AST-1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Roger Clemens, Escape Velocity, Elliptical Galaxy
Document Summary
Resembling a gigantic hubcap in space, a 3,700 light-year diameter dust disk encircles a huge 300 million solar mass black hole in the center of the elliptical galaxy ngc. Gravity drives the star into its final compact state. If the star reaches this state with a mass of less than 1. 4 solar masses (the chandrasekhar limit) the quantum-mechanical pressure from the electrons will support the white-dwarf star. If, however, the mass of the star exceeds the chandrasekhar limit, then it might become a neutron star with the quantum pressure being provided by the neutrons. Yet, the most sophisticated calculations to date suggest that a neutron star cannot be more massive than 2-3 solar masses. To understand what we mean by a black hole let us consider: Suppose that roger clemens or alex rodriguez (who signed a 10-year million contract =. 52x109) throws a baseball straight up in the air.
