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A Company Called SpaceX

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is the first company ever to build and launch its own rockets and space capsules to the International Space Station and return them to Earth.

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon space capsules launch on the company's Falcon 9 rockets and first flew to the International Space Station in 2012. The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company is planning to upgrade Dragon capsules to launch seven people into orbit in upcoming years, but there's more to SpaceX than meets the eye.

Get to know the private spaceflight company SpaceX with these six fun facts:

FIRST STOP: What's with those names?

What's in a Name?

SpaceX's billionaire CEO Elon Musk has said that he named his spacecraft "Dragon" after the fictional "Puff the Magic Dragon," from the hit song by music group Peter, Paul and Mary. Musk said he used the name because many critics considered his goals impossible when he founded SpaceX in 2002.

In 2013, the company celebrated its 10th anniversary and secured a $1.6 billion deal with NASA to provide 12 unmanned cargo flights to the International Space Station. Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., is also under contract with the agency to provide supply flights to the orbiting lab.

Say Cheese!

On the Dragon capsule's first test flight in December 2010, it carried a wheel of cheese into orbit. Prior to the successful liftoff, SpaceX officials hinted that Dragon was carrying special cargo into space, but the company did not reveal the secret payload until after the spacecraft had returned from orbit and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

The wheel of cheese was launched in honor of a classic skit from actor John Cleese in the British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus.

"It's kind of funny," Musk told reporters after the successful launch in 2010. "If you like Monty Python, you'll love the secret."

The cheese rode inside the Dragon capsule for the entire flight, from the launch in Florida to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles (804 kilometers) west of Mexico. After the mission, SpaceX released photos of the cheese wheel, showing it inside a metal cylinder with a cover secured by bolts.

Rise of the Falcon

SpaceX's fleet of Falcon rockets - the Falcon 9 boosters and smaller Falcon 1 rockets - are named after the fictional Millenium Falcon spaceship from creator George Lucas' "Star Wars" movies. In the sci-fi classics, the iconic Millenium Falcon spacecraft is commanded by the character Han Solo.

The Real Iron Man in Charge

Part of the live-action superhero movie "Iron Man 2" was shot in SpaceX's factory in Hawthorne, Calif., and CEO Elon Musk even graced the silver screen with a cameo as himself. In a profile of the commercial spaceflight pioneer written for TIME magazine, "Iron Man 2" director Jon Favreau said Musk inspired actor Robert Downey, Jr.'s portrayal of the character Tony Stark, the genius billionaire behind the famed Marvel Comics superhero.

Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, is also the CEO of Tesla Motors and made his initial fortune by co-founding the online payment system PayPal. The entrepreneur has also developed a larger-than-life persona, with admirers calling him the real-life Tony Stark.

"That is pretty surreal," Musk told SPACE.com recently. "I guess we are making giant rockets - that's kind of cool. I don't have a suit of armor, though. I don't fly around in a suit of armor."

The Fire-Breathing Dragon

SpaceX's Dragon capsule "breathes fire" with its 18 Draco thrusters that help the spacecraft maneuver in orbit and maintain attitude control.

The New Space Race

In 2010, SpaceX became the first company to launch a privately built spacecraft into orbit and return it safely to Earth. The company is now aiming to become the first to dock a commercial space capsule to the International Space Station. Still, Musk has even loftier goals: to be the first entrepreneur to put an astronaut in orbit.

The company intends to use a version of the robotic Dragon capsule to one day carry astronauts to the orbiting outpost and other destinations in low-Earth orbit.

Musk has also been outspoken about the need for humans to become a multi-planet species to survive. Eventually, he plans to modify the Dragon spacecraft to one day land on the surface of Mars.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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6 Fun Facts About Private Rocket Company SpaceX

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The private spaceflight company SpaceX is the first company ever to build and launch its own rockets and space capsules to the International Space Station and return them to Earth. SpaceX's unmanned Dragon space capsules launch on the company's Falcon 9 rockets and first flew to the International Space Station in 2012.

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Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

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Table of Contents Nebulae Are Clouds of Gas

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Astronomers study a lot of gorgeous things, but nebulae might be the most breathtakingly beautiful of them all. Nebulae are clouds of gas and dust in space. They can glow on their own or reflect light from nearby stars.

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Everything you need to know about Nebulae

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Everything you need to know about Nebulae

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Everything you need to know about nebulae! - Fun Kids - the UK's children's radio station

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Nebulae are enormous clouds of gas - mostly hydrogen and helium, plus dust. They're often very large, spanning man light years. Today, the students of Deep Space High go Nebula Diving, taking a look at these big old, dusty clouds! Follow the school in space at http://www.funkidslive.com/space/ Subscribe for more videos like this!

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This virtual reality visualisation takes the viewer on a breathtaking flight through the Orion Nebula, a nearby star-forming region. The video has been produced using scientific imagery and data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

As the camera flies into the nebula, the viewer sweeps past newborn stars, smouldering clouds heated by intense radiation, and tadpole-shaped gaseous envelopes surrounding protoplanetary disks. A glowing gaseous landscape is revealed, that has been illuminated and carved by the high-energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster.

Credit:

Frank Summers, Greg Bacon, Zolt Levay, Lisa Frattare, Massimo Robberto (STScI). Acknowledgment: Robert Gendler. Music: "Blizzard (PON I)", Kai Engel, CC BY-NC

About the Video

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Virtual reality flight through the Orion Nebula

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This virtual reality visualisation takes the viewer on a breathtaking flight through the Orion Nebula, a nearby star-forming region. The video has been produced using scientific imagery and data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As the camera flies into the nebula, the viewer sweeps past newborn stars, smouldering clouds heated by intense radiation, and tadpole-shaped gaseous envelopes surrounding protoplanetary disks.

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Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 - September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology.

Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as " nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances.

Hubble's name is most widely recognized for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was named in his honor, with a model prominently displayed in his hometown of Marshfield, Missouri.

Early life and education

Edwin Hubble was born to Virginia Lee Hubble (née James) (1864-1934) and John Powell Hubble, an insurance executive, in Marshfield, Missouri, and moved to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1900. In his younger days, he was noted more for his athletic prowess than his intellectual abilities, although he did earn good grades in every subject except spelling. Edwin was a gifted athlete, playing baseball, football, and running track in both high school and college. He won seven first places and a third place in a single high school track and field meet in 1906 and he played a variety of positions on the basketball court from center to shooting guard. Hubble led the University of Chicago's basketball team to their first Big Ten Conference title in 1907.

Undergraduate studies

Hubble's studies at the University of Chicago were concentrated on mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, which resulted in a bachelor of science degree by 1910. Hubble also became a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. A Rhodes Scholar, he spent three years at The Queen's College, Oxford studying jurisprudence instead of science (as a promise to his dying father), and later added studies in literature and Spanish, eventually earning his master's degree.

Hubble was also a dutiful son, who despite his intense interest in astronomy since boyhood, acquiesced to his father's request to study law, first at the University of Chicago and later at Oxford. In this time, he also took some math and science courses. After the death of his father in 1913, Edwin returned to the Midwest from Oxford but did not have the motivation to practice law. Instead, he proceeded to teach Spanish, physics and mathematics at New Albany High School in New Albany, Indiana, where he also coached the boys' basketball team. After a year of high-school teaching, he entered graduate school with the help of his former professor from the University of Chicago to study astronomy at the university's Yerkes Observatory, where he received his Ph.D. in 1917. His dissertation was titled "Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae". In Yerkes, he had access to one of the most powerful telescopes in the world at the time, which had an innovative 24 inch (61 cm) reflector.

Doctoral studies

In 1919, Hubble was offered a staff position at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena, California, by George Ellery Hale, the founder and director of the observatory. Hubble remained on staff at Mount Wilson until his death in 1953. Shortly before his death, Hubble became the first astronomer to use the newly completed giant 200-inch (5.1 m) reflector Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California.

Discoveries

Universe goes beyond the Milky Way galaxy

Edwin Hubble's arrival at Mount Wilson Observatory, California, in 1919 coincided roughly with the completion of the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope, then the world's largest. At that time, the prevailing view of the cosmos was that the universe consisted entirely of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Using the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson, Hubble identified Cepheid variables, a standard candle discovered by Henrietta Leavitt. Comparing their apparent luminosity to their intrinsic luminosity gives their distance from Earth. Hubble found Cepheids in several nebulae, including the Andromeda Nebula and Triangulum Nebula. His observations, made in 1924, proved conclusively that these nebulae were much too distant to be part of the Milky Way and were, in fact, entire galaxies outside our own, thus today they are no longer considered nebula.

This was first hypothesized as early as 1755 when Immanuel Kant's General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens appeared. This hypothesis was opposed by many in the astronomy establishment of the time, in particular by Harvard University-based Harlow Shapley. Despite the opposition, Hubble, then a thirty-five-year-old scientist, had his findings first published in The New York Times on November 23, 1924, then presented them to other astronomers at the January 1, 1925, meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Hubble's results for Andromeda were not formally published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal until 1929.

Hubble's findings fundamentally changed the scientific view of the universe. Supporters state that Hubble's discovery of nebulae outside of our galaxy helped pave the way for future astronomers. Although some of his more renowned colleagues simply scoffed at his results, Hubble ended up publishing his findings on nebulae. This published work earned him an award titled the American Association Prize and five hundred dollars from Burton E. Livingston of the Committee on Awards.

Hubble also devised the most commonly used system for classifying galaxies, grouping them according to their appearance in photographic images. He arranged the different groups of galaxies in what became known as the Hubble sequence.

Redshift increases with distance

Yet the reason for the redshift remained unclear. Georges Lemaître predicted on theoretical grounds based on Einstein's equations for general relativity the redshift-distance relation, and published observational support for it, two years before the discovery of Hubble's law. Although he used the term "velocities" in his paper (and "apparent radial velocities" in the introduction), he later expressed doubt about interpreting these as real velocities.

Today, the "apparent velocities" in question are usually thought of as an increase in proper distance that occurs due to the expansion of the universe. Light traveling through an expanding metric will experience a Hubble-type redshift, a mechanism somewhat different from the Doppler effect (although the two mechanisms become equivalent descriptions related by a coordinate transformation for nearby galaxies).

In the 1930s, Hubble was involved in determining the distribution of galaxies and spatial curvature. These data seemed to indicate that the universe was flat and homogeneous, but there was a deviation from flatness at large redshifts.

There were methodological problems with Hubble's survey technique that showed a deviation from flatness at large redshifts. In particular, the technique did not account for changes in luminosity of galaxies due to galaxy evolution. Earlier, in 1917, Albert Einstein had found that his newly developed theory of general relativity indicated that the universe must be either expanding or contracting. Unable to believe what his own equations were telling him, Einstein introduced a cosmological constant (a " fudge factor") to the equations to avoid this "problem". When Einstein learned of Hubble's redshifts, he immediately realized that the expansion predicted by general relativity must be real, and in later life, he said that changing his equations was "the biggest blunder of [his] life." In fact, Einstein apparently once visited Hubble and tried to convince him that the universe was expanding.

Hubble also discovered the asteroid 1373 Cincinnati on August 30, 1935. In 1936 he wrote The Observational Approach to Cosmology and The Realm of the Nebulae which explained his approaches to extra-galactic astronomy and his view of the subject's history.

In December 1941, Hubble reported to the American Association for the Advancement of Science that results from a six-year survey with the Mt. Wilson telescope did not support the expanding universe theory. According to a Los Angeles Times article reporting on Hubble's remarks, "The nebulae could not be uniformly distributed, as the telescope shows they are, and still fit the explosion idea. Explanations which try to get around what the great telescope sees, he said, fail to stand up. The explosion, for example, would have had to start long after the earth was created, and possibly even after the first life appeared here." (Hubble's estimate of what we now call the Hubble constant would put the Big Bang only 2 billion years ago.)

Personal life

Hubble married Grace Lillian (Burke) Leib (1889-1980), daughter of John Patrick and Luella (Kepford) Burke, on February 26, 1924.

Hubble was raised as a Protestant Christian but some of his later statements suggest uncertainty.

Health issues and death

Edwin Hubble quotes

"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science."

"The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons."

"Observations always involve theory."

Newcomb Cleveland Prize in 1924;

Bruce Medal in 1938;

Franklin Medal in 1939;

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1940;

Legion of Merit for outstanding contribution to ballistics research in 1946;

On March 6, 2008, the United States Postal Service released a 41-cent stamp honoring Hubble on a sheet titled "American Scientists" designed by artist Victor Stabin.

(Note that the assertion that he would have won the Nobel Prize in 1953 is likely false, although he was nominated for the prize that year.)

Other notable appearances

In Spanish: Edwin Hubble para niños

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The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is the most famous - and probably most successful - space observatory ever flown. The 11 tonne telescope was placed into a 570 km high orbit around Earth by the Space Shuttle in April 1990. Circling our planet every 96 minutes, the HST has so far travelled some 5 billion km.

Hubble has sent back a huge amount of scientific data and incredibly detailed images of every type of object in the sky. By autumn 2009, it had made nearly 900,000 observations and snapped over 570,000 images of more than 29,000 objects.

The HST is named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), one of the great pioneers of modern astronomy. At its heart are a 2.4 m primary mirror and five science instruments that study the Universe in infrared, visible or ultraviolet light. Light collected by the main mirror is reflected onto a smaller mirror and then sent to the instruments. The data are then sent to Earth via a relay satellite.

Power for the observatory is provided by two large (2.6 x 7.1 m) solar panels. Fine Guidance Sensors are used to lock onto guide stars. This ensures the extremely high pointing accuracy needed to make very accurate observations.

Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts, so that old instruments can be replaced. This proved to be invaluable when the first images were blurred and a special optical system had to be installed to correct the problem in 1993. There have been five servicing missions, the last occurring in May 2009. It is expected to continue operating until 2014.

Last modified 20 August 2013

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The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is the most famous - and probably most successful - space observatory ever flown. The 11 tonne telescope was placed into a 570 km high orbit around Earth by the Space Shuttle in April 1990. Circling our planet every 96 minutes, the HST has so far travelled some 5 billion km.

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Super Stars (Constellations): Crash Course Kids #31.1

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Looking to learn more about constellations for kids? Improve your knowledge on stars and constellations and find out more about space with DK Find Out.

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Introduction:

The universe contains an incredible amount of unusual, strange, and powerful objects, and some of those that baffle scientists are black holes. These are areas that have such extreme densities and gravitational pull that is so strong that they pull everything in and not even light can escape.

When scientists find a black hole they aren't actually looking at the black hole, but instead, the light around it that defines its boundaries.

Once thought to be a figment of the imagination of science fiction writers, the discovery of black holes went even further.

Now scientists know that almost every galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its core that has a mass that's equal to millions of suns, including our own Milky Way galaxy.

The original black holes are believed to have started to form in the universe not that long after the Big Bang.

Due to the laws of gravity, black holes remain in a single location. This is good news for us and the universe, otherwise we would see black holes wandering around and eating the planets and suns. The orbit that the black hole maintains is extremely close to the solar system where it lives.

Albert Einstein had predicted the existence of black holes in his theory of relativity. He indicated that when a massive star dies there will be a remaining dense core and if the mass of the core is over three times the mass of the sun, the force of gravity will overwhelm all other forces and result in the creation of a black hole.

Stephen Hawking, the famed English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and director of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, wrote a few books and did a number of videos on the study of black holes. Yet with all of the research, scientists continue to add new information to a rather confounding topic.

Astronomers can't see black holes head-on, but must use special instruments that observe the behavior of stars and material near the black holes. Black holes have been divided up into three types: stellar black holes, supermassive black holes, and intermediate black holes.

Black Holes Information:

Black holes have a variety of sizes and both mass and size are the determining factors on what classification it falls into.

Scientists believe that the smallest black hole is around the size of a single atom and yet has the mass of a huge mountain. These are called "primordial black holes."

The most common black hole type is the "stellar" black hole which is medium-sized. A stellar black hole's mass can be up to twenty times greater than the sun's mass and its size can fit inside a sphere with a 10-mile diameter.

Astronomers think that the Milky Way galaxy may have dozens of stellar black holes in it.

The biggest black holes are those defined as "supermassive." These have a mass that's greater than the combination of one million suns and they would fit inside a ball the size of the solar system.

Scientists believe that every large galaxy has a center with a supermassive black hole. The one that is in the Milky Way galaxy is called Sagittarius A and has a mass that is equal to four million suns and could fit inside a sphere with a diameter around the size of our sun.
Stellar Black Holes:
Smaller stars that are around three times the mass of the sun may be small, but when they use up all of their fuel they can collapse and turn into white dwarfs or neutron stars. However when a larger star collapses, it will continue the compression process and become a stellar black hole, and these can be deadly.

The core of stellar black holes are smaller but very dense and they can compress three times the sun's mass into a city size. The "small but deadly" quote is perfect for stellar black holes.

A stellar-mass black hole is formed when a star that has the mass of around 20 solar masses finally uses up all of its fuel that gives it nuclear fusion and then collapses under its own weight.

The process of its collapse causes a supernova explosion that blows out all of the outer layers of the star. However, if the core that's now crushed has over three times the mass of the sun, there isn't any force that we know of that will stop it and it can continue to collapse to become a black hole.

Black holes "eat" the dust and gas that is around them and this will make them grow larger. Scientists believe that there are a few hundred million stellar black holes in the Milky Way galaxy.
Supermassive Black Holes:
These black holes dominate the universe and almost all galaxies have a supermassive black hole at its center. These are the strongest black holes, ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of the sun, however they typically have a radius that is small for the intensity of their influence.

Scientists believe that supermassive black holes are created when large groups of smaller black holes merge. These can be in the hundreds or thousands.

Another theory is that when large gas clouds collapse and accrete their mass in fast speeds, they create a supermassive black hole. However, a third theory involves the collapse of a stellar cluster.

Like all black holes, they consume everything around them, and in the case of supermassive black holes, their appetite is huge, giving them the ability to eat entire planets.
Intermediate Black Holes:
In the past, as scientists tried to study black holes, they believed that they were either small or huge. However, newer discoveries are showing that there is a possibility for a mid-sized or intermediate black hole (IMBH).

The theory is that when stars that exist in a cluster collide and start a chain reaction to create intermediate black holes.

If a number of these types of black holes form in the same area they could fall to the galaxy's center, creating a supermassive black hole.

History:

In 1916, Albert Einstein created his general theory of relativity that predicted black holes.
1967, John Wheeler, an American astronomer, created the term "black hole."
1971: The discovery of the first black hole.
Most Well-Known Black Holes:
As scientists continue to research black holes, they will categorize and name those that seem to be the most outstanding based on the criteria that they establish.

Sagittarius A*: This is the supermassive black hole that is at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Its location is in the Sagittarius constellation and its mass is around that of 4 million suns.

Cygnus X-1: this is a stellar-mass black hole that is around 6,500 light-years away. It's an x-ray source and a binary system that includes a blue supergiant star. Scientists believe that the source of the x-rays are that of the black hole.

Centaurus A: this is a giant spiral galaxy that is in the area of the Centaurus constellation. There are 55 million solar-mass black holes at its center, as well as two streaming jets of material that is spewing out of the galaxy as far as a million light-years away in space at around half the speed of light.

M87: at the center of this elliptical galaxy sits a black hole that has the mass of 3.5 billion suns. The black hole is enveloped in material that is superheated and it has a jet of the material that streams away extending out from the core 5,000 light-years.

Structure:

There are three layers to black holes: the outer layer, the inner event horizon, and the singularity.

The event horizon is the edge or boundary near the black hole's mouth and this is the place that light loses any escape ability. The event horizon has constant gravity. Anything that crosses the event horizon will never be able to leave.

The singularity is the black hole's inner region and this is where its mass exists. This is a location that is the single point in space-time with the mass concentration of the black hole.

Classical physics dictates that nothing can escape a black hole, however, when the concepts of quantum mechanics are added, this idea can change a bit.

Quantum mechanics indicates that each particle has an antiparticle, and this antiparticle has the opposite electric charge and the same mass as the particle.

When the two particles meet, the antiparticle and particle pairs can destroy each other. When one of these pair meetings occurs just beyond the black hole's event horizon, there is a possibility that one can be drawn into the black hole and the other one is ejected.

The resulting condition is that the black hole can experience a reduction that causes it to decay. The quantum mechanics theory isn't accepted under classical mechanics.

The problem with black holes is that they are very massive, but their density is so great that their size is smaller than the mass.

They have extremely powerful gravitational forces, so powerful that almost nothing can escape their gravity. Physics shows that even light becomes trapped in their grasp.

When scientists "view" a black hole they aren't really seeing the black hole. Instead, they are seeing the light around it, including the stars and other objects such as gas and dust that are near the black hole. The area that doesn't have any light is the black hole.

When a galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, it is usually camouflaged by the thick gas and dust that surrounds it, and this can block the emissions that are the signs of the existence of a black hole.

The gravitational forces of a black hole are so strong that they can bend light, distort time, and warp space.

When some matter is pulled toward a black hole it is ricocheted off of the edge area of the black hole known as the "event horizon" and can be thrown outward instead of pulled into the opening.

This causes jets of material that are very bright to go at incredibly fast speeds, and they are so bright that they can be seen from distances.

It's fair to say that scientists continue to work to comprehend how black holes function.

Interesting Information:

When scientists want to observe a black hole they have to rely on the light, x-rays, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation that is being thrown outside of the black hole so that they know where it is.

If a black hole passes through an interstellar matter cloud it will draw the matter toward it with its gravitational force. This process is called "accretion."

The accretion process also happens if a star gets too close to a black hole. In the case of a star, it will draw it in and then the star will be torn apart.

The matter that is attracted to the black hole heats up and accelerates, emitting x-rays that expand out into space. These x-rays can be viewed with special telescopes.

Scientists are learning that black holes may influence that areas around them with the emission of gamma ray bursts, the destruction of stars that leave leftovers that may spark the birth of new stars while ceasing the growth of stars in other areas.

The gravitational pull of a black hole can sometimes be so strong that it pulls a star's outer gases and then grows a disk around itself called an "accretion disk."

Exploration and Research:

In 2004, NASA's Swift telescope made the observation of some incredibly fleeting and powerful light flashes called gamma ray bursts.

Later exploration by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra Space telescope collected enough information to show a black hole's event "afterglow."

These discoveries led scientists to conclude that the explosions measured were the result of the collision of a black hole and a neutron star, which then created another black hole.

Both the Chandra Space Telescope and XMM-Newton have confirmed that the mid-sized black holes do exist.

In 2014, astronomers at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom found what they identified as an intermediate-mass black hole that was within a spiral galaxy's arm.

In 2015 scientists began to detect gravitational waves in space. These were predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and are ripples in the fabric of space.

LIGO detectors (The National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) that are in Louisiana and Washington observed the gravitational waves.

They found that the source of the waves was the result of a merger that happened 1.3 billion years ago between two orbiting black holes that spiraled into each other. Since that discovery, LIGO as well as other facilities now know what to look for and have seen a lot of these same types of black hole mergers.

The EHT (Event Horizon Telescope) is an international collaboration that involves a network of eight ground-based telescopes into a single Earth-sized dish. In 2019, the EHT caught a black hole image for the first time.

This is the famous M87 black hole that's around 55 million light-years away and has a mass that weighs over 6 billion sun masses. It looked like a dark circle that had a silhouette of an orbiting disk of glowing hot matter.

Facts about Black Holes for Kids:

Black holes were first suggested in the 18th century, but were considered to be a mathematical curiosity until 1964 when scientists found the first black hole that they named Cygnus X-1.

Black holes don't have the ability to emit any radiation on their own. The radiation that is used to detect them is given off as the accretion disk when it draws material from other objects that pass nearby.

Once trapped by a black hole, the material that spirals into a black hole enters the accretion disk which consists of dust, gas, planets, and stars that fall into the black hole's orbit.

The event horizon of a black hole is also known as the "point of no return" because it's the place where the black hole's gravity overtakes the material's momentum and spins it around the accretion disk. Once an item crosses the event horizon, there is no known power that can pull it out.

The intense influence of a black hole's gravity can distort space and time within the neighborhood that it exists. The closer an object gets to a black hole, the slower that time will run.

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes
https://www.nasa.gov/subject/6895/black-holes/
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/black_hole_description.html
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-58.html
https://www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html

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Black Hole Facts for Kids - Interesting Facts about Black Holes

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The universe contains an incredible amount of unusual, strange, and powerful objects, and some of those that baffle scientists are black holes. These are areas that have such extreme densities and gravitational pull that is so strong that they pull everything in and not even light can escape.

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Learn about NASA space and Earth science with our educational games for kids