A Black Hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because the matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because light cannot get out, people can’t see it. They are invisible.
Types of Black Hole
- Cygnus X-1: formed when a large star caved in
- Milky way’s Supper massive: middle of the Milky way
- Sagittarius A* : At the center of the Milky way Galaxy
Also read: A-Z about EARTHQUAKES | Tectonic Plates, Convection Currents, Liquefaction, Seismometer, Seismograph, and More
Could it destroy Earth?
- They do not go around in the space eating stars, moon, planets.
- No black is close to solar system for Earth to fall inside it.



21 billion times more massive than the Sun
About 300 million light-years away, in the heart of galaxy NGC 4889, is a black hole 21 billion times the size of our sun. Researchers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have revealed that this is possibly the largest hole that scientists have ever found. NGC 4889 is located in the Coma Cluster, which is in the constellation Coma Berenice. The Coma Cluster is estimated to contain 10,000 or more galaxies, according to EarthSky.
How big is this newly discovered black hole?
The super massive hole has an event horizon (or boundary) with a diameter 15 times greater that the diameter of Neptune’s orbit of the sun, scientist say. In comparison, the Milky way galaxy’s own super massive black hole sports an event horizon just one-fifth of Mercury’s orbit of the sun. Also, it is thought to have a mass of just 3 to 4 million times our sun, which is tiny in comparison to the newly found black hole’s mass.
Few facts about Black Holes
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They affect time – just as a clock runs a bit slower closer to sea level than up on a space station, clock run really slow near black holes. It all has to do with gravity.
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They can be infinitely big
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The nearest Black Hole to the Earth is 1,600 light years away
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There is a massive one at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy
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They eventually evaporate – radiation helps them lose mass, this kills the black hole
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They are not infinitely small – At some point, the collapsing core becomes even smaller than an atom or an electron, and it eventually reaches its Planck Length, a quantum size limit that makes it barely measurable.
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Not funnel-shaped, they are spheres – In most textbooks you will probably see that they look like funnels. This is because they are being illustrated from the perspective of gravity wells. In reality, they are more like spheres.
- They Spin – When the core of a star collapses, the star rotates faster and faster and becomes smaller and smaller. When it reaches the point where it does not have enough mass to become a black hole, it gets squeezed together to form a neutron star and continues to spin rapidly. Same applies to black holes. Even when the black hole shrinks down to Planck length it continues to spin rapidly.