• Question: I have heard a bunch stuff about black Holes and I was wondering if a star Can be to small to become a black hole Can a star be to big to become a black Hole

    Asked by leila to Mark on 9 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 9 Nov 2016:

      A star can definitely be too small to become a black hole. Our star, the Sun, isn’t big enough to become a black hole. When the Sun runs out of fuel, it will become an object called a white dwarf (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/dwarfs1.html).

      Our best guesses at the moment is that a star has to be at least 5-10 times more massive than the Sun for it to become a black hole.

      As for your second question, to our best knowledge, there is no limit on how big a star can be to produce a black hole. One of the biggest known stars in the Universe is 63,000 more massive than the Sun, and it will most certainly become a black hole when it’s reached the end of its lifetime.

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