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A black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. A black hole’s “surface,” called its event horizon, defines the boundary where the velocity needed to escape exceeds the speed of light, which is the speed limit of the cosmos.
The most well-understood black holes are created when a massive star reaches the end of its life and implodes, collapsing in on itself. A black hole takes up zero space, but...
How is a black hole formed? A black hole can be formed by the death of a massive star. At the end of a massive star's life, the core becomes unstable and collapses in upon itself, and the star’s outer layers are blown away.
A black hole is an extremely dense object in space from which no light can escape. While black holes are mysterious and exotic, they are also a key consequence of how gravity works: When a lot of mass gets compressed into a small enough space, the resulting object rips the very fabric of space and time, becoming what is called a singularity.
Black holes form through the collapse of a very massive star, but many mysteries remain about these puzzling stellar objects.
Here are the detailed steps that are involved in the formation of a black hole: Gravitational Collapse: The eventual gravitational collapse occurs when massive stars end their life cycle due to nuclear fuel depletion and cannot withstand gravitational collapse.
The main light source from a black hole is a structure called an accretion disk. Black holes grow by consuming matter, a process scientists call accretion, and by merging with other black holes. A stellar-mass black hole paired with a star may pull gas from it, and a supermassive black hole does the same from stars that stray too close.
Black holes are regions in space where an enormous amount of mass is packed into a tiny volume. This creates a gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape. They are created when giant stars collapse, and perhaps by other methods that are still unknown.
Black holes can be surrounded by rings of gas and dust, called accretion disks, that emit light across many wavelengths, including X-rays. A supermassive black hole’s intense gravity can cause stars to orbit around it in a particular way.
How are black holes formed? A visualization of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Credit: Abhishek Joshi/UIUC