Black Holes

Black holes are some of the most mysterious and extreme objects in the universe. They are regions where gravity is so strong that nothing—not even light—can escape. Black holes form when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse under their own gravity, compressing their mass into an infinitely small point called a singularity. The “surface” of a black hole is known as the event horizon. Once something crosses this boundary, it can never return. Black holes can range from a few times the mass of the Sun to supermassive black holes millions or even billions of times more massive, lurking at the centers of galaxies.

Although we can’t see black holes directly, we can detect their presence by their effects on nearby matter—such as stars orbiting an invisible mass, or intense X-ray emissions from gas being pulled in. Black holes challenge our understanding of physics and remain a frontier of astronomical research.