I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Boron Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Really one for the physic/space boys – am sure they will nail this 😀
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Black holes do have a size, and it depends on their size. I’m not sure if they are anything other than spherical though.
What we call a “stellar mass” black hole is about 10 times heavier than the Sun, but is only about 30km in diameter! The black holes at the centre of galaxies (called “supermassive” black holes) are between 10,000 and 1 billion times heavier than the Sun, and their size can be anywhere up to 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. That’s out to the orbit of Saturn!
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I did not know the answer to this Q. Thankfully Simon just explained it.
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If you are talking about the *singularity* itself – that has no size or shape. It is a single, infinitesimally small point that has infinite density – at least from the point of view of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
However, we know that general relativity isn’t the full story – it only involves classical physics – and we don’t have a *quantum* theory of black holes yet. If we achieve that, we will find out more about the singularity – and if it actually exists! It seems to me that it will have a characteristic size, even if incredibly small. But I’m just guessing/speculating.
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