Black Holes
Where Gravity Wins Everything
Black holes are regions of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing — not even light — can escape. They form when massive stars collapse at the end of their lives, or through other extreme processes. Black holes come in different sizes.
Types of Black Holes
- Stellar Black Holes: 5-100 solar masses, formed from collapsed stars
- Intermediate Black Holes: 100-100,000 solar masses
- Supermassive Black Holes: Millions to billions of solar masses, found at galaxy centers
- Primordial Black Holes: Hypothetical, formed in the early universe
Event Horizon
The event horizon is the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing can escape. It is not a physical surface but a point of no return. Once anything crosses the event horizon, it is lost forever inside the black hole.
First Image of a Black Hole
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration produced the first-ever image of a black hole's shadow — the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87, about 55 million light-years away.