A Brief History of Black Holes

Now, you are orbiting a black hole.

The Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy: a supermassive black hole—the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy.

In A Brief History of Black Holes, Oxford University astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst chronicles the scientific breakthroughs that have revealed the strange and fascinating world of black holes, from the collapse of massive stars to the famous first images of a black hole in 2019.

A cosmic story of discovery, you'll learn: why black holes aren't really "black," that you never want to be "spaghetti," how black holes are more like sofa cushions than vacuum cleaners, and why beyond the event horizon, the future is a direction in space, not in time. This brilliant, witty, and insightful book explains why black holes hold the secrets to the most profound questions about our universe.