How do we know?
↻ One of the pages with a moving picture
Telescopes around the world became one Earth-sized telescope.
- At the end of its life, a very big star’s middle can collapse.
- A huge amount of stuff gets squeezed into a tiny space.
- Its gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light. So it looks black!
- We can’t see a black hole itself. Scientists find them by watching hot, glowing gas and stars close by.
Scientists linked telescopes around the world into one Earth-sized telescope. It took the first picture of a black hole in 2019.
The picture doesn’t show the black hole itself. It shows the hot, glowing gas around it. A telescope in the mountains of Spain’s Sierra Nevada helped, and so did the ALMA telescope in Chile, which helped take the first picture of the black hole in the middle of our galaxy.
What happens inside a black hole is still a mystery.
Wow number
4 million times as much stuff as our Sun: that’s the black hole in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy.
Myth or fact?
Black holes wander around space swallowing planets. Myth. They don’t roam around gobbling up worlds.
Our Sun will never become a black hole. Fact. It would need to be about 20 times heavier.
Think about it
If light can’t escape a black hole, how do you think scientists took its picture? (Hint: look at the glowing gas.)
Where in the world?
Atacama Desert, Chile where the ALMA telescope helped take the first picture of our galaxy’s black hole. A telescope in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain helped too — 23.0193° S, 67.7532° W.
Where these facts come from
Every number on page 17, and who measured it
This page explains what a black hole is and how scientists find one.
What Is a Black Hole? (Grades 5-8) — NASA, the U.S. space agency
nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-black-hole-grades-5-8
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us how big our galaxy's black hole is, and that its inside is still unknown.
10 Questions You Might Have About Black Holes — NASA, the U.S. space agency
science.nasa.gov/solar-system/10-questions-you-might-have-about-black-holes
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us telescopes like ALMA in Chile took a picture of our galaxy's black hole.
We got it! Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy — The U.S. National Science Foundation, which pays for science research
nsf.gov/news/we-got-it-astronomers-reveal-first-image-black-hole-heart
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us about the first black hole picture and the telescope in Spain's mountains.
Astronomers capture first image of a black hole — The U.S. National Science Foundation, which pays for science research
nsf.gov/news/astronomers-capture-first-image-black-hole
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us why our Sun will never become a black hole.
Why the Sun Won't Become a Black Hole — NASA, the U.S. space agency
nasa.gov/image-article/why-sun-wont-become-black-hole
We checked it on 31 October 2026
Has this changed?
Black holes are still being discovered and measured, so this answer may grow.
What happens inside one is still a mystery, and scientists are still working on it.
Words from this page
- gravity
- The pull that every object has on other objects. Very heavy things pull very hard.
- galaxy
- A giant group of billions of stars. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way.
Try it!
Make a bendy-space model of how gravity pulls things in.
1. With a grown-up, hold a stretchy sheet tight. 2. Put a heavy ball in the middle. 3. Roll a marble near the edge and watch. (Marbles are not for mouths!)
What happens: the marble curves toward the heavy ball. It’s only a model, but it shows how gravity pulls things in.
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