Charles D

Oh ya inverse square ratio of the concentrated mass. Thought I was being thick

it doesn't have more mass (it has less as the source star sheds a lot of matter in creating a blackhole.)

 

The big difference is a blackhole is incredibly small compared to the source star.

 

for instance, to turn the sun into a blackhole you'd need to squash it into a sphere only 6km in diameter.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius

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Cheers for the link

This may be me being ignorant, but why is it that a black hole seems to have more mass than the star that created it. Light can escape from the star, but because all the stars mass is concentrated to a point, suddenly an event horizon forms. Where does this extra ability come from?