The Life of a Black Hole

Gravity and radiation energy (generated through the process of fusion) are opposing forces that must be kept in balance in order to maintain a star's stability.

Fusion is a process in a star's core where elements are fused together to create heavier elements and energy is released as a consequence.

The primary and optimal source for star fusion is the hydrogen atom which gets fused into helium. When a star runs out of available hydrogen, it starts fusing helium. From helium it goes onto carbon or oxygen and so forth, gradually creating heavier and heavier metals until it reaches iron. Iron does not produce any energy from fusion and in fact absorbs energy, causing the core temperature of the sun to drop.

2: Supernova

With no further radiation energy being produced by the core, a star will reach a critical point where the unopposed gravity causes a collapse of the outer gaseous layers. Upon reaching the core, a massive outward explosion known as a supernova occurs pushing those outer layers, heavy metals, and an immense heatwave out across the universe.

The leftover core, emitting no counteractive energy, succumbs to its own mass and shrinks to have an infinite density and a volume of zero. It is now a blackhole.

3: Black Hole

A black hole has an immense gravitational pull and will drag in any surrounding dust or debris. As particles are dragged in, they manifest as streaks of light because they are going so fast that they generate heat.

Surrounding a black hole at its furthermost orbit is the accretion disk. This is a field of superheated particles, dust, and matter traveling at incredible speeds. The accretion disk produces a great deal of electromagnetic radiation which is often how we are able to find black holes.

The innermost stable orbit is typically on the inside of the accretion disk and is the safest distance matter can come to a black hole without being dragged in.

The photon ring (or photon sphere) is an area just outside of the event horizon where photons, usually traveling in straight lines, are warped in orbit around the black hole which manifests as a bright ring around the center.

The event horizon is the point where even light cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole. Because light cannot escape, it has the appearance of being black.

The singularity is the very center of the black hole and is where all intaken matter ends up, joining a point of infinite density.

The relativistic jet is a stream of ionized particles that are ejected at near lightspeed from a black hole's axis of rotation into space. Sometimes these jets can extend over millions of parsecs (1 parsec = ~13 trillion km)

4: Hawking Radiation

Throughout the universe, particle pairs of matter and antimatter pop into existence. Ordinarily, they are drawn in to and annihilate each other.

While these particle pairs naturally occur throughout the universe, the annihilation process is disrupted at the event horizon of a black hole. Because the gravitational pull is so strong, one of the particles will be dragged beyond the event horizon and one will escape as radiation energy known as Hawking Radiation.

The particle that is dragged in brings negative energy with it which detracts energy away from the black hole and diminishes its mass. Over time, the black hole slowly evaporates (the most massive of black holes perhaps taking 10¹⁰⁰ years) until it dies in a final burst of radiation.