An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A fantastically → compact object, predicted by the theory of → general relativity, whose → gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape from it. A black hole forms when matter → collapses to → infinite  → density, producing a → singularity of infinite → curvature in the fabric of → space-time. Each black hole is surrounded by an → event horizon, at which the → escape velocity is the → speed of light. The → Schwarzschild radius for the Sun is about 3 km and for the Earth about 1 cm. There is observational evidence for black holes on a remarkable range of scales in the Universe: → stellar black hole, → intermediate-mass black hole, → primordial black hole, → mini black hole, → supermassive black hole, → Schwarzschild black hole, → Kerr black hole.

See also: Historically, the Newtonian concept of such a celestial body appeared at the end of the 18th century when light was shown to have particle characteristics. In fact the English geologist John Mitchell (1724-1793) and French mathematician and astronomer Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827), independently, suggested that regions of space, where gravitational attraction was so strong that not even light could escape, may exist in the Universe. However, the term black hole was coined in 1967 by the Princeton physicist John A. Wheeler (1911-2008); → black; → hole.