When a massive star collapses under its own gravity, it forms a black hole that is so heavy that it captures everything that passes its event horizon. Not even light can escape. At the event horizon, time replaces space and points only forward. The flow of time carries everything towards a singularity furthest inside the black hole, where density is infinite and time ends.
Not even Albert Einstein, the father of general relativity, thought that black holes could actually exist. However, ten years after Einstein’s death, the British theorist Roger Penrose demonstrated that black holes can form and described their properties. Penrose’s ground-breaking article was published in January 1965 and is still regarded as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein. Last year he was awarded the physics prize last year for his work.
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Photo: The first image ever taken of a black hole. Credit: EHT Collaboration
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