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What Are Three Ways a Black Hole Is Formed?

Black holes use the power of gravity to pull debris from space into their depths. They are made up of three layers: the Outer Event Horizon, the Inner Event Horizon and the Singularity. No light can escape from black holes, so they are impossible to see without the use of a special telescope. The telescope detects the presence of a black hole by observing the stars and gas around it. Black holes vary in size from as small as an atom to as large as the mass of 1 million suns. Black holes take the shape of stellar, middleweight and supermassive black holes.

Stellar Black Holes
- Stellar black holes are the most common type of black hole. These black holes form from stars three times the size of the sun that grow so heavy that they cannot support their own weight. The star combusts in a supernova explosion, which is a violent explosion of the star's top layers. The star runs out of fuel, and the pressure from its layers of hydrogen cause it to collapse and grow smaller. Gravity overtakes the force of the star, making it impossible for the star to hold its own weight. It grows so small that it becomes a tiny point that no longer shines even though it still has the mass and gravity of the star.
Middleweight Black Holes
- Middleweight black holes are the most mysterious of the black holes, and their existence is still debated among astronomers. They are formed when many smaller black holes combine. They have a mass of between 100 and 10,000 suns. Each time two stars collide, their masses combine, forming a larger black hole. They are completely invisible, so it is difficult to confirm their existence.
Supermassive Black Holes
- Supermassive black holes are the biggest black holes, and they lie at the centers of galaxies. There is more than one theory about how supermassive black holes formed, and the topic is continuously researched. One theory is that supermassive black holes formed not long after the universe was born, which is believed to have been over 13 billion years ago. These huge black holes formed when the early galaxies collided and merged. Another theory is that stars in the densely packed center of the universe are attracted to each other's gravity and combine to form a huge star. This massive star might combine with other massive stars, which could then collapse into a huge black hole. That huge black hole could consume millions of stars, forming a supermassive black hole.
Sun
- Because the sun is a star, the question remains whether the Earth's sun will ever become a black hole. The sun is too small to become a black hole; only stars that are several times more massive than the sun become black holes. Instead, it will become, it is believed, a white dwarf after casting off all of its layers. A white dwarf is a ball of carbon and oxygen that no longer produces nuclear energy but still shines because it is so hot.

Astronomy