When spacetime is completely flat because no mass is nearby, an object moving through it stays at constant velocity. General relativity describes both how spacetime bends in response to mass, and how mass moves in response to bent spacetime. Since the equations of general relativity that govern Einstein's gravity break down at the center of a black hole, a region of enormous energy density, black holes are intensely studied for clues about how quantum mechanics and general relativity can be combined to form a unified theory of "quantum gravity" such as string theory.īlack holes are a natural prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity. It is believed that every galaxy is centered around one such supermassive black hole. Supermassive black holes are defined as black holes with a mass on the scale of hundreds of times the mass of the Sun and greater. Supermassive black holes, such as the one at the center of the Milky Way, are the most important for studying the development of galaxies and the universe as a whole. The most well-studied black holes are formed from stars collapsing under the gravitational attraction of their own mass, but black holes of any mass can theoretically exist even down to sizes as small as a single atom. As a result, black holes are not visible to the eye, although they can be detected from the behavior of light and matter nearby. A black hole is a region of spacetime in which the attractive force of gravity is so strong that not even light escapes.
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