How can a star's mass turn into a cosmic vacuum trap?
Supermassive black hole
How can a star's mass turn into a cosmic vacuum trap?
Imagine a star so massive that it collapses under its own gravity, becoming a black hole. This process is like a star packing its mass into an infinitely small point, creating a region from which nothing can escape.
Think of a star's mass as a balloon filled with air. If you squeeze the balloon until it pops, the air escapes. A black hole is like that balloon, but instead of escaping air, nothing escapes its gravitational pull. The point where this happens is called the Schwarzschild radius.
Example
A star with 10 times the mass of the Sun would have a Schwarzschild radius of about 29.4 kilometers.
Remember this
The Schwarzschild radius is the critical boundary around a black hole, beyond which nothing can escape its gravitational pull.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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