Black holes are the evolutionary endpoints of stars at least 10 to 15 times as massive as the Sun. If you replaced the Sun with a black hole of equal mass, Earth would not get sucked in – it would continue orbiting the black hole as it orbits the Sun, today. Some think that black holes are like cosmic vacuums that suck in the space around them when, in fact, black holes are like any other object in space, albeit with a very strong gravitational field. Black holes have been portrayed as time-traveling tunnels to another dimension, or as cosmic vacuum cleaners sucking up everything in sight. NEWS | September 23, 2019 ON THIS PAGE A black hole is an extremely dense object in space from which no light can escape. When I was at the very beginning of learning astronomy, I always supposed black hole as being the universe’s vacuum cleaner, extracting everything within its route. A black hole with the mass of a car would have a diameter of about 10 −24 m and take a nanosecond to evaporate, during which time it would briefly have a luminosity of more than 200 times that of the Sun. Vacua are very weak, and they really are not even a 'force'. "Vacuum" is not at all a good analogy. You then use measurements of the movement of objects around a suspected black hole to calculate the black hole's mass. Don't think of a vacuum cleaner when you think of black holes. Vacuum States for AdS 2 Black Holes Marcus Spradlin1 and Andrew Strominger2 Department of Physics Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Abstract An AdS 2 black hole spacetime is an AdS 2 spacetime together with a preferred choice of time. Black holes pull material in via gravity, not suction. Somehow, this simple explanation makes them no easier to understand. It might be in a sunset, a bird of brilliant color, or a picturesque Italian village. Most of the galaxy is in a nice steady orbit and would continue to be if it weren’t for galactic collisions. Many people vision black holes as gigantic cosmic recycling centers. I am afraid that this is a most common misunderstanding about black holes. Black holes are really just the evolutionary end points of massive stars. As intense and as cool as it may sound, it is not quite accurate. 10 Questions You Might Have About Black Holes By Elizabeth Landau. Black holes may solve some of the mysteries of the universe. It might be in a sunset, a bird of brilliant color, or a picturesque Italian village. Clip from the full length lecture, "At the Edge of Reason: The Black Holes in the Universe" describing how Black Holes feed, form accretion disks, and become quasars. A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out.

As you can see, black holes in overall are not huge vacuums that will ultimately suck everything trapped in their gravitational impact. The idea of black holes being like 'vacuums in space' is a crude simplification created so that young children can have a basic concept of them. Black Holes and Vacuum Cleaners 3 Black Holes and Vacuum Cleaners: Using Metaphor, Relevance, and Inquiry In Labels for Space Images In going about our everyday lives, we encounter beauty in a variety of forms. Instead, it's far more accurate — and far more fun, as I alluded to in my Brain Bar talk in Hungary — to think of black holes …