Black Holes As We Know Them May Not Exist [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

By Mara Johnson-Groh - Live Science Contributor 12 hours ago Space

They may be something else entirely.



If you were to dive into a black hole (something we would not recommend), you"d likely find a singularity, or an infinitely small and dense point, at the center. Or that"s what physicists have always thought.

But now a pair of scientists suggests that some black holes may not be black holes at all. Instead, they may be weird objects chock-full of dark energy — the mysterious force thought to be pushing at the bounds of the universe, causing it to expand at an ever-increasing rate.

"If what we thought were black holes are actually objects without singularities, then the accelerated expansion of our universe is a natural consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity," said Kevin Croker, an astrophysicist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.

Croker and a colleague describe this idea in a new study, published online Aug. 28 in the Astrophysical Journal. If they are right, and the singularity at the heart of a black hole could be replaced by a weird energy flinging everything apart, that may revolutionize the way we think about these dense objects.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/black-holes-may-not-exist.html