Space & Astronomy

Black holes are able to swallow stars whole

By T.K. Randall
May 31, 2017

Image: Black Hole - Large Magellanic Cloud
Credit: Alain r / CC BY-SA 2.5 (adapted) Few cosmic phenomena remain as frightening and mysterious as black holes - regions of space in which the gravitational pull is so great that nothing, not even light itself, can escape.

There is still much we don't understand about black holes and in particular, the event horizon - the boundary beyond which there is no escape - the so-called 'point of no return'.

Now though, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Texas have found new evidence to suggest that matter really does disappear when it falls in to a black hole and that the event horizon, far from being theoretical, is a very real thing indeed.Their findings were based on a new analysis of available data on supermassive black holes which are particularly enormous black holes believed to exist in the center of most galaxies.

Their plan was to look for flare-ups in brightness whenever a star fell in to a black hole - something that should, in theory, imply that the black hole had a solid surface that could be collided with.

Instead however they saw no flares in brightness at all, suggesting that the black holes they had observed really did have an event horizon and that the stars were being swallowed up whole.

"Our work implies that some, and perhaps all, black holes have event horizons and that material really does disappear from the observable universe when pulled into these exotic objects, as we've expected for decades," said astronomer Ramesh Narayan.

Source: The Guardian

Tags: Black Hole