What the hell is a black hole?

Black holes are among the most mysterious and the most fascinating features of our universe. Thanks to the meticulous efforts of scientists who have devoted their lives to study black holes, and here we are acquainted with a lot about these infinitely dense abysses. Prospects are you won’t come across anything more eldritch than a black hole; hence I’ve compiled six facts to prove it.

A black hole is basically invisible: Nothing can escape the immense gravitational pull of a black hole. For this reason, there are no photons that are reflected which can then be used to picture the black as an object. Black holes are invisible to the eyes. It’s called ‘black hole’ for good reasons, after all.

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Black holes can stop time: If you would be inside a black hole, a day would still last a day for you. However, the time outside that black hole would have passed at a much higher rate.

They are only hazardous if you get too close: Like animals behind a cage, it’s advisable to watch a black hole from its event horizon - think of it like the gravitational field of a planet. This zone is the point of no return, when you’re too close for any hope of rescue.

They are empty: Think of something enormously packed inside a very small volume. For instance, a star thousand of times, more massive than the sun squeezed into a sphere just about the diameter of New York City. The result is a very strong gravitational field that nothing can escape – only a more gigantic black hole.

It is four million times more massive than the sun: A black hole is usually more massive than the sun.

Black holes don’t suck: In fact, they’re strangely overwhelming. Smug replies aside, there’s this widespread fallacy that black holes act like a huge vacuum cleaner of sorts. While its true black holes can pull matter at unbelievable rates, it’s all due to gravity – and not some mystifying fan.

From the August 2017 issue of FHM India.