What Happens To Matter Swallowed By Black Holes? Scientists May Finally Know

We've all wondered what happens to things that get swallowed by black holes. Now, Japanese physicists claim to have found an answer to the giant cosmic mystery of black holes.

Black holes have extremely strong gravitational pull, meaning nothing - not even light can escape these elusive structures.

A team from Japan's RIKEN research institute believes that black holes mimic the behaviour of wormholes. What does this mean? Quite simply that black holes have two end points with an escape tunnel of sorts that spews out the matter swallowed on one end.

Representational Image/Caltech

We've all heard conspiracy theories about blackholes being the mass transit system of the cosmos and now it appears that this thought might have some merit after all.

The information paradox of black holes

The information paradox that is imbued in the existence of black holes has puzzled scientists for decades. For starters, Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity claims that nothing can escape black holes. But in the 1970s, Stephen Hawking claimed that black holes emit radiation as they shrink. Based on this understanding, all information about the matter swallowed by a black hole should also evaporate with the black hole.

Wikipedia

But quantum physics runs on the idea that no information can ever simply disappear from the universe - that it finds expression in one way or another.

Also read: Supermassive Black Holes Are Shaped Like Pancakes, Confirms Study

In a statement, RIKEN Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences' researcher Kanato Goto said that "this suggests that general relativity and quantum mechanics as they currently stand are inconsistent with each other. We have to find a unified framework for quantum gravity."

The team behind this groundbreaking work is of the view that a wormhole "connects the interior of the black hole and the radiation outside... like a bridge."

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Even with this resolution, there remain innumerable questions. We still don't know the basic mechanism of how information is carried away by the radiation," Goto said.

Also read: Hubble Captures Bizarre Black Hole Helping Birth Sun-Like Stars Far Away

What do you think happens to information swallowed by black holes? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.

References

Lea, R. (2022, March 9). Wormholes Could Explain What Happens to Matter Swallowed by Black Holes. Newsweek.

Edited by Gadgets 360 Newsdesk. (2022, March 12). What Happens to Matter Swallowed by Black Holes? Japanese Physicists May Finally Have an Answer. NDTV Gadgets 360.