How are black holes formed?

Black Holes are the densest, most massive singular objects in the universe—nothing can escape their pull, not even light. Theory holds that they are created when stars collapse under their own gravity, forming a point or a ring of infinite density—singularity. The nuclear fusion in a star’s core produces electromagnetic radiation that exerts outward pressure, balancing the enormous gravity of the star’s mass, but when the nuclear fuel is exhausted, stability cracks and gravity compresses the star inwards. If the star is sufficiently massive—theory suggests it must be three times as massive as our sun—then the gravitational force is strong enough to collapse the star into a black hole. Soon the radius of star shrinks to critical size, called the Schwarzchild radius or event horizon: the boundary beyond which nothing cannot escape, not even light, because the strength of the gravitational pull is too great. The radius for determining an object’s Schwarzchild radius is Rs=2GM/c^2, where M is the mass of the body, G is the universal constant of gravitation, and c is the speed of light—and anything that’s smaller than its Schwarzchild radius is a black hole. When a star reaches this radius, it starts to devour anything that comes too close—but what happens to material within the Scwarzchild radius, however, is a mystery. It collapses indefinitely to the point where our understanding of the laws of physics breaks down.

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