How a Black Hole is Formed:
1. A Big Star Lives - It all starts with a star that has at least ten times the mass of our Sun, slowly burning its core until all its fuel is used up. This fusion process creates radiation and pushes back against gravity, balancing the star.

2. The Balance Shifts - Eventually, the star runs out of fuel. Without radiation from the fusion, the balance of forces shifts: gravity gains the upper hand on the star and squeezes it much tighter together than it was before.

3. The Core Collapses - The star implodes at a quarter of the speed of light, and the core collapses to a Black Hole in less than a second. In the following hours, the Black Hole feasts as the rest of the star falls in.

4. Gravity Rules - The implosion creates a Black Hole - a place that breaks the rules of our Universe: it packs more mass than our Sun into a place smaller than a mountain.

5. Long Live the Hole - Black Holes may live for billions and billions of years, slowly evaporating via Hawking radiation. But this process is very slow, and most won’t die until the Universe is an octodecillion times older than it is now.