Can 'planet' become blackhole?

In summary, black holes are giant objects that can have a lot of mass, and if a normal planet collects enough mass it could collapse into one. If not, how big a planet can it get before it collapses?
  • #1
Chitose
73
0
first, what I know about black hole is;
It has so much mass that collapse into itself create gravity field so strong that even light can't escape.
and normally, black hole born only in giant star explosion.

but

what 'IF' normal rocky planet happen to collect mass (by asteroid, gas or anything) until it has so much mass that equal to red giant? or even equal to some small black hole?

in pure theory, can it collapse into itself and become black hole?

If not

How big rocky planet can get?

I know it silly, but I really wonder.



-------------------------------

English is not my native language, sorry if I'm wrong in spelling or gamma.
 
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  • #2
You can imagine some space faring engineers deciding to build a planet in the habitable zone of a sun. Using bulldozer rockets to push chunks of matter together to make a large enough planet only to discover that once they got the size they needed for their civilization...

Each new chunk causes the planet to heat up a bit as matter compresses together and then...

POOF! it collapses into first a compact star then a neutron star and then a black hole losing contact with those engineers directing the matter accumulation on the planet.

Ahh, Houston we have a problem...

It looks like if the mass was 10^3 solar masses then it would collapse into a black hole.
 
  • #3
Which would be awkward since the star you intended the new 'planet' to orbit would decide to orbit it. Long before you could achieve sufficient mass to form a black hole the core of the 'planet' would get hot enough to initiate fusion. This would not end well. If there was insufficient fuel for fusion, the poor thing would gravitationally collapse then detonate rather spectacularly.
 
  • #5
Here's the way a super aliens commit suicide making a BH where nothing happens until too late:

They attach magic propulsion to 2.5 * 10^26 largish asteroids (10^15 kg each, 5-10 km size) from all over the galaxy (or galaxies, as needed). They collect them in in one region, keeping them about than 1000 km apart. As soon as they are all assembled at this mutual distance, suicide has been achieved - they are within the collection's Schwarzschild radius. Singularity (classically) guaranteed. Ensuing pyrotechnics don't matter - nothing will escape the region, and (classically) all will soon reach the singularity.

(Minor technical issue - that mass of asteroids is about a couple percent the mass of a very large galaxy; so probably need to farm many galaxies for enough asteroids.).
 
  • #6
Chronos said:
Which would be awkward since the star you intended the new 'planet' to orbit would decide to orbit it. Long before you could achieve sufficient mass to form a black hole the core of the 'planet' would get hot enough to initiate fusion. This would not end well. If there was insufficient fuel for fusion, the poor thing would gravitationally collapse then detonate rather spectacularly.

I wonder if you know the answer to this fanciful scenario. Suppose a primarily iron/nickel planet was bombarded with nothing but iron/nickel asteroids. Would it collapse to a neutron star, or explode in some fashion without leaving a neutron star? Or would it form a neutron star but blow off layers as well? The obvious idea is that no nuclear processes would occur.
 
  • #7
PAllen said:
I wonder if you know the answer to this fanciful scenario. Suppose a primarily iron/nickel planet was bombarded with nothing but iron/nickel asteroids. Would it collapse to a neutron star, or explode in some fashion without leaving a neutron star? Or would it form a neutron star but blow off layers as well? The obvious idea is that no nuclear processes would occur.

It would eventually go supernova and turn into a neutron star.
 
  • #8
Anything can become a black hole if you make it's density increase to a point that the object's escape velocity equals the speed of light. If the Earth was a black hole, for example, it's diameter would be around 2 cm
 
  • #9
Drakkith said:
It would eventually go supernova and turn into a neutron star.

The normal theory of a supernova starts from a star, and is collapse/explosion following a nuclear fuel cycle. The structure, energy, and composition are completely different from my proposal.

I know what GR says if you just treat it as ideal matter (e.g perfect fluid) of the indicated density: it just smoothly collapses when the amount of matter exceeds a threshold. But that is not what would happen in reality. The issue is that the atomic electron structure become unsustainable at some point. What I don't know, and was asking, is if somewhere in this breakdown (with different composition and much less starting energy than a star), enough energy would still be released for some type of explosion. The answer is not obvious at all, and I was hoping Chronos might know something about it.
 
  • #10
gabriel.dac said:
Anything can become a black hole if you make it's density increase to a point that the object's escape velocity equals the speed of light. If the Earth was a black hole, for example, it's diameter would be around 2 cm

There is no known process to achieve that for the earth. What you need is a way to add mass without an explosion ocurring. That is because the greater the mass, the less the density required for a BH because the Schwarzschild radius is proportional to mass, while the mass is proportional to radius cubed. Thus, for any density at all, there is an amount of mass such that it is inside the SC radius at that density. For example, for the Milky Way galaxy as a whole to become a BH, it would just have to be compressed to the point where its average density is 3.72 * 10^-8 gm/cc, that is 100,000 times less dense than air.
 
  • #11
PAllen said:
I wonder if you know the answer to this fanciful scenario. Suppose a primarily iron/nickel planet was bombarded with nothing but iron/nickel asteroids. Would it collapse to a neutron star, or explode in some fashion without leaving a neutron star? Or would it form a neutron star but blow off layers as well? The obvious idea is that no nuclear processes would occur.
I share your doubts. I don't know, but, my guess is a core collapse supernova is not triggered by the outer layers comprised of light elements, but, the nickel iron core - hence, the term core collapse supernova. The detonation event may not be spectacular without an outer layer of light elements to bombard with thermal neutrons, but, I'm fairly convinced it will occur.
 
  • #12
Chronos said:
I share your doubts. I don't know, but, my guess is a core collapse supernova is not triggered by the outer layers comprised of light elements, but, the nickel iron core - hence, the term core collapse supernova. The detonation event may not be spectacular without an outer layer of light elements to bombard with thermal neutrons, but, I'm fairly convinced it will occur.

I did some reading, and would guess that if mass increase was slow, as proposed:

- You would get core collapse, with huge energy release almost all as neutrinos
- but most other features of Type II supernova would be absent (no shell for a neutrinos or a shock wave to interact with)
- you would be left with a neutron star

If you kept bombarding with asteroids, you would eventually get a black hole.
 
  • #13
Perhaps, or you might get a thermonuclear detonation of matter that accumulates on the surface and possibly destroy the star. Creating a black hole is not a trivial process. For example, pop III stars are generally considered capable of achieving incredible masses: hundreds, and perhaps thousands of solar masses. Yet, they obviously polluted the ISM with huge amounts of metals - suggesting few collapsed to form black holes without expelling an enormous amount of energy and mass in the process [e.g., GRB's].
 
  • #14
Chronos said:
Perhaps, or you might get a thermonuclear detonation of matter that accumulates on the surface and possibly destroy the star. Creating a black hole is not a trivial process. For example, pop III stars are generally considered capable of achieving incredible masses: hundreds, and perhaps thousands of solar masses. Yet, they obviously polluted the ISM with huge amounts of metals - suggesting few collapsed to form black holes without expelling an enormous amount of energy and mass in the process [e.g., GRB's].

Thermonuclear isn't possible in my fictitions scenario because all matter added is iron/nickel.

In the normal core collapse process you have a star 10 or more times the mass of the sun, only 10% of whose mass is Fe/Ni, almost all in the core. The core collapses and rebounds as soon as the Chandreshekhar limit is reached -that is, the core is 1.4 solar masses. So you have collapse and rebound of the core, with most of the star's mass blown away (most, but not all from the outer layers, leaving a neutron star in most cases). So it seems to me with incremental accretion of Fe/Ni to an Fe/Ni planet, you would have the core part of this happening, with no matter for the rest. Then, with further accretion onto a neutron star, if all the infall remains Fe/Ni as I propose, I don't see what could happen other than matter crushed to neutron star state with energy carried off by neutrinos and EM radiation, for each infall chunk. At some fixed mass, you would get BH.
 
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  • #15
The OP hasn't responded perhaps we can close this thread.
 
  • #16
PAllen said:
There is no known process to achieve that for the earth. What you need is a way to add mass without an explosion ocurring. That is because the greater the mass, the less the density required for a BH because the Schwarzschild radius is proportional to mass, while the mass is proportional to radius cubed. Thus, for any density at all, there is an amount of mass such that it is inside the SC radius at that density. For example, for the Milky Way galaxy as a whole to become a BH, it would just have to be compressed to the point where its average density is 3.72 * 10^-8 gm/cc, that is 100,000 times less dense than air.

That is a possibility too, but I'm not wrong. It is also impossible to bring more mass to Earth :p
 
  • #17
gabriel.dac said:
That is a possibility too, but I'm not wrong. It is also impossible to bring more mass to Earth :p

Well, there is a difference between no process of known physics (which does not mean impossible in an absolute sense for the obvious reason of unknown physics), versus an in-feasible process. Adding matter to a planet violates no known laws of physics - it is just insurmountable engineering challenge. The key is that per known physics, the only thing that can break the Fermi-exclusion principle to crush quarks together (which would have to happen to get Earth into cm radius) is mass well beyond the Chandrasekhar limit.
 
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  • #18
The OP hasn't responded perhaps we can close this thread...
 
  • #19
PAllen said:
Well, there is a difference between no process of known physics (which does not mean impossible in an absolute sense for the obvious reason of unknown physics), versus an in-feasible process. Adding matter to a planet violates no known laws of physics - it is just insurmountable engineering challenge. The key is that per known physics, the only thing that can break the Fermi-exclusion principle to crush quarks together (which would have to happen to get Earth into cm radius) is mass well beyond the Chandrasekhar limit.

Look.

Where do black holes come from? From dying stars. Very big stars. The star gains no extra mass but it can still become a black hole. How? The density increases. or do you think the star is just "swallowing" more mass until it becomes a black hole? No, that's not how stuff works
 
  • #20
gabriel.dac said:
Look.

Where do black holes come from? From dying stars. Very big stars. The star gains no extra mass but it can still become a black hole. How? The density increases. or do you think the star is just "swallowing" more mass until it becomes a black hole? No, that's not how stuff works

It is how it works. Stars that produce BH's already have all the mass they need. The don't need to add mass because they already have enough - over 10 solar masses. There is a fixed minimum mass for BH's to form by any current process. If you already have enough mass, you just need to find a way to drain it of energy without blowing it apart. If you have too little mass, you have to add mass. There is no process consistent with known physics to compress a planet to its SC radius.

Recall the figures I gave you earlier about required density of black holes for different amounts of matter. The more mass, the less density you need. Since the densest possible state that isn't a BH is a quark star, you need enough mass for quark star density to be at its SC radius. This is several solar masses (I don't have the exact figure).
 
  • #21
Maybe a clearer way to put this is that per quantum chromodynamics (including the fermi-exclusion principle) there is no way to get beyond the quark star density. Thus, to get a BH, you need enough mass for gravity to become stronger than the strong force. This is what happens if you accumulate enough quark star matter (several solar masses) to exceed its SC radius at that density. Then gravity dominates, and classically the mass collapses further, producing a singularity and other exotic phenomena. What really happens inside the SC radius when the quark star matter is inside it is more realistically described as unknown, because that is the realm of quantum gravity unification - gravity is as strong as the strong force. A consistent, usable, theory for this state is unknown - but we do think we know that around this unknown would be an event horizon.
 
  • #22
gabriel.dac said:
That is a possibility too, but I'm not wrong. It is also impossible to bring more mass to Earth :p
Actually, the Earth has continually gained mass since it began to form. In the early days of the solar system, the mass gain was pretty dramatic. The heavy bombardment period [which possibly occurred due to the migration of one of more gas giants to their present orbits] bulked the old girl up too. Nowadays, the mass gain is a pedestrian ~300 metric tons per day due to accumulation of space dust and meterorites [ http://www.universetoday.com/94392/getting-a-handle-on-how-much-cosmic-dust-hits-earth/] [Broken].
 
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  • #23
Chronos said:
Actually, the Earth has continually gained mass since it began to form. In the early days of the solar system, the mass gain was pretty dramatic. The heavy bombardment period [which possibly occurred due to the migration of one of more gas giants to their present orbits] bulked the old girl up too. Nowadays, the mass gain is a pedestrian ~300 metric tons per day due to accumulation of space dust and meterorites [ http://www.universetoday.com/94392/getting-a-handle-on-how-much-cosmic-dust-hits-earth/] [Broken].

I know. I'm still right, it is impossible to bring more mass to Earth.
 
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  • #24
Wasting more time on this than I should, I have computed a formula for the minimum mass needed for matter of a given average density to form a horizon and catastrophically collapse (inside the horizon). This formula is a lower bound (assuming no rotation for example - which would raise the required minimum; most real BH and neutron stars are believed to have high spin).

M = 4.28 * 10^9 / √ρ solar masses, with ρ given in kg/m^3

Note, using ρ = 10^18 (a smidgen higher than the value given neutron star cores) gives 4.28 solar masses. This has a ring of truth to it, since the lowest mass reliably observed for BH candidates are close to 10 solar masses. Given rotation, that average density is lower than core density, and unknown limitations on formation process, this is consistent.

There are a couple of black holes that might come close to this lower limit:

GRO J0422+32 : http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0308490

However, there is history of upward revisions of BH masses:

XTE J1650-500 was reported as having a BH mass of 3.8 solar masses, but was retracted by the same authors and revised up close to 10 solar masses: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.2852

IGR J17091–3624 was reported at < 3 solar masses, but the same author (with another) later measured 15 solar masses. See discussion in: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.2506v1
 
  • #25
gabriel.dac said:
I know. I'm still right, it is impossible to bring more mass to Earth.

In practice, yes. However it violates no laws of physics. The difference with compressing the Earth to 2 cm, is that there is no process consistent with the standard model of physics which can achieve this.
 
  • #26
sorry if like I'm not respond, I just try to understand what you guys are talking.

so... in theory, not just star but anything can become black hole as long as it's escape velocity greater than light. right?

I also post same question in my country as well,
some says, if planet mass keep increase, it's core will hot melt ignite the gas and become star themselves... really?
and also, it will become like pulsar before become black hole.
 
  • #27
Chitose said:
sorry if like I'm not respond, I just try to understand what you guys are talking.

so... in theory, not just star but anything can become black hole as long as it's escape velocity greater than light. right?

I also post same question in my country as well,
some says, if planet mass keep increase, it's core will hot melt ignite the gas and become star themselves... really?
and also, it will become like pulsar before become black hole.

1. If you keep adding mass, will the core eventually ignite and the "planet" turn into a star?

That depends on what you add. If we added elements lighter than iron, and we added that mass quick enough so that the core was unable to give off heat fast enough to cool, then yes, eventually the core will be so hot that fusion will occur. Note that the amount of mass you need to add depends on what material forms the new core. Adding about 0.075 solar masses of hydrogen would be enough to ignite fusion, whereas helium would require at least 0.5 solar masses. Heavier elements require even more mass to reach the ignition temperature.

If we add iron or anything heavier, we do not see fusion, as the cores collapses before it ever heat up high enough to fuse them. (And they are endothermic reactions anyways)

2. Will it become a pulsar before a black hole?

That depends. If we add a LOT of mass (about 15-20 solar masses) we'd create a huge star that would eventually collapse directly into a black hole instead of a neutron star.
 
  • #28
gabriel.dac said:
I know. I'm still right, it is impossible to bring more mass to Earth.
The Earth has gained mass over its entire history - its fact, not opinion, with an entirely reasonable physical explanation. Facts trump any theory.
 
  • #29
ref can 'planet' become black hole?

yes...but its not easy ( or perhaps even possible ) if you are in a big hurry timewise

I am quite sure there are 1000's of black holes in the universe right now that where once planets BUT you can be almost 100% certain that they became black holes after becoming a star (the planet acting as a stellar seed)

Could a planet naturally become a black hole without going through the star phase ? probably not in a universe that's only 14 billion years old. But it might just be possible to figure out a fantastical flukey 'natural schema' that could pave the way. That would be a lot of work and quite probably require far too much artistic license to be worth while investigating.

Ultra-Cold Brown Dwarf Discovered?
http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/ultra-cold-brown-dwarf-new-record-breaker-110312.htm

Somewhat related to the OP (and time) Black Dwarf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf

Stages en route to black hole-dom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-degenerate_matter#Degenerate_gases


DIY Cold Black hole using a planet as a seed


There might well be an exotic mix of matter that you can drop onto the planet which effectively turns it into an anti fusion reactor. Some weird energy harmonics that means fusion is A) less likely and B) more endothermic.

Sort of the opposite of the carbon harmonic ( some weirdness which means more carbon is created than one would initially envisage) In this case we are after less heat.

Off the cuff i would go with a lead core and sprinkle on nickel/iron at absolute zero & perhaps some lighter atomic spice that likes emitting e-rays or spewing magnetic flux ( shedding energy and aiding cooling )Issues or solutions to fast track black hole creation ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_flash

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_detonationChitose, be rest assured the question in your OP will eventually be inverted and make its way into the physics exam hall. I pity the poor student faced with the question " what is the minimum time frame in which one could construct a dark black hole "...i just figured out a way but I am not telling anyone
 
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1. Can a planet become a black hole?

No, a planet cannot become a black hole.

2. What is the difference between a planet and a black hole?

A planet is a celestial body that orbits a star, while a black hole is a region of space with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, including light, can escape from it.

3. How do black holes form?

Black holes are formed when a massive star dies and collapses under its own gravity.

4. Can a planet be swallowed by a black hole?

Yes, a planet can be swallowed by a black hole if it gets too close to the black hole's event horizon, which is the point of no return.

5. Is there a way to stop a black hole from forming?

No, black holes are a natural result of the death of massive stars and cannot be stopped from forming.

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