Question Sheet: Black Hole Journey

By Science News Explores

SCIENCE

Before reading:

  1. List what you know about black holes. 

  2. What is a supernova?

During reading:

  1. What would happen if you jumped into a black hole? 

  2. Whose theory first predicted that black holes could exist? 

  3. How are supernovas and black holes related? 

  4. What is an event horizon? 

  5. What methods do scientists use to study black holes?

After reading:

  1. Why do you think that scientists are so interested in learning about the beginning of the universe? 

  2. How might scientists use math to study black holes? To get some idea, see antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center). 

  3. Why do you think that many people, including Albert Einstein, for a long time supposed that black holes couldn’t actually exist? 

  4. Does the name “black hole” make sense? Come up with another (perhaps more logical) name that you could use for such an object. 

  5. What might the universe have been like in its earliest moments? See www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMSZ5WJD1E_OurUniverse_0.html (European

    Space Agency) or www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/space/cosmology.html

    (World Almanac for Kids).

SOCIAL STUDIES

Who was Albert Einstein? When did he live? When did he develop his theory of gravitation? You can find information about Albert Einstein at www.aip.org/history/einstein/ (American Institute of Physics) and www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/index.html (PBS).

LANGUAGE ARTS

  1. Write a short science fiction story in which a black hole plays a role. Try to keep anything you say about black holes as accurate as possible. 

  2. Go to the library and find a book that talks about black holes. Write a brief review of the book, explaining what someone could learn from the book.

MATHEMATICS

You’re on a train that’s moving forward at 65 kilometers per hour. You throw a ball in the direction that the train is moving. Relative to you and the train, the ball leaves your hand traveling at 32 kilometers per hour. From the point of view of someone standing alongside the tracks, how fast is the ball moving?