Black Holes Suck
Or do they?
What comes to mind when you think of black holes? Is it the movie Interstellar where a black hole acts like a wormhole to help Matthew McConaughy travel across the galaxy? Or is it The Romulans in Star Trek (2009) artificially creating a stellar black hole and consuming the entire planet of Vulcan? Ever since black holes’ discovery, they have been popular plot devices for sci-fi writers, and a dangerous and strange mystery to audiences. But are these black holes really as dangerous as they seem? Astronomers have the tools to help us learn more about what these mysterious objects are really about.
Courtesy of Thomas Lucas Productions Inc., Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Black holes have a bad reputation of being invisible monsters that appear out of nowhere and suck in everything around them like a giant vacuum, and the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre wants know just how bad they are. While its true black holes are invisible because they absorb everything including light, and it would be fatal to fall INTO a black hole, you wouldn’t necessarily get sucked into one just by flying by it. Like any large object, gravity is at work, and like our solar system orbiting around the Sun, our galaxy orbits around a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. And once spinning around a black hole, not only does some material get pulled in but some gets blasted out. Like a wrestling match the matter outside the black hole is jostled about, some of it gets tossed outside the ring, while others get pulled into the black hole never to escape.
So, will you get sucked in?
The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre has launched a brand new planetarium show that gives you a front row journey into the centre of a black hole! Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity uses specially created Black Holes Simulator software to visualize and recreate the effects of a black hole, and take you on an epic journey into the unknown. Liam Neeson is the guiding voice for the journey and he will find the black hole and take us there!
Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity dates:
Weekday Matinee:
Monday to Friday: 2:00pm
Weekend Matinees:
Saturday & Sunday: 1:00pm and 3:00pm
Weekend Nights:
Saturday, November 21st 9:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
Saturday, November 28th 9:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
Saturday, December 5th 7:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
Saturday, December 12th 7:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
Saturday, December 19th 7:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
Saturday, December 26th 7:30pm Planetarium Star Theatre
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Courtesy of H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
