Product: The Scrambler

 Family Member: Black Hole

 Product Code: Scr-BH

• Artist’s drawing of a growing black hole, called a quasar. Credit: NASA
• This image, created by APEX and Chandra x-ray, of Centaurus A shows a spectacular view of a supermassive black hole’s power. Credit: ESO.org
• Artist’s impression of Cygnus X-1. Credit www.sun.org

The Scrambler Black Hole is one of three types of black holes currently available from Cosmic Caboodle’s intergalactic online shop and it’s free.

A black hole is a compact and very dense object in space with a super strong gravitational pull. It is so strong that not even light can escape it. They are commonly formed after the death of a giant star.

Black holes are real and exist in our very own Milky Way galaxy.  Although we haven’t actually seen a black hole (because they suck in any light nearby), we do know they exist. What we can see, with big telescopes and satellites, is what they do to the surrounding gases and stars. For example, scientists can observe gases that appear to be vanishing inside a black hole (see photo above).

Our black holes are categorised into 4 groups based on size and mass (mass is the amount of matter, or ‘stuff’ that is inside an object).

To understand just how heavy a black hole is, imagine if you had a black hole the size of an atom (atoms are so small you can’t even see them with the help of a microscope). But you couldn’t hold it, because it would weigh as much as a giant mountain.

We can’t directly see a black hole which means we also can’t see what’s happening inside of one.  However, scientists can hypothesise what’s actually happening inside a black hole. A hypothesis is a bit like a well thought out guess or answer to your question.  Instead of doing a real life experiment, scientists do what’s called a thought experiment. They imagine what would happen if we say sent some little aliens into a black hole and then they use the language of mathematics to explain what would happen next.

For the Scrambler black hole, a scientist by the name of Stephen Hawking used the mathematics called the theory of general relativity. General relativity was determined by the famous physicist Albert Einstein back in 1915. This mathematics helps explain how gravity works both here on earth and way out in deep, dark outer space. However, under this thought experiment he came up with a different result than our friend the Stretcher black hole and it’s secret is revealed below.

So back to our little alien friends.  As they float past the black hole, gravity starts to pull them closer and closer into the hole. Eventually they will reach what’s called the event horizon but under this experiment, it is a softer type of event horizon. It’s called an apparent event horizon and when the alien gets close enough, it becomes temporarily suspended in its grasp. Next it scrambles up the alien into something totally unrecognisable from what it once was and you can’t return it back to its former glory.

To see what the Scrambler black hole looks like inside, be sure to grab your very own by clicking the red button below.