The article was originally published at The Conversation.
Can black holes become white holes?
I'm Hi Remy! Thank you for the question. The answer is no.
We have never seen a white hole or seen clues that one may exist. They are an idea for now.
Imagine a white hole as a black hole in reverse. Black holes would look like white holes. Time does not run in reverse in our universe.
Think about how black holes work.
White holes may be the secret ingredient in dark matter.
The tennis ball falls to the ground due to gravity. The tennis ball is pulled down by the Earth.
The ball would be pulled on more strongly by gravity if Earth had more material inside. If we stood on the surface of a shrunken Earth, the pull would be stronger.
Imagine if we were deep space explorers and we found something out in space that was both heavy and small. We keep our spaceship away from it because it pulls very strongly.
Nothing inside could escape to the outside. The spaceship had the biggest rocket boosters. A laser beam would not make it to the outside.
A black hole is what this object is.
Imagine if we stuck around in our spaceship and made a movie of this black hole.
We would never see anything escape the black hole as we watched it. The black hole would eat anything that came too close. As we watch, the black hole swallows a star.
Our movie, titled "Black hole eats a star", gets a million views online. Imagine if we played it in reverse. In the backwards movie, we would see a very heavy, very small object just sitting there and then, all of a sudden, spit out an entire star.
The object we are looking at is called a white hole because it spits out everything and eats nothing.
Our telescopes show that black holes exist.
We have never seen a white hole, which is a shame. Albert Einstein, a great scientist who is no longer alive, is the reason why astronomy thinks about white holes.
The invisible force that keeps our feet on the ground was invented by Einstein. His theory describes how black holes work.
Einstein says white holes are possible. Is our universe capable of making a white hole? A black hole could become a white hole. Probably not. Something can be possible, but also very unlikely in real life.
White holes are a type of thing. Think of breakfast in the same way: Your egg is in the pan and you jump out to get it. It is possible, but it would mean that time had turned around and started running backwards.
Time in our universe only flows in one direction, forward. White holes are an interesting possibility for now.
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