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Black Holes FAQs

  • What exactly are black holes?

A black hole is a region of space with a gravitational pull so powerful that nothing can escape from it, not even light.

The visualization simulates the appearance of a black hole where infalling matter has collected into a thin, hot structure called an accretion disk. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

  • How do black holes develop?

A large star collapsing in on itself creates a region of space with a very high gravitational pull, which is how black holes are created.

Artist's conception depicting the growth channels of black holes in the nearby and distant universe. In the nearby universe, smaller black holes grow by accretion while larger black holes grow by mergers. In the distant universe, the opposite is true. Credit: M. Weiss

  • How large can black holes grow?

Black holes can be as big as billions of times the mass of the Sun or just a few times it.

Black holes are some of the most fascinating objects in space. 
(Image credit: solarseven via Getty Images )

  • A black hole's event horizon is described as?

A black hole's event horizon is the line beyond which nothing, not even light, can travel.


This image shows Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. 
(Image credit: EHT Collaboration, CC BY-SA)

  • A black hole offers no escape for anything?

A: No, once something enters a black hole, it is unable to leave since it is stuck there.

  • Black holes can merge, right?

A: When two black holes are sufficiently close to one another, they can combine to form a much larger black hole.

An artist's concept showing a supermassive black hole surrounded by a disk of gas. 
(Image credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC))

  • Do black holes release any radiation or light?

A: Although black holes don't produce their own light or radiation, they can be identified by the effects they have on adjacent radiation and matter.

  • What is the Hawking radiation theory?

A: According to the theory of Hawking radiation, black holes gradually release radiation as a result of quantum phenomena close to the event horizon, which eventually causes them to evaporate over extraordinarily long times.

An illustration of radiation escaping from a black hole.



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