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Stars & Galaxies

Black Holes

Regions where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape; laboratories for extreme physics

Universe 🌌 1916 Stars & Galaxies

Key Facts

  1. 1

    Predicted by Einstein's General Relativity (1916); first real image: M87* black hole (April 2019, Event Horizon Telescope)

  2. 2

    Stellar black holes form when massive stars collapse; supermassive black holes (millions–billions of solar masses) sit at galaxy centres

  3. 3

    Sagittarius A*: Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, 4 million solar masses; 2022 Nobel Prize for its discovery

🌌 Did you know? The first image of a black hole (Messier 87, 2019) took 8 telescopes, 200+ scientists and a petabyte of data

Quick Reference

Category

Stars & Galaxies

Region

🌌 Universe

Year / Era

1916

About

Regions where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape