Black Holes

Black holes are an area in space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from it. Imagine a really big vacuum cleaner, like one that can suck up your whole house. That’s what a black hole is like, except instead of sucking up your stuff, it sucks up light and anything else that gets too close. An example of a black hole is the one at the center of the Milky Way. It is called Sagittarius A*, and it is four million times more massive than our sun! It would take light about 16.5 years to travel around the edge of this black hole. An analogy to help you understand a black hole could be a doughnut. The center of the doughnut is like the center of the black hole where the gravity is strongest and nothing can escape. The outside of the doughnut is like the edge of the black hole where the gravity is weaker and light can escape. Fun fact: Astronomers think that black holes were formed when a very massive star died in a supernova explosion.