Black holes

Find out about these invisible giants whose gargantuan mass warps the very rules of physics

Although they could be considered the stuff of terrifying science fiction, in reality black holes are common throughout the Universe. They aren’t really holes, portals or cosmic vacuums either: instead, they’re the result of infinitely dense points, which cause spacetime to warp around them so that not even light can escape. Black holes range in size from those with masses a few times that of our Sun to giants with billions of times that mass. At the lighter end are stellar-mass black holes, the last stage of stellar evolution for massive stars. When these massive balls of gas run out of fuel, they no longer experience an outwards pressure resisting the pull of their own gravity. They collapse, creating a singularity – a point of infinite density – while their…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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