Formation of black holes



According to general relativity, a black hole can form when a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and is crushed by its own gravitational force. While a star burns fuel, it creates an outward push that counters the inward pull of gravity. When no fuel remains, the star can no longer support its own weight. As a result, the core of the star collapses. If the mass of the core is three or more solar masses, the core collapses into a singularity in a fraction of a second.

Galactic black holes

Most astronomers believe that the Milky Way Galaxy -- the galaxy in which our solar system is located -- contains millions of black holes. Scientists have found a number of black holes in the Milky Way. These objects are in binary stars that give off X rays. A binary star is a pair of stars that orbit each other.

In a binary system containing a black hole, that object and a normal, visible star orbit one another closely. As a result, the black hole strips gas from the normal star, and the gas falls violently toward the black hole. Friction between the gas atoms heats the gas near the event horizon to several million degrees. Consequently, energy radiates from the gas as X rays. Astronomers have detected this radiation with X-ray telescopes.

Astronomers believe that a number of binary star systems contain black holes for two reasons: (1) Each system is a source of intense and variable X rays. The existence of these rays proves that the system contains a compact star -- either a black hole or a less compact object called a neutron star. (2) The visible star orbits the compact object at such a high velocity that the object must be more massive than three solar masses.

Super massive black holes

Scientists believe that most galaxies have a super massive black hole at the center. The mass of each of those objects is thought to be between 1 million and 1 billion solar masses. Astronomers suspect that super massive black holes formed several billion years ago from gas that accumulated in the centers of the galaxies.

There is strong evidence that a super massive black hole lies at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers believe this black hole is a radio-wave source known as Sagittarius A* (SgrA*). The clearest indication that SgrA* is a super massive black hole is the rapid movement of stars around it.

The fastest of these stars appears to orbit SgrA* every 15.2 years at speeds that reach about 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) per second. The star's motion has led astronomers to conclude that an object several million times as massive as the sun must lie inside the star's orbit. The only known object that could be that massive and fit inside the star's orbit is a black hole.