I think black holes are fascinating.  Here you have a force so strong, so intense, that nothing compares.  Even if you set off a nuclear bomb in it, you might not even notice.  I happened across an article called Black Holes: The Deadliest Force in the Universe and so of course I read it. A couple of interesting quotes from it :

“Imagine a black hole swallowing Earth, ending life in an instant.”

I’d rather not, really…  I mean, the concept of a black hole “eating” planets and solar systems would be interesting, might even make a good movie, but the whole “ending life in an instant” part is what I’d rather not dwell on too much.

Actually, there is a movie along those lines.  In Transformers: The Movie, Unicron was a giant planet (who could also transform into one bad robot) who travelled around the universe devouring planets.  It was a great movie.

Another quote from that article :

“It would be a bad day for the solar system if we got visited by a black hole,” says Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

That may be about the biggest understatement that can be made.  Like was said earlier, this would mean the total destruction of life as we know it.  A bad day indeed…

But overall, the article does make a few interesting points, such as the fact that if a black hole got within a billion miles of Earth we’d see the effects of it.  Also, people used to think black holes were stationary, but in the year 2000, scientists discovered there are wandering black holes, which are like “nomads, renegades”.  Let’s hope one doesn’t come after us, because our weapons would be of no use on it.  (Although, as I’ve mentioned before, we have yet to test the combined forces of Chuck Norris and Mr. T on a black hole, so there may yet be hope in such a situation.)