What is a Black Hole ?

Black holes are one of the most phenomenal regions of space time that have fascinated Physicists for many decades. But the question still stands, what is a black hole and why have these objects left scientists with so many unanswered questions to this day. A black hole is a region of space in which its gravitational attraction is so intense and so massive that no matter can escape from it, not even light itself. In mathematical theory anything and everything can become a black hole if you were to compress and squeeze the object into a small enough distance known as the objects Schwarzschild radius, which is where the objects mass gets compressed and the object becomes so dense that it becomes a black hole. However the black holes that are most common are the ones formed from starts with hundreds of times more mass than our own sun. Black holes are formed by stars in which at first were very stable throughout their lifespan with an equal balance of radiation emission from the core and the gravitational attraction of the star. However since these stars are much more massive than our sun the heat and pressure at the core allow the star to fuse heavier elements until the core fusion reaches iron. This creates an issue as the fusion process that creates iron does not release any energy. This causes a great ‘build up’ of iron until it reaches a certain amount where the stable balance of gravity and radiation is broken. This causes there to be a much greater force of gravity drawing towards the core to radiation pushing out of the core, in which results in all the mass of the star being drawn towards the core which results in the collapsing of the core. In a tiny fraction of a second all of the stars mass is almost fed into the core of the star which causes the star to implode and in a sense die in a supernova explosion. All of the super-massive stars mass is concentrated into a very small point of space known as a singularity, in which it is infinitely dense and thus why its gravitational pull is so great that nothing can escape from it. Looking at a black hole is really looking at its event horizon, this is the point of no return as crossing this part of the black hole the gravitational pull is so colossal that it is the reason anything travelling at the speed of electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum cannot escape. You would need an infinite amount of energy to escape a black hole which in theory is impossible to achieve.