How do black holes fit into gravity without being a fundamental force?

Black holes are not themselves a fundamental force, but they are among gravity’s most extreme predictions. In general relativity, enough mass compressed into a small enough region creates a point of no return called the event horizon. Outside the horizon, black holes influence nearby stars, gas, and light through their strong gravitational field, and they can be detected by their effects rather than by direct visibility. The first image of a black hole’s shadow, released in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope, showed the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87. Black holes therefore serve as laboratories for testing gravity under extreme conditions.