Black holes

Black holes, huh? What a joke. A ‘black hole’ is supposedly a region in space that has a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. It’s like a ‘black abyss’ in the sky, where the laws of physics break down. Sounds made up, right? Well, it’s not. Scientists have devoted a lot of time trying to figure out what black holes actually are. Turns out, they are really just the end-stage of massive stars. When a star at least 10 times bigger than our sun runs out of nuclear fuel, it collapses and forms a black hole. So, if you’re wondering how big a black hole is, the answer is: really, really big. Like, really, really, really big. The biggest one ever discovered is about 40 billion kilometers wide. That’s like, twice the size of our entire solar system. Also, fun fact: black holes are actually incredibly hot. Temperatures near the event horizon (the boundary of a black hole) can reach up to 10 billion degrees! Anyway, that’s black holes in a nutshell. Oh, and don’t worry, you’ll never find one in your backyard.