How do black holes form? – Astronomy Magazine

How do black holes form? – Astronomy Magazine
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This artist’s concept shows a black hole surrounded by a maelstrom of circling debris, as well as a powerful jet of hot plasma shooting into space.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The most well-understood black holes are created when a massive star reaches the end of its life and implodes, collapsing in on itself.

A black hole takes up zero space, but does have mass — originally, most of the mass that used to be a star. And black holes get “bigger” (technically, more massive) as they consume matter near them. The bigger they are, the larger a zone of “no return” they have, where anything entering their territory is irrevocably lost to the black hole. This point of no return is called the event horizon.