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I don't know what you mean by '75th percentile'... As stars go, our sun is way down on the small end of the size spectrum.

But yes, you only need twice the mass of our sun to tip the scales into oblivion. The chances of something else of similar mass colliding with Sol, though, are about the equivalent of two gnats hitting each other while flying through the grand canyon.

Space is vast, especially in the outer rim of the Milky Way where we reside, to where the chances of such a thing happening are virtually nonexistent.

Yes, I thought Old Sol was a bit of a wimp among all those massive stars out there, but I thought the black hole tipping point was way beyond Sol's puny little mass.

I am reassured by the gnat-gnat thing. You don't suppose there's a combined solar mass in the asteroid belt, do you?

And, say, while we're on the subject:

If, as an object falls into a black hole, some of its energy is radiated outward at the event horizon and escapes the black hole, why isn't ALL of its energy radiated outward to escape the black hole?

Current thinking seems to be that some of the object's energy is radiated outward at the event horizon but that most of the object passes through the event horizon to be crushed into who-know-what by the intense gravity of the black hole. There's fantastic speculation about what happens then. Some suggest that it enters some new dimension or parallel universe or somesuch. According to theory, its energy/mass can never escape the black hole.

Why is it necessary to speculate about all this?

Why could it not be that the gravity of the black hole--at the event horizon--is sufficient to convert all of the object's matter into energy that is irradiated outward?

I suppose I know the answer: The variation in size of black holes indicates that some contain more matter/energy than others, and if it were as I suggested above, then all black holes would be the same size.

So, if that be so, then it seems to me that anything falling into a black hole (past the event horizon) must be converted into energy and that that energy is compressed constantly into something whose nature can be known only mathematically. Is there a tipping point at which enough of this something explodes into a Big Bang? Maybe it takes a quantity of energy equal to that of the entire universe for this to happen?

If this be the case, then there is a sufficient quantity of energy that, when combined and compressed beyond a tipping point, CAN escape the gravity of a black hole.

I know you can explain this, Joe. Thanks. ~S