What Are Black Holes? Check 7 Mesmerizing Pictures By NASA

Black holes are incredibly dense objects formed when massive amounts of matter are compressed into tiny spaces. They have gravitational forces so strong at their event horizons (boundaries) that even light cannot escape.

The nearest known black hole, Gaia BH1, is about 1,500 light-years from Earth. The most distant one, located at the center of a galaxy called QSO J0313-1806, is around 13 billion light-years away.

Black holes vary widely in size. The smallest-known black hole has about 3.8 times the Sun’s mass, while the most massive, TON 618, weighs in at 66 billion solar masses.

 Objects venturing too close to a black hole are stretched vertically and compressed horizontally, a process known as "spaghettification," resulting in a noodle-like form.

Black holes spin, some extremely fast. GRS 1915+105 is the fastest-known, rotating over 1,000 times per second.

Massive black holes at galaxy centers can accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light, creating high-energy jets that stretch vast distances into space.

Many galaxies the size of the Milky Way harbor supermassive black holes at their centers. Our galaxy’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*, has a mass of 4 million Suns.

(All Pictures Credit: NASA)