There are things called supermassive black holes that are millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun. We know black holes that are much, much more massive than stars. For example, if you could actually crush the entire Earth into the size of a ping-pong ball that would be a black hole.īut now let me tell you that things go the other way too. It doesn't matter how much mass and you'll get a black hole. All you need is a certain amount of mass and a certain amount of volume. The whole point will be to detect them at all. These tiny little black holes we think don't live very long, maybe even a millionth of a second. So if anything dangerous was going to happen, it would already have happened. These high-energy particles from space are much more energetic than CERN could ever do. CERN does not get up to energies anywhere near what's happening in the natural world. And before you ask the question - no this is not dangerous. Actually have two particles collide so intensely that they pop off a little black hole. CERN actually does want to make artificial black holes. One of the things that we're doing at CERN, which is actually the largest particle accelerator on the earth right now, is trying to get up to those densities. There's enough energy to cram that matter together so much they form little black holes. These slam in with enough energy that we think they actually create tiny black holes, black holes that have the mass only a couple of atoms. There are things called high-energy cosmic rays - very, very energetic particles that slam into our atmosphere from space. We actually think there are black holes being generated all around us on very, very small scales.
But the universe makes black holes in other ways too. The universe is very good at making black holes that are about the size of stars it's an easy way to get them. And the real answer to your question is that there is no minimum mass needed for a black hole, you just need to have the right density for an object's gravity to be so intense that light can't escape. That's probably the most classic way to make a black hole, is you actually make it from the core of a dead star that's collapsing.īut you might be surprised to learn that we actually think there are other ways to make a black hole.
So basically gravity becomes so strong in that object that not even light can escape and therefore we call it a black hole. But once the star dies and the fusion reactions go away the gravity crushes inward and there's nothing to support it anymore. Now, when the star is alive and there are fusion reactions going on inside the core, that crush of gravity is actually held up. And the idea is that a star has this huge mass and that's a lot of gravity crushing the star together. Now, most commonly people talk about black holes as being a consequence of a giant star dying. To begin with, let's talk about the definition of a black hole. MICHELLE THALLER: So Mark, you have a great question about black holes: Is there a minimum mass needed for a black hole to form and does a black hole form whenever a stellar object gets that dense?
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