Book 1, Question 99
What Is a Black Hole? Without the Scary Movie Version!
Forget the scary movies, here is the real science. When a big star uses up its fuel, it collapses under its own gravity, and what is left is tiny and very dark. A black hole forms when a huge amount of mass is squeezed into a super tiny space, and its gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. The page says black holes do not suck things in from far away, since you have to be pretty close for their gravity to take over. Our Sun is not big enough to become one.
More fun facts
- A black hole's gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
- The edge around a black hole, past which nothing can escape, is called the event horizon.
- The event horizon is not a solid surface like Earth's.
- Our Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center called Sagittarius A* (say A-star).
- The nearest known black hole, Gaia BH1, is about 1,500 light-years away, which is very far from Earth.
- The biggest black hole ever observed, TON 618, has about 66 billion times the mass of the Sun.
- The lightest known black hole is only about 3.8 times the Sun's mass.
Sources: NASA Space Place, NASA Science
Questions kids ask
Is there a black hole near Earth?
No. The nearest known one, Gaia BH1, is about 1,500 light-years away.
Is there a black hole in our galaxy?
Yes. A supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* sits at the center of the Milky Way.