Stellar black hole

A black hole formed when a massive star’s core collapses, leaving an object with several to tens of times the Sun’s mass.

Core-collapse supernova: An explosion that occurs when the core of a massive star collapses after exhausting its nuclear fuel. The collapse can expel the star’s outer layers while leaving a black hole behind.
Stellar evolution: The sequence of physical changes a star undergoes as it forms, burns fuel, and reaches its final state. A stellar black hole is one possible endpoint of a star’s evolution.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: An Indian-American astrophysicist whose work established a mass limit for white dwarfs. His limit clarified how massive stellar remnants can progress beyond white-dwarf support.
Neutron star: A compact stellar remnant supported against gravity primarily by neutron degeneracy pressure and nuclear forces. A neutron star is the alternative remnant when collapse stops short of forming a black hole.
Cygnus X-1: A bright X-ray binary containing a massive star and a black-hole candidate. It became one of the first widely accepted stellar black-hole systems.
Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit: The maximum mass a neutron star can support against gravitational collapse. A collapsing remnant above this limit cannot remain a neutron star.
Initial mass function: The distribution of stellar masses at the time stars form. It helps determine how many massive stars are available to produce black holes.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: An American theoretical physicist who helped develop the first detailed models of gravitational collapse. His work with Hartland Snyder described continued collapse toward a black hole.
White dwarf: A dense stellar remnant supported against gravity by electron degeneracy pressure. White dwarfs are lower-mass stellar remnants that do not undergo the same terminal collapse.
LIGO: A pair of gravitational-wave observatories designed to detect tiny changes in the distance between mirrors. Its detections established mergers of stellar-mass black holes as observable events.

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