Classification of black holes based on mass

Welcome back to AstroMe guys! In my next consecutive posts, we will look into different types of black holes. 

Black holes can be divided according to their mass and properties. 

In this post, we will be discussing the classification of black holes based on their mass.

There are 4 types of black holes depending on their mass. 

1. Stellar-mass black hole 

2. Supermassive black hole

3. Intermediate black hole

4. Miniature black hole

Stellar-mass black hole :

Stars have mass of less than about 100 times the mass of the sun. Once the star runs out of its fuel, the core rapidly collapses to form a supernova explosion and these explosions give off lots of gamma rays so they are also known as hypernova explosions. 

To know more about what happens when a star runs out of fuel check out my previous post: what happens after star die  

So, when a hypernova explosion takes place, there is a high possibility of this turning into a neutron star because its mass is equal to the Chandrasekhar limit. But the collapse of the star is so powerful that the neutron star cannot control it, this allows them to form a Stellar-mass black hole. 

Stellar-mass black holes are easily found in x_ray binary systems. These are the most common black holes.

 Supermassive black hole:

These black holes are the most dangerous and the largest. Their mass ranges from millions to billions of solar masses. Fortunately, these are not found anywhere near us. 

These black holes are present in the centre of every galaxy which includes our milky way galaxy as well. 

The non-stellar radiation from an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN is nothing but a compact region at the centre of a galaxy that produces high luminosity) is theorized to result from the accretion(accumulation of particles into a massive object like a black hole by gravitational attraction) of matter by a supermassive black hole. 

Ex. SgrA is present in the centre of our galaxy in the Sagittarius A constellation and its mass is 4 million times that of our sun. 

 

Intermediate black hole:

 They have masses between the stellar and supermassive black holes.

It is said that they link between these two black holes but it's unknown. Finding one is very rare but recently in 2019 LIGO(The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves) detected gravitational waves from the merger of two stellar-mass black holes to give birth to an intermediate black hole. 

A black hole can also be formed by combining two black holes. and the newly formed black hole will have more mass and be more powerful. 

Ex. There is one present in the Sagittarius A constellation with the name GCIRS 13E which is orbiting 3 light-years away from our earth

Miniature/micro/quantum mechanical black holes : 

These are very tiny black holes, for which the quantum mechanical effects play a very important role but not the theory of relativity. This itself gives us a clear idea of how small these black holes are, which are smaller than stellar-mass black holes. 

This idea was brought up by Stephen Hawking in1972. 

The lightest Black hole known is 3.8 times the mass of the sun. They are not at all effective like others we have learned but they are very hot. 

They evaporate with time. Their evaporation rate is so high that as soon as it is brought into existence they disappear. Isn't that interesting! 

Voila! We got to know the types of black holes based on their masses. See you in my next post. 

If you want to know more about black holes and space. Check out AstroMe