Into the Black Hole: Gravity, Space and the Strangest Objects in the Universe

What happens when gravity becomes so powerful that not even light can escape?

Journey towards the strangest objects in the universe and discover how massive stars collapse, why neutron stars spin like cosmic lighthouses and how black holes bend space and time around them.

Into the Black Hole explores event horizons, accretion discs, stellar and supermassive black holes, gravitational lensing and the enormous jets launched from matter swirling nearby. It explains how scientists photograph a black hole's shadow, detect invisible collisions through gravitational waves and investigate objects that can never be observed directly.

Along the way, readers will discover what might happen to an object falling towards an event horizon, why black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners and how tidal forces can stretch matter through a process known as spaghettification. The book also examines Hawking radiation, wormholes, white holes and the information paradox-carefully separating confirmed discoveries from strong scientific theories and imaginative possibilities that remain unproven.

Written in clear, engaging language for readers aged eight to twelve, this second volume in the From Stardust to Us series reveals how evidence, mathematics and extraordinary instruments allow scientists to study the darkest places in the cosmos.

Black holes may hide their interiors, but they cannot hide their influence.