Category: Space
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The Decay of Black Holes
Black holes are areas of space where the gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light can escape. However, that was the understanding held until 1974, when the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes are indeed radiant objects, emitting a variety of particles by a mechanism involving tunnelling through the (gravitational) potential barrier…
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The Bending of Starlight as Predicted by Einstein
Light falls in a gravitational field, for instance, a laser beam fired horizontally across a room will be closer to the ground on the side where it hits the far wall than it was when it left the laser. Likewise, a ray of light that is passing over a massive object like the sun will…
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The physics behind Global Positioning System (GPS)
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a framework that allows anyone, with the aid of a small device, to identify exactly where they are on the earth’s surface. The GPS is made up of several satellites in accurate, well-known orbits around the earth. Each of these satellites contains a very accurate clock and a microwave…
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What is a Black Hole?
A black hole can be described as an area of space where the gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves has enough energy to escape it. In varied ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. Black holes are thought to form when…