Exam 24: Black Holes and Curved Space-Time

Once a black hole forms, the size of its event horizon is determined only by

In the first direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015, the waves came from

Astronomers have concluded that growing supermassive black holes (which have millions of times the Sun's mass or more) is pretty unlikely at our location in the Milky Way Galaxy. Where do they think is the most likely place in the Milky Way for such a supermassive black hole?

The astronomer who first worked out the mathematical description of black hole event horizons was

Some years after college (and after you recover from your astronomy class,) you get married and exchange gold rings with your sweetheart. What connection is there between the gold in those rings and recent observations of gravitational waves?

Far away from a black hole (at the distance of another star), which of the following is a possible way to detect it?

When Einstein proposed his General Theory of Relativity, he suggested some pretty strange ideas about space, time, and gravity. How did scientists in 1919 show that Einstein's theory described the behavior of the real world and wasn't just a crazy hypothesis?

If you are in a freely falling elevator near the top of a tall building, as the elevator falls, your weight would be:

According to the general theory of relativity, light and other radiation coming from a white dwarf or a neutron star should (and experiments show that it does) exhibit

Wearing a very accurate watch, you volunteer to go on a mission to a black hole in a spaceship that has powerful rockets. You are able to orbit the black hole and stay a little distance outside of the event horizon. Compared to watches on Earth, your watch near the black hole will run:

In 1959, Pound and Rebka did an experiment to test the prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity about the relationship between the pace of time and the strength of gravity. When two identical atomic clocks, one on the ground floor and one on the top floor, were compared,

Which of the following can a black hole not "eat" (swallow)?

Einstein suggested that the regular change (advance) in the perihelion of the planet Mercury could be explained by:

A handsome, rich, but vain movie star notices that he is starting to age, and consults you as his astronomy expert, to see if you can find an astronomical way to slow down his aging. Putting aside practical considerations (such as the fact that we cannot travel to other stars), which of the following strategies would IN THEORY allow him to age more slowly than the rest of humanity.

When astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in space let go of an orange, it just floats there. Why is that?

What is a key reason that gravitational waves are so much harder to detect than electro-magnetic (e-m) waves?

When a light wave leaves a region of strong gravity, compared to the same wave leaving a spaceship in empty space, the wave in strong gravity will have

What type of main sequence star is most likely to become a black hole?

The first, indirect detection of gravitational waves in the 1970s involved

Deep inside a black hole (and hidden from our view) is the compressed center, where all the "stuff" of the star goes. Astronomer call this central point