What's inside a black hole: super hot or frigid?
September 22, 20243 Mins Read
Speaking of temperature, space is a strange place. The temperature of space is close to absolute zero, i.e. 0 Kelvin or minus 273.16 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, the temperature of the star is thousands to millions of degrees Celsius. Again, the temperature of the core or center within the planet is also very high. It means that not only the difference in temperature, but also the difference between the sky and the ground can be seen immediately.

Astronaut Black Hole

Black holes are one of the most mysterious objects in space. Have you ever wanted to know the temperature of this mysterious object? Black hole. As the name suggests, this cosmic object is in the dark. Scientists have actually detected the super-heavy, super-dense matter that Karl Schwarzschild envisioned nearly a hundred years ago. A few years ago, in 2019, scientists took pictures of black holes for the first time.

Messier 87 is a galaxy 55 light years away from Earth. The supermassive black hole at the center of that galaxy—M87*. The image of this black hole was taken in 2019 by a telescope called the Event Horizon, a group of telescopes spread across the globe. Later, the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy was also photographed. Anyway, back to the topic.

A black hole is a region of infinite curvature of spacetime. A star at least 2-3 times more massive than the Sun can become a black hole at the end of its life. Sun is main stream star. At the end of its life as a mass it will become a white dwarf star. It is also necessary to mention Chandrasekhar's limit here. Indian-born American astrophysicist Subrahmanian Chandrasekhar said white dwarf stars at least 1.4 times more massive than the Sun could become black holes or neutron stars.

In fact, if heavier than this, the white dwarf star can no longer balance itself, collapsing under its own gravitational pull. This limit is called Chandrasekhar limit or Chandrasekhar's limit. However, more massive and massive main-sequence stars become more massive black holes. This is their inevitable fate. Of course, this involves the rotation of the star, the surrounding gravitational field, and so on.

When a star becomes a black hole, its density increases dramatically. The surrounding space-time bends tremendously. The amount of curvature is so great that once something enters a certain region of a black hole, it cannot come back. This particular region is called the event horizon.

Of course, pure scientists would say, not only the curvature, but also the direction of spacetime changes inside a black hole. This is also the reason behind not being able to return anything. The point is, black holes also absorb light waves, the fastest in the universe. As a result, even with advanced technology and telescopes, the black hole has shrouded itself in mystery.

Much of what is known about black holes is theoretical. That is, scientists have calculated them. The photo taken of the black hole is actually the event horizon. When an object (planet, star or anything) comes to the event horizon, it starts moving at almost the speed of light. As a result, the particles of matter collide with each other violently. Heat and light are produced.

The thermal state of an object can be determined by analyzing light. Scientists have observed the event horizon of black holes for so long, from the information they have obtained, it is believed that the temperature here can be up to billions of degrees Celsius.

On the other hand, the conditions inside a black hole cannot be observed in any way. But inside it, a large amount of mass is concentrated at one point. Therefore, if the natural state of matter is maintained, the probability of fundamental particle vibrations is very low. And if there is no vibration, there will be no temperature. For this reason, many scientists think that very low temperature prevails inside the black hole. The internal temperature of a black hole with the same mass as the Sun can be about one millionth of absolute zero.

However, this is not absolutely certain information. Most importantly, the absolute point or singularity of a black hole does not behave according to the laws of physics as we know it. In this region the known laws of physics break down. So it is not possible to say anything with certainty about the condition inside the black hole.