Black hole bagged Nobel Prize this time

Black holes, in simple language can be anything but an empty space. But in our universe black hole is super massive monster in which great amount of matter concentrated in a small region. In it, gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape out of it, not even a light. Black hole forms when massive star collapses at the end of its life cycle. After its formation, it continues to grow by engulfing the matter around it. And in this way it grows in the form of supermassive black hole.

Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2020 for their discoveries about the black holes in universe. Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes. Albert Einstein who gave general theory of relativity could not able to explain properly the existence of black holes. In 1965, Roger Penrose used various mathematical methods and in his proof tells that black holes are a direct consequence of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. He explains that black hole is a kind of situation in which all the laws of physics ceases. He tells that black hole would be a real and stable astrophysical object. He laid the theoretical foundation which explains the existence of black holes in outer universe.

Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez both led the research that tracked stars at the centre of the Milky Way. Their orbits were bent by what known as supermassive black hole. Their study was mainly focussed on the region called Sagittarius A* at the centre of our galaxy. Both researchers claimed on finding extremely heavy and invisible object that pulls on the closest stars and cause them to orbit around at dizzying speeds. Sagittarius A*, weighs about millions of solar masses and is about 26000 light years away. Genzel and Ghez used world’s largest telescopes and various methods to see through the huge clouds of interstellar dust and gas to the centre of the Milky Way. In their study, they mapped the progress of a single star orbiting around Sagittarius A*. by studying such orbits, they draw out the conclusions of the presence of invisible object. Unique instruments and refined new technologies which reduce distortions and noise has lead us to give most convincing evidences of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

The discoveries of these researchers have open up new doors of the study of supermassive and invisible objects present in our universe. In the end, both these researches provided the strongest evidences of black holes and also lead to the development refined telescope methods and wonderful technologies. But still there are several questions which are still to be answerable by our future researchers.