“Space-the final frontier. Our mission: To explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” Go boldly where no student has gone before into the bleak abysses of the universe, into massive celestial objects that suck up everything in their way like a cosmic vacuum cleaner: black holes.

Black holes are objects in the universe whose gravitational pull is so strong that light cannot even escape from them. However, contrary to popular belief, they are not cosmic vacuum cleaners, but rather stars which have collapsed to the point of having no volume and infinite amounts of density.

Stars that are 10 to 15 times larger than our sun undergo a supernova explosion, which is when a star burns out and dies. These dead start floating in space undetected.

Black holes have a reputation of sucking up everything up. Although this is a mere myth there is some truth to it.

Black holes have a Schwarzchild radius, which is the point at which an object could be sucked into the hole. The only way to escape would be at the speed of light.

Black holes are invisible like ghosts, which makes it very hard to prove that they exist. They are invisible because light cannot escape it. However, until the most recent decade scientists were unable to see black holes in space.

They discovered that black holes float across interstellar matter or, if it gets close to another ‘normal’ star, then they accrete matter. We can detect them by x-ray emissions because the matter becomes ionized. Ionization is when an atom either gains or loses an electron.

In 2003, scientists captured a photograph of a black hole, which has changed the perception of black holes within astronomy.

“Previously, black holes were seen as the endpoints of evolution, the final resting state of most or all of the matter in the universe,” Meg Urry, an astronomer and professor of physics at Yale University, said to Space.com. “Now we believe black holes also play a critical role in the birth of galaxies.”

David Alexander, a researcher based at Cambridge University, said to National Geographic, “Although it is just a tiny fraction of the size of the galaxy, the black hole (appears to be) able to control the (growth of the) galaxy.”

“What you call ‘black holes,’ which are present at the center of every galaxy, are part of the engine of dimensional shift. They are the portals that broach the walls of the tube sock,” said Kryon in a channeling by Lee Carol. (Kryon is a higher being that is channeled through Lee Carol like a modern-day prophet. To many in the supernatural, spiritual world, it is truth.)

Essentially, some scientists suggest that black holes are portals to other dimensions, to other worlds, to other universes. However, it is a mere theory and has no scientific evidence to suggest truth.

Regardless, black holes are a phenomenon of the sky and are constantly being studied by astronomers.