• Question: Can we ever enter a black hole and leave to another universe?

    Asked by Peter to Alice, Bose, Christian, Emma, Steve on 4 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Maisie, amaan.ahmed7, johainna, Ipsita.
    • Photo: Alice Harpole

      Alice Harpole answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      Maybe – it’s believed that it could be possible for a certain type of black hole called a wormhole could exist. Wormholes act like tunnels between points in spacetime that would otherwise be billions of light years apart or even in different universes or a different points in time. It’s thought that for us to be able to travel through wormholes, they’d need to be held open by something called exotic matter (basically matter that goes beyond our current understanding of particle physics), plus there is the small issue of finding one in the first place and getting to it (as it’s likely to be many many light years away)!

    • Photo: Christian Killow

      Christian Killow answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      The truth is… nobody really knows! (And certainly nobody has ever tried it…) Black holes are fantastical objects. They have huge gravitational fields that warp space and time. We are interested in finding out more about how the laws of physics in these very, very extreme situations so that we will know the answer to questions like this!

    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      I would say yes and no. The maths says ‘yes’ it is possible, wormholes can exist. So we would be able to travel from side of the universe to another very quickly, or even to another universe. The problem arises when we try and enter a black hole. First you would be blasted with extremely energetic radiation. Then you would be stretched like spaghetti until you are ripped apart because the gravity is so strong. If you survive that, then you would hit the singularity in the centre. No-one knows what happens then, because the laws of physics of our universe completely break down.

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