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Last Post 10/20/2010 11:27 AM by Terry Kucera

how a black hole will affect the Earth

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10/20/2010 7:21 AM
My student Sara O. would l ike to find out the answer for the following question: If a close star explodes and becomes a black hole, will it attract the Earth?

Tags: black holes

Terry Kucera

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10/20/2010 11:27 AM
Hi Sara, There is no really close star that we think is big enough to go supernova. If there were, though, the supernova itself might be a problem. However, the remaining black hole would be no more massive than the star that was there before. Actually it would be less massive because lot of it would have been blown away in the supernova. A black hole is just very dense. That is a problem if you are near the surface of the black hole, but not if you are far away. So, Earth would be no more attracted to the black hole than it was to the star that was there before it. Terry