Do black holes actually suck?
We take a look at the answer to this fascinating question
Despite the impression that science fiction movies give, black holes don’t suck! Image Credit: NASA
Asked by Barrie Schofield
No, black holes don’t suck. Thanks to science fiction movies, it’s quite easy to picture a black hole as a cosmic vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything and anything that gets too close to its high-gravity grasp. Suction is caused by pulling an object into a vacuum, something a black hole definitely is not. Instead, nearby gas and dust falls into them.
The pulling power of a black hole is all down to the size of the star’s core as well as the mass. Black holes form in the core of a massive star, which runs out of fuel and collapses, exploding as a supernova. As the core collapses, its gravity increases. At a mass of at least three-times that of the Sun, the gravity can get so strong that not even light can escape a black hole.
Got a question for us? Send it into [email protected] and you could see it featured in All About Space – available every month for just £3.99. Alternatively you can subscribe here for a fraction of the price!