Not Jersey and I went to a presentation about black holes at the Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo. You would have loved it. The talk was given by a Swedish astrophysicist with a background in cosmology named Dr. Enander. He is writing a book about black holes. He is visiting Hawaii to see the telescopes on Mauna Kea to do research for his book.
He started by saying each story needs a hook. His hook was we all have something in our possession that is connected to Kauai and black holes. Then he put up a picture of a cell phone.
Next he put up a picture of a black hole. You would have known this, but I didn’t, it’s not easy to get a picture of a black hole. The first black hole ever photographed was given the Hawaiian name Pōwehi, because two Hawaiian telescopes were used to capture its image.
Larry Kimura, a Hawaiian language professor, at UH-Hilo came up with the name. This guy started developing educational programs to revitalize the Hawaiian language back in the 1980’s. Whenever a space object is given a Hawaiian name, Uncle Larry gets to choose the name.
The name Pōwehi comes from an 18th Century Hawaiian Creation Chant called the Kumulipo. The name means “the adorned fathomless dark creation.” Deep, huh?
Dr. Enander said that black holes are misunderstood. People often believe they suck things into themselves, because of their gravitational pull. He said they actually repel more than they absorb. People often think black holes are invisible, but they’re not, because surrounding them are incredibly bright circles of light. The black holes are repelling the light that comes at them. Also, when black holes are formed all kinds of new elements are created.
Did you know that, Dad? I’m sure you did. Are you rolling your eyes at me? Did you teach us about supermassive black holes in our eighth grade earth science class? I still remember the Mohs hardness scale. I remember Earth has a stratosphere, but I forgot about the mesosphere. I’m sorry, Dad. My brain doesn’t work like yours. You heard something once and didn't just remember it, you understood it.
About half way through the presentation I thought of you and how much you’d love the presentation, and I started crying. I couldn’t stop. I haven’t cried in public yet. Usually I can keep it to the confines of home or at least my car. But this was too: you.
At the end of the presentation, he brought it back to the hook. What do our cell phones and Kauai have to do with black holes? Apparently there are radio telescopes on Kauai that are used in conjunction with other radio telescopes all over the world to estimate continental drift. They do this by looking at these really bright quarks that are far away in the sky. They assume the quarks are light surrounding black holes, because they are so bright. I guess the process used is similar to our phone’s GPS navigational system.
Are you a black hole now, Dad? Are you out there deflecting light with a super complicated magnetic field? Are you creating new elements? I hope so.
Love, Mandy
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