Black Holes
BLACK HOLES
More than a century has passed since Albert Einstein proposed the existence of black holes in his theory of relativity. For the first time we have visual proof that they are real thanks to a network of eight powerful radio telescopes. The picture from Messier 87, a galaxy some 55 million light-years away in early Virgo, shows a bright ring of superheated gas and particles circling the gravitational drain at nearly the speed of light. At the edge of the radiant orange-red ring is the “event horizon” where all matter and energy is sucked into the abyss.
The bright star Denebola in Leo is close by and appropriately so for this star represents ‘unconventional ideas and behavior – being out-of- step with mainstream ideas, not conforming, and living on the fringe of society.’ Denebola is also known for an inclination toward radicalism, fringe ideas, and things that are odd and unusual.
Everything about black holes is strange and out of the norm. At the center of the glowing doughnut is a massive black hole measuring some 25 billion miles across – about 10 times greater than the distance between our Sun and Neptune – with a mass of 6.5 billion suns. Black holes exert such horrific gravity that they swallow light itself!
Over the last century science has demonstrated that our universe is far stranger than ever imagined. Space itself is curved and warped by mass. Time slows down on an object the faster it travels making space flight over vast distances humanly possible. Electrons are both particles and waves. At the quantum level, space is composed of particles that pop in and out of existence. Linked atomic particles distances apart respond as if knowing what is happening to their counterpart – a cosmic telepathy of sorts. And now perhaps the greatest mystery yet – what are black holes? How do they originate and what takes place beyond the “event horizon” and into the void?
Are black holes meaningful in the horoscope? We don’t know. But the closest star we have knowledge about is Denebola. Besides representing the unconventional, Denebola is associated with major catastrophes in mundane (national) charts. The photographic discovery of the first black hole may be a harbinger of a great and dangerous emptiness coming our way. Or perhaps, on the flip side of the coin, a transition to an advanced society of space travel – a New Age of Aquarius.