• Question: which 'body', in space, has the largest/strongest gravitational pull

    Asked by da buxton watter TGS to Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Sarah, Steven on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      That would be a black hole! It’s gravitational pull is so big that even light cannot escape!

    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      As Lidunka says, black holes (particularly the catchily-named ‘supermassive black holes’) are the biggest single bodies in space. Some of them have gravitational pulls millions of times larger than our Sun!

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      Black holes are the most extreme objects! They’re by definition the densest, most massive things around. All galaxies have a huge black hole in their centers, but the area over which the black hole is dominant is actually pretty small. If you’re looking for the largest gravitational influence, then you’re probably looking at galaxy clusters! These contain thousands of galaxies, and their gravity can bend light from distant galaxies.

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