How does a black hole work?

Question: How does a black hole work?
- Keywords:
  black hole,
  space
Asked by joe_da_fish to Anna, George, Jodi, Rob, Stefan on 12 Nov 2014.
- Rob Appleyard answered on 12 Nov 2014:
  
  A black hole is a point in space where the matter has become so squashed that it’s all stuffed into a single point. The gravity of that single point is so strong that even light can’t escape – that’s why they’re called ‘black’, because no light comes from them.
- Stefan Lines answered on 12 Nov 2014:
  
  Black Holes are confusing, I think, primarily because of their name. A hole seems to imply something that isn’t there… like an emptiness in space. But it’s completely the opposite. Something absolutely massive gets even bigger and collapses in on itself. Suddenly, you have a huge amount of mass in a tiny space. It’s so massive that even light, which is quantised as tiny photon particles, gets pulled in – and so it appears as a Black Hole. It’s common belief that black hole are worrying because they’ll keep sucking stuff in – but actually they have no more influence that any other normal mass. So stars can orbit around them without getting pulled in. In fact, they release a special type of radiation, called Hawking Radiation, which very slowly reduces their mass until they disappear!
- Jodi Schneider answered on 13 Nov 2014:
  
  And an image to go with Rob & Stefan’s answers:
  
  from
  NASA’s “What is a black hole?” http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/black-holes/en/

Question: How does a black hole work?

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