How can black holes form

Can anything ever escape from a black hole? How can a black hole's own gravity, but not light, escape from it? Where did the name 'black hole' come from? Will our universe become a black hole? Did you find what you were looking for on this site? Objects must creep fairly close to one to lose this gravitational tug-of-war.

For example, if our sun was suddenly replaced by a black hole of similar mass, our planetary family would continue to orbit unperturbed, if much less warm and illuminated. Because black holes swallow all light, astronomers can't spot them directly like they do the many glittery cosmic objects in the sky. But there are a few keys that reveal a black hole's presence.

For one, a black hole's intense gravity tugs on any surrounding objects. Astronomers use these erratic movements to infer the presence of the invisible monster that lurks nearby. Or objects can orbit a black hole, and astronomers can look for stars that seem to orbit nothing to detect a likely candidate. Black holes are also messy eaters, which often betrays their locations. As they sip on surrounding stars, their massive gravitational and magnetic forces superheat the infalling gas and dust, causing it to emit radiation.

Some of this glowing matter envelops the black hole in a whirling region called an accretion disk. Even the matter that starts falling into a black hole isn't necessarily there to stay. Black holes can sometimes eject infalling stardust in mighty radiation-laden burps.

All rights reserved. Perseus Black Hole A view of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster, one of the most massive objects in the universe, shows the effects that a relatively small but supermassive black hole can have millions of miles beyond its core. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London Love them or hate them, there's no denying their growing numbers have added an explosion of color to the city's streets.

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Travel 5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever These digital innovations will make your next trip safer and more efficient. But will they invade your privacy? Go Further. There's something inherently fascinating about black holes. Maybe it's that they're invisible beasts lurking in space that sometimes rip passing stars in half and scatter their remains.

Whatever it is, these strange cosmic objects continue to captivate scientists and laypeople alike. But where do black holes come from? How do they form, and what gives them such awesome destructive power?

Before we can answer that, we have to ask an even more fundamental question: Just what is a black hole? Even light waves are sucked in, which is why black holes are black. These bizarre objects arise like phoenixes springing from the ashes of dead stars. When massive stars reach the ends of their lives, the hydrogen that they've been fusing into helium is nearly depleted.

So, these monster stars begin burning helium, fusing the remaining atoms into even heavier elements, up until iron, whose fusion no longer provides enough energy to prop up the star's outer layers, according to Swinburne University of Technology in Australia's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.