the.com/blackhole
where the universe keeps secrets so heavy not even light leaks out
means A region of spacetime where gravity is so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape once it crosses the boundary called the event horizon.
from A compound of plain English 'black' (because no light escapes) and 'hole.' The term took hold in physics in the 1960s, popularized by the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler — though he didn't coin it and reportedly first heard it suggested by someone in his audience. The underlying idea is far older: in the 18th century, thinkers like John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace imagined 'dark stars' so massive light couldn't leave them, long before Einstein's general relativity gave such objects their modern, terrifying mathematics.
- escape speed
- faster than light, which means impossible
- time bends
- clocks slow near it, eventually frozen to observers
- spaghettification
- gravity stretches falling objects into thin strands
- first photo
- imaged in 2019 using an Earth-sized telescope network
- they sing
- one hums a B-flat, 57 octaves below middle C
cygnus x-1 — stellar black hole in cygnus constellation, discovered 1964, orbits blue supergiant star