Is a black hole considred a black body?

[Starwatcher16]

Is a black hole considered a black body?

 

[Wallace]

The Hawking Radiation that black holes are supposed to emit (though this hasn't been directly observed yet I believe) has as black body spectrum. In that sense a black hole behaves like a 'black body', although perhaps there are other characteristics of the formal definition of a black body that a black hole does not satisfy? I'm not sure.

 

[fleem]

Current theory is that you CAN consider it that way. It just has a really low emissivity coefficient (which also happens to vary with its size) AND all non-rotating black holes of the same size have the same temperature, and rotating ones are hotter.

 

[George Jones]

Is a black hole considered a black body?

As Wallace and fleem have noted, Hawking showed that black holes radiate in (close to) black body-like fashion. Taking a black hole to be a black body and using some hand waving leads to

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=205711.

 

[Chronos]

It's really not a good analogy. A blackbody is an entity in classical physics. A black hole is a construct of general relativity. It posseses some of the same properties, but is not of the same species.