Why do black holes trap light?
Quick Answer
A black hole’s gravity is so strong that inside a boundary called the event horizon, even light cannot escape. The required escape speed would be greater than the speed of light.
The Full Story
Black holes are regions where mass is packed so densely that spacetime is extremely curved. If something crosses the event horizon, the point of no return, every possible path leads deeper inward. Since light travels at the universal speed limit of about 299,792 kilometers per second, nothing can go faster to escape. The idea follows from Einstein’s general relativity, first published in 1915, and black holes were later confirmed by observations of stars, gas, and gravitational waves. The first direct image of a black hole’s shadow was released by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019.
Key Facts
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"Why can’t even light escape a black hole?"
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