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Astronomy Guide
7 Comments

5 False Conceptions About Space

By | On | 8 mins: 5 secs + -
2

Black Holes Are Funnel-Shaped

Black Holes

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This is another common misconception that can be put down to the portrayal of black holes in movies and cartoons. Obviously black holes are essentially “invisible,” but for the sake of the audience they’re made to look like ominous whirlpools of doom.

They’re shown as almost 2D, funnel-like objects, with an entrance to nothingness on one side only. In real life however, this representation could not be further form the truth. A real black hole is actually a sphere. There’s no one side that will pull you in, it’s just like a planet with a lot of gravity. If you pass by it too close on any side, you’ll get pulled in.

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  1. Reply
    Fredrik Bonde

    You would lose heat in space, albeit slowly, by radiation. That’s the reason why ISS have those big radiators.


  2. Reply
    Simon

    Actually, most comets have 2 tails. One tail reacting to the solar wind as you described, the ion gas tail, the other due to ablation when larger particles are shed behind the comet due to solar heating, the dust tail.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_tail


  3. Reply
    Scott

    The amount of scientific inaccuracies in this article are beyond me. Learn what plasma is and thermal dynamics before you start making articles about ridiculous concepts.

    “So the Sun does give off light and heat, but there is no conventional fire involved at all. It is simply a giant, warm glow.”

    Yup a warm glow of several thousands of degrees of super heated gases called plasma, yeah no fire but isn’t just a warm glow. At least explain what plasma is to people.


  4. Reply
    paul van den Bergen

    The gaseous tail of comets is so nebulous and thin as to be almost indistinguishable from a vacuum. If you were inside it you wouldn’t be able to tell. They are bright because they are big, many 1000 ‘ times bigger than the nucleus of the comet.


  5. Reply
    Jeff

    Awkward! Black holes are not planets. They are actually dead stars.


  6. Reply
    BGriffin

    The title is one of few things in this article that got reasonably close to the truth.
    .
    A better name would be;
    “More Misconceptions Than You Want to Count”.
    .
    It would be a good idea to clarify that the article serves as an example of the misconceptions and does not delve into why the ideas are wrong, nor offer any well vetted alternatives.


  7. Reply
    TomW

    The big misconception I often have to debunk is ”there’s no gravity in space”. People thinking that spacecraft just hang there in weightlessness, not understanding what an orbit is, and thinking that rockets just go straight up into space and once they’re out of the atmosphere that’s it!

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