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Black hole calculator: Schwarzschild radius, Hawking temperature
Updated 8 October 2026
The Sun will never become a black hole: it is too light.
- Horizon radius
- 2.95 km
- Diameter 5.91 km, about the size of the city of Paris
- Hawking temperature
- 6.17 × 10⁻⁸ K
- colder than the cosmic microwave background (2.7 K): it absorbs more than it emits
- Evaporation lifetime
- 2.1 × 10⁶⁷ years
- 1.5 × 10⁵⁷ times the age of the Universe
- Entropy (maximum information)
- 1.51 × 10⁷⁷ bits
- Spaghettification (100 g over 2 m)
- Outside the horizon
- at 810 km from the centre, well outside the horizon: you would be destroyed before entering.
- Tide at the horizon (2 m body)
- 2.1 × 10⁹ g
- From horizon to singularity
- 15.5 µs
- Mean density
- 1.84 × 10¹⁹ kg/m³
- 1.84 × 10¹⁶ times the density of water
Lifetime computed with photon emission only; including other particles shortens it somewhat.
The formulas used
They all follow from three fundamental constants, G, c and ħ, and the mass M. No other data is needed: one of the most striking properties of black holes.
Go deeperAssumptions and limits
- An isolated black hole with no spin or electric charge (Schwarzschild solution).
- The lifetime counts photon emission only and ignores the matter the black hole swallows and the cosmic background it absorbs.
- The tide uses the Newtonian formula 2GML/r³, a good approximation at the horizon.
- Masses of real black holes are central values, with their published uncertainties.
To visualise these sizes, try the size comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum mass of a black hole?
Theory sets no strict minimum, apart from the Planck mass (about 22 micrograms) below which it no longer applies. Black holes formed by stars weigh at least about 3 solar masses; lighter black holes could only be primordial.
Why express entropy in bits?
A black hole's entropy measures the maximum amount of information it can hold. Divided by ln 2, it is expressed in bits, like computer memory: about 10⁷⁷ bits for one solar mass.
Do the results hold for a spinning black hole?
This calculator uses the Schwarzschild solution, with no spin or charge. For a fast-spinning black hole the horizon is up to half as large and the temperature lower, but the orders of magnitude stay the same.
Sources
- Jacob Bekenstein (1973), Black holes and entropy, Physical Review D 7, 2333
- Stephen Hawking (1974), Black hole explosions?, Nature 248, 30
- Stephen Hawking (1975), Particle creation by black holes, Communications in Mathematical Physics 43, 199
Keep exploring
- Size comparison →Compare black hole horizons with Paris, Earth, the Sun and the Solar System, at the same scale.
- Hawking radiation →The 1974 discovery that gave black holes a temperature, Hawking's formula and the evaporation time, explained simply.
- Falling in →Spaghettification, time dilation, crossing the horizon: falling into a black hole step by step, with a gravitational lensing render.
- Teachers →Ready-to-use activities about black holes: orders of magnitude, time dilation, reading an EHT image.