Degenerate Stars - Black Holes

Black Holes

As more mass is accumulated, equilibrium against gravitational collapse reaches its breaking point. The star's pressure is insufficient to counterbalance gravity and a catastrophic gravitational collapse occurs in milliseconds. The escape velocity at the surface, already at least 1/3 light speed, quickly reaches the velocity of light. No energy or matter can escape: a black hole has been created. All light will be trapped within an event horizon, and so a black hole appears truly black, except for the possibility of Hawking radiation. It is presumed that the collapse will continue.

In the classical theory of general relativity, a gravitational singularity will be created occupying no more than a point. There may be a new halt of the catastrophic gravitational collapse at a size comparable to the Planck length, but at these lengths there is no known theory of gravity to predict what will happen. Adding any extra mass to the black hole will cause the radius of the event horizon to increase linearly with the mass of the central singularity. This will induce certain changes in the properties of the black hole, such as reducing the tidal stress near the event horizon, and reducing the gravitational field strength at the horizon. However, there will not be any further qualitative changes in the structure associated with any mass increase.