STEM Quiz (Grades 4-7): Mystic Black Holes

A black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. A black hole’s “surface” defines the boundary where the velocity needed to escape exceeds _____.

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In 1916, a German physicist named Karl Schwartzschild calculated that any mass can become a black hole if it were compressed tightly enough, based on Einstein’s ______.

Based on the mass of the black hole, scientists think there are four types of black holes: stellar, intermediate, supermassive, and miniature. Which two types are the most common?

Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, has a mass of roughly four million suns, and has a diameter about the distance between ______.

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The first image of a Black Hole shows ______ orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87. 

The black hole in the first image captured by scientists has a mass _______ times that of our Sun, and is 53.5 million light years away.

It’s found that the supermassive black hole in M87 is very active because:

To get enough resolution for the first picture of the black hole  at the center of the galaxy M87 with a conventional telescope, its size would have to be as large as the _____  due to the diffraction limit, a basic law of physics.

The Oort Cloud is a spherical layer of ____ objects surrounding our Sun, and likely occupies space at a distance between about 2,000 and 100,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun.

The black hole in the first image captured by scientists has a mass 6.5 billion times that of our Sun, and is 53.5 million light years away; while Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, is much closer to us at around 26,000 light years away, and also smaller with a mass only ______ times that of our Sun.

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