Crossing the Event Horizon
April 4th, 2025
This article is dedicated to Ryan Heshmati and Alan Cai for helping me find and grow my curiosity during high school.
Black holes often represent an ending. When a star has lost the energy it needs to combat the forces of gravity surrounding its body, it becomes overpowered and slowly compresses smaller and smaller. While some stars exhibit a red giant stage, all stars will eventually meet their fate through a certain few outcomes: a white dwarf (and sometimes, then, a black dwarf), a neutron star, or a black hole. But after black holes are formed, what then? Black holes keep the mind wandering, as each discovery brings about both answers and questions.
Image Courtesy of BBC Sky at Night Magazine via Getty Images
During the 1970s, Stephen Hawking proposed black holes evaporate slowly through a loss of mass and energy, in which he believed black holes absorbed “anti-particles” and released Hawking Radiation. Hawking claimed this loss in energy occurred near the event horizon when virtual particles became gravitationally pulled into a black hole; these particles would split, causing the black hole to absorb negative-energy particles and lose mass over time.
Meanwhile, the positive-energy particles would be emitted and would no longer be a virtual particle (dubbed Hawking Radiation). In simple terms, these virtual particles act similarly to normal particles but appear and disappear quickly in space. Hawking’s idea became the foundation for how a black hole could theoretically disappear as it eventually lost all its mass and energy (this process would take an immensely long time). The black hole’s size would correspond to how quickly it leaked energy and diminished in presence, with smaller black holes leaking Hawking Radiation at a faster pace.
Because Hawking’s theory has never been proven, scientists are always on the lookout. Last year, Giacomo Cacciapaglia, Stefan Hohennegger, and Francesco Sannino published “Measuring Hawking Radiation from Black Hole Morsels in Astrophysical Black Hole Mergers,” which discussed how Morsel black holes could provide helpful knowledge toward resolving Hawking Radiation. A Morsel black hole is formed when two black holes collide; while these black holes have a short lifespan, their “dying off” through evaporation could mirror Hawking’s claims if detectable/observable. To locate such occurrences, the researchers have proposed that the detection of large gamma-ray bursts would indicate their presence, possibly pinpointing proof of Hawking’s theory.
But do black holes only come in the form of a finale before dying off? Some people say no. Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin theorized that a collapsing black hole could lead to the creation of a new universe. If black holes can truly spark the creation of new universes as they die, is our universe simply a product of a collapsed black hole? Smolin’s theory on black holes is part of a larger theory of Black Hole Cosmology, in which our universe exists within a black hole. To explain this wild idea, Schwartchild’s radius is a key contributor. This radius marks the region of a black hole’s event horizon in which light cannot escape. Thus, it's proposed that Schwartchild’s radius acts as the border to our universe, preventing scientists from uncovering the parent universe that our host black star originates from.
Similar to Smolin’s theory, according to physicist Nikodem Poplawski via Space.com, every black hole would never fully collapse and die “compressing indefinitely to a singularity,” yet instead experience a sudden expansion due to torsion. Torsion, which essentially describes the stress and compressed matter funneled closer to a singularity point within a black hole, could create a repulsive force or “bounce” according to Poplawski. The effects would be similar to our Big Bang, and a new universe would form only within the bounds of the black hole.
Back in February of this year, Lior Shamir published “The distribution of galaxy rotation in JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey,” covering how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) detected 263 galaxies that seemingly favored a specific rotation in the same direction. From their research, over 2/3 of galaxies favor one direction of revolution, and “despite being relatively new, observations made in JWST deep fields have already challenged some of the foundational assumptions regarding the Universe” according to Shamir. Traditionally, astronomers believed a universe should not have a preferred direction of rotation, and only half its contents (galaxies) would likely rotate in a certain direction while the other half would spin in the opposite way. Some scientists have proposed that such a discovery indicates our universe was born to rotate in a specific direction, and therefore currently exists within the inside of a black hole. If Smolin’s black hole theory is partially true–black holes harbor universes–then our home could solely be part of the chain, and a minor aspect of a superior universe.
There’s a lot we do not know about black holes. They could indeed be the location where all things conclude and disappear forever. But they could also evaporate to aid new beginnings, or lead to alternative unforeseen conclusions. Black holes are a mystery.
I can, however, confidently claim that black holes will be the start and end of something: my writing career with the Brutus Journal. But it ultimately started so much more than writing. In my first article discussing a black hole, I grew fond of asking questions, and as I continued exploring an abundance of topics, I found a love for tunneling through rabbit holes and learning new things about rockets and astronomy–the essential trait of a researcher. Because of the Brutus Journal, I decided to explore research, and after conducting university lab research during the summer of my sophomore year, it became my passion and future career goal. The way I interpret black holes is never a definite conclusion, but rather a spark to something new and unknown that awaits discovery. While this will be the last article I write for the Brutus Journal, it will not be the end of my ever-growing curiosity. As of April 4th, 2024, I am deliberating over college decisions: UIUC, UMD, a few other institutions, and a waitlist to my dream university (the polite way to say “rejected”). Yet, these results would not have been achievable without this opportunity.
Thank you Brutus Journal.