bhpv said:
bhpv said:
. Black holes are very hard to detect, but there are good reasons for believing that they exist; as an example, astronomers have seen stars orbiting what appears as a very large "dark" mass centre in the centre of the Milky Way.Try a google search on "gravitational lensing black hole".bhpv said:
Black holes are regions in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, including light, can escape from it. They are formed when a massive star dies and collapses in on itself, creating a singularity - a point of infinite density and gravity.
We can detect black holes indirectly through their effects on surrounding matter, such as the distortion of light from distant stars or the emission of X-rays from gas falling into the black hole. We can also observe the gravitational effects of black holes on nearby objects.
According to our current understanding of physics, nothing can escape from inside the event horizon of a black hole. The event horizon is the point of no return, beyond which the gravitational pull of the black hole is too strong for even light to escape.
When a star dies and becomes a black hole, its outer layers collapse inwards due to gravity, while the core collapses to a point of infinite density and gravity - the singularity. The size of the black hole's event horizon depends on the mass of the star - the more massive the star, the larger the event horizon.
The gravitational pull of a black hole can only affect us if we get too close to it. The closest known black hole to Earth is about 3,000 light-years away, which is too far to have any significant impact on us. However, the gravitational pull of black holes plays a crucial role in the formation and evolution of galaxies and the universe as a whole.