Black holes are places in space with extremely strong gravity. Their pull is so powerful that not even light can escape, which is why they look completely black.

A black hole isn’t really a “hole.” At its center is a tiny, extremely dense object that creates all that gravity!

The event horizon is the invisible boundary around a black hole. Once something crosses it, escape becomes impossible. For something to escape and get out, it would need to move faster than the speed of light, which isn’t physically possible.

Because light can’t escape, scientists can’t see the event horizon directly. But they can take pictures of the shadow it leaves on glowing gasses around it.

Event horizons come in different sizes. Some are only a few miles wide, while supermassive black holes can have event horizons billions of miles across!

When a huge star (at least 20 times bigger than our Sun) runs out of fuel, its gravity pulls everything inward.

The star then explodes in a supernova, a bright blast that shoots light and energy into space.

After the explosion, the star’s center collapses into a tiny, incredibly dense point called a singularity. This becomes the heart of a new black hole!