Sign up with GoogleStable planetary orbits are theorized to exist inside black hole event horizons; advanced lifeforms may live there too.
Could a black hole be the ultimate destination for a reclusive, advanced alien race?
Planets and maybe even advanced life could theoretically exist inside a black hole, according to a new theory.
The idea by physicist Professor Vyacheslav Dokuchaev from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow appears to go against the common belief that black holes are giant gravity wells gobbling up anything that gets too close.
In a paper written for the journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and appearing on the pre-press website arXiv.org, Dokuchaev follows on from previous theories that subatomic particles such as photons can have stable orbits inside the internal structure of some black holes.
He says supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies could allow particles, and perhaps even planets with life, to orbit the singularity without being destroyed.
The singularity is located at the heart of a black hole, and is the place where the laws of physics and space-time break down.
It's surrounded by the event horizon, a region beyond which objects need to travel faster than the speed of light to escape the black hole. Because nothing can theoretically travel faster than the speed of light, nothing escapes once it's passed the event horizon.
In his paper, Dokuchaev studies hypothetical orbits in the area between the event horizon and the singularity to understand their dynamics.
He says while conventional orbits wouldn't be possible, there are some places where particles and planets could have stable though unusual spiral orbits.
Dokuchaev calculates, such a planet would be brightly illuminated by the singularity and by photons trapped in the same orbit.
"This planet might even support a complex chemistry rich enough to allow life to evolve", says Dokuchaev.
"Advanced civilizations may live safely inside the black hole without being visible from the outside".
Dokuchaev admits such a civilization would have to cope with extraordinary conditions including huge tidal forces and massive energy densities as photons become trapped.
And he admits there's also the problem of causality violations, where the rules of space-time don't apply.
Astronomer Dr David Floyd from the Australian Astronomical Observatory and the University of Melbourne says even if the theory is correct, it would be impossible to know what is occurring beyond the event horizon of a black hole.
"At this point - and perhaps forever - we're restricted to making untestable assertions," says Floyd.
"As far as we know, matter would go into free fall, that is, it would all fall into this tiny infinitesimal point at the centre which forms the singularity."
Floyd says the paper one shortcoming of the paper is that it assumes radiation has no impact on orbits inside the black hole.
"It wouldn't take much to produce drag which would slow down the orbits described in Dokuchaev paper, causing them to collapse onto the singularity".
But Floyd admits it opens up some interesting philosophical questions.
"Given the number of black holes in the universe - lots - one might infer that life is inevitable inside at least one of them if there really are stable orbits," he says. "Maybe there are entire universes inside black holes."
Link: Could life survive inside a black hole?
Could a black hole be the ultimate destination for a reclusive, advanced alien race?
Planets and maybe even advanced life could theoretically exist inside a black hole, according to a new theory.
The idea by physicist Professor Vyacheslav Dokuchaev from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow appears to go against the common belief that black holes are giant gravity wells gobbling up anything that gets too close.
In a paper written for the journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and appearing on the pre-press website arXiv.org, Dokuchaev follows on from previous theories that subatomic particles such as photons can have stable orbits inside the internal structure of some black holes.
He says supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies could allow particles, and perhaps even planets with life, to orbit the singularity without being destroyed.
The singularity is located at the heart of a black hole, and is the place where the laws of physics and space-time break down.
It's surrounded by the event horizon, a region beyond which objects need to travel faster than the speed of light to escape the black hole. Because nothing can theoretically travel faster than the speed of light, nothing escapes once it's passed the event horizon.
In his paper, Dokuchaev studies hypothetical orbits in the area between the event horizon and the singularity to understand their dynamics.
He says while conventional orbits wouldn't be possible, there are some places where particles and planets could have stable though unusual spiral orbits.
Dokuchaev calculates, such a planet would be brightly illuminated by the singularity and by photons trapped in the same orbit.
"This planet might even support a complex chemistry rich enough to allow life to evolve", says Dokuchaev.
"Advanced civilizations may live safely inside the black hole without being visible from the outside".
Dokuchaev admits such a civilization would have to cope with extraordinary conditions including huge tidal forces and massive energy densities as photons become trapped.
And he admits there's also the problem of causality violations, where the rules of space-time don't apply.
Astronomer Dr David Floyd from the Australian Astronomical Observatory and the University of Melbourne says even if the theory is correct, it would be impossible to know what is occurring beyond the event horizon of a black hole.
"At this point - and perhaps forever - we're restricted to making untestable assertions," says Floyd.
"As far as we know, matter would go into free fall, that is, it would all fall into this tiny infinitesimal point at the centre which forms the singularity."
Floyd says the paper one shortcoming of the paper is that it assumes radiation has no impact on orbits inside the black hole.
"It wouldn't take much to produce drag which would slow down the orbits described in Dokuchaev paper, causing them to collapse onto the singularity".
But Floyd admits it opens up some interesting philosophical questions.
"Given the number of black holes in the universe - lots - one might infer that life is inevitable inside at least one of them if there really are stable orbits," he says. "Maybe there are entire universes inside black holes."
Link: Could life survive inside a black hole?
