Voyager Lecture Series: Ron Smith: Black Holes Near & Far, Large & Small

Over 200 years ago some astronomers speculated that if stars could collapse to a very small diameter, light may not be able escape. Instead of emitting light, they would be invisible. Now we think such objects exist. We call them black holes. Black holes may be much more than just objects of curiosity, they might be a critical component to the structure of our universe.

Not only do certain stars collapse to become black holes, but they can merge together to form supermassive black holes. Their gravity appears to be critical in forming galaxies. Supermassive black holes may have an opposite extreme. If our universe existed in a hyper dense state before the “Big Bang,” remnants of that earlier time might exist in the form of mini black holes. They might only have the mass of our earth, but be compressed into a diameter the size of ping pong ball

At 7:30pm on April 27th, the Voyager Lecture Series resumes with Ron Smith taking us on journey to discover black holes, both near and far, large and small.