• Question: How is a Black Hole created?

    Asked by anon-39909 to Tim, Venus on 15 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by thelonepotatoe.
    • Photo: Tim Hollowood

      Tim Hollowood answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Good question. You know the small black hole are created when a star which is roughly 10 time the mass of the sun uses up all its fuel and then goes through a complicated stage ending up with a supernova explosion. What is left collapses down under gravity because there’s no pressure to stop it and it becomes so dense that it’s escape velocity exceeds the velocity of light. That’s a black hole.
      But there are also supermassive black holes at the centre of envy galaxy. It’s not entirely clear how they originally formed but it must have been some kind of collapse process as well.

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