what exactly is a black hole and how does it eat everything that goes near it?

Answer 1

What we call "gravity" is actually a bending or distortion of space caused by the presence of mass. Imagine a thin rubber sheet with a bowling ball resting on it. Under and around the ball (..mass) the sheet (..space) is bent. If you were inside that dimple and wanted to climb up and out would take energy.

Now imagine a bowling ball so immense and the resulting bending and distortion of space so extreme that nothing could come up with enough energy to climb up and out of it, not even light. That's a black hole.

Most black holes are formed by stars that are at least 10 times more massive than our own sun. Once these huge stars end their lives, a black hole is left behind because most of the tremendous mass of the star is compressed into a super-dense sphere.

Answer 2

A black hole is just a mass that is so dense that escape velocity is faster than the speed of light. It does not eat everything that goes near it though. Matter that falls into a black hole just stays in the black hole.
But matter that falls to Earth (meteors) just stays on Earth too. After all, it is only recently that we intelligent humans have invented rockets that can take things off the Earth. Otherwise, everything that falls to Earth is just as trapped as something that falls into a black hole. And you don't expect the Earth to pull in all the matter that gets near it, do you? Similarly, black holes will not pull in matter; they merely keep the stuff that by chance falls on them, just like the Earth does. Just like every planet and star in the universe does.

Answer 3

Braxton's answer is good but..

No one actually knows what a black hole is. It might be a singularity (a single point, like the universe before the big bang) or it might be more. They are formed from a large star (a very predictable mass predicts the way in which a star will die) which collapses under its own gravity when its hydrogen fuel is expended.

One feature of a black hole is the event horizon. You are relatively safe outside of this area, but once in there's no escaping its grasp. Some black holes have a stream of particles shooting from the event horizon - hopefully someone can clarify on this. But on average, some of the mass being sucked past the event horizon does escape and is flung into space.

Answer 4

Think about what is needed to orbit something. Throw a ball. It will take a curved trajectory and fall back to earth. Throw harder. It flies further. Throw really hard, and the curved path matches the surface of the earth: the ball will keep falling and falling, but never touch down again. It is in orbit.

If the earth's gravity would be much higher, you would have to throw the ball much harder to get the same orbit.

Keep increasing the gravity. At a certain point, you need to throw the ball as fast as the speed of light. This is the maximum speed possible, you cannot achieve faster speeds.
If you shine your torch, the light would also follow the same orbit. You'd be lighting your own but (if the torch is strong enough).
This orbit is called the event horizon. Nothing can escape from it, including light. But stuff would also not fall in!

Now increase gravity once more. Everything will be unable to reach a speed needed to remain in orbit. Everything will fall down, including light. You are suddenly inside the event horizon.
[remember this point] The event horizon is now a bit further from the center. Stuff originally able to orbit or even escape, may no longer be.

So, more stuff (including light and other forms of radiation) is falling in the black hole. This increases its mass, and thus its gravity. Go back to [remember this point]

There's much more to it than this, but I think this explains the basics pretty much.

Answer 5

A black hole is a star that has collapsed on itself because it is unable to overcome its own gravity. It "eats everything that goes near it" because it has an extremely high mass to volume ratio. and as a result it has an extremely high gravitational pull.

Answer 6

black hole
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in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was first used in reference to a star in the last phases of gravitational collapse (the final stage in the life history of certain stars; see stellar evolution) by the American physicist John A. Wheeler.

Gravitational collapse begins when a star has depleted its steady sources of nuclear energy and can no longer produce the expansive force, a result of normal gas pressure, that supports the star against the compressive force of its own gravitation. As the star shrinks in size (and increases in density), it may assume one of several forms depending upon its mass. A less massive star may become a white dwarf, while a more massive one would become a supernova. If the mass is less than three times that of the sun, it will then form a neutron star. However, if the final mass of the remaining stellar core is more than three solar masses, as shown by the American physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland S. Snyder in 1939, nothing remains to prevent the star from collapsing without limit to an indefinitely small size and infinitely large density, a point called the "singularity."

At the point of singularity the effects of Einstein's general theory of relativity become paramount. According to this theory, space becomes curved in the vicinity of matter; the greater the concentration of matter, the greater the curvature. When the star (or supernova remnant) shrinks below a certain size determined by its mass, the extreme curvature of space seals off contact with the outside world. The place beyond which no radiation can escape is called the event horizon, and its radius is called the Schwarzschild radius after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who in 1916 postulated the existence of collapsed celestial objects that emit no radiation. For a star with a mass equal to that of the sun, this limit is a radius of only 0.9 mi (1.5 km). Even light cannot escape the black hole but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation.

It is now believed that the origin of some black holes is nonstellar. Some astrophysicists suggest that immense volumes of interstellar matter can collect and collapse into supermassive black holes, such as are found at the center of some galaxies. The British physicist Stephen Hawking has postulated still another kind of nonstellar black hole. Called a primordial, or mini, black hole, it would have been created during the "big bang," in which the universe was created (see cosmology). Unlike stellar black holes, primordial black holes create and emit elementary particles, called Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and expire. It has also been suggested that the formation of black holes may be associated with intense gamma ray bursts. Beginning with a giant star collapsing on itself or the collision of two neutron stars, waves of radiation and subatomic particles are propelled outward from the nascent black hole and collide with one another, releasing the gamma radiation. Also released is longer-lasting electromagnetic radiation in the form of X rays, radio waves, and visible wavelengths that can be used to pinpoint the location of the disturbance.

Because light and other forms of energy and matter are permanently trapped inside a black hole, it can never be observed directly. However, a black hole can be detected by the effect of its gravitational field on nearby objects (e.g., if it is orbited by a visible star), during the collapse while it was forming, or by the X rays and radio frequency signals emitted by rapidly swirling matter being pulled into the black hole. A small number of possible black holes have been detected. The first discovered (1971) was Cygnus X-1, an X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus. In 1994 astronomers employing the Hubble Space Telescope announced that they had found conclusive evidence of a supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy in the constellation Virgo. The first evidence (2002) of a binary black hole, two supermassive black holes circling one another, was detected in images from the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. Located in the galaxy NGC6240, the pair are 3,000 light years apart, travel around each other at a speed of about 22,000 mph (35,415 km/hr), and have the mass of 100 million suns each. As the distance between them shrinks over 100 million years, the circling speed will increase until it approaches the speed of light, about 671 million mph (1080 million km/hr). The black holes will then collide spectacularly, spewing radiation and gravitational waves across the universe.

Answer 7

Black holes has enormous mass, and when anything approaches her they are eaten. She is so big everyone gets sucked in. If you can't tell Im talking about Oprah. White holes are similar but even more powerful, sometimes called Rosie O' Donell...

Answer 8

Black holes are caused by collapsing sun. The material if the sun is large enough the collapsing material reaches the speed of light thus infinite mas and gravity. They are always in the center of a Galaxy,and furnish the gravity to hold all the solar systems in place.

Answer 9

Black holes are tiny particles that have immense gravity, and pull in everything that gets near. They also emit radiation. As they pull stuff in, it gets compacted and the black hole gets more mass, which adds on more gravitational pull... and so on. They're called 'black' because nothing, not even light, can escape.

Answer 10

A blachole is form when a massive star is collapsed, not a Sun; a star.

the collapsing material reaches the speed of light thus infinite mas and gravity.

due to its infinite gravity..... the substances;including light gets pulled in.....


not eaten by;again, pulled in.....

hope this could help u