Black holes are some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe, capable of warping the fabric of space around them so violently that even light cannot escape their gravitational grip. But it turns out that much of what scientists know about these mysterious objects may be wrong.
According to a new study, published in April in the journal Physical examination Dblack holes may actually be entirely different celestial entities known as gravastars.
“Gravastars are hypothetical astronomical objects that were introduced [in 2001] as an alternative to black holes”, co-author of the study João Luís Rosa, a professor of physics at the University of Gdańsk in Poland, told Live Science in an email. “They can be interpreted as stars made of vacuum energy or dark energy: the same kind of energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe.”
Solving black hole paradoxes with gravastar
Karl Schwarzschild, a German physicist and astronomer, first predicted black holes in 1915, based on calculations using Albert Einstein’s. general theory of relativity.
Over the years, astronomical observations have seemingly confirmed the existence of objects that resemble black holes. However, Schwarzschild’s description of these spatial bodies has several shortcomings.
In particular, the center of a black hole is predicted to be a point of infinitely high density, called a singularity, where all of the black hole’s mass is concentrated but fundamental. physics teaches us that infinities do not exist, and their appearance in any theory signals its inaccuracy or incompleteness.
“These problems indicate that something is either wrong or incomplete in the black hole model and that the development of alternative models is necessary,” Rosa said. “The gravastar is one of many proposed alternative models. The main advantage of gravastars is that they have no singularity.”
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Like ordinary black holes, gravastars must be born at the final stage of the evolution of massive stars, when the energy released during the thermonuclear burning of matter inside them is no longer sufficient to overcome the force of gravity, and the star collapses into a mass much denser. Object. But unlike black holes, gravastars are not expected to have any features and are thought to be thin spheres of matter whose stability is maintained by the dark energy contained within them.
To find out whether gravastars are viable alternatives to special black holes, Rosa and his colleagues examined the interaction of particles and radiation with these hypothetical objects.
Using EinsteinAccording to his theory, the authors examined how the large masses of hot matter surrounding supermassive black holes would appear if these black holes were indeed gravastars. They also examined the properties of “hot spots” — giant bubbles of gas swirling around black holes at near-light speeds.
Their findings revealed striking similarities between the matter emissions of gravastars and black holes, suggesting that gravastars do not contradict scientists’ experimental observations of the universe. Additionally, the team found that a gravastar itself should look almost like a single black hole, creating a visible shadow.
“This shadow is not caused by the blocking of light at the event horizon, but by a slightly different phenomenon called ‘gravitational redshift’, which causes light to lose energy as it moves through a region with a strong gravitational field.” Rosa said. “Indeed, when light emitted from regions near these alternative objects arrives[es] our telescopes, most of its energy would have been lost to the gravitational field, causing this shadow to appear.”
The striking similarities between the Schwarzschild black hole model and gravastars highlight the latter’s potential as a realistic alternative, free from the theoretical pitfalls of singularities.
However, this theory needs to be supported by experiments and observations, which the authors of the study believe can be carried out soon. While gravastars and special black holes may behave similarly in many respects, subtle differences in the light they emit can tell them apart.
“To test our results experimentally, we are counting on the next generation of observational experiments in gravitational physics,” said Rosa, referring to black hole hunting. Event horizon telescope AND GRAVITY+ the instrument is being added to the Very Large Telescope in Chile. “These two experiments aim to closely observe what happens near the center of galaxies, in particular, our galaxies. Milky Way.”
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