A Brief History of Black Holes: And Why Nearly Everything You Know about Them Is Wrong

In A Brief History of Black Holes, award-winning University of Oxford researcher Dr Becky Smethurst charts five hundred years of scientific breakthroughs in astronomy and astrophysics.

Right now, you are orbiting a black hole.

The Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole, the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy.

In this cosmic tale of discovery, Dr Becky Smethurst takes us from the earliest observations of the universe and the collapse of massive stars, to the iconic first photographs of a black hole and her published findings.

A cosmic tale of discovery, Becky explains why black holes aren’t really ‘black’, that you never ever want to be ‘spaghettified’, how black holes are more like sofa cushions than hoovers, and why, beyond the event horizon, the future is a direction in space rather than in time. Told with humor and wisdom, this captivating book describes the secrets behind the most profound questions about our universe, all hidden inside black holes.

'A tour through space history . . . with charming wit and many pop-culture references' – BBC Sky At Night Magazine