Black holes are assumed to come into existence from extremely large stars that collapse into a state of high density when they run out of fusion fuel. An object becomes a black hole when it lies entirely inside the Schwarzschild radius (see below) determined by its mass. For most objects, the Schwarzschild radius is very tiny compared with its size (for Earth it is about 1 centimeter), so the object does not lie inside that radius. | Black holes are assumed to come into existence from extremely large stars that collapse into a state of high density when they run out of fusion fuel. An object becomes a black hole when it lies entirely inside the Schwarzschild radius (see below) determined by its mass. For most objects, the Schwarzschild radius is very tiny compared with its size (for Earth it is about 1 centimeter), so the object does not lie inside that radius. |