Black Holes

A black hole is an area of space in which gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape its grasp. The immense gravitational pull of a black hole is created by a huge amount of matter packed into a tiny area. Black holes can be formed when a very massive star dies and collapses in on itself. It is also believed that black holes exist at the center of many galaxies, including our own. Black holes have a boundary called the “event horizon,” which is the point of no return. Anything that passes beyond this point is sucked into the black hole and can never escape. Black holes can be tiny or extremely large; the smallest black holes are about the size of an atom, while the largest can be as big as 20 billion times the mass of the sun. A fun fact about black holes is that, even though they can’t be seen directly, their presence can be detected by the effects of their immense gravity on the stars and gas clouds around them.