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You are here: Home / Space / How Do Astronomers Detect Invisible Objects In the Universe and Why Haven’t Black Holes Been Found?

How Do Astronomers Detect Invisible Objects In the Universe and Why Haven’t Black Holes Been Found?

February 13, 2020 by Karen Hill

Astronomers don’t always have evidence of a celestial object itself, but must rely on their knowledge of the neighborhood of a suspected object, such as a black hole or neutron star.

For instance, they may see a patch of sky where everything, all light, all radiation, appears to be streaming to one point.

Perhaps the point of convergence is a black hole.

Or, maybe astronomers find the remains of stellar wind, the ejected residue of a nova, or the explosion of an old star.

They can’t see where the stellar wind came from, but they detect regular bursts of electromagnetic waves from an apparently superdense object. Maybe they have found a neutron star.

Research like this may seem haphazard compared to scientific laboratory experiments, but the universe is not a controlled environment.

Astronomers must rely on a vast array of data to come up with their findings, and they do with amazing precision.

Astronomers have not been able to verify the presence of black holes precisely because no radiation, nothing, can escape their gravitational force.

Evidence of their existence relies on activity in the environment around a suspected black hole, all matter and radiation being sucked toward a specific point and disappearing.

Related Facts

  • How do Astronomers find a black hole if black holes are invisible?
  • Why Is a Black Hole Black, Where Do Black Holes Come From, and When Were Black Holes First Discovered?
  • What Are Infrared Rays and Why Do Astronomers Use Infrared Telescopes To Detect Objects In the Universe?
  • What Is a Radio Telescope and How Do Radio Telescopes Help Astronomers Detect Objects In the Universe?
  • Who Discovered Black Holes and Where do Black Holes come from?
  • What Is a Black Hole, How Are Black Holes Created, and What Would Happen If You Fell Into a Black Hole?

Filed Under: Space

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « What Is a Neutron Star, How Is a Neutron Star Created, and What Is the Mass of a Neutron Star?
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