Particles appearing on the edge of a black hole could cause it to lose mass over time. <\/p>
One of Professor Stephen Hawking\u2019s most famous ideas is known as Hawking radiation. By leaking particles back into space, a black hole<\/a> can very slowly evaporate away.<\/p> But what exactly is Hawking radiation, and how is it generated?<\/p> Physicists know that on the smallest scales of the Universe pairs of particles pop into existence, suddenly appearing out of the vacuum only to rapidly recombine and disappear again.<\/p> They are called \u2018virtual particles\u2019 and Stephen Hawking wondered what would happen if this process unfolded right on the event horizon of a black hole.<\/p> More about black holes:<\/strong><\/em><\/p> If one particle crosses the event horizon then it is forever separated from its companion and can never recombine with it.<\/p> The particles that are left outside the event horizon are called \u2018Hawking radiation\u2019.<\/p> However, the particles had to \u2018borrow\u2019 energy from empty space to appear in the first place.<\/p> Normally this debt is repaid when they recombine, but as that can\u2019t happen in this case they effectively default on the loan.<\/p> The repayment has to come from somewhere: the black hole.<\/p> So over time a black hole slowly loses mass due to the constant need to cover these energy debts to empty space. It means that a black hole slowly evaporates over time.<\/p> Although \u2018slowly\u2019 is a bit of an understatement. The number of years it would take a black hole with the same mass as the Sun to evaporate is one followed by 64 zeros \u2013 many times the current age of the Universe.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Particles appearing on the edge of a black hole could cause it to lose mass over time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":54189,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms.jpg",1000,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms-300x240.jpg",300,240,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms-768x614.jpg",768,614,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms.jpg",800,640,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms.jpg",1000,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/01\/hawking-radiation-explained-in-simple-terms.jpg",1000,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Particles appearing on the edge of a black hole could cause it to lose mass over time.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/54188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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