Nothing escapes from a black hole, and now astronomers have proof
The event horizon is real, and we know it without even needing to see it directly.
“Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.” -Sam Neill, Event Horizon
If you collect more and more matter in a small enough volume of space, it gets harder and harder to escape from its gravitational pull. Gather enough mass there, and you’ll find that the speed you’d need to reach in order to escape is greater than the speed of light! From within that region, escape is impossible, and you have a black hole. From farther out, where the escape velocity is lower than the speed of light, matter and radiation can make it out. The border of these two regions is known as the event horizon, and is one of the most important predictions of General Relativity that’s never been tested. Until now, that is, where the signs that matter completely disappears when it crosses over cannot be ignored.
At the center of our galaxy, we find the largest black hole within more than a million light years…
