BLACKHOLES

Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects in space. They're
extremely dense, with such strong gravitational attraction that not even light can escape
their grasp.

The Milky Way could contain over 100 million black holes, though detecting these
gluttonous beasts is very difficult. At the heart of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black
hole — Sagittarius A*. The colossal structure is about 4 million times the mass of the sun
and lies approximately 26,000 light-years away from Earth, according to a statement from
NASA.
The first image of a black hole was captured in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)
collaboration. The striking photo of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy 55 million
light-years from Earth thrilled scientists around the world.

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including
light and other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. Einstein's theory
of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to
form a black hole. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. A black hole
has a great effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, but it has no
locally detectable features according to general relativity. In many ways, a black hole acts
like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light. Moreover, quantum field theory in curved
spacetime predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same
spectrum as a black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This
temperature is of the order of billionths of a kelvin for stellar black holes, making it
essentially impossible to observe directly.
Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of black holes in 1916, with his general theory of
relativity. The term "black hole" was coined many years later in 1967 by American
astronomer John Wheeler. After decades of black holes being known only as theoretical
objects.

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The first black hole ever discovered was Cygnus X-1, located within the Milky Way in the
constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers saw the first signs of the black hole in 1964
when a sounding rocket detected celestial sources of X-rays according to NASA. In 1971,
astronomers determined that the X-rays were coming from a bright blue star orbiting a
strange dark object. It was suggested that the detected X-rays were a result of stellar
material being stripped away from the bright star and "gobbled" up by the dark object — an
all-consuming black hole.

PROPERTIES AND STRUCTURE

The no-hair theorem postulates that, once it achieves a stable condition after formation, a
black hole has only three independent physical properties: mass, electric charge, and
angular momentum; the black hole is otherwise featureless. If the conjecture is true, any
two black holes that share the same values for these properties, or parameters, are
indistinguishable from one another. The degree to which the conjecture is true for real black
holes under the laws of modern physics is currently an unsolved problem.
These properties are special because they are visible from outside a black hole. For example,
a charged black hole repels other like charges just like any other charged object. Similarly,
the total mass inside a sphere containing a black hole can be found by using the
gravitational analog of Gauss's law (through the ADM mass), far away from the black
hole. Likewise, the angular momentum (or spin) can be measured from far away using frame
dragging by the gravitomagnetic field, through for example the Lense–Thirring effect.
When an object falls into a black hole, any information about the shape of the object or
distribution of charge on it is evenly distributed along the horizon of the black hole, and is
lost to outside observers. The behavior of the horizon in this situation is a dissipative
system that is closely analogous to that of a conductive stretchy membrane with friction
and electrical resistance—the membrane paradigm. This is different from other field
theories such as electromagnetism, which do not have any friction or resistivity at the
microscopic level, because they are time-reversible. Because a black hole eventually
achieves a stable state with only three parameters, there is no way to avoid losing
information about the initial conditions: the gravitational and electric fields of a black hole
give very little information about what went in.
The information that is lost includes every quantity that cannot be measured far away from
the black hole horizon, including approximately conserved quantum numbers such as the
total baryon number and lepton number. This behavior is so puzzling that it has been called
the black hole information loss paradox.

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 PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

The simplest static black holes have mass but neither electric charge nor angular
momentum. These black holes are often referred to as Schwarzschild black holes after Karl
Schwarzschild who discovered this solution in 1916. According to Birkhoff's theorem, it is
the only vacuum solution that is spherically symmetric. This means there is no observable
difference at a distance between the gravitational field of such a black hole and that of any
other spherical object of the same mass. The popular notion of a black hole "sucking in
everything" in its surroundings is therefore correct only near a black hole's horizon; far
away, the external gravitational field is identical to that of any other body of the same mass.
Solutions describing more general black holes also exist. Non-rotating charged black
holes are described by the Reissner–Nordström metric, while the Kerr metric describes a
non-charged rotating black hole. The most general stationary black hole solution known is
the Kerr–Newman metric, which describes a black hole with both charge and angular
momentum. While the mass of a black hole can take any positive value, the charge and
angular momentum are constrained by the mass. The total electric charge Q and the total
angular momentum J are expected to satisfy the inequality for a black hole of mass M. Black
holes with the minimum possible mass satisfying this inequality are called extremal.
Solutions of Einstein's equations that violate this inequality exist, but they do not possess an
event horizon. These solutions have so-called naked singularities that can be observed from
the outside, and hence are deemed unphysical. The cosmic censorship hypothesis rules out
the formation of such singularities, when they are created through the gravitational collapse
of realistic matter. This is supported by numerical simulations

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 Black hole classifications

Approx. Approx.
Class
mass radius

Ultramassive black hole 109–1011 M☉ >1,000 AU

Supermassive black hole 106–109 M☉ 0.001–400 AU

Intermediate-mass black
102–105 M☉ 103 km ≈ REarth
hole

Stellar black hole 2-150 M☉ 30 km

Micro black hole up to MMoon up to 0.1 mm

FORMATION AND EVOLUTION

Given the bizarre character of black holes, it was long questioned whether such objects
could actually exist in nature or whether they were merely pathological solutions to
Einstein's equations. Einstein himself wrongly thought black holes would not form, because
he held that the angular momentum of collapsing particles would stabilize their motion at
some radius. This led the general relativity community to dismiss all results to the contrary
for many years. However, a minority of relativists continued to contend that black holes
were physical objects, and by the end of the 1960s, they had persuaded the majority of
researchers in the field that there is no obstacle to the formation of an event horizon.
Penrose demonstrated that once an event horizon forms, general relativity without
quantum mechanics requires that a singularity will form within. Shortly afterwards, Hawking
showed that many cosmological solutions that describe the Big Bang have singularities
without scalar fields or other exotic matter.[clarification needed] The Kerr solution, the no-hair
theorem, and the laws of black hole thermodynamics showed that the physical properties of
black holes were simple and comprehensible, making them respectable subjects for
research. Conventional black holes are formed by gravitational collapse of heavy objects
such as stars, but they can also in theory be formed by other processes.

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 Gas cloud being ripped apart by black hole at the
centre of the Milky Way (observations from 2006,
2010 and 2013 are shown in blue, green and red,
respectively).[

Gravitational collapse

Gravitational collapse occurs when an object's internal pressure is insufficient to resist the
object's own gravity. For stars this usually occurs either because a star has too little "fuel"
left to maintain its temperature through stellar nucleosynthesis, or because a star that
would have been stable receives extra matter in a way that does not raise its core
temperature. In either case the star's temperature is no longer high enough to prevent it
from collapsing under its own weight. The collapse may be stopped by the degeneracy
pressure of the star's constituents, allowing the condensation of matter into an
exotic denser state. The result is one of the various types of compact star. Which type forms
depends on the mass of the remnant of the original star left if the outer layers have been
blown away (for example, in a Type II supernova). The mass of the remnant, the collapsed
object that survives the explosion, can be substantially less than that of the original star.
Remnants exceeding 5 M☉ are produced by stars that were over 20 M☉ before the
collapse.If the mass of the remnant exceeds about 3–4 M☉ (the Tolman–Oppenheimer–
Volkoff limit), either because the original star was very heavy or because the remnant
collected additional mass through accretion of matter, even the degeneracy pressure
of neutrons is insufficient to stop the collapse. No known mechanism (except possibly quark
degeneracy pressure) is powerful enough to stop the implosion and the object will
inevitably collapse to form a black hole.
The gravitational collapse of heavy stars is
assumed to be responsible for the formation of stellar mass black holes. Star formation in
the early universe may have resulted in very massive stars, which upon their collapse would
have produced black holes of up to 103 M☉. These black holes could be the seeds of the
supermassive black holes found in the centres of most galaxies. It has further been
suggested that massive black holes with typical masses of ~105 M☉ could have formed from
the direct collapse of gas clouds in the young universe. These massive objects have been
proposed as the seeds that eventually formed the earliest quasars observed already at
redshift . Some candidates for such objects have been found in observations of the young
universe.
While most of the energy released during gravitational collapse is emitted very quickly, an
outside observer does not actually see the end of this process. Even though the collapse
takes a finite amount of time from the reference frame of infalling matter, a distant
observer would see the infalling material slow and halt just above the event horizon, due to

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gravitational time dilation. Light from the collapsing material takes longer and longer to
reach the observer, with the light emitted just before the event horizon forms delayed an
infinite amount of time. Thus the external observer never sees the formation of the event
horizon; instead, the collapsing material seems to become dimmer and increasingly red-
shifted, eventually fading away

High-energy collisions
Gravitational collapse is not the only process that could create black holes. In principle,
black holes could be formed in high-energy collisions that achieve sufficient density. As of
2002, no such events have been detected, either directly or indirectly as a deficiency of the
mass balance in particle accelerator experiments. This suggests that there must be a lower
limit for the mass of black holes. Theoretically, this boundary is expected to lie around the
Planck mass, where quantum effects are expected to invalidate the predictions of general
relativity. This would put the creation of black holes firmly out of reach of any high-energy
process occurring on or near the Earth. However, certain developments in quantum gravity
suggest that the minimum black hole mass could be much lower:
some braneworld scenarios for example put the boundary as low as 1 TeV/c2. This would
make it conceivable for micro black holes to be created in the high-energy collisions that
occur when cosmic rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, or possibly in the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN. These theories are very speculative, and the creation of black holes in
these processes is deemed unlikely by many specialists. Even if micro black holes could be
formed, it is expected that they would evaporate in about 10−25 seconds, posing no threat to
the Earth.

Growth
Once a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing additional matter. Any
black hole will continually absorb gas and interstellar dust from its surroundings. This
growth process is one possible way through which some supermassive black holes may have
been formed, although the formation of supermassive black holes is still an open field of
research. A similar process has been suggested for the formation of intermediate-mass
black holes found in globular clusters. Black holes can also merge with other objects such as
stars or even other black holes. This is thought to have been important, especially in the
early growth of supermassive black holes, which could have formed from the aggregation of
many smaller objects. The process has also been proposed as the origin of some
intermediate-mass black holes

Evaporation
In 1974, Hawking predicted that black holes are not entirely black but emit small amounts of
thermal radiation at a temperature ℏc3/(8πGMkB); this effect has become known as Hawking
radiation. By applying quantum field theory to a static black hole background, he
determined that a black hole should emit particles that display a perfect black body
spectrum. Since Hawking's publication, many others have verified the result through various
approaches. If Hawking's theory of black hole radiation is correct, then black holes are
expected to shrink and evaporate over time as they lose mass by the emission of photons

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and other particles. The temperature of this thermal spectrum (Hawking temperature) is
proportional to the surface gravity of the black hole, which, for a Schwarzschild black hole, is
inversely proportional to the mass. Hence, large black holes emit less radiation than small
black holes.
A stellar black hole of 1 M☉ has a Hawking temperature of 62 nanokelvins. This is far less
than the 2.7 K temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Stellar-mass or
larger black holes receive more mass from the cosmic microwave background than they
emit through Hawking radiation and thus will grow instead of shrinking. To have a Hawking
temperature larger than 2.7 K (and be able to evaporate), a black hole would need a mass
less than the Moon. Such a black hole would have a diameter of less than a tenth of a
millimeter.

FUNCTIONS/ROLE OF BLACKHOLES
Considering the local or micro role of the object, there are three possibilities for the
intervals of formation of the black hole. Following the assumption of resource optimization,
the formation time should be dictated by the necessity of foundation of the object’s role/s.
The first possibility is that the black hole is created as the first galactic object. This implies
that it is the first object in any galaxy; and, it is necessarily the prerequisite for the formation
of the galaxy; or it can form after the formation of other galactic objects; or, it can never
form if the energy dissipated in the clash is below a certain threshold.
In the case the black hole is the first object to be formed, and there are still abundant
energy and matter, a galaxy follows. The black hole is a concentrated center of mass
colonized by enormous amounts of energy. Energy tends to attract energy in order to
accumulate mass for further energy colonization. This makes it the destination of any and all
energy colonized structures in its vicinity. The structures attracted by the energy pull
tendency have various densities. More compacted structures are heavier in density and thus

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form the first “sea” of matter, “sea 1” around the black hole. Less compacted structures,
attracted by the black hole energy, but have less density than the more compacted
structures form another sea of matter, sea 2, around sea 1. This continues until the black
hole stratifies the space around it. The newly formed stars and planets float on/in these seas
according to their densities. The stars and planets are attracted to the black hole as energy
tends to accumulate mass. However, their density forbids them from sinking into the sea
they are floating on.
If energy is abundant and matter is not abundant for the formation of other stars or planets,
then matter can be compensated from two sources. The first source is the energy that will
integrate simpler mass structures into star dust. The second source is the black hole itself
through trapping and disintegrating passing by matter into simpler matter to be utilized by
the abundant energy to form stars and planets. Until adequate matter accumulates to form
cosmological objects, the black hole remains on its own as a trap for straying objects.
If matter is abundant and energy is not abundant, then the black hole disintegrates some of
the matter into simpler forms and releases their stored energy. In this case, there should be
more and greater seas of matter around the black hole. The released energy may or may not
be enough to form planets or stars. Some smaller and lighter structures may be formed,
such as rocks or comets, that float to the furthest sea due to their light density. At that far
distances, their energy might not be enough to keep them attracted to the black hole; and
thus they may stray in space. A time may come when the black hole consumes all matter in
its vicinity without the formation of any galaxies. In this case, where matter and energy are
scarce, the black hole remains on its own and may eventually collapse into a primitive core
as will be discussed hereafter.
If the black hole is not the first structure to form in a high energy location, then the formed
planets or stars will scatter around the region of formation and move around the
turbulences of matter distribution around that area. If no black hole forms, the planets may
move in irregular orbits forming a temporary galaxy and may end up clashing with each
other, or straying in space.
If a black hole is formed in the process, and the only way being due to the collapse
of a star, then a galaxy may form and survive. The collapse of a star should be due to a
strong concentration of energy within its center. This may be due to an energy ripple, or an
energy lump in space that the star passed through, or maybe due to a structure deformation
at the time of star formation. The structure of the matter comprising the star may have
enormous variation in energy content between the surface and the center of the star which
renders it unstable and collapsible at the adequate conditions.
So black holes have numerous essential and necessary roles in the Universe. Their first role
is to recycle spatial debris and reproduce them as valid universal building material. As the
black hole sucks and decomposes debris, it then releases the material and excess energy
into space. The released material may well be the initial universal building particle, the dark
matter. It may also release larger formation of particles. Particles released from black holes
are much smaller than atoms. As matter gets decomposed into its simplest forms, energy is
released. The released energy can be dark energy or other more complex forms.
Tremendous quantities of simple released matter form the densest area, alpha, around the
black hole. The more complex particles released from the black hole area floats on the alpha
area to form the betta area, and so on. Each formed structure of particles floats on the

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denser structure of particles. This process goes on till the galactic boundary is defined.
Planets and planetary systems formed float among the different particle levels (alpha,
betta…) according to their relative densities.

DISCOVERY OF BLACKHOLES

Black holes were predicted as an exact mathematical solution to Einstein's equations.

Einstein's equations describe the shape of space around matter. The theory of general
relativity connects the geometry or shape of shape to the detailed distribution of matter.

The black hole solution was found was by Karl Schwarzschild in 1915, and these regions —
black holes — were found to distort space extremally and generate a puncture in the fabric
of spacetime. It was unclear at the time if these corresponded to real objects in the
universe. Over time, as other end products of stellar death were detected, namely, neutron
stars seen as pulsars it became clear that black holes were real and ought to exist. The first
detected black hole was Cygnus-X1.As astrophysics advanced, it became clear that massive
stars undergo gravitational collapse at the end of their life cycles. This collapse could lead to
the formation of incredibly dense objects, possibly fulfilling Schwarzschild's mathematical
solution.

The first indirect evidence for black holes came from observations of binary star
systems. In these systems, a normal star orbits around an invisible companion, which exerts
a gravitational pull but emits no detectable light. Scientists inferred the presence of a black
hole based on the behaviour of the visible star. The advent of X-ray astronomy in the mid-
20th century provided further evidence for black holes. Black holes in binary systems can
accrete matter from their companion stars, generating intense X-ray emissions as the matter
falls into the black hole's gravitational well.
The discovery of black holes represents a remarkable convergence of theoretical physics and
observational astronomy, deepening our understanding of the universe's most enigmatic
phenomena.

Do black holes die ?

Black holes do not die per se, but they are theoretically predicted to eventually slowly
evaporate over extremely long time scales.

Black holes grow by the accretion of matter nearby that is pulled in by their immense
gravity. Hawking predicted that black holes could also radiate away energy and shrink very
slowly. Quantum theory suggests that there exist virtual particles popping in and out of
existence all the time. When this happens, a particle and its companion anti-particle appear.
However, they can also recombine and disappear again. When this process occurs near the
event horizon of a black hole, strange things can happen. Instead of the particle antiparticle

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pair existing for a moment and then annihilating each other, one of them can get by gravity
and fall into the black hole, while the other particle can fly off into space. Over very long
timescales, we are speaking about timescales that are much much longer than the age of our
universe, the theory states that this trickle of escaping particles will cause the black hole to
slowly evaporate. The amount taken away is small, truly minuscule, but it is there. And
it is happening constantly. Black holes will continue to form and grow for a long time
(the universe likely has not seen its biggest black hole yet ) but at some point, there
won’t be anything left for them to eat and they will diminish, fading into nothing in a
slow release of Hawking radiation.

The timing of the evaporation depends on the size of the black holes. The smaller
they are, the faster they disappear. Like fictional immortals, only the biggest will
remainn in the distant future. And eventually, there can be only one.

Are black holes wormholes?

In science fiction, space explorers routinely zip through wormholes in space-time that are
connected by two black holes — celestial objects so dense that not even light can escape
their clutches.

But are black holes really doorways into wormholes? And would these wormholes look
anything like their counterparts in "Star Trek"?
In theory, however, a black hole may be paired with a mirror twin, called a white hole, to
form a wormhole. Still, these theoretical wormholes would look nothing like the ones
depicted in science fiction — traditional wormholes are predicted to be incredibly unstable,
meaning they'd collapse the moment a single particle of matter entered them.

Some physicists predict that a wormhole could become more stable if it was formed from a
spinning black hole, but our understanding of what happens in that scenario is murky at
best. Scientists first discovered black holes not through observations in the universe, but
through the mathematics of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Those equations showed

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that if you crunch down enough matter into a small enough volume,
then gravity overwhelms every other force and shrinks the matter down into an infinitely
tiny point, known as the singularity.
Black holes are one-way trips. Once someone crosses their boundaries, known as event
horizons, they can't ever escape. While black holes were once considered just a trick of
Einstein's equations, astronomical observations eventually revealed that black holes do exist
in the universe.
But that same mathematics also allows for the exact reverse of a black hole: a white hole. A
white hole still has a singularity at its center and an event horizon surrounding it. But
instead of falling in and finding it impossible to escape, with a white hole a person could
never reach the event horizon from the outside, because it's constantly flinging its contents
out into the universe faster than the speed of light.

Unfortunately, Einstein-Rosen bridges aren't very useful for traversing the cosmos. For one,
the entrance to the wormhole sits behind the event horizon. As a person can't get in on the
white hole side, they'd have to fall into a black hole to enter. But once someone crosses an
event horizon, they can't ever escape. That means that if you enter the wormhole you're
stuck inside for eternity.
The other problem with Einstein-Rosen bridges is their stability. "This bridge is a kind of
wormhole, but it is transient: it pinches off before any object can use it to pass from one
side to the other. So in this sense one does not really have a wormhole, since one cannot
traverse it," Samir Mathur, a physicist at The Ohio State University, told Live Science in an
email.
This instability exists because creating a wormhole requires a very precise and careful
arrangement of matter. Anything that disturbs this delicate balance — even a single packet
of light, or photon — would trigger the instant collapse of the wormhole. The wormhole
would tear itself apart like an overstretched rubber band faster than the speed of light,
preventing anything from traveling down it. In addition, physicists largely think white holes
don't exist in our universe. Unlike their siblings, white holes are fantastically unstable.
According to the math, once even a single bit of matter falls towards them, they instantly
explode. So even if white holes naturally formed, they wouldn't last very long.

The combination of the uncertainty of the existence of white holes, the instability of
Einstein-Rosen bridges, and the relative non-utility of them means that if wormholes exist,
they probably aren't Einstein-Rosen bridges.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION ABOUT WORMHOLES

A wormhole is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is
based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations.[1]
A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime
(i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both).
Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether wormholes
actually exist remains to be seen. Many scientists postulate that wormholes are merely
projections of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being
could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object. A well-known analogy of such

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constructs is provided by the Klein bottle, displaying a hole when rendered in three
dimensions but not in four or higher dimensions.
Theoretically, a wormhole might connect extremely long distances such as a billion light-
years, or short distances such as a few meters, or different points in time, or even different
universes.

For a simplified notion of a

wormhole, space can be visualized
as a two-dimensional surface. In
this case, a wormhole would
appear as a hole in that surface,
lead into a 3D tube (the inside
surface of a cylinder), then re-
emerge at another location on
the 2D surface with a hole similar
to the entrance. An actual
wormhole would be analogous to
this, but with the spatial
dimensions raised by one. For
example, instead of circular holes on a 2D plane, the entry and exit points could be
visualized as spherical holes in 3D space leading into a four-dimensional "tube" similar to
a spherinder.

Another way to imagine wormholes is to take a sheet of paper and draw two
somewhat distant points on one side of the paper. The sheet of paper represents a plane in
the spacetime continuum, and the two points represent a distance to be travelled, but
theoretically, a wormhole could connect these two points by folding that plane (i.e. the
paper) so the points are touching. In this way, it would be much easier to traverse the
distance since the two points are now touching.

Stellar black holes — small but deadly

When a star burns through the last of its fuel, the object may collapse, or fall into itself. For
smaller stars (those up to about three times the sun's mass), the new core will become
a neutron star or a white dwarf. But when a larger star collapses, it continues to compress and
creates a stellar black hole.
Black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars are relatively small but incredibly
dense. One of these objects packs more than three times the mass of the sun into the diameter
of a city. This leads to a crazy amount of gravitational force pulling on objects around the
object. Stellar black holes then consume the dust and gas from their surrounding galaxies,
which keeps them growing in size.

When a star with more than eight times the Sun’s mass runs out of fuel, its core collapses,
rebounds, and explodes as a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s mass
before the explosion. If it was near the threshold, it creates a city-sized, super dense

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neutron star. If it had around 20 times the Sun’s mass or more, the star’s core collapses into
a stellar-mass black hole.

The masses of these newly born objects can range from a few to hundreds of times the
Sun’s mass, depending on star’s mass when the supernova began. Stellar-mass black holes
can continue to gain mass through collisions with stars and other black holes.
Nearly all the stellar-mass black holes observed so far have been found because they’re
paired with stars. They likely originated as mismatched stars where the more massive one
evolved rapidly into a black hole. In some cases, called X-ray binaries, the black hole pulls
gas off the star into a disk that heats up enough to produce X-rays. Binaries have revealed
around 50 suspected or confirmed stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way, but scientists
think there may be as many as 100 million in our galaxy alone.

SUPERMASSIVE BLACKHOLES
Supermassive black holes have a mass greater than about 50,000 times the mass of our sun
and are typically millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are
far too large to have formed from the gravitational collapse of a single star. However,
scientists do not currently know how supermassive black holes form. Supermassive black
holes are always found at the center of a galaxy and almost all galaxies have a supermassive
black hole at its center. This seems to suggest that each supermassive black hole is formed
as part of the formation of its galaxy.
Supermassive black holes may be the result of hundreds or thousands of tiny black holes
that merge. Large gas clouds could also be responsible, collapsing together and rapidly
accreting mass. A third option is the collapse of a stellar cluster, a group of stars all falling
together. Fourth, supermassive black holes could arise from large clusters of dark matter.
This is a substance that we can observe through its gravitational effect on other objects;
however, we don't know what dark matter is composed of because it does not emit light
and cannot be directly observed.

INTERMEDIATE BLACKHOLES
Supermassive black holes may be the result of hundreds or thousands of tiny black holes
that merge. Large gas clouds could also be responsible, collapsing together and rapidly
accreting mass. A third option is the collapse of a stellar cluster, a group of stars all falling
together. Fourth, supermassive black holes could arise from large clusters of dark matter.
This is a substance that we can observe through its gravitational effect on other objects;

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however, we don't know what dark matter is composed of because it does not emit light
and cannot be directly observed.

There are few black holes with a mass between that of stellar black holes and supermassive
black holes. The range between about 50 times the mass of our sun to about 50,000 times
the mass of our sun seems like a huge range over which black holes typically do not exist.
Any black hole with a mass in this range is called an intermediate black hole. A few decades
ago, intermediate black holes were thought to not exist at all. However, recent observations
seem to suggest that intermediate black holes may exist but are very rare. There may be
many reasons why intermediate black holes are very rare, but one reason is likely the most
important. This reason is that there are not any common physical mechanisms in the
universe that can collapse matter down to a black hole of intermediate size. Most stars are
too small to collapse down to intermediate black holes and whatever galactic mechanism
produces supermassive black holes seems to involve masses that are too large to produce
intermediate black holes. This is an ongoing area of research.

Also interestingly, there seems to be no black holes that have a mass smaller than that of
the stars (which spans a huge range from the mass of planets down to masses smaller than
that of electrons). Termed mini black holes or micro black holes, the laws of physics as
currently understood seem to suggest that it is indeed physically possible for them to exist.
However, scientists cannot find any evidence of mini black holes existing. Perhaps mini black
holes can exist but there is no natural physical mechanism that can produce them. Or
perhaps mini black holes cannot exist for fundamental physical reasons. If mini black holes
did exist, it is likely that they would quickly evaporate away to nothing through Hawking
radiation. This is also an ongoing area of research.

These concepts are summarized in the table below, where the numbers shown are
approximate and the values for mass are that value times the mass of our sun.

Mini Black Stellar-Mass Intermediate Supermassive

Hole Black Hole Black Hole Black Hole

50,000
Mass: less than 3 3 to 50 50 to 50,000
to billions

Abundance: rare or common rare or none common

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 none

collapse part of galaxy

Formation: unknown unknown
of a star formation

Physically
maybe yes yes yes
allowed:

Another way to classify black holes is according to physical structure. The point-of-no-return
nature of black holes means that most of the information that enters a black hole is
destroyed or permanently locked away from the rest of the universe. For instance, there are
no such things as rocky black holes or gaseous black holes like there are rocky planets and
gaseous planets. All the rocks, gases, and dust particles that fall into a black hole get crushed
down to a featureless speck of mass or ring of mass. Similarly, there are no such things as
hot black holes or cold black holes. Also, there is no difference between a black hole formed
from regular matter and a black hole formed from antimatter (although I should note here
that there are not actually clumps of antimatter in our universe that are large enough to
form black holes). The very nature of a black hole leads it to collapse all of its mass and
energy down to an indistinguishable clump and to smooth out all irregularities and
asymmetries. Because everything becomes indistinguishable within a black hole, the word
"mass" in this context actually refers to mass and energy.

However, a black hole does indeed retain a few properties that are externally measurable:
its overall mass, its overall electric charge, and its overall spinning rate. Note that a few
other properties of a black hole such as radius and magnetic moment are externally
measurable, at least in principle, but these are not independent parameters. In other words,
they are directly dependent, and arise from, the black hole's mass, charge, and spin. These
three properties are the only independent, externally-observable black hole properties. If
two isolated black holes had the same mass, charge, and spin, they would be
indistinguishable.

The reason that the total mass, total charge, and total spin of a black hole are measurable
from outside of the black hole despite being internal properties is that they obey universal
conservation laws. Another way of saying this is that these properties are connected to
fundamental symmetries in spacetime and therefore affect spacetime curvature.

Page | 15
We can therefore classify black holes according to mass, charge, and spin. I have already
described classifying black holes by mass. If we just focus on charge and spin, we can make
the following classification categories: black holes that are not spinning and have no net
electric charge (Schwarzschild black holes), black holes that are spinning and have no net
electric charge (Kerr black holes), black holes that are not spinning and do have a net
electric charge (Reissner-Nordstrom black holes), and black holes that are spinning and do
have a net electric charge (Kerr-Newman black holes). In our universe, black holes are
almost always spinning (because they form from spinning bodies of matter) and almost
always have zero net electric charge (because of the tendency of electric charge to attract
opposite types of electric charge and self-neutralize). Therefore, Kerr black holes are by far
the most common. These concepts are summarized in the table below.

Combining all of the concepts in this article, we see that the most common black holes in
our universe are spinning, uncharged stellar-mass black holes and spinning, uncharged
supermassive black holes.

Black Hole Type Name How Common

non-spinning, uncharged Schwarzschild Black Hole rare

spinning, uncharged Kerr Black Hole common

non-spinning, charged Reissner-Nordstrom Black Hole rare

spinning, charged Kerr-Newman Black Hole rare

BLACKHOLES NEAREST TO EARTH

The closest black hole to Earth was thought to be 1,560 light-years away - but a new study
suggests there could be one around 150 light-years away. Black holes are some of the most

Page | 16
powerful and mysterious objects in the known universe - and there could be one much closer to
Earth than previously thought.

A study has found possible evidence of a black hole in the closest open cluster of stars to Earth,
called the Hyades cluste.

List of nearest blackholes

Distance System Component

St Notes
Di and a
e
Right sc De dditio
Declin l- M
ascen o- si nal
ation [4]
la as
(ly (kp Designa Descr sion[4] ve g- refere
(Epoc r s
) c) tion iption (Epoc ry na nces
h J200 cl (M
h J200 da tio
0.0) a ☉)
0.0) te[5 n
] s
s

Candida
te Very
isolated good
mass- candi
gap date,
11 MACHO- 17h 57m −28° 4 3.17 param
3.5 black 2001 BH
400 98-BLG-6 32.80s 2′ 45″ +0.52 eters
hole −0.48
detected listed
by micro are of
lensing[13 best
] fit

Very
Candida
good
te
candi
isolated
date,
black 5.30
MACHO- 18h 05m −27° 4 param
8150 2.5 hole 2001 BH +1.14
96-BLG-5 2.50s 2′ 17″ −0.96
eters
detected
listed
by micro
are of
lensing[13
] best
fit

0.478 Gaia Binary −00° 3

1560 17h 28m
±0.00 BH1 (TIC system 4′ 51.9 2022 A BH 9.78 [3]

±10 41.09s
5 125470397 with 3″

Page | 17
 Distance System Component

St Notes
Di and a
e
Right sc De dditio
Declin l- M
ascen o- si nal
ation[4] la as
(ly (kp Designa Descr sion[4] ve g- refere
(Epoc r s
) c) tion iption (Epoc ry na nces
h J200 cl (M
h J200 da tio
0.0) a ☉)
0.0) te[5 n
] s
s

orbit t=1
85.63 d
and
)
eccentri
city
e=0.45[3]

Binary
system
with
Gaia
0.478 orbit t=1 −00° 3
1560 BH1 (TIC 17h 28m
±0.00 85.63 d 4′ 51.9 2022 B G 0.93 [3]

±10 125470397 41.09s

5 and 3″
)
eccentri
city
e=0.45[3]

Binary
system
Gaia
with
BH2 (Gaia
orbit t=1 13h 50m −59° 1
3800 1.16± DR3
276.7 d 16.728 4′ 20.4 2023 A BH 8.93 [6][7]

±80 0.02 587056935

and s
2″
274677900
eccentri
8)
city
e=0.518

Data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia mission revealed the closest known - and
second closest - black holes in 2022, Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2, which are 1,560 light-years and
3,800 light-years from Earth respectively.

A new paper, however, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society, suggests there could be black holes much closer to home, at a distance of just 150 light-

Page | 18
years. Scientists at the University of Padua in Italy and the University of Barcelona in Spain used
simulations to track the motion and evolution of all the stars in the Hyades open cluster, which
are around 150 light-years away.

This is a list of known black holes that are close to the Solar System, which is the planetary
system Earth is part of.
It is thought that most black holes are solitary, but black holes in binary or
larger systems are much easier to detect. Solitary black holes can generally only be detected
by measuring their gravitational distortion of the light from more distant objects. As of
February 2022, only one isolated black hole has been confirmed, OGLE-2011-BLG-0462,
around 5,200 light-years away.
The nearest known black hole is Gaia BH1, which was discovered in September 2022 by a
team led by Kareem El-Badry. Gaia BH1 is 1,560 light-years away from Earth in the direction
of the constellation Ophiuchus.[3]
For comparison, the nearest star to the Sun is about 4.24 light years away, and the Milky
Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter.
See also: Stellar black hole § Candidates

CONCLUSION OF BLACKHOLE

Conclusion of a black hole is so informative. A black hole is a space from which nothing can
return, not even light, making it completely black. Now the boundary of a black hole beyond
which nothing can come back is called event horizon. If you are even a millimeter near this
event horizon, you can still come back. If you cross a very small part of this black hole, you
can’t come back. That is, the black hole will swallow you. Although the black hole is a single
point, the size of the black hole is determined by this event horizon. Now, since nothing can
escape from the black hole, the volume of the black hole will never decrease. Now in 1974,
Stephen Hawking presented a new theory through quantum field theory and relativity

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theory where he showed that black holes always emit radiation i.e. photons. This suggests
that the black hole is not actually black and emits light. As a result of light i.e. photo
emission from the black hole, the black hole will eventually lose all its energy and will end.
This radiation proposed by Stephen Hawking is called Hawking radiation Now if we think
according to classical physics then the mass of black holes can never decrease because
nothing can come out of black holes. But the mass of a black hole can increase if mass or
energy is added to it. That is, the mass of the black hole will remain the same or increase but
never decrease. Now the mass of any black hole is related to the volume of its event
horizon.

And this is the relationship A=〖16πG^2/C^4 〗 M^2 Here, M=Black Hole Mass, G=
Gravitational Constant, C= Light Speed

This means that the more massive the black hole, the larger the event horizon. So similarly it
can be said that the volume of a black hole will either stay the same or increase but never
decrease. Now this matter has something in common with entropy. We know that the
entropy of a system will either stay the same or increase and never decrease. Now Stephen
Hawking thinks that a black hole is basically a black matter or black body. A black body is an
object that absorbs all visible or invisible radiation incidents on it. That is, no radiation is
reflected from it. Now all the block boards are temperature-related. A very small amount of
temperature will exist in a black body. When an object has temperature, radiation is emitted
from that object. Which we know as thermal radiation.

That is, if there is little to very little temperature in an object, radiation will be emitted from
that object even if it is little to very little. In such a case, Stephen Hawking thinks that if
a black hole is a black body, then it will have a small temperature and if there is a
temperature, radiation will be emitted from it. But how is it possible from the black hole as
we know nothing comes out from the black hole. But before discussing this, we need to
discuss the characteristics of a vacuum. A perfect vacuum is not possible according to
quantum physics. In a vacuum, there will be the presence of virtual particles. And how is it
possible to create something from absolutely nothing? For this, we need to aim at a
different form of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This is the formula ∆E ∆t ≥ h/( 4π).
Here, ∆E= Energy ∆t= Time h/4π = Limit

From this formula, we understand that if we can observe the vacuum for a very short period
of time or reduce the time uncertainty then the potential for energy production will
increase. If we observe for a longer time i.e. increase the time uncertainty then the
probability of energy generation will decrease.

That is, absolute vacuum and quantum field fluctuations will continue. Now in absolute
vacuum, quantum fluctuations in the quantum field will result in two waves that are
opposite to each other. As a result, they will cancel each other out. As a result, we will not
see any energy in a vacuum. Right energy will build up for a short period of time and vanish
again. However, particles and antiparticles are constantly created for no apparent reason in
a very short period of time. Then immediately it merged again and became vanish. Now the
question is whether it is possible to see the virtual particles is not being answered. Virtual

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particles cannot actually be seen. However, their presence is evidenced by the various
reactions caused by them. Such as the Casimir effect.

If two plates are placed close to each other in the vacuum, the two plates coincide with
each other. Because the outside space is more than the space between the two plates and
having more space means more virtual particles will be created there. As a result, the
outward net force will be greater and the plates will collide. This is the Casimir effect. Now
let’s see the relationship between virtual particles and Hawking radiation. Most of what we
see around us is local to space. How is this possible with so much around us? 99.999% of a
skyscraper building is empty space because the materials used to build buildings are made
of atoms. And we know that atoms are mostly empty. That is, if the atoms used to build this
building are taken out with the spaces between them, the entire skyscraper will be like a
grain of rice. This same thing applies to our bodies. So most of the local universe is empty
space. Like all other vacuums, virtual particles will be created in the vacuum surrounding the
event horizon of a black hole. One of which will be a particle with positive energy and the
other will be an antiparticle with negative energy. But what would not normally happen
here is that the black hole would absorb the negative energy of the antiparticles before the
two particles collided with each other.

Now you may be wondering that in all other cases, particles and antiparticles are completely
destroyed after they collide but in the event horizon of a black hole, why would the
antiparticle be absorbed by the black hole? Positive energy is required for an object to
escape from the force of gravity. But if there is negative energy as compared to positive
energy then it will be much harder to overcome the force of gravity. And we know black
hole gravity is extreme. As a result, between particles and antiparticles formed at the event
horizon of the black hole, the antiparticle will be absorbed by the black hole. Now after
absorbing the antiparticle i.e. negative energy, the positive energy will remain. We can see
this positive energy in the form of radiation. This is called Hawking radiation. Now the
radiation we see coming out of a black hole will mainly come from the empty around the
black hole’s event horizon. On the other hand, the negative energy absorbed by the black
hole will decrease the total energy of the black hole. As a result, the total mass of the black
hole will decrease with time. A black hole will disappear through this process.

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