• Question: What would happen if a black hole touched the sun?

    Asked by anon-281440 to Amal on 12 Feb 2021.
    • Photo: Amal Lavender

      Amal Lavender answered on 12 Feb 2021:


      great question – with no definite answer – two theories – If a black hole under 100 million masses of our Sun entered our Solar System, it wouldn’t swallow the Sun in one go. It would gradually start pulling matter from our star, until all that’s left of it would be a cloud of gas. In that case, you might expect lethal amounts of cosmic radiation headed toward the Earth.
      Or If a black hole like Cygnus X-1 were to stray near the Solar System, within a light-year or so, its gravity would cause chaos. The orbits of the outer planets and comets would be significantly and possibly disastrously altered, and this would in turn threaten the orbits of the inner planets and even the Sun.

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