Black holes may be 'back doors' to other parts of the universe, researchers claim

• Researchers say there could be a wormhole at the center of black holes
• Any matter passing through would be stretched to extremes to enter
• It would be returned to normal size upon exiting in a different region
• This goes against idea that matter sucked into black hole is lost forever

Deep inside of a black hole lies a region known as the gravitational singularity, where space-time curves toward infinity, and no matter passing through can survive – or so it’s been thought.In a new study, researchers suggest there may instead be a way out through a wormhole at the center of the black hole, which acts as a ‘back door.’By this theory, anything traveling through the black hole would be ‘spaghettified,’ or stretched to the extreme, but returned back to its normal size when it emerges in a different region of the universe.

In the new theory, anything traveling through the black hole would be ‘spaghettified,’ or stretched to the extreme, but returned back to its normal size when it emerges in a different region of the universe. An artist's impression of a wormhole is pictured
Physicists from the Institute of Corpuscular Physics in Valencia propose a new scenario that considers the singularity as an imperfection in the geometric structure of space-time.To test this idea, the researchers took uncommon approach, using geometric structures similar to those of a crystal of graphene layer, which better match the activity inside of a black hole.

For the study, published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the team focused on a type of black hole which is motionless and electrically-charged.
‘Black holes are a theoretical laboratory for trying out new ideas about gravity,’ says Gonzalo Olmo, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the University of Valencia.
‘Just as crystals have imperfections in their microscopic structure, the central region of a black hole can be interpreted as an anomaly in space-time, which requires new geometric elements in order to be able to describe them more precisely.
‘We explored all possible options, taking inspiration from facts observed in nature.’
 In a new study, researchers suggest there may instead be a way out through a wormhole at the centre of the black hole, which acts as a ¿back door.¿ An illustration of a black hole is pictured
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 In a new study, researchers suggest there may instead be a way out through a wormhole at the centre of the black hole, which acts as a ‘back door.’ An illustration of a black hole is pictured
By analyzing the new geometries, the researchers found a center point with a small, spherical surface, representing a wormhole at the heart of a black hole.
‘Our theory naturally resolves several problems in the interpretation of electrically-charged black holes,’ Olmo explains.

WHAT IS SPAGHETTIFICATION?

If you stray too close to a black hole, then you will stretch out, just like spaghetti, due to a gravitation gradient across your body.
Imagine that you are headed feet first towards a black hole.
Since your feet are physically closer to the black hole, they will feel a stronger gravitation pull towards it than your head will.
You arms, by virtue of the fact that they're not at the centre of your body, will be attracted in a slightly different direction than your head is.
This will cause parts of the body toward the edges to be brought inwards.
The net result is not only an elongation of the body overall, but also a thinning out in the middle.
Hence, your body or any other object, such as Earth, will start to resemble spaghetti long before it hits the centre of the black hole.
‘In the first instance, we resolve the problem of the singularity, since there is a door at the centre of the black hole, the wormhole, through which space and time can continue.’
The equations revealed that a wormhole at the centre would be smaller than an atomic nucleus, but increases in size relative to the charge stored within the black hole.
Researchers say the matter inside the black hole would not be lost forever as it¿s previously been thought, and would instead be expelled into another area of the universe.

Researchers say the matter inside the black hole would not be lost forever as it’s previously been thought, and would instead be expelled into another area of the universe.
If any matter were passing through, it would be stretched to extreme measures, allowing it to enter the wormhole.
Then, it would be compacted as it comes out on the other side.
While it’s unlikely that a human would survive this process, the researchers say the matter inside the black hole would not be lost forever as it’s previously been thought, and would instead be expelled into another area of the universe.
And, the researchers say there would be no need for ‘exotic’ energy to generate the wormhole, as Einstein’s theory of gravity suggests.
‘In our theory,’ the researcher explained, ‘the wormhole appears out of ordinary matter and energy, such as an electric field.’ 

WHAT IS A WORMHOLE? 

Space-time can be warped and distorted. It takes an enormous amount of matter or energy to create such distortions, but theoretically, distortions are possible.
In the case of the wormhole, a shortcut is made by warping the fabric of space-time. Imagine folding a piece of paper with two pencil marks drawn on it to represent two points in space-time.
The line between them shows the distance from one point to the other in normal space-time.
If the paper is now bent and folded over almost double - the equivalent to warping space-time - then poking the pencil through the paper provides a much shorter way of linking the two points, in the same way a wormhole would create a shortcut.

The problem with using wormholes to travel in space or time is that they are inherently unstable. When a particle enters a wormhole, it also creates fluctuations that cause the structure to collapse in on it.

Forget the Big Bang: The Universe 'froze' it's way into existence in a Big Chill, say physicists

• University of Melbourne suggest theory could 'revolutionise' our understanding of the universe
• Theory suggests the universe moved from a 'fluid' state to a fixed state of three spatial directions
• Investigating ice crystals could lead to understanding of 'cracks' in time and space

The traditional image of the birth of the universe suggests that all matter sparked into existence in a cataclysmic Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago.

But this model is now being challenged by a theory which suggests the universe froze its way into existence in what has been deemed a 'Big Chill'.

Theoretical physicists at the University of Melbourne said the best metaphor for the start of the universe should be considered as water freezing into ice.

In this theory, the three spatial dimensions and the one dimension of time 'froze' into place - and the physicists suggest we could learn about the 'cracks in time and space' by investigating the natural cracks in ice particles.

The Big Chill: Physicists from the University of Melbourne suggest we view the universe and the four known dimensions as 'freezing'  their way into existence

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Coast To Coast AM - 6.12.2011 - Wartime UFOs, Giant Black Holes

Wartime UFOs: In the course of researching his novels, military fiction writer Mack Maloney discovered startling historical records of an increase of UFO sightings near pivotal military events. On Tuesday's show, he discussed a variety of incidents from World Wars I & II, as well as Viet Nam and other battle zones. One of the earliest cases he found dated back to the time of Alexander the Great, when his army was planning a siege on the city of Tyre, and "flying shields" let out a lightning bolt that destroyed one of the city's walls, which allowed Alexander's army to get in. Proceeding WWI, "scareships" were reported by British newspapers in 1909.

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Magnetic mega-star discovery challenges black hole theory

A neutron star with a mighty magnetic field has thrown down the gauntlet
to theories about stellar evolution and the birth of black holes,
astronomers said today.

This artist's impression of a magnetar contains hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost one million suns Photo: ESO
 

The "magnetar" lies in a cluster of stars known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the constellation of Ara, the Altar.

Westerlund 1, discovered in 1961 by a Swedish astronomer, is a favoured observation site in stellar physics. It is one of the biggest cluster of superstars in the Milky Way, comprising hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost a million Suns and some two thousand times the Sun's diameter.

The cluster is also, by the standards of the Universe, very young.
The stars were all born from a single event just three and a half to five million years ago.
Within Westerlund 1 is the remains of one of galaxy's few magnetars - a particular kind of neutron star, formed from the explosion of a supernova, that can exert a magnetic field a million, billion times strong than Earth's.

The Westerlund star which eventually became the magnetar must have been at least 40 times the mass of the Sun, according to the study, which appears in the research journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. If so, intriguing questions are raised.

The mainstream assumption is that stars of between 10 and 25 solar masses go on to form neutron stars. But those above 25 solar masses produce black holes -- the light-gobbling gravitational monsters that are formed when a massive, dying star collapses in on itself.
In that case, the magnetar's mother should have become a black hole because it was so big.
But another alternative, say the authors, is that the star "slimmed" to a lower mass, enabling it to become a neutron star.

How did this happen? The answer, says the paper, could lie in a binary system: the star that became the magnetar was born with a stellar companion.
As the stars evolved, they began to interact, and the companion star, like a demonic twin, began to steal mass from the progenitor star.

Eventually the progenitor exploded, becoming a supernova.
The binary connection was sundered by the blast and both stars were ejected from the cluster, leaving just glowing remnants which are the magnetar, according to this theory.
"If this is the case, it suggests that binary systems might play a key role in stellar evolution," said Simon Clark, who led the team, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile, to make the observations.

A binary system could be "the ultimate cosmic 'diet plan' for heavyweight stars, which shifts over 95 per cent of their initial mass," he said.

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Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman:The Riddle of the Black Holes

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Part 5

He's personified God and Nelson Mandela, driven Miss Daisy and marched with the penguins.

Now, Morgan Freeman takes on an even bigger challenge — searching for answers to the some of the great mysteries of our universe. Freeman hosts a special for the Science Channel, Through The Wormhole.

Freeman credits the hand of providence for guiding him to the project. "I've been interested in this subject for a very long time," Freeman tells NPR's Neal Conan.

In Through The Wormhole, all theories around the creation of the universe are entertained, says Freeman. But those who take a literal view of the Bible will not find the series encouraging.

If the Bible is interpreted literally, then "the world is only about 6,000 years old," says Freeman. "So we have to do that with care, but ask the questions. Mostly what the series does is ask the questions. I don't think it produces any answers."
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EXOPOLITICS RADIO: Dr. Carl Johan Calleman on money, hierarchy collapse and the new era

EXOPOLITICS RADIO: Dr. Carl Johan Calleman on money, hierarchy collapse and the new era (Part 1)

EXOPOLITICS RADIO: Dr. Carl Johan Calleman on money, hierarchy collapse and the new era (Part 2)
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What would it look like to fall into a black hole?

21:46 01 April 2009 by
Stephen Battersby
Video:
Falling into a black hole would be a one-off sightseeing trip, so this simulation,
calculated by Andrew Hamilton and his team at the
University of Colorado,Boulder, is a safer option

Falling into a black hole might not be good for your health,
but at least the view would be fine. A new simulation shows what you might see
on your way towards the black hole's crushing central singularity. The research
could help physicists understand the apparently paradoxical fate of matter and
energy in a black hole.
Andrew Hamilton and Gavin Polhemus of the University of Colorado, Boulder,
built a computer code based on the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity,
which describes gravity as a distortion of space and time.
They follow the fate of an imaginary observer on an orbit that swoops down
into a giant black hole weighing 5 million times the mass of the sun, about
the same size as the hole in the centre of our galaxy.
As you approach, a dark circle is bitten out of the galaxy containing the
black hole, marking the event horizon – the point beyond which nothing can
escape the black hole's grip. Light from stars directly behind the hole is
swallowed by the horizon, while light from other stars is merely bent by the
black hole's gravity, forming a warped image around the hole.

Horizontal ring
To distant observers, the horizon has a size of one Schwartzschild radius
– about 15 million kilometres for this hole – but as you approach, it recedes
from you. Even after you cross this radius, there is still a point in front
of you where all light is swallowed, so from your point of view, you never
reach the horizon.
Hamilton and Polhemus have painted a red grid on the horizon to help visualise
it (as the horizon is spherical, the two circles on the grid represent the
north and south "poles" of its central black hole). And as you pass one Schwartzschild
radius, another artificial visual aid pops up. The white grid that loops around
you marks where distant observers would place the horizon – this is where
you'd see other people falling in if they followed you through the horizon.
The strangest sight is reserved for your last moments. So close to the
centre of the black hole, you feel powerful tidal forces. If you're falling
in feet first, gravity at your head is much weaker than at your feet. That
would pull a real observer apart, and it also affects the light falling in
around you - light from above your head is stretched out and shifted to the
red end of the spectrum. Eventually it gets red-shifted into nothingness,
so your whole view will be squeezed into a horizontal ring.

Information paradox
This process might shed some light on a black hole puzzle. Quantum calculations
seem to show that there is too much complexity within a black hole - in earlier
work, the researchers calculated that it should be possible to create much
more entropy (a measure of disorder) inside the black hole than is measured
by outside observers.This is like a supercharged version of the
old black hole information paradox, which pits the apparent destruction of
objects - and information - that falls into a black hole against quantum mechanics,
which states that quantum information can never be lost.The problem may
be that we have a naive view of space, which breaks down
inside the black hole. To calculate total entropy, Hamilton and Polhemus assumed
that you add up all the possible states that matter and energy could take
at different points in space. But along with other theorists, they suspect
that this usual assumption, called locality, doesn't work inside a black hole.
Somehow, different points in space seem to share the same states - but it's
not clear how.That's where visualisations like this might just help. "Close
to the singularity, it appears that the entire three-dimensional universe is
being crushed into a two-dimensional surface," says Hamilton
(see Our world may be a giant hologram). But whether it hints that a
2D view is more fundamental is not yet clear. "Does it have any profound significance?
I don't know," says Hamilton.