event horizon the boundary surrounding a
black hole from which light cannot
escape
I think that would be a pretty cool
mission just the idea of exploring
something like that I think that would
be quite an opportunity for the
astronauts of the future we actually
have a pretty good understanding of what
happens outside of a black hole but we
don't know what happens at that final
split-second that shaves slice of time
when you pass that point of no return
and hit the event horizon in Scotland a
remarkable experiment intends to reveal
what's beyond the event horizon
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it's the brainchild of Daniela fagio
it's basically unexplored territory and
that's where we can really push the
boundaries of our knowledge
fatiah doesn't use a telescope and he's
not an astronaut instead he makes black
holes in his lab his key ingredient is
light we have extremely powerful lasers
which forced the light to start to
behave and start to flow as if it were a
fluid
near a black hole space also flows like
a fluid it moves towards the event
horizon like a river heading downstream
imagine a flowing body of water and
you're trying to swim against this flow
what you'll feel is the vapor will try
to drag you along with it and this is
exactly what a gravitational field is
doing outside a black hole
Biagio forces light into a tight
whirlpool just like matter descending
into a real black hole and he's making
scientific breakthroughs
when he fires a wave of light towards
one of his black holes something strange
happens he can see these waves which are
moving they're essentially frozen at the
boundary of the horizon that we've
generated these frozen waves confirm a
prediction of Einstein's most famous
theory relativity Einstein thought that
near a black hole gravity would start
stretching time a second would expand to
years or even centuries seeing from a
distance objects would seem frozen in
time exactly what Fangio sees with his
experimental black holes he is confident
the same thing happens in space few were
to observe a spaceship or someone
falling into black holes from very far
away you would actually never see that
person passed through the event horizon
you would see them approach the event
horizon time as seen from us would slow
down and we'd see them slowed down and
essentially remain frozen on the event
horizon forever
but the astronauts inside the spaceship
wouldn't notice time being stretched
they'd experience the same gravity
changes as their surroundings
for them time passes normally while
gravity drags them to the event horizon
even Einstein didn't know what happens
next
but Fat Joe thinks his experiment will
one day solve this scientific mystery
it's as if this was a slice directly
through the spear of a real black hole
this allows him to see beyond the event
horizon and prove the inner workings of
a black hole for the first time this is
really exciting I think this is where or
the new physics is hiding with this new
scientific knowledge we would finally
explain what happens inside a black hole
for now what lies beyond the event
horizon
remains a mystery
some think there's a fiery Inferno it
could be like a giant firewall that
everything gets sucked in at once that
old smashes together and kind of
vaporizes in a big explosion others
predict something called a singularity
it's where all space and time converge
into a single point and time to time
comes to a stop which is crazy to think
about while some think the blackhole
spaghettify z-- everything that enters
if you go into a black hole
feet-first then the force of gravity at
your feet will be much stronger than a
force of gravity at your head and you
get stretched out into this long thin
strip till eventually your molecules
break apart and your atoms break apart
and you basically go into the black hole
as a thin strip of vapor
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black holes defy understanding
but theoretically there could be
something even stranger out there
a black hole reversed
a white hole
instead of sucking matter in
it spits it out into a frantic volcano
of energy
white holes could open up new horizons
for Humanity
one of the amazing properties of black
holes and white holes is that sometimes
they can link to form a wormhole and
when that happens you can enter the
black hole at one place in the universe
and exit the white hole at a very
different place so in an essence the
black hole sucks you in and the white
hole spits you out if these bridges
exist they offer a tantalizing
opportunity
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could we travel through these wormholes
and what would this journey be like
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once they were a science fiction writers
wildest dream but now scientists believe
wormholes are very real and they could
revolutionize space exploration
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the beauty of a wormhole is that it
allows us to travel vast distances it
almost no time at all imagine if I
wanted to travel to the Milky Way galaxy
that in this example is that this end of
the paper to the Andromeda galaxy at
this end of the paper that's 2 million
light years even if I travel it at the
speed of light it would take me 2
million years but with the wormhole you
can bend space sufficiently that you can
go from this side to that side in almost
no time at all
entering the wormhole would make
unimaginable journeys possible
we could take trips in days or even
hours that would previously take
billions of years
barreling through this tear in the
fabric of space
the white hole would catapult you out in
a completely different place and maybe
even time
if we can overcome one technical
obstacle
the problem is as soon as you enter the
mouth of a wormhole it collapses it's
like trying to get inside of a soap
bubble as soon as you pierce that bubble
it pops so there have been some
scientists who say gee maybe there's a
way we can stop them from disappearing
what do you do if you're at a restaurant
and your table is a little bit wobbly
and your drinks keep spilling well
you've wedged something under it to make
it so it doesn't shake and it's nice and
stable it's possible that something like
that might exist for wormholes the
cosmos is full of my new particles like
electrons and protons when they interact
they project short-lived bursts of
energy
scientists called them virtual particles
and believe these surges and power could
pry open a wormhole it sounds like
science fiction but in Los Angeles a
group of scientists is attacking the
problem
Umar Mohideen is building a device he
hopes could allow humans to enter a
wormhole
it's exciting to be doing this kind of
research I mean it's very motivating and
there is the opportunity to make new
discoveries you know that's part of the
excitement of doing the research a
component deep inside his machine has
the power to revolutionize space
exploration a microscopic metal ball
boom arm mounts this sphere next to a
metal plate leaving only a minut gap
between them the separation is very
small in this case on the order of a
micron which is about a 50th of the
width of your hair so it's awfully small
separation distance
this tiny gap traps virtual particles
and Umar thinks we can use these bursts
of energy to try and force open a
wormhole this is a frontier that you're
trying to understand physical phenomenon
and properties of nature that are still
under debate that's part of the
excitement
Lamar's device only generates minut
forces
but a scaled-up version could work
to pry open a wormhole we'd have to
build a huge metal sphere millions of
miles wide
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then build another one right next to it
no further away than a single atom
finally we'd have to drop both spheres
right into the mouth of a black hole
then we could travel to the farthest
corners of the universe
when humanity has been able to expand
the range over which we can travel and
look and see and come to comprehend that
has always led to new knowledge that
we've used to increase the quality of
human life mastering wormholes would
likely continue that process just
because we don't have the technology
today that doesn't mean we're not gonna
have in the future think about it it was
just about a hundred years ago that the
Wright brothers took to the air even if
wormholes don't exist even if wormholes
can't exist the mathematics the science
the physics of figuring them out
theoretically can lead to new
discoveries and things that we can use
things that do exist and it can benefit
humanity it is always worth
investigating things like this it's why
we call it exploration
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black holes can devour planets and stars
in the blink of an eye
but now we know they have a more
positive role as well
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they build and control galaxies keeping
order in the cosmos
and one day they may propel us to the
distant corners of the universe
far from fearing black holes
maybe we should learn to love them
you