FAQs About Black Holes

A black hole is a region in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. It forms when a massive star collapses under its own gravity after exhausting its nuclear fuel.

Source: NASA

Black holes typically form when massive stars (at least 20 times the mass of our Sun) explode in a supernova and their cores collapse. Smaller stars do not form black holes but become white dwarfs or neutron stars instead.

No, black holes cannot be seen directly because light cannot escape them. However, scientists detect them through their gravitational effects on nearby stars and matter, or through X-rays emitted by the material being pulled into them.

The event horizon is the boundary around a black hole beyond which nothing can return. Once something crosses this threshold, it is inevitably pulled into the black hole.

The Earth is not in danger of being swallowed by a black hole. The nearest known black hole is thousands of light-years away. Even if one were to replace the Sun with a black hole of the same mass, Earth would continue to orbit it in the same way.

What lies inside a black hole remains one of the biggest mysteries in physics. The core, called the singularity, is thought to be a point of infinite density where the laws of physics as we know them break down.

A supermassive black hole is a black hole with millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun. They are found at the centers of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way.

Yes, according to physicist Stephen Hawking, black holes can slowly lose mass through a process known as Hawking radiation and eventually evaporate over trillions of years. However, this phenomenon has not yet been observed.

In 2019, scientists captured the first-ever image of a black hole's event horizon in the galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

See the image from EHT

Yes. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, time slows down near massive gravitational fields. Near the event horizon of a black hole, time appears to slow dramatically relative to an outside observer.

Some theoretical physics models suggest that rotating black holes (Kerr black holes) might allow for time travel or wormholes. However, this remains speculative and unproven.

If you fell into a stellar-mass black hole, you would experience “spaghettification” due to the extreme gravitational gradient, where your body would be stretched like spaghetti. With supermassive black holes, the descent could be less dramatic at first, but the outcome is ultimately the same—inescapable.

A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel through space-time that could connect distant points in the universe. Though sometimes linked to black holes in science fiction and theory, no wormholes have been discovered or proven to exist.

Yes. The main types include:

• Stellar black holes – formed from collapsed stars.
• Supermassive black holes – found at galactic centers.
• Intermediate black holes – between stellar and supermassive in size.
• Primordial black holes – hypothetical small black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang.

Black holes help scientists test the laws of gravity, explore quantum mechanics, and understand galaxy formation and evolution. They are at the frontier of space research and fundamental physics.