Explanation: According to the given image, the excerpt from “Black Hole Beginnings” that would best support the image in a multimedia presentation is option A. This is because, as more stuff gathers, its combined gravitation grows stronger and they are attracted to each other which is illustrated in the image.

What is the most likely reason why the author provides real-life examples in this excerpt? They allow readers to understand how people’s eyes work. They remind readers of how technology affects their own lives. They describe the path of infrared light beams from a remote control to a TV.

Why were astronomers interested in studying radio waves in the 1980s and 1990s? The radio waves were coming from the center of the Milky Way. First, scientists studied radio waves coming from space. Next, other scientists used their discoveries to identify black holes.

According to the excerpt, how did astronomers use Reber’s findings to add to the knowledge of black holes? Astronomers improved on Reber’s radio telescope and discovered the sources of the radio energy signals he mapped.

Science writers make connections between ideas or subjects to prove an argument.

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole.

A black hole is a region in space where the pulling force of gravity is so strong that light is not able to escape. The strong gravity occurs because matter has been pressed into a tiny space. Some black holes are a result of dying stars. Because no light can escape, black holes are invisible.

There are four types of black holes: stellar, intermediate, supermassive, and miniature. The most commonly known way a black hole forms is by stellar death.

gravity

quasar TON 618

If a black hole were to form from the Earth itself, it would create an event horizon just 1.7 centimeters in diameter. Eventually, some time later, any object at rest — no matter how far away from the event horizon it initially was — will cross that horizon and encounter the central singularity.

By their calculations, quantum mechanics could feasibly turn the event horizon into a giant wall of fire and anything coming into contact would burn in an instant. In that sense, black holes lead nowhere because nothing could ever get inside. This, however, violates Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

If black holes evaporate under Hawking radiation, a solar mass black hole will evaporate over 1064 years which is vastly longer than the age of the universe. A supermassive black hole with a mass of 1011 (100 billion) M ☉ will evaporate in around 2×10100 years.

Over time they shrink down to nothing and simply pop away in a flash of energy. It’s not exactly fast. A good size black hole — say, a few times more massive than the sun — will take about 10^100 years to eventually evaporate through this process, known as Hawking Radiation.