• Question: whats inside a black hole

    Asked by 238furk43 to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Kieran, Sarah on 8 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by 438furk43, 895furk43, mia.f.
    • Photo: Kathryn Schoenrock

      Kathryn Schoenrock answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      That’s a really good question. I don’t know the answer to it…

      I recently was learning about the discovery of gravity waves- have you heard of this? The scientists recently discovered them in Antarctica using the machine called ‘Ice Cube’, but Albert Einstein first had the idea they might exist in the early 1900s! The cool thing about gravity waves is they help explain how gold and other rare elements are created.

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      At the heart of a black hole is the most mysterious thing in physics, the singularity. It is a point which time and all known laws of physics just fall apart. We may never really know exactly what it is.

      In contrast to something like a neutron star which is the remnants of a collapsed star, only 20km across, a black hole is even smaller. The tricky thing is that we’ve never seen one up close (thank goodness) however later this year we may get the picture of the event horizon of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The event horizon is the ‘point of no return’ from which even light cannot escape, so that’s another reason why they are so mysterious.

      A major point looking at the equation for gravity, when you apply it to a black hole the gravity at the centre of the black hole comes out as infinity…which is impossible. With our current knowledge of black holes, physically knowing what is in the centre of a black hole is beyond our capabilities, but hopefully with the gravitational wave studies, we can start to put a better picture together.

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