Black holes are everywhere in our universe, they are fare away and virtually invisible, save for the cloud of hot matter that can sometimes be seen swirling around them. But, however far away, they have an impact on us and there may even be one at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy!
John Michell was the first person to hypothesize that there could possibly be an object with so much gravity, that not even light, that happens to be the fastest know object in space today, could escape it! This theory came around 1783 and was the first of its type to be published. Around 1796, Simon Pierre LaPlace, added on to Michell’s theory, suggesting that the object John Michell thought of could and most likely would be invisible due to the immense gravity it possessed. Albert Einstein formulated the theory of General Relativity in 1915. The Theory of General Relativity says that you can think of space as being a fabric, and any object in the universe warps and distorts this “fabric” known as space-time, which we feel as gravity. The larger mass of the object the larger the curvature in space-time and the larger the force of gravity we feel. In 1916, Karl Schwarzchild used Einstein’s theory to explain a black hole. Because the mass of a black hole is so immense, it approaches infinity, causing the warp in space-time to be enormous, therefore, the gravity we feel from this is also enormous. Although we did have theories on the existence of black holes, there wasn't any proof that these theories were true or false. However, the first evidence of black holes came in 1970, and was named Cygnus X-1. This black hole was discovered by the mass of start that were found moving and tremendous speeds around the black hole, as well as the hot gasses and other substances that were forced to swirl and incredible speeds due to the gravity of the black hole.
So what is a black hole, and how is it formed? A black hole is the remnants of oh the death of a massive star. When the mass of the...