This is explained by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which states that time is affected by how fast you are going when you’re at extreme speeds close to light.Ħ.
The person who fell into the black hole’s time slows down, relative to the person watching. Say someone falls into a black hole and there’s an observer that witnesses this. There are also a variety of these all over the Milky Way.ģ) Supermassive Black Holes – These are the largest of black holes, being more than 1 million times more massive than the Sun. There are Three Categories of Black Holes.ġ) Primordial Black holes – These are the smallest of black holes and range from an atom’s size to a mountain’s mass.Ģ) Stellar Black Holes – These are the most common of black holes and they can be up to 20 times more massive than the Sun. The remainder of the core collapses, a spot overcome by density and without volume – a black hole.Ĥ. When the pressure from the nuclear reactions collapses, gravity overwhelms and collapses the star’s core, and the star’s other layers are thrown off into space, and this process is also known as a supernova. The death of large stars lead to black holes, because a star’s gravity will overwhelm the star’s natural pressure that it maintains to keep its shape. Our Milky Way Probably Has a Black Hole.īut, don’t be alarmed, Earth isn’t in danger! The major black hole that astronomists believe to be within our Milky Way is light years away from Earth.ģ. For example, a star that’s close enough to a black hole can be seen being ripped apart.Ģ. Analyzing the surrounding area of a black hole, we can see its effects upon its environment. What we can see, though, is the effects of a black hole. Now, here are 10 fun facts about black holes!Ī black hole is called a black hole because of it’s color, especially since light can’t escape. An astronaut who ventured too close and was sucked into a black hole would be pulled apart by the overpowering gravity.What exactly is a black hole? Put simply, a black hole is a spot in the universe where there is a large gravity pull. Objects that fall into black holes are literally stretched to breaking point. Quasars may be hundreds of times brighter than even the largest ordinary galaxies. Supermassive black holes also power active galaxies and ancient galaxies known as quasars. These may be millions or billions of times heavier than our Sun. Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, have supermassive black holes at their centres. What is left of the star – still several solar masses - collapses into an area only a few kilometres across. These 'stellar-mass' black holes form when a heavyweight star, about 10 times heavier than the Sun, ends its life in a supernova explosion. Many of them are only a few times more massive than the Sun. As the discs swirl around them like a whirlpool, they become extremely hot and give off X-rays.īlack holes come in many different sizes. Many of them are surrounded by discs of material. The gravitational pull of this region is so great that nothing can escape – not even light.Īlthough black holes cannot be seen, we know they exist from the way they affect nearby dust, stars and galaxies. This catastrophic collapse results in a huge amount of mass being concentrated in an incredibly small area. Instead, it is a region of space where matter has collapsed in on itself. A black hole does not have a surface, like a planet or star. Black holes are the strangest objects in the Universe.