Astronomy › Section R · Black holes and curved spacetime › Topic R.3

Black holes

If a collapsing core is too heavy even for degenerate neutrons, nothing can stop it. It shrinks inside a boundary from which not even light escapes, leaving a black hole: the simplest, strangest object general relativity predicts.

In this topic

  • When nothing can stop the collapse
  • Dark stars and black holes
  • Worked example: the Schwarzschild radius
  • The event horizon
  • Worked example: a giant black hole
  • Not a cosmic vacuum cleaner
  • Time near a black hole
  • Spaghettification
  • Simple outside, mysterious inside
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Key takeaways

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