What is the best evidence for the existence of black holes? Is it all really just a theory?
Astronomers have found a half-dozen or so binary star systems (two stars orbiting each other) where one of the stars is invisible, yet must be there since it pulls with enough gravitational force on the other visible star to make that star orbit around their common center of gravity AND the mass of the invisible star is considerably greater than 3 to 5 solar masses. Therefore these invisible stars are thought to be good candidate black holes. There is also evidence that supermassive black holes (about 1 billion solar masses) exist at the centers of many galaxies and quasars. In this latter case other explanations of the output of energy by quasars are not as good as the explanation using a supermassive black hole. (You see, when matter falls in a gravitational field, its speed and therefore energy, increases. If lots of matter is falling in at the same time, and swirling around the black hole in a disk resembling a traffic jam in a cul-de-sac, then friction between the various pieces o
Astronomers have found a half-dozen or so binary star systems (two stars orbiting each other) where one of the stars is invisible, yet must be there since it pulls with enough gravitational force on the other visible star to make that star orbit around their common center of gravity AND the mass of the invisible star is considerably greater than 3 to 5 solar masses. Therefore these invisible stars are thought to be good candidate black holes. There is also evidence that supermassive black holes (about 1 billion solar masses) exist at the centers of many galaxies and quasars. In this latter case other explanations of the output of energy by quasars are not as good as the explanation using a supermassive black hole. (You see, when matter falls in a gravitational field, its speed and therefore energy, increases. If lots of matter is falling in at the same time, and swirling around the black hole in a disk resembling a traffic jam in a cul-de-sac, then friction between the various pieces o
