black holes

A black hole is a region of spacetime where the force of gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. They are formed when a large star collapses under its own gravity, resulting in an extremely dense object with a powerful gravitational field. A black hole’s gravity is so strong that even light particles cannot escape its pull. An analogy that can be used to explain black holes is to imagine a piece of paper that has been crumpled up and thrown away. The paper is so small and dense that it is like a tiny, deep well. Anything that falls into it is unable to escape, just like anything that falls into a black hole. Black holes can range in size from a few kilometers to millions of kilometers across. The largest black holes are the supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies, which can have masses millions of times greater than the Sun. Fun fact: Black holes can actually emit radiation, known as Hawking radiation, due to quantum effects near their event horizons.