Schwarzschild radius (redirected from Schwarzschild horizon)

Schwarzschild radius

 or gravitational radius

Radius inside which the gravitational attraction between a body's particles must cause its irreversible gravitational collapse, named for Karl Schwarzschild. This is thought to be the final fate of the most massive stars (see black hole). The gravitational radius (R_g) of an object of mass M is given by R_g = 2GM/c², where G is the universal gravitational constant and c the speed of light. For a star like the Sun, the Schwarzschild radius would be about 1.8 mi (3 km).

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Schwarzschild radius [′shvärts‚shilt ‚rād·ē·əs]

(relativity)

Conventionally taken to be twice the black hole mass appearing in the general relativistic Schwarzschild solution times the gravitational constant divided by the square of the speed of light; the event horizon in a Schwarzschild solution is at the Schwarzschild radius.