Black holes — are not just «space vacuum cleaners», as some people think. In fact, their impact on the solar system depends on many factors. Carina Voggel, a researcher at the Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center, explains that black holes — are just highly compressed mass, not a destructive force.
If a black hole were to enter our system, the main impact would be gravitational. Robert McNeese, a physicist at Loyola University Chicago, notes that the black holes we know are much more massive than the Sun. They are divided into stellar — several to 100 solar masses, and supermassive — millions or billions of solar masses.
There are also hypothetical microscopic black holes that could be formed in particle accelerators. According to Voggel, such objects would evaporate in less than a second without causing any damage.
Some astronomers suggest that the hypothetical Ninth Planet could be the original black hole. However, its influence on the orbits of the planets is negligible.
The passage of a massive black hole through the solar system could be catastrophic. At a distance of 100 AU, it would change the orbits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. As it approaches the Earth, a black hole could cause climate change or even destroy life on the planet.
However, the probability of such a scenario is extremely low. McNeese compares this to the risk of colliding with an asteroid, since the latter are more numerous, so the chances of a meeting are higher. Black holes, on the other hand, are rare objects in the Universe.
A black hole is a cosmic object with an extremely powerful gravitational field that prevents even light from escaping its boundaries. These mysterious formations got their name because they do not emit light and look pitch-black against the background of space. The term «black hole» was coined by American physicist John Archibald Wheeler in late 1967.
The process of black hole formation usually begins when a star, whose mass is at least 20-25 times that of the Sun, exhausts its nuclear fuel. Without internal pressure to counteract gravity, the star collapses, forming an object so dense that even atoms cannot resist the enormous pressure. This process leads to the formation of a singularity — a point with an extremely high density of matter surrounded by an event horizon beyond which time and space are bent beyond recognition.
Source: Livescience, Wikipedia