What Is Inside A Black Hole

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

The answer to what is inside a black hole can be given in different ways. It is open to a little bit of interpretation since no one can give an fact based answer. All we have are theories, so here are a few of those theories.

One concept, a part of the vacuum solution to Einstein’s filed equations, is a worm hole that leads to a white hole. A white hole is the theoretical opposite of a black hole. Where a black hole attracts matter, a white hole will spew it our. Since the two are connected by the worn hole, what goes in one comes out of the other. That is a serious oversimplification of the complex works of Einstein, but it gets the basic point across.

Theoretical physicists have extensively pondered the contents of a black hole. Despite the fact that they suck in material that strays too close, they are empty. The mass of a black hole is confined to an infinitely small point at its center, called a singularity. A singularity is surrounded by a vast sphere of darkness called the event horizon. The event horizon and the gravitational pull of the singularity are strong enough to capture light, so there is nothing for astronomers to measure. If it can not be measured, then it must not exist. So, scientists believe that there is nothing inside of a black hole except the singularity itself.

Einstein and many who have followed him, believed that space and time are folded inside the singularity and that it is even possible that our universe began as a singularity that collapsed, then released all of its matter at a huge rate of speed. That is how the explain that everything in space is expanding away from everything else.

I know that you can looking for a concrete answer to what is inside a black hole. You are leaving with the same answer that everyone else has…no one knows.

We have written many articles about black holes for Universe Today. Here’s an article on how to escape from a black hole, and here are some facts about black holes.

If you’d like more info on black holes, check out NASA Science Page about Black Holes, and here’s more information from NASA from their educational pages.

We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast all about black holes. Listen here, Episode 18: Black Holes Big and Small.

Sources: UC Berkeley – Cosmology, University of Illinois, NASA

Tagged as: black hole, singularity