Black holes are objects with gravitational fields so powerful that nothing (including light) can escape from them. Black holes are formed when massive stars collapse to a point with infinite density and become a singularity.

• 1784: John Michell came up with a star from which no light can escape
• 1796: Pierre-Simon Laplace expanded on the idea of the "dark star"
• 1915: Einstein developed general relativity
• 1916: Karl Schwarzchild defined the gravitational radius of what would later be know as a 'black hole'
• 1930: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar argues that stars can collapse
• 1967: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose lay out modern black hole theory
• 1967: John Wheeler coined the term 'black hole'
• 1970: Cygnus X-1 is found, the first good black hole candidate
• 1974: Stephen Hawking discovers Hawking Radiation
• 1994: Hubble Telescope found evidence of supermassive black holes in centers of several galaxies

Black holes are objects with gravitational fields so powerful that nothing (including light) can escape from them. Black holes are formed when massive stars collapse to a point with infinite density and become a singularity.

A supermassive black hole resides at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Most galaxies contain super-massive black holes. The largest supermassive black hole is the size of 18 billion solar masses!

1. In 1967 John Archibald Wheeler coined the term "Black Hole"

2. Cygnus X-1 was the first solid black hole candidate in 1970

3. Throughout the 1990s the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence that supermassive black holes may exist in the centers of many galaxies in the universe, including our own.

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• 1784: John Michell came up with a star from which no light can escape

• 1796: Pierre-Simon Laplace expanded on the idea of the "dark star"

• 1915: Einstein developed general relativity

• 1916: Karl Schwarzchild defined the gravitational radius of what would later be know as a 'black hole'

• 1930: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar argues that stars can collapse

• 1967: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose lay out modern black hole theory

• 1967: John Wheeler coined the term 'black hole'

• 1970: Cygnus X-1 is found, the first good black hole candidate

• 1974: Stephen Hawking discovers Hawking Radiation

• 1994: Hubble Telescope found evidence of supermassive black holes in centers of some galaxies

• </note>

• Also try: Death Star Galaxy

• WARNING: The following IMDb Sites Have Popups:

• The Black Hole (1979)

• A Brief History of Time (1991)(Documentary)

• Event Horizon (1997)

• The Black Hole (2006)(TV)

• The Follow Theories Are Described on Wikipedia:

• Schwarzchild Metric

• Schwarzchild Radius

• Gravitational Singularity

• Hawking Radiation

• Rotating Black Hole

• Black Hole Information Paradox

• No Hair Theorem

• NewScientistSpace: Black Holes: The Ultimate Quantum Computers?(2006)

• The Follow Theories Are Described on Wikipedia:

• Supermassive Black Hole

• Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

• Stellar Black Hole

• Micro Black Hole

• Chandra X-ray Observatory: Black Hole Photo Album

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: Black Holes

• Skymap.org: Cygnus X-1 Pictures

• Max Planck Institute: Movie of Black Hole Candidate

• YouTube: Stephen Hawking, Black Holes, and The Creator

• YouTube & Google Video: Black Hole

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