I'm John Batchler. This is Hotel Mars episode N. I'm joined by my colleague and co-host and friend and co-pilot,

David Livingston, Dr. Space himself of the space show. David and I now and again get to a great

opportunity to go to the edge of understanding of our cosmos. That's everything. And we're very,

very pleased and privileged to welcome an astronomer who's been

to the edge of knowledge about the cosmos, Peter Van Dockham of the astronomy department at Yale

University. And a magical term immediately you will gain, it will gain me attention, a runaway

black hole. That's right. Black hole, the singularity itself,

running away and rogue in the universe. Professor, a very good evening to you. Thank you very much.

What is a black hole before we run it away? How do we describe the mysteries of it? Good evening to you.

Hi, how are you? It's good to be here. Yeah, Black Hole is one of the most, or maybe the most

mysterious objects in the universe. And it is a place from which nothing can escape, not even

light. It is so massive in such a can escape, not even light.

It is so massive in such a small amount of volume that its gravity pulls everything in that crosses its horizon.

And the gravity is so strong that space is bent around it and that light rays cannot go

out, but they cannot escape the event horizon.

So the name Black hole comes from that.

And they were a theoretical construct for a long time,

and then they were actually discovered in the cosmos.

First, fairly small black holes, small as in a few times more massive than our sun.

So still not particularly light know, particularly light.

And then it was discovered that some of these black holes,

namely the ones in the centers of galaxies,

...