Black Hole Star – The Star That Shouldn't Exist

Summary

Black hole stars, possibly the largest ever to exist, were celestial giants with black holes at their cores, formed during the early universe's dense conditions. These stars, with up to 10 million solar masses, grew rapidly, fueled by dark matter halos, until their immense gravity compressed their cores into black holes. Despite the violent energy of their accretion disks, they could not sustain the balance against their own mass, eventually leading to their destruction and the birth of supermassive black holes, potentially solving the mystery of how such black holes could exist so early in the universe.

Takeaways

• 🌌 Black hole stars were possibly the largest stars to ever exist, with sizes exceeding any current stars and those that could form in the future.
• 🔥 They were exceptionally bright, outshining entire galaxies due to their immense size and energy output.
• 🌀 Inside these colossal stars, a black hole resided, consuming matter at an unprecedented rate, challenging our understanding of star formation and growth.
• 🚀 Black hole stars could only have formed during a brief period in the early universe, offering a potential solution to a significant cosmological mystery.
• 🌟 The most massive known stars today are around 300 solar masses, whereas a black hole star could have up to 10 million solar masses of nearly pure hydrogen.
• 🌍 Visually, a black hole star would be over 800,000 times wider than our Sun and 380 times larger than the current largest known star.
• 🌪 Stars typically form from the accumulation of matter in dense spots within gigantic gas clouds, but black hole stars were born in a unique environment with dark matter halos playing a crucial role.
• 🌌 The early universe's density and heat allowed for the creation of stars with masses as large as 100 million Suns, setting the stage for black hole stars.
• 💥 Despite the immense pressure and heat, black hole stars could not be destroyed by a supernova, leading to the formation of a black hole at their core.
• 🌀 The black hole within a black hole star would create an accretion disk, with matter orbiting at nearly the speed of light, generating intense heat and radiation.
• 🌌 The existence of black hole stars could explain the presence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, which are too large to have formed in the time available since the Big Bang.
• 🔭 Future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope may provide evidence of these early universe phenomena, potentially confirming the existence of black hole stars.

Q & A

What were black hole stars and why were they considered the largest stars to ever exist?

Black hole stars were hypothetically the largest stars that ever existed, characterized by their immense size and brightness, which exceeded that of galaxies. They were larger than any star today or that could exist in the future, with masses up to 10 million solar masses of nearly pure hydrogen.

What makes black hole stars special in terms of their internal structure?

Black hole stars are special because deep inside they were occupied by a cosmic parasite—an endlessly hungry black hole. This black hole at their core grew rapidly by devouring billions of tons of matter per second.

How did the formation of black hole stars differ from the formation of regular stars?

Black hole stars were only possible during a short window of time in the early Universe. They formed in environments dominated by dark matter halos, which concentrated gigantic amounts of hydrogen gas, allowing the stars to grow to unbelievable proportions that regular stars cannot reach.

What is the role of dark matter in the formation of black hole stars?

Dark matter played a crucial role in the formation of black hole stars by forming massive structures called dark matter halos. These halos had such strong gravitational pull that they concentrated vast amounts of hydrogen gas, which became the birthplaces of the first stars and galaxies, including black hole stars.

How did the growth of black hole stars differ from that of normal stars?

Unlike normal stars, which are limited in growth by the radiation energy released from nuclear fusion that blows away the surrounding gas cloud, black hole stars continued to grow due to the massive and dense gas clouds in the early universe that piled on more gas even after their birth.

What is the process that leads to the formation of a black hole within a star?

The process involves the star's core getting crushed by gravity into a black hole. Normally, this would lead to a supernova, but in the case of black hole stars, the star survives its own death, forming a black hole at its heart.

How does the black hole within a black hole star grow?

The black hole grows by consuming matter from the star. The enormous pressure surrounding the black hole pushes matter directly into it, overcoming restrictions on consumption speed, allowing the black hole to grow rapidly.

What is an accretion disk and how does it relate to black holes?

An accretion disk is a structure formed when matter is drawn towards a black hole and begins orbiting it in smaller and faster circles. It is characterized by extremely high temperatures due to friction and collisions between particles, which emit intense radiation.

How do black hole stars contribute to the understanding of supermassive black holes?

If black hole stars existed, they could explain the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, which are too large to have formed in the time since the Big Bang through conventional means. The black holes from black hole stars could have been the seeds for these supermassive black holes.

What role might the James Webb Space Telescope play in the study of black hole stars?

The James Webb Space Telescope could potentially verify the past existence of black hole stars by exploring the farthest reaches of the Universe, looking back in time to the early universe where these stars might have existed.

What was the ultimate fate of black hole stars according to the script?

The ultimate fate of black hole stars was destruction. The accretion disk within became too powerful, and the star became too stretched, leading to the black hole at its core destroying its host and blowing it apart, leaving behind only a star carcass.

Outlines

00:00

🌌 The Enigma of Black Hole Stars

Black hole stars, possibly the largest ever to exist, were not only massive but also harbored a black hole within. These celestial bodies challenged our understanding of star formation and growth. They could have existed only in the early universe, potentially solving cosmological mysteries. With up to 10 million solar masses, they were 800,000 times wider than our Sun and had a black hole at their core, consuming matter at an astonishing rate. Unlike typical stars, which are limited by the radiation pressure from nuclear fusion, black hole stars continued to grow due to the immense gravitational pull of dark matter halos in the early universe, leading to their unique and short-lived existence.

05:03

🌀 The Growth and Demise of Black Hole Stars

The life cycle of a black hole star begins with the accumulation of hydrogen gas in dark matter halos, forming massive stars. These stars grow relentlessly, their cores becoming so hot that they eventually collapse into black holes. Unlike other stars, black hole stars survive this supernova, now with a black hole at their heart. The black hole's accretion disk, spinning at nearly the speed of light, heats up due to friction and collisions, emitting intense radiation that pushes against the star's immense mass. This creates a precarious balance between the star's gravity and the radiation pressure from the black hole. Over millions of years, the black hole grows, heating the star and causing it to expand dramatically. Eventually, the star's expansion and the power of the accretion disk lead to its destruction, leaving behind a supermassive black hole that could be the precursor to those found at the centers of galaxies today.

Keywords

💡Black Hole Stars

Black Hole Stars refer to hypothetical stars that were larger and brighter than any known stars today, with their cores occupied by a black hole. They are central to the video's theme, illustrating a unique phase in the early universe where stars could grow to unprecedented sizes due to the influence of dark matter halos. The script describes them as 'excessive' and 'the largest stars to ever exist,' highlighting their massive scale and the mystery they present in cosmology.

💡Cosmic Parasite

The term 'cosmic parasite' is used metaphorically in the script to describe the black hole at the center of a black hole star. It suggests an entity that feeds off its host, in this case, the star itself. This concept is integral to understanding the video's narrative of how a star can be consumed from within by its own core, leading to its eventual destruction.

💡Dark Matter Halos

Dark Matter Halos are massive structures composed of dark matter that played a significant role in the early universe. They are crucial to the formation of the first stars and galaxies, including black hole stars. The script explains that these halos were so massive that they pulled in and concentrated large amounts of hydrogen gas, leading to the birth of extremely massive stars.

💡Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion is the process by which stars generate energy by fusing atomic nuclei together. It is a fundamental concept in understanding how stars, including black hole stars, produce light and heat. The script mentions that nuclear fusion releases enough radiation energy to blow away the surrounding gas cloud, limiting the star's size.

💡Supernova

A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion that occurs at the end of a star's life cycle. In the context of the video, it is the process by which a star's core collapses and then rebounds, often leading to the formation of a black hole. The script describes how black hole stars are so massive that even a supernova is not enough to destroy them, leading to the formation of a black hole at their core.

💡Accretion Disk

An accretion disk is a structure formed by matter spiraling inwards towards a gravitational center, such as a black hole. The script describes how matter drawn towards the black hole in a black hole star forms an accretion disk, where gas orbits at nearly the speed of light, heating up due to friction and collisions.

💡Radiation Pressure

Radiation pressure is the force exerted by electromagnetic radiation on the surfaces it encounters. In the video, it is a key factor in the balance between the inward pull of gravity and the outward push of radiation from the accretion disk. The script explains how the intense radiation pressure from the accretion disk in a black hole star can push back against the weight of millions of solar masses.

💡Supermassive Black Holes

Supermassive black holes are black holes with masses of millions to billions of solar masses, typically found at the centers of galaxies. The script discusses the mystery of how such massive black holes could have formed so early in the universe's history, suggesting that black hole stars could have provided the seeds for these supermassive black holes.

💡James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is an advanced space observatory that is capable of looking back in time to the early universe. The script mentions the telescope as a potential tool for verifying the past existence of black hole stars by observing the farthest reaches of the universe.

💡Plasma Jets

Plasma jets are high-speed streams of ionized gas that can be ejected from celestial bodies, such as stars or black holes. In the context of the video, plasma jets are described as being spewed out from the core of a black hole star by intense magnetic fields, turning the star into a cosmic beacon.

💡Star Carcass

A star carcass refers to the remnants of a star after it has exploded or been otherwise destroyed. The script uses this term to describe what remains of a black hole star after the black hole at its core has blown it apart, leaving behind only the remnants of what was once an immense stellar body.

Highlights

Black hole stars may have been the largest stars to ever exist, with unique properties that challenge our understanding of star formation and growth.

These stars burned brighter than galaxies and were larger than any star today or potentially in the future.

Black hole stars contained a cosmic parasite—an endlessly hungry black hole deep inside them.

They were only possible during a brief period in the early Universe, potentially solving a major cosmological mystery.

A black hole star had up to 10 million solar masses of nearly pure hydrogen, dwarfing the size of today's largest stars.

Visually, a black hole star is over 800,000 times wider than our Sun and 380 times larger than the current largest known star.

The black hole at the star's core grows rapidly, consuming billions of tons of matter per second.

Stars are typically born from gigantic clouds of hydrogen, with fusion reactions igniting as they accumulate mass.

The growth of a star is limited by the radiation energy from nuclear fusion, which disperses the surrounding gas cloud.

Black hole stars differ significantly from regular stars due to conditions in the early Universe.

In the early Universe, dark matter halos concentrated massive amounts of hydrogen, leading to the formation of extremely massive stars.

These stars continued to grow after their birth due to the immense gas clouds, reaching unprecedented sizes.

The core of a black hole star, under immense pressure and heat, eventually collapses into a black hole.

Unlike regular stars, a black hole star can survive its own supernova, with a black hole at its heart.

The black hole in a black hole star has an accretion disk, where gas orbits at nearly the speed of light.

The pressure around the black hole forces matter directly into it, overcoming the usual growth restrictions.

The black hole star's accretion disk becomes hotter and releases more radiation pressure than any star core.

In its final phase, the black hole star expands to over 30 times the width of our solar system.

The black hole star's intense magnetic fields produce plasma jets, turning it into a cosmic beacon.

The destruction of a black hole star results in a black hole with the mass of 100,000 Suns, leaving behind a star carcass.

If black hole stars existed, they could explain the existence of supermassive black holes observed in the centers of galaxies.

The James Webb Space Telescope may provide evidence of black hole stars by looking back at the early Universe.

Transcripts

Black hole stars may have been  the largest stars to ever exist.  

They burned brighter than galaxies and were Larger  than any star today or that could ever exist in  

the future. But besides their scale, what makes  them special and weird is that deep inside, they  

were occupied by a cosmic parasite, an endlessly  hungry black hole. How is that even possible?

Black hole stars take the weirdness of black  holes and go beyond to break everything we know  

about how stars form and grow. They were only  possible during a short window of time in the  

early Universe, but if they existed, they would  solve one of the largest mysteries of cosmology. 

Black Hole Stars were excessive any way  you look at them. The most massive stars  

today may have about 300 solar masses – a  black hole star had up to 10 million solar  

masses of nearly pure hydrogen. Let us take  a moment to look at what this means visually.  

The sun. Wezen. LL Pegasi. The largest star. And  finally the black hole star. Its scale is beyond  

words: over 800,000 times wider than our Sun, 380  times larger than the largest star we know today.

And far below its surface is a black hole,  

growing rapidly as it devours billions  upon billions of tons of matter per second.

Normally, stars are born from gigantic clouds,  collections of thousands to millions of solar  

masses of mostly hydrogen. In these clouds,  matter starts to accumulate around the densest  

spots inside. As these spots get denser, their  gravitational pull intensifies and they grow  

faster. Eventually, they generate so much heat and  pressure that they ignite fusion reactions, and a  

new star is born. But this puts a limit on their  size: Nuclear fusion releases enough radiation  

energy that the surrounding gas cloud is blown  away. The new baby star can’t gather more mass.

From now on the star is living  on the edge between two forces:  

Gravity pulling in, trying to squash the  star, and radiation created by fusion,  

pushing outwards, trying to blow the star  apart. After millions to billions of years,  

the core runs out of fuel and the  balance breaks, destroying the star.

But Black hole stars were very, very different.

The Beasts of the Early Universe

A few hundred million years after the Big Bang,  when the universe was much smaller, all the matter  

in existence was much more concentrated.  The universe was much denser and hotter.  

Dark matter was a dominant player, forming  giant structures called dark matter halos. 

These dark matter halos were so massive that  they pulled in and concentrated unthinkably  

gigantic amounts of hydrogen gas, becoming the  birthplaces of the first stars and galaxies. 

Epic clouds of hydrogen formed, some as massive  as 100 million Suns, more than the mass of small  

galaxies. In this unique environment, that will  never exist again, the enormous gravitational  

pull of the dark matter halos drew gas into  its center and created extremely massive stars.

As we said before, when a star is born it blows  away the gas cloud that created it – but these  

titanic gas clouds in the early universe were so  large and massive that even after their birth,  

more and more gas piled on the newborn star,  making it grow to unbelievable proportions.

The young star is forced to grow and grow and  grow, getting more and more massive, until in  

some cases, it reaches up to ten million times the  mass of our sun. Crushed by gravity, its core gets  

hotter and hotter, desperately pushing outward,  trying to blow itself apart – but to no avail.  

There is too much mass and too much pressure.  The balance is impossible to uphold.

Like a supernova on fast forward, the  core gets crushed into a black hole.  

Normally that would be the end  – today’s stars go supernova,  

a black hole forms and things calm down. But  in this case, the star survives its own death.

A tremendous explosion rocks  the star from the inside,  

but it is not enough – the star  is so large and massive that not  

even a supernova can destroy it – but  now it has a black hole for a heart.  

It is tiny, a few tens of kilometers, in the  center of a thing the size of the solar system.

The Monster Grows

Stars are born from ever faster spinning and  collapsing gas, and so they also spin. When  

a black hole is born from the core of a star, it  keeps its angular momentum. This means that matter  

that gets drawn in doesn’t just fall in a straight  line, but instead begins orbiting the black hole,  

in smaller and smaller circles going faster  and faster. The result is an accretion disk  

where gas orbits at nearly the speed of light.  Only a small amount of gas actually falls in at  

any given moment. Basically, black holes put a  lot of food on the table and only nibble at it.

But the matter trapped in the accretion  disk doesn’t have a good time: Friction  

and collisions between particles heat it  up to temperatures of millions of degrees.  

Actively feeding black holes have accretion  disks that are incredibly hot and powerful.  

This heat from the disk further restricts how  much a black hole can devour, just like the core  

of stars, the superhot material creates radiation  that blows away most of the food within its reach.  

So even if a black hole had access to as much  food as it desired, it can only grow slowly.

A black hole embedded inside a black hole star is  different. The enormous pressure surrounding it  

pushes down matter directly into the black hole,  overcoming all restrictions on how fast it can  

consume. This process is so violent and releases  so much energy that the accretion disk becomes  

hotter and releases more radiation pressure  than any star core ever could – enough to  

push back against the weight of 10 million Suns.  An impossibly dangerous balance has been created  

– millions of solar masses pushing in, the angry  radiation of a force fed black hole pushing out.

For the next few million years, the black hole  star is consumed from within. The black hole  

grows to thousands of solar masses and the bigger  it gets, the faster it eats, which heats up the  

star even more and causes it to expand. In its  final phase, the black hole star has become over  

30 times wider than our solar system – truly,  the largest star to ever exist in the universe.  

The intense magnetic fields at its core spew  out jets of plasma from the black hole’s poles,  

which pierce through the star and shoot out  into space, turning it into a cosmic beacon.  

It must have been one of the most awe  inducing sights to ever exist in the universe.

But this also marks the end. It becomes too  stretched and the accretion disk within too  

powerful: the parasite destroys its host, blowing  it apart. A black hole with the mass of 100,000  

Suns rips its way out to hunt for new prey,  while leaving behind nothing but a star carcass.

The Supermassive Question

If Black Hole Stars existed, they could explain  one of the greatest mysteries of the Universe.

The supermassive black holes we  see at the center of galaxies  

are just … too big! They should not be possible.

Black holes born from regular supernovas  can be a few tens of solar masses at most.  

And because of the process we explained before,  they grow slowly after that. If black holes  

merge together, they can form slightly larger  black holes of over a hundred solar masses.  

It should take billions and billions of  years to make black holes with hundreds  

of thousands or even millions of solar masses.

And yet, we know that some super  massive black holes already had  

800 million solar masses only 690  million years after the Big Bang.

Black Hole Stars are a sort of black hole cheat  code. If they formed very early in our Universe  

and the black holes that emerged from them were  thousands of solar masses, then they could be the  

seeds for supermassive black holes. These seeds  could take root in the center of the earliest  

galaxies, merging with others and drawing in  enough matter to grow quickly and reliably.

Very soon, we may be able to verify their past  existence. The James Webb Space Telescope is  

turning its sensors to explore the farthest  reaches of the Universe, looking back in time,  

back to the early universe that we could not see  before. So, with luck, we might be able to witness  

glimpses of these tragic titans in the brief  moment between their formation and destruction.  

Until then, let us do the visual  journey again, just for fun.  

Stars are big – Black hole stars bigger.