What is a black hole?

A region where gravity is so strong nothing can escape

Who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for studying the Milky Way's black hole?

Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel

Black Holes Quiz: Places, People and Key Facts

This black holes quiz covers how black holes form, event horizons, singularities, Hawking radiation, the images of M87* and Sagittarius A* and black hole mergers detected by gravitational waves. Ten questions on places, people and key facts about the darkest objects in the universe.

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🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Definition
What is a black hole?
Boundary
What is the boundary of a black hole called?
Formation
How do stellar black holes usually form?
Theory
Whose solution to Einstein's equations first described a black hole in 1916?
Hawking
What did Stephen Hawking predict black holes emit?
Image
Which black hole was imaged first, in 2019?
Ours
What is the black hole at the center of the Milky Way called?
Nobel
Who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for studying the Milky Way's black hole?
Waves
What did LIGO detect in 2015?
Stretch
What is the stretching effect near a black hole nicknamed?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: What is a black hole?
Answer: A region where gravity is so strong nothing can escape
Not even light can get out.
Q2: What is the boundary of a black hole called?
Answer: Event horizon
Crossing it means no return.
Q3: How do stellar black holes usually form?
Answer: When massive stars collapse
The collapse often follows a supernova.
Q4: Whose solution to Einstein's equations first described a black hole in 1916?
Answer: Karl Schwarzschild
He worked it out during WWI.
Q5: What did Stephen Hawking predict black holes emit?
Answer: Hawking radiation
It means black holes slowly evaporate.
Q6: Which black hole was imaged first, in 2019?
Answer: M87*
It is about 6.5 billion times the Sun's mass.
Q7: What is the black hole at the center of the Milky Way called?
Answer: Sagittarius A*
It is about 4 million solar masses.
Q8: Who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for studying the Milky Way's black hole?
Answer: Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel
Roger Penrose shared it for theory.
Q9: What did LIGO detect in 2015?
Answer: Gravitational waves from merging black holes
It confirmed Einstein's prediction.
Q10: What is the stretching effect near a black hole nicknamed?
Answer: Spaghettification
Tidal forces stretch objects.

Black Holes Quiz – The Darkest Objects

Black holes are regions where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape once it crosses the event horizon. They form when massive stars collapse, and supermassive black holes millions or billions of times the Sun's mass sit at the centers of galaxies.

Karl Schwarzschild found the first mathematical description of a black hole in 1916, and Stephen Hawking later predicted they slowly emit radiation. For decades they could only be detected indirectly, through their effects on nearby stars and gas.

Recent breakthroughs changed that. LIGO detected gravitational waves from merging black holes in 2015, and the Event Horizon Telescope captured images of M87* in 2019 and Sagittarius A* in 2022.

What This Quiz Teaches

This quiz is for space fans exploring black holes.

What a black hole is
How they form
What Hawking predicted
Which black holes were imaged
What LIGO detected

Did You Know?

John Wheeler popularized the term black hole.
Cygnus X-1 was the first strong black hole candidate.
Black holes do not suck everything in like vacuums.
Time slows near a black hole.
Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes.