Black Holes

In a few months, we may see the first image of a black hole. This is exciting!

Scientists trained the radio telescopes of eight observatories ranging from Antarctica to Hawaii to Spain on two black holes, one located at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and another in a galaxy known as M87. Supercomputers will analyze the data and, if all goes according to plan, we’ll get to see a picture of a black hole for the first time.

The telescope array that undertook this mission is called the Event Horizon Telescope, because an event horizon is what the project is designed to detect. A black hole, which occurs when a star collapses in on itself until all of its mass is compressed into what is called a gravitational or space-time singularity, is super-dense.

The gravity in a black hole is, to say the least, strong. It is so strong that something would have to travel faster than the speed of light to escape. Since, so far as we are aware, nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light, nothing, including light, can escape a black hole.

The event horizon, which is the boundary of a black hole, is the point of no return; once an object—an asteroid, say—gets past that point, there’s no escaping. The extreme gravity of the black hole sucks it in, and that’s that.

Sagittarius A, as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is known (it’s located in the constellation Sagittarius), is 26,000 light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year. Light travels 186,000 miles per second. So how far away is Sagittarius A? You do the math (because I can’t). 

It’s a far piece. It’s farther than over yonder.

But it seems to me that we have some black holes right here among us: fear, hate, prejudice, and ignorance. All too often, all four of them combine in the black hole to end all black holes. We don’t have to wait for a picture. We’ve all seen it.

Some of us are in such a black hole.

I’m not sure how people get there, but they do. And some of us are getting dangerously close to the event horizon. We’re getting very close to the point where we cross over into the black hole where the combination of fear, hate, prejudice, and ignorance sucks us in.

If you get in your spaceship, kick it into warp drive, and cross a black hole’s event horizon, that’s that. You’ll never get out. As I understand it, that’s how the physics work. Oh, and science suggests that the force inside the black hole would quickly tear you to shreds.

Our spiritual and social black holes will suck you in, and once you’re there, they’ll tear your mind, heart, and spirit to shreds. But I don’t believe that, once you’ve crossed the event horizon into the black hole of fear, hate, prejudice, and ignorance, you’re doomed to stay there.

I say that because, while the gravity of a black hole may be the strongest force in the universe, it’s nothing compared to grace and love.