A Mystery of Space: S T A R S- [What is a Black Hole?]

Black holes are some of the most mysterious objects in the universe. Imagine yourself standing over a bottomless, pitch black pit. Everything around you was being sucked down into the pit, even the light!

A spiral-shaped disk of dust is being sucked in by a massive black hole in the galaxy, NGC 4261

Everything that is being pulled into the black hole seems to be moving slower, but is actually gaining speed rapidly until it reaches the edge of the pit, which is called the horizon. This is point of no return- anything that reaches this point will never come out. Then, the object is pulled into the pit, and is also shrinking in size, until it finally collapses into what is called a singularity (a dimensionless object with infinite density).