Forecast Fun

This week’s question: Because it’s true that galaxies have black holes at their center and if two nearby galaxies were colliding, would those two galaxies form one massive black hole? This is an excellent question from diverse physics viewpoints. The Hubble Constant tells us that all objects in the universe retreating from all the others. At the same time we acknowledge that locally this is often not the case. For example, the Milky Way Galaxy is going to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in five billion years. In fact there are a number of interacting galaxies that we can see from Earth which are on a collision course with each other. A black hole is a spot in space with a gravitational pull that is so overwhelming that tiny protons of light can’t even elude its grasp. This means that astronomers cannot directly perceive a black hole. However, new massive telescopes can prove the evidence of them. It has been seen that after a large star falls in on itself and forms a supernova which a small black hole can form in its core. Supernovae are so fascinating to astronomers that there is a whole subdivision of astronomy committed to the discovery and study of supernovae. That’s why the astronomers at Windowpane Observatory have made possible the name a star program, which grants those interested in astronomy the opportunity to give to research into supernovae, as well as the search for asteroids headed toward Earth.