• Question: How are black holes formed and how big can they grow?

    • Keywords:
      • Click on a keyword to find out more on the RSC site:
      Asked by xX_OldManEsteban_Xx to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 10 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by xX_OldmanBamanaboni_Xx.
      • Photo: Laura Finney

        Laura Finney answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        I watched a documentary on this the other week with Jake (my boyfriend who isn’t a scientist but absolutely loves space). Apparently, they form when a star dies and it all collapses in on itself and I believe they can be huge – super massive blackholes exist and they aren’t just a great song by Muse!

        Professor Brian Cox has a great series on this on Netflix (where I watched it) and it’s really cool so if you have Netflix I recommend you check it out 🙂

      • Photo: Robert Williams

        Robert Williams answered on 10 Jun 2016:

        Black Holes are formed when massive stars become unstable and run out of fuel.
        The outward pressure cause by the heating is overcome by the force of gravity pulling the star inwards.
        They collapse so much that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light ‘c’ and nothing can escape – even light – hence that it why black holes are [black.
        The biggest black holes at the centre of Elliptical galaxies such as M87 may be 1 billion times the mass of our sun….
        http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q3.html
        and
        http://space-facts.com/m87-galaxy/

    Comments