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Aspy343 t1_iuarrls wrote

They call it a monster black hole at 12 solar masses?! The biggest one so far discovered is 66 billion solar masses so calling one with 12 is a bit weird. If anything it's not just small, it's tiny? The exact opposite of a monster. There are much more massive stars?

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Azelicus t1_iudi7fb wrote

It's just your ordinary clickbait terminology. Few people would click an article titled "very small black hole lies about 375 times farther than our closest neighbor".

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joosth3 OP t1_iuatwuu wrote

There are but it is pretty massive and close regardless. Biggest is a weird word for a black hole btw since they are infinitely small

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TheLorax66 t1_iubuk09 wrote

They're represented as a singularity, and for all all intents and purposes it's a good approximation because the event horizon is always larger than the radius, but they do have a diameter. They form when the opposing forces between adjacent electrons and protons is overcome by the gravitational force, but the subatomic particles didn't go anywhere, they're just stacked on top of each other rreeeaaallll tight

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carbonqubit t1_iucnpp3 wrote

This is the basis for electron degeneracy in neutron stars due to the Paul exclusion principle. Black holes on the other hand aren't composed of fermions, as the singularity is more like knotted space or a closed timelike curve. They can be defined as having three foundational characteristics: charge, spin, and mass.

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TheLorax66 t1_iud9vd2 wrote

You know, you're right, I do remember that being about stars now. Thanks for the little lesson, my astrophysics course never got quite that deep :)

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Aspy343 t1_iucwtyi wrote

"Black holes come in many sizes and their size depends on how much material is in them (their mass). Some are the remains of a giant star which collapsed. A star has to be much more massive than our Sun to become a black hole. These types of black holes are only a few miles across."

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