What happens in the center of the black hole to keep it going for a longer time?
Answer Hi Mark, A black hole can form from the compressed core of a very massive star as it goes supernova…the tremendous pressure from the implosion. (That’s correct, a supernova is an implosion, not an explosion….as the outer layers of the massive star come crashing down onto the core, and rebound). This compresses the core to first the neutron star stage where electrons are forced to merge with protons to form a big ball of neutrons about 10-20 miles in diameter. However, if the supernova is even more forceful, it can over-ride even neutron pressure – that force that prevents neutrons from gathering just so close, and this crushes the matter down to what we call a singularity….a pin point, and thus forms a black hole. Black holes do not suck…gravity does not suck. Gravity, as shown by Einstein’s general relativity (Circa 1917) is simply a curvature of space due to the presence of a mass. With a black hole, the space (or more correctly, the space-time continuum) is completely
