Book excerpt: Introduction Space, the final frontier… to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life,and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. ~ Gene Roddenberry *** The universe is full of surprises! We can find amazing things like galaxies, planets, comets, asteroids, moons, meteorites, and more! One of the strangest objects we can find in space is called a… black hole. Have you ever heard of black holes? What do you know about them? Let’s learn more! Black holes are dark areas in space with strong gravity. Not all black holes are black and we cannot see them, but we know they are there. How do we know they exist even though we can’t see them? Scientists study the things that happen around a black hole, and that tells them a black hole is there. The force of a black hole is so strong light cannot escape. Do you know what happens to light when it gets near a black hole? Strong gravity pulls light and everything else into the center. It is so strong that nothing escapes the powerful force, and everything falls in! Black holes come in lots of different sizes. Some are big, and some are small. Some black holes are so big; they are called supermassive black holes. That’s a big, big hole! Black holes affect not only space but time too. How so? Did you know time changes when you get near a black hole? Yes, it does! This is because of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Let’s find out how black holes work and what else we can learn about this mysterious force in the universe!