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Black holes: Everything you need to know

These gluttonous beasts are some of the most fascinating objects in

space.

Black holes are some of the most fascinating objects in space.(Image credit:
solarseven via Getty Images )

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Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects in
space. They're extremely dense, with such strong gravitational
attraction that not even light can escape their grasp.

The Milky Way could contain over 100 million black holes, though
detecting these gluttonous beasts is very di cult. At the heart of the
Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole — Sagittarius A*. The
colossal structure is about 4 million times the mass of the sun and
lies approximately 26,000 light-years away from Earth, according to a
statement from NASA.

The rst image of a black hole was captured in 2019 by the Event
Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration. The striking photo of the
black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy 55 million light-years from
Earth thrilled scientists around the world.

Black hole FAQs answered by an expert

We asked theoretical astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan a few

commonly asked questions about black holes.

Chair of the Department of Astronomy, Joseph S. and Sophia S.

Fruton Professor of Astronomy and Professor of Physics, Yale
University.

How do black holes form?

Black holes are expected to form via two distinct channels. According
to the rst pathway, they are stellar corpses, so they form when
massive stars die. Stars whose birth masses are above roughly 8 to
10 times mass of our sun, when they exhaust all their fuel — their
hydrogen — they explode and die leaving behind a very compact
dense object, a black hole. The resulting black hole that is left behind
is referred to as a stellar mass black hole and its mass is of the order
of a few times the mass of the sun.

Not all stars leave behind black holes, stars with lower birth masses
leave behind a neutron star or a white dwarf. Another way that black
holes form is from the direct collapse of gas, a process that is
expected to result in more massive black holes with a mass ranging
from 1000 times the mass of the sun up to even 100,000 times the
mass of the sun. This channel circumvents the formation of the
traditional star, and is believed to operate in the early universe and
produce more massive black hole seeds.

Who discovered black holes?

Black holes were predicted as an exact mathematical solution to

Einstein's equations. Einstein's equations describe the shape of space
around matter. The theory of general relativity connects the geometry
or shape of shape to the detailed distribution of matter.

The black hole solution was found was by Karl Schwarzschild in 1915,
and these regions — black holes — were found to distort space
extremally and generate a puncture in the fabric of spacetime. It was
unclear at the time if these corresponded to real objects in the
universe. Over time, as other end products of stellar death were
detected, namely, neutron stars seen as pulsars it became clear that
black holes were real and ought to exist. The rst detected black hole
was Cygnus-X1.

Do black holes die?

Black holes do not die per se, but they are theoretically predicted to
eventually slowly evaporate over extremely long time scales.

Black holes grow by the accretion of matter nearby that is pulled in by

their immense gravity. Hawking predicted that black holes could also
radiate away energy and shrink very slowly. Quantum theory suggests
that there exist virtual particles popping in and out of existence all the
time. When this happens, a particle and its companion anti-particle
appear. However, they can also recombine and disappear again. When
this process occurs near the event horizon of a black hole, strange
things can happen. Instead of the particle antiparticle pair existing for
a moment and then annihilating each other, one of them can get by
gravity and fall into the black hole, while the other particle can y off
into space. Over very long timescales, we are speaking about
timescales that are much much longer than the age of our universe,
the theory states that this trickle of escaping particles will cause the
black hole to slowly evaporate.

Are black holes wormholes?

No black holes are not wormholes. Wormholes can be thought of as

tunnels that connect two separate points in space and time. It is
believed that the interior of black holes could contain a wormhole, the
puncture is spacetime, that could offer a portal to another point in
spacetime potentially even in a different universe.

First black hole discovered

Albert Einstein rst predicted the existence of black holes in 1916,

with his general theory of relativity. The term "black hole" was coined
many years later in 1967 by American astronomer John Wheeler.
After decades of black holes being known only as theoretical objects.

The rst black hole ever discovered was Cygnus X-1, located within
the Milky Way in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers
saw the rst signs of the black hole in 1964 when a sounding rocket
detected celestial sources of X-rays according to NASA. In 1971,
astronomers determined that the X-rays were coming from a bright
blue star orbiting a strange dark object. It was suggested that the
detected X-rays were a result of stellar material being stripped away
from the bright star and "gobbled" up by the dark object — an all-
consuming black hole.

How many black holes are there?

At the center of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr
A*). (Image credit: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al., IR: NASA/STScI)

According to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

approximately one out of every thousand stars is massive enough to
become a black hole. Since the Milky Way contains over 100 billion
stats, our home galaxy must harbor some 100 million black holes.

Though detecting black holes is a di cult task and estimates from

NASA suggest there could be as many as 10 million to a billion stellar
black holes in the Milky Way.

The closest black hole to Earth is dubbed "The Unicorn" and is

situated approximately 1,500 light-years away. The nickname has a
double meaning. Not only does the black hole candidate reside in the
constellation Monoceros ("the unicorn"), its incredibly low mass —
about three times that of the sun — makes it nearly one of a kind.

Black hole images

The Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio

telescopes forged through international collaboration, captured this image of the
supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy M87 and its shadow. (Image
credit: EHT Collaboration)

In 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration released the

rst image ever recorded of a black hole. The EHT saw the black hole
in the center of galaxy M87 while the telescope was examining the
event horizon or the area past which nothing can escape from a black
hole. The image maps the sudden loss of photons (particles of light).
It also opens up a whole new area of research in black holes, now that
astronomers know what a black hole looks like.

In 2021, astronomers revealed a new view of the giant black hole at

the center of M87, showing what the colossal structure looks like in
polarized light. As polarized light waves have a different orientation
and brightness compared to unpolarized light, the new image shows
the black hole in even more detail. Polarization is a signature of
magnetic elds and the image makes it clear that the black hole's ring
is magnetized.

Following the release of the rst image of a black hole in 2019, astronomers
captured a new polarized view of the black hole. (Image credit: EHT
Collaboration)

In May 2022, scientists revealed the historic rst image of the

supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy — Sagitarrius A*.

What do black holes look like?

Black holes have three "layers": the outer and inner event horizon, and
the singularity.

The event horizon of a black hole is the boundary around the mouth of
the black hole, past which light cannot escape. Once a particle
crosses the event horizon, it cannot leave. Gravity is constant across
the event horizon.

The inner region of a black hole, where the object's mass lies, is
known as its singularity, the single point in space-time where the
mass of the black hole is concentrated.

Scientists can't see black holes the way they can see stars and other
objects in space. Instead, astronomers must rely on detecting the
radiation black holes emit as dust and gas are drawn into the dense
creatures. But supermassive black holes, lying in the center of a
galaxy, may become shrouded by the thick dust and gas around them,
which can block the telltale emissions.

Related stories:
Sometimes, as matter is drawn toward a black hole, it ricochets off
the event horizon and is hurled outward, rather than being tugged into
the maw. Bright jets of material traveling at near-relativistic speeds
are created. Although the black hole remains unseen, these powerful
jets can be viewed from great distances.

The EHT's image of a black hole in M87 (released in 2019) was an

extraordinary effort, requiring two years of research even after the
images were taken. That's because the collaboration of telescopes,
which stretches across many observatories worldwide, produces an
astounding amount of data that is too large to transfer via the
internet.

With time, researchers expect to image other black holes and build up
a repository of what the objects look like. The next target is likely
Sagittarius A*, which is the black hole in the center of our own Milky
Way galaxy. Sagittarius A* is intriguing because it is quieter than
expected, which may be due to magnetic elds smothering its activity,
a 2019 study reported. Another study that year showed that a cool
gas halo surrounds Sagittarius A*, which gives unprecedented insight
into what the environment around a black hole looks like.

ESO's black hole anatomy diagram shows what a black hole looks like and labels
the different components. (Image credit: ESO)

Types of black holes

So far, astronomers have identi ed three types of black holes: stellar

black holes, supermassive black holes and intermediate black holes.

Stellar black holes — small but deadly

When a star burns through the last of its fuel, the object may collapse,
or fall into itself. For smaller stars (those up to about three times the
sun's mass), the new core will become a neutron star or a white
dwarf. But when a larger star collapses, it continues to compress and
creates a stellar black hole.

Black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars are relatively

small but incredibly dense. One of these objects packs more than
three times the mass of the sun into the diameter of a city. This leads
to a crazy amount of gravitational force pulling on objects around the
object. Stellar black holes then consume the dust and gas from their
surrounding galaxies, which keeps them growing in size.

Supermassive black holes — the birth of

giants

Small black holes populate the universe, but their cousins,

supermassive black holes, dominate. These enormous black holes
are millions or even billions of times as massive as the sun but are
about the same size in diameter. Such black holes are thought to lie at
the center of pretty much every galaxy, including the Milky Way.

Scientists aren't certain how such large black holes spawn. Once
these giants have formed, they gather mass from the dust and gas
around them, material that is plentiful in the center of galaxies,
allowing them to grow to even more enormous sizes.

Supermassive black holes may be the result of hundreds or

thousands of tiny black holes that merge. Large gas clouds could also
be responsible, collapsing together and rapidly accreting mass. A
third option is the collapse of a stellar cluster, a group of stars all
falling together. Fourth, supermassive black holes could arise from
large clusters of dark matter. This is a substance that we can observe
through its gravitational effect on other objects; however, we don't
know what dark matter is composed of because it does not emit light
and cannot be directly observed.

Intermediate black holes

Scientists once thought that black holes came in only small and large
sizes, but research has revealed the possibility that midsize, or
intermediate, black holes (IMBHs) could exist. Such bodies could
form when stars in a cluster collide in a chain reaction. Several of
these IMBHs forming in the same region could then eventually fall
together in the center of a galaxy and create a supermassive black
hole.

In 2014, astronomers found what appeared to be an intermediate-

mass black hole in the arm of a spiral galaxy. And in 2021
astronomers took advantage of an ancient gamma-ray burst to detect
one.

"Astronomers have been looking very hard for these medium-sized

black holes," study co-author Tim Roberts, of the University of Durham
in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "There have been hints
that they exist, but IMBHs have been acting like a long-lost relative
that isn't interested in being found."

Research, from 2018, suggested that these IMBHs may exist in the
heart of dwarf galaxies (or very small galaxies). Observations of 10
such galaxies ( ve of which were previously unknown to science
before this latest survey) revealed X-ray activity — common in black
holes — suggesting the presence of black holes of from 36,000 to
316,000 solar masses. The information came from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey, which examines about 1 million galaxies and can detect
the kind of light often observed coming from black holes that are
picking up nearby debris.

Binary black holes: double trouble

Artist's illustration of a supermassive black hole with a companion black hole

orbiting around it. (Image credit: Caltech-IPAC)

In 2015, astronomers using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-

Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected gravitational waves from merging
stellar black holes.

"We have further con rmation of the existence of stellar-mass black

holes that are larger than 20 solar masses — these are objects we
didn't know existed before LIGO detected them," David Shoemaker, the
spokesperson for the LIGO Scienti c Collaboration (LSC), said in a
statement. LIGO's observations also provide insights into the direction
a black hole spins. As two black holes spiral around one another, they
can spin in the same direction or the opposite direction.

There are two theories on how binary black holes form. The rst
suggests that the two black holes in a binary form at about the same
time, from two stars that were born together and died explosively at
about the same time. The companion stars would have had the same
spin orientation as one another, so the two black holes left behind
would as well.

Under the second model, black holes in a stellar cluster sink to the
center of the cluster and pair up. These companions would have
random spin orientations compared to one another according to LIGO
Scienti c Collaboration. LIGO's observations of companion black
holes with different spin orientations provide stronger evidence for
this formation theory.

"We're starting to gather real statistics on binary black hole systems,"

said LIGO scientist Keita Kawabe of Caltech, who is based at the LIGO
Hanford Observatory. "That's interesting because some models of
black hole binary formation are somewhat favored over the others
even now, and in the future, we can further narrow this down."

Black hole facts

If you fell into a black hole, theory has long suggested that gravity
would stretch you out like spaghetti, though your death would
come before you reached the singularity. But a 2012 study
published in the journal Nature suggested that quantum effects
would cause the event horizon to act much like a wall of re, which
would instantly burn you to death.
Black holes don't suck. Suction is caused by pulling something into
a vacuum, which the massive black hole de nitely is not. Instead,
objects fall into them just as they fall toward anything that exerts
gravity, like the Earth.
The rst object considered to be a black hole is Cygnus X-1.
Cygnus X-1 was the subject of a 1974 friendly wager
between Stephen Hawking and fellow physicist Kip Thorne, with
Hawking betting that the source was not a black hole. In 1990,
Hawking conceded defeat.
Miniature black holes may have formed immediately after the Big
Bang. Rapidly expanding space may have squeezed some regions
into tiny, dense black holes less massive than the sun.
If a star passes too close to a black hole, the star can be torn
apart.
Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way has anywhere from 10
million to 1 billion stellar black holes, with masses roughly three
times that of the sun.
Black holes remain terri c fodder for science ction books and
movies. Check out the movie "Interstellar," which relied heavily on
Thorne to incorporate science. Thorne's work with the movie's
special effects team led to scientists' improved understanding of
how distant stars might appear when seen near a fast-spinning
black hole.

Additional resources

Dive deeper into the mystery of black holes with NASA Science.
Watch videos and read more about black holes from NASA's
Hubblesite. Discover more about black holes with the National
Science Foundation.

Bibliography

Hubblesite: Black holes: Gravity's relentless pull interactive:

Encyclopedia. STScI Home. Retrieved May 6, 2022.

NASA. Imagine the universe! NASA. Retrieved May 6, 2022.

Boen, B. (2013, August 29). Supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

NASA. Retrieved May 6, 2022.

NASA's Chandra Finds Intriguing Member of Black Hole Family Tree.

Chandra X-ray Observatory. (2015, February 25). Retrieved May 6,
2022.

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