{"id":29852,"date":"2022-03-09T11:18:12","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T11:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=105625"},"modified":"2022-03-09T11:30:11","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T11:30:11","slug":"what-is-a-white-hole","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/what-is-a-white-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a white hole?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Marcus Chown\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 09 March 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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A white hole is a time-reversed black hole \u2013 a region of space-time where matter spontaneously appears and explodes outwards, rather than implodes and disappears as with a black hole.<\/p>\n

White holes are essentially the opposite of black holes, in that they spit out light and matter, rather than trapping it.<\/p>\n

So far, white holes they are purely hypothetical objects, but astronomers are contemplating how they could form in reality.<\/p>\n

A black hole<\/a> forms when a massive star at the end of its life shrinks catastrophically under its own gravity down to an infinitesimally small point, or singularity.<\/p>\n

All that is left behind from the stellar collapse is a grossly warped region of space, so where does the star\u2019s matter actually go?<\/p>\n

One possibility is that it explodes into another universe as a white hole.<\/p>\n

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No light can escape a black hole, but it can be bent around it, which means a black hole\u2019s \u201cshadow\u201d is wreathed in bright light. Image Credit: M. Moscibrodzka, T. Bronzwaer and H. Falcke, Radboud UniversityCredit: M. Moscibrodzka, T. Bronzwaer and H. Falcke, Radboud University<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The white hole has to be in another universe because the defining characteristic of a black hole is that the event horizon, which hides the singularity from view, is one-way.<\/p>\n

In other words, things that fall through it can never emerge again in our Universe.<\/p>\n

For matter to pass between universes, the black hole and the white <\/span>hole must be connected by a wormhole<\/span> \u2013 a tunnel through space-time.<\/p>\n

Some scientists have suggested that super-energetic objects such as quasars are white holes, and perhaps even the Big Bang itself was a gigantic version.<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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