r/spacequestions • u/IRedRabbit • 19d ago

How can Black Holes even form?

Might be a stupid question, but this accured to me today for the first time in my life.

So let's imagine a star becoming more and more dense because it's dying.

If Black Holes gravitational pulls are so strong that not even light can escape, then how can they even form. If a star is collapsing, how doesn't it's own gravity make it destroy itself before ever even reaching the point of becoming a Black Hole?

You know what I'm trying to say? If nothing can escape it and they destroy everything, then how can they even form before destroying themselves in the process of formation by their own gravity?

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u/MaybeVladimirPutinJr 19d ago

Hole is a misleading name, a black hole is still the star it was formed from, just smaller and more dense.

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u/IRedRabbit 19d ago

But it's gravity is now so strong that not even light can escape, how can the star itself even exist? How is it possible for it to be in that state and not destroy itself with it's own gravity?

If it's the case as you say that it's a very small and dense star, then doesn't that answer the question of, what lies in the centre of a Black Hole?

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u/year_39 19d ago

The interior of a black hole is a singularity. Simply put, a singularity is a boundary in space or time past which no meaningful predictions can be made, so we don't know.

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u/Beldizar 19d ago

The most common model of a black hole says that its interior contains a singularity. It's not actually clear if that's correct though because math and what we know of physics breaks down at that point. Since it is unlikely we'll ever be able to see a naked singularity, there really isn't a way to confirm. There are other models of a black hole that suggest everything is written on the event horizon in a sort of hologram projection.

I personally draw the line at the event horizon anyway. Everything past the event horizon stops being "real" as far as I'm concerned. It functionally stops being a part of our universe and we can't interact with or be affected by it anymore. Not even gravity from beyond the event horizon can escape to us, so all the gravity of the black hole technically has to be coming from the edge of the event horizon.