These questions and more are answered in this new title from the makers of All About Space. Uncover the truth behind the creation of black holes, and get up close with the primordial giants that have been around since just after the Big Bang. Find out what happens when black holes turn white, and take a trip to the Event Horizon Telescope to see how the first-ever picture of a black hole was taken. We also take a look at questions that have plagued astrophysicists for decades. Can life actually exist around black holes? Can a spaceship be powered by a black hole’s energy? And could these cosmic enigmas even be gateways to parallel universes?
Welcome
All About Space Black Holes - 5th Ed
50 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT BLACK HOLES • Few things are as universally awe-inspiring and terrifying as black holes. These invisible behemoths are the great architects and the great destroyers of the universe
“THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND…” • Discover the missions that paved the way for Apollo 11’s historic journey, the astronauts who followed in Neil Armstrong’s first footsteps, and the brave crews that risked their lives in the name of exploration and space science.
Explaining Black Holes • Unearth the science behind black holes and how they work
THE SCIENCE OF BLACK HOLES • Head into a world where the laws of physics are pushed to the extreme
How black holes are made • The deaths of giant stars birth these behemoths
Famous black hole candidates
Anatomy of a black hole • What makes up these gargantuan gobblers?
Different kinds of black hole
What happens at the centre of a black hole? • All of the possibilities are very weird
STRANGEST STAR IN THE UNIVERSE • Black holes might be collapsing stars that are exploding in slow motion
Bluffer’s guide: loop quantum gravity • How to make two of our competing laws of physics match up with each other
How do Planck stars form? • These stars form in a similar way to black holes, but with some crucial differences
Five facts about black holes • Here are five things we know about these unusual objects that play a crucial role in Planck stars
WHERE DO BLACK HOLES LEAD? • If you could journey through the cosmos' most monstrous objects, what tales – if any – would you be able to tell?
The theories • Where do scientists believe information plunged into a black hole may end up?
The white hole • Nobody has ever seen a 'reverse black hole', but what could they look like in theory?
Bluffer’s guide to black holes • Explaining the key jargon and concepts that are essential in understanding these high-gravity objects
Event Horizon Telescope • The EHT is the first-ever experiment to capture an image of a black hole
DISCOVER THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF SPACE EXPLORATION • From the formative years of Sputnik through to modern-day innovations like Perseverence, embark on a journey across the history of humanity’s missions into space, and glimpse what is in store for the future.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S BLACK HOLE • As the hunt for a mysterious world at our solar neighbourhood’s edge steps up, something more exotic might also fit the bill
Finding the phantom photobombers • By monitoring a billion stars, we are finding the fingerprints of rogue planets, stars and possibly black holes
Residents of the outer Solar System • What else lies in this cold region of space?
A breakthrough in reaching the outer Solar System • How a mission to Alpha Centauri has inspired an approach to pinpoint our mysterious outer Solar System object
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory: how it will help find Planet Nine • In 2025 the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will come online,...