Everything about Black hole
Compact astronomical body
A black hole is an astronomical body so compact that its gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes gravitation as the curvature of spacetime, predicts that any sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. The boundary of no escape is called the event horizon. In general relativity, crossing a black hole's event horizon traps an object inside but produces no locally detectable change. General relativity also predicts that every black hole should have a central singularity, where the curvature of spacetime is infinite. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Black holeA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky WayInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: A Brief History of TimeThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole MergerCited 12,095 times
- Go sideways: Schwarzschild radiusA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Outline of black holesA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
Noun A place of punitive confinement; a lockup or cell; a military guardroom.
Noun A region of spacetime that exerts a gravitational pull strong enough that no matter or energy, not even light, can escape it.
Noun A void into which things disappear for good; an inscrutable or time-wasting area or subject.
Noun A dangerous optical illusion that can occur on a nighttime approach with dark, featureless terrain between the aircraft and a brightly-lit runway, where the aircraft appears to the pilots to be higher up than it actually is, potentially triggering a premature or overly-steep descent and a crash short of the runway.
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
Particle creation by black holes
Black Holes and Entropy
Black hole explosions?
Electromagnetic extraction of energy from Kerr black holes
Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
Notes on black-hole evaporation
First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
🆕 Influential since 2022
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way
Calculating black hole shadows: Review of analytical studies
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. VI. Testing the Black Hole Metric
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Testing Astrophysical Models of the Galactic Center Black Hole
Replica wormholes and the black hole interior
📚 Books worth reading
A Brief History of TimeStephen Hawking · 1988
Great sky riverGregory Benford · 1984
Black holes and baby universes and other essaysStephen Hawking, Simon Prebble · 1993
The Collapsing UniverseIsaac Asimov · 1977
The Temporal VoidPeter F. Hamilton · 2008
Death by black hole : and other cosmic quandariesNeil deGrasse Tyson · 2007
Black HolesStephen Hawking · 1993
EarthDavid Brin · 1990
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Schwarzschild radius The Schwarzschild radius is a parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius of a sphere in flat…
- Outline of black holes The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to black holes: Black hole – mathematically defined region of spacetime exhibiting…
- Supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions…
- History of black hole physics Black holes have primarily been subjects of research since the advent of general relativity in the early 1900s, although similar concepts were discussed…
- Astrophysical jet An astrophysical jet is an astronomical phenomenon where ionised matter is expelled at high velocity from an astronomical object, in a pair of narrow streams…
- Timeline of black hole physics The following timeline outlines notable discoveries in the study of black holes in physics, beginning in the 18th century and continuing to modern observations…
- Gravitational collapse Gravitational collapse is the contraction of an astronomical object due to the influence of its own gravity, which tends to draw matter inward toward the…
- Extreme mass ratio inspiral In astrophysics, an extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) is the orbit of a relatively light object around a much heavier (by a factor 10,000 or more) object…