Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Titanscape on 19/05/2006 06:13:55
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If light passes near enough to a black hole to slow down 65% but manages to escape and pass on far off, what does it become? Slow photons or dust?
Titanscape
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I think the answer goes like this
Light doesn’t slow down, it always travel at C even when travelling close to a black hole, Light can't escape a black hole because space in front of a black hole is massively distorted due to gravity.
I see it like this.
When Photons emerge from something their path is predetermined through space, they move along a sort of invisible elastic line which they have no choice but to follow unless the line runs into something with mass which may then reflect or absorb it.
When an object with mass moves near the line that the photon is travelling along gravity from the object can bend the line around the object.However the photon still has no choice but to follow the same line it can't move off it and so it follows the bend. Further along the line the effects of gravity slowly deminish and allow the line to straigten up and resume it original direction and place in space. Its called gravitational lensing and sometimes alows us to see distant objects hidden behind large objects in space.
In front of a black hole there is so much gravity and space is so distorted that it is actually bent round on itself, all the lines basically start and then re-enter the black hole and so any light travelling out basically follows the one its travelling along back into the hole. If you could see it i imagine it wouldnt look dissimular to solar flares following magnetic field lines back into the sun.
The Photons speed always remains constant and always travels at the speed of light in a vacuum. Gravity is acting on the fabric of space which contains the pathway the photon has to follow, gravity has no effect on the photon at all.
Michael
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Just say from a jet, just before the event horizon, as some black holes produce one, a photon such as infra red or visible light is produced and can only just escape the black hole, what then?
Titanscape
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quote:
Originally posted by Titanscape
Just say from a jet, just before the event horizon, as some black holes produce one, a photon such as infra red or visible light is produced and can only just escape the black hole, what then?
Titanscape
All light travelling in a vacuum no matter what its frequency travels at the speed of light 186,000 miles an hour .
The material in a quazar (BLACK HOLE JET) is accelerated to near the speed of light but any light produced in it be it infra red or visible travels at c.
Michael