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Loading contentA black hole of a few to a few dozen solar masses, formed when a massive star collapses.
When a massive star exhausts its fuel, its core can collapse past the neutron-star limit into a stellar-mass black hole. These are detected in X-ray binaries and, since 2015, through the gravitational waves emitted when two of them merge.
Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.
Direct detections of gravitational waves from compact-object mergers.