What Is A Black Hole?

Funny question, while astrophysicists know what a black hole is, no one really knows what’s inside or
where it leads; if it leads anywhere! So what’s a black hole? When large stars exhaust their nuclear fuel,
the outer layer explodes forming a black hole; an invisible spot in the universe with an extremely strong
gravitational pull that even light can’t escape. And let’s not forget that nothing can move faster than
light!

Coming back to black holes, there are three kinds of black holes – primordial, stellar, and supermassive.
As for their average size, primordial is anywhere between an atom and a mountain, stellar can be about
20 times more massive than our sun, and supermassive can be about 1 million times more massive than
our sun!

So, does our universe have one? No, our universe has 100 billion supermassive black holes! The closest
is in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, about 28 thousand light-years away from Earth, and one light-
year is about 9 trillion kilometers. It’s safe to say Earth isn’t in danger!

But, what happens to a person who gets sucked into a black hole? They get spaghettified! Due to the
strong gravitational pulls, the person sucked in gets stretched vertically and compressed horizontally
forming long thin shapes, much like noodles and spaghetti.

If black holes exist, do wormholes exist too? Star Wars and Star Trek have left us feeling excited about
wormholes and warp drives, but do they exist? We’ll find out in our next video! Until then, May The
Force Be With You!