The question of whether our universe could be inside a black hole may seem strange, but it comes from our understanding of how black holes are formed—and where they end up once they form. The most massive stars in the universe typically become black holes when they die, after running out of nuclear fuel and collapsing inward on themselves due to their own gravity. Theoretically, this could happen to any massive star, even the one at the center of our galaxy.
When an entire galaxy gets eaten by a supermassive black hole
Sgr A* is 3.7 million light years away from us and about 4 million times more massive than our sun. It is surrounded by a small galaxy, which orbits it once every few hundred thousand years. Over time, though, astronomers have observed that stars are being ripped out of that galaxy and into Sgr A*. These stars would be traveling at up to 10% of the speed of light. That’s not fast enough to escape a black hole’s gravitational pull—so where did they go? Some scientists believe these stars are being swallowed by Sgr A*, but others think there’s another explanation: They may have fallen into an alternate universe that exists on the other side of a black hole.
When two supermassive black holes merge
Could that event create a black hole so big it would warp space-time so greatly that it effectively swallows everything in our universe? If two supermassive black holes, each with masses tens of thousands of times larger than our sun’s, can merge to form one single supermassive black hole, could that merged behemoth then grow even larger by swallowing other matter such as gas, stars and other black holes? These are all questions astrophysicists are trying to answer. But if they do prove true, what does that mean for us? Would we ever know if our universe had been devoured by a supermassive black hole inside another dimension? The short answer is no. We wouldn’t have any way of knowing because we wouldn’t be able to see anything outside of our own dimension—which means we probably wouldn’t notice anything was amiss until it was too late.
If we’re in a black hole, what does space look like?
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, black holes are so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull. So, if we’re stuck inside one of these objects, how would space look around us? As it turns out, according to scientists at University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), space could still appear as we know it—and that includes our universe! In fact, they say we might be able to see evidence of other universes from within a black hole. Read on for more details on why and how…
Even though we don’t directly observe black holes, astronomers can see them through their effects on nearby objects. One way of doing so is by looking at stars which circle around supermassive black holes lying at the heart of galaxies—we call these stars black-hole binaries. However, some binary systems exhibit unusual behaviors which indicate they might be orbiting an object other than a supermassive black hole.
Does time exist in a black hole?
No, time does not exist in a black hole. Because all matter that goes into a black hole ceases to exist, including clocks, it is impossible for anything to experience time inside a black hole. And if there is no time, then there can’t be any movement through that time. This means that once something falls into a black hole, from its perspective—as far as it knows—nothing ever happens; everything just keeps getting colder and colder and colder . . . forever. For us outside of a black hole, however, things are very different. We know that when an object falls into a black hole, we see it get hotter and hotter and hotter until it hits some kind of fiery demise at what scientists call the singularity. So from our perspective (and outside of a black hole), time definitely exists. Time may even be an illusion but we certainly seem to experience it!
If we fell into a black hole, would we die instantly or survive for awhile before being crushed by gravity?
We’re all familiar with black holes from science fiction, but could they actually exist? And if so, could we fall inside one and survive for any length of time before being crushed by gravity or burned to a crisp? Let’s take a look at what physicists say about black holes—and how real their threat is to us.
The good news is that black holes aren’t common in our galaxy. As far as scientists can tell, there are fewer than 100 million of them within a thousand light-years (that’s over 6 trillion miles!) of Earth. In fact, our Milky Way galaxy alone has between 100 and 400 billion stars—so even assuming each star has an equal chance of harboring a black hole…the odds are in your favor!
What does life look like on the surface of an Earth-like planet orbiting within the event horizon of a supermassive black hole?
When searching for habitable exoplanets, we look for Earth-like worlds that sit within their stars’ Goldilocks zone – not too hot and not too cold. But what if there were more factors to consider? What if a world is in its star’s Goldilocks zone but still too close to a black hole at its center to support life? Could such planets even exist, and what would they be like on their surfaces? Here we investigate how such scenarios might play out in real life. We find that although there are indeed ways for an Earth-like planet to be stable in orbit around a supermassive black hole, it would probably not host any life as we know it. However, some exotic forms of life could possibly survive. We also find that stable orbits around supermassive black holes may occur farther away than previously thought possible.
Could quantum mechanics allow us to teleport from the surface of such a planet into our own Universe?
A team of astrophysicists from Harvard University and Boston University has devised a method by which quantum teleportation could be used to probe black holes. They envisage using these probes to find out what happens inside black holes in ways that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Their paper, Quantum Teleportation within General Relativity, was published in Annals of Physics. We are not sure how exactly nature behaves near a black hole, so any information we can get will help us answer fundamental questions about gravity and quantum mechanics, said co-author Professor Martin Savage in a press release. We are proposing to use an effect predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity called ‘gravitational redshift’ as a way to send information about what happens just outside of a black hole back to Earth.
The singularity at the center of this hypothetical planet’s supermassive black hole might hold an entire new universe with its own physical laws!
A black hole’s gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape from it, not even light. If you were to jump inside one of these cosmic monsters, time would stand still and all matter would be crushed down into an infinitely dense point known as a singularity. Now two physicists in Australia say they have discovered evidence that black holes might not just swallow up matter and spacetime but could actually spit out new universes — some of which might contain their own copies of Earth.
