Bon mot: black hole mass, volume, and density

Astronomy 10 learning goal 10.1

"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
--Stephen Wright

Black holes are one of the end-stages of massive main sequence stars, if the core of the main sequence star exceeds the Oppenheimer-Volkov limit of 3.0 solar masses, at which gravitational forces overwhelm neutron degeneracy pressures. This results in the complete collapse of the core into a black hole. Its mass remains the same, while its size goes to zero. As density is mass divided by volume, this is where Stephen Wright's "divided by zero" takes place, resulting in an infinite density (but remember that mass is finite!).