Random Poll of the Day! (713)

[Akonyl]

And black holes are normally formed from, well, really big, powerful stars (:P)so  are incredibly dense and their gravitational field is absolutely huge; if anything gets caught inside accretion disk they'll eventually be doomed. Seriously, if even light can't escape them, I doubt we can .
/end random thing Stop hopes she got right \o/

that's the thing though, the black hole that forms is no different from the really big, powerful star that it's made from. The gravitational field of a black hole is the same size as the star that it's made from, so a star becoming a black hole poses no more danger to its surroundings than the star itself did originally. The only difference between the two (besides the fact that a star would burn you alive first) is how things behave when you're closer to the black hole than the radius of the star it used to be. But since those effects are only observed below what the surface of the star used to be, if the star had still been there, you would have crashed into it anyway, making the star just as bad as a black hole.

[Stopwatch]

Hmm... then what about the gravitational collapse that often creates black holes? Shouldn't that be somewhat 'stronger' considering there's no force pushing outwards to stabilise it...?
(Seriously, genuinely curious about this, not got anything on it myself and nothing I can find easily on the internet :x)

[Akonyl]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but (hopefully this answers it :V):

the gravitational collapse of stars isn't caused by the star's gravity becoming "stronger" (if that's what you meant by that), it's caused by the star dying. Since stars are just big balls of constant explosions, they generate a lot of internal pressure, which causes the star to expand until the outward forces of its pressure are in equilibrium with the inward forces of its gravity. When the star dies, all of its fuel is consumed and it stops exploding, ridding the star of its pressure, which causes the gravity to take over and compress the star.

also, since it looks like you might be mentioning this, the outward pressure forces that stabilize the star have no influence on anything outside of the star itself, since those forces are just molecules hitting and bouncing off of each other, which has no way of being transferred through space beyond the star. So, the pressures inside the star that keep it from collapsing under its own gravity don't affect how anyone outside of the star feels the influence of the star's gravity.

did that answer the question? :x

[Stopwatch]

Seems you misunderstood me with the first paragraph (I knew that already, I was just trying to ask how that effected (or is it affected?) outside of the star and if it meant it kinda dragged more mass towards it 'cause of it with seemingly stronger gravity because there would be less working against it), then you went on to answer my question with the second... O.o
So, yeah, you answered it, thanks .

(If I'm still not clear about what I was asking, just say and I'll try to reword it again... )

[Akonyl]

nah, I got it, I just wasn't 100% on what it was asking originally so I made sure to cover all the bases

[doublemoonlight]

WE ARE UPSET THAT WE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS POLL!