SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Black Hole Conditions, Right Here on Earth

from ScienceNOW Daily News

A team of researchers has created conditions analogous to those found outside of a black hole by blasting a plastic pellet with high-energy laser beams. The advance should sharpen insights into the behavior of matter and energy in extreme conditions.

Astronomers can't observe black holes directly because their immense gravity won't let light escape. Instead, they have focused on what they can see, namely, the surrounding cloud of swirling matter, known as an accretion disk.

When crunched and heated by the black hole's gravitational energy, these disks glow in x-ray light. Analyzing the spectra of these x-rays gives researchers clues about the physics of the black hole.