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Area where image of Black Hole was taken, wikipedia commons

DO  BLACK HOLES  REALLY  EXIST?

Good morning!

And what a beautiful morning it is here in my backyard. The birds are singing, the sun is out, and a slight breeze to bring the aroma of blooming flowers. Ahhh! So sorry that I did not write last week. I actually didn’t realize I skipped a week until yesterday. But once again I was detained by illness, this time the flu and bronchitis. For three days all I did was sleep and burn a fever hoping the virus would crawl into a black hole and vanish forever. But I feel much better today, thank you Jesus!

Speaking of black holes…do they really exist? Many creationists are cautious about black holes, and dark matter/energy. Mostly because there is a lot of speculation about their origin. But it is written that God created the universe (including black holes etc) in six days. We as christians can rest assure that black holes, just as everything else in His creation points to an intelligent designer.

wikipedia, commons 

So the answer is yes! Black holes really do exist. But how, some may ask do we know? A black hole after all, would shine no light. How can we see it? Well, first of all there are many things we believe that we can’t see. Air, wind, and electrons are just three examples. But we know they exist by the observable effect they have on other things. The same is true of black holes.

Depiction of a black hole. They are often found
at the center of galaxies. Wikipedia commons.

Black holes are cloaked by event horizons in which their immense gravity prohibits light from escaping. However, they are detectable by their effect on nearby objects. “For instance, as matter (stars, astroids, planets, etc) fall toward a black hole, the matter flattens into an orbiting disk (called an accretion [building up, accumulation] disk). Friction robs the matter of orbital energy, causing the matter to orbit ever closer to the black hole. Paradoxically, the orbital speed increases as the matter falls inward. The energy lost to friction is transformed into heat, raising the temperature to millions of degrees.”¹ Before this matter passes through to the black hole, the disks shine very, very brightly. Astronomers have

Dr. Shep Doeleman

been detecting black holes this way for a half century, however it is only this year, with the use of several very special telescopes that an image could be captured on camera.

Dr. Shep Doeleman, director of the event horizon telescope states in an April 10th, 2019 NBC news release, “The photo is the product of observations made in April 2017 by the Event Horizon Telescop (EHT), an international consortium that linked eight radio observatories around the world to create a single, Earth-size telescope with enough magnifying might to see what until now has been unseeable.”² It focused on a galaxy, M87, 55 million light years away. Why this one? Because it has a super colossal black hole at its core. Therefore the amount discs as they are superheated and shine brightly was hypothesized to be great enough to be

NBC press conference with Dr. Doeleman

able to photograph. And the scientists were right! And what a beautiful photo. For the first time in April of 2019, we actually have visual evidence of a black hole.

But there is more to this stunning photo than meets the eye. Something else, not really mentioned by the scientists, is even more staggering! “As it can be seen in the image, the accretion disk shows up as a ring. It is tempting to think that the dark spot in the middle is the black hole. However, this dark spot is 2.6 times the size of the black hole. This dark spot is compared to a shadow of the black hole. The light

Stunning Photograph of the existence of a  black hole
Courstey of Answer in Genesis

coming from the region within the dark spot but outside the black hole is drastically bent out of our line of sight by the black hole’s gravity. This is an awesome image and worthy of note. But…since photographs are images of light (in this case, radio emission), and black holes give off no light, we can’t directly photograph a black hole. But we can see the shadow of a black hole here.”³

 In conclusion, what does all of this mean in regards to evolution/creation, and Christians? Most likely, at least in this point in time, not much. But as Ken Ham, founder and director of Answers in Genesis, states, “From my perspective, black holes are a very cool part of God’s creation.” I couldn’t agree more!

God bless, and take care,

Willow Dressel

References:

^1,3https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/black-holes/thousand-word-essay-black-hole/?utm_source=articlesmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1-banner-cta&utm_campaign=20190601&mc_cid=1ac14d5d88&mc_eid=ec76e61712

²https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/first-ever-black-hole-photo-gives-humanity-long-anticipated-glimpse-ncna992111