Did we invent the ‘white hole’?

The endless expanses of the universe are characterized by the most diverse objects, including countless planets, moons, and stars, but it is above all black holes that cast their spell on us again and again.

The most massive formations in the universe that irretrievably devour everything in their vicinity are the subject of countless reports and scientific research, but researchers suspect that black holes are not the only objects in space that leave us gasping.

What Are White Holes?

Incredibly, black holes are undoubtedly breathtaking entities. The objects whose gigantic masses are compacted in intense concentration generate such a strong gravitational force that everything that falls into the clutches of a black hole is swallowed up for all time.

Once a galactic entity has passed the event horizon of a black hole, it can no longer escape its pull. In other words, no matter how much radiation or information can cross the event horizon of a black hole from the inside to the outside, these breathtaking formations.

These comparatively small stellar black holes are formed when a massive star goes supernova. However small these objects may appear in this galactic context, they still have intrinsic masses corresponding to many times the mass of the sun.

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On the other hand, there are supermassive black holes that decorate the centers of galaxies and have a direct influence on their evolution. While these mighty objects are without a doubt among the most exciting structures in the universe, their hypothetical counterparts are no less breathtaking. Shortly after Albert Einstein published his world-famous theory of relativity, The first mathematical foundations for black holes were laid.

Meanwhile, in the same breath, their galactic counterparts, white holes, were postulated to the scientific community. Just like black holes, their counterparts are characterized by a predominant singularity in astronomical research.

The term singularity describes a spatial point at which the gravitational relations are so strongly pronounced that the curvature of space-time diverges practically infinitely concerning the existing singularity and the existence of an event horizon.

Black and white holes are identical The enormous difference between these two gigantic formations consists of the orientation of their cosmic passage, while black holes suck in everything in their immediate vicinity and never let it escape. If a spaceship were to try to penetrate a white hole despite these circumstances, it would be destroyed by the immense power of the prevailing gamma rays within a few moments.

If the vehicle nevertheless succeeded in resisting this incomparable amount of energy, it would still have no chance of passing the event horizon of a white hole. In other words, more energy would have to be expended in such an endeavor than is available in space.

The Problem of Entropy

At this point, it should be mentioned again that a white hole is still a hypothetical astronomical object. Although the formations obey the general relativity theory and fit from a mathematical view into the galactic context, this does not mean the reverse conclusion that white holes exist beyond doubt.

This is why the detection of white holes turns out to be a very difficult task. According to the second law of thermodynamics, in simple terms, it says that the entropy in the universe must always remain the same or increase. This entropy in turn describes a fundamental thermodynamic state variable.

According to this, all processes that take place in a coherent, self-contained system cause an increase in entropy. However, this is also caused by the supply of heat or matter. Why the entropy in the galactic total context can only remain the same or increase can be understood based on a simple example.

If one were to place a hot and a cold body in a sealed container, heat transport would begin and ultimately lead to the fact that the originally prevailing temperature difference would gradually disappear.

Both objects would therefore have the same temperature after a certain time. A colder body in a closed system cooling down still further and its warmer counterpart continuing to heat up is a process that's.

White Holes on the Scientific Test Bench

A rare collapse of galactic entropy could temporarily reverse time and thereby create a white hole. In this case, however, the problem arises that the white hole would disappear as part of a violent energy detonation as soon as time resumed its normal course.

According to this, the event that we call the big bang was extremely similar to a white hole from a purely mathematical point of view.

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The only difference was that the big bang had no singularity but happened everywhere at the same time. Indeed, this hypothesis could explain why so much energy and matter were created so suddenly. Other scientists who would like to prove the existence of white holes base themselves again on the so-called information paradox that goes along with black holes.

The said paradox is based on the fact that the information that a black hole sucks in would be irretrievably lost. This circumstance, however, violates an important principle of quantum mechanics, which is that no information in the universe can ever be destroyed.

If a black hole were to be connected with a white hole, all matter devoured by the black hole would be ejected afterward by the white hole back into the universe. The corresponding energies and matter would reappear either in a part of the same universe or in a completely different universe This hypothesis could resolve the information paradox of black holes. Carlo Rivelli made headlines a few years ago when he introduced a new theory about the formation of white holes.

This theory states that a black hole experiences a quantum leap as soon as it cannot contract any further due to the laws of space-time. In the course of this event, the black hole would transform into a white hole. Given these amazing theories, The question arises whether experts have already discovered tangible evidence for the existence of white holes. The answer is quite possibly.

Have we discovered a white hole?

For example, in the summer of 2006, NASA's SWIFT Satellite recorded an incomparably intense gamma-ray burst. Normally, such phenomena are directly related to a supernova. At the same time, the corresponding gamma-ray emissions can be divided into short and long bursts.

However, the event detected by the swift satellite could not be classified into any of these known schemes. For comparison, most of the gamma-ray bursts observed by researchers last only two to thirty seconds.

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Furthermore, the intense emission occurred in a galaxy that is home to only a few stars that could produce such powerful bursts. Therefore, to the experts at the time, it appeared as if the mysterious gamma-ray burst had come completely out of nowhere before subsiding a few moments later just as suddenly as it had arrived.

As a result of the detailed investigations, some researchers theorized that this event could have been caused a few moments later, it could have been caused by a white hole.

The phenomenon behaved exactly as researchers would typically expect from a white hole, an intense, unstable burst of energy and matter that disappears shortly after its formation, although this explanation is purely theoretical and does not prove the existence of white holes.

There is no other incontestable thesis in the ranks of researchers that would explain the background of the gamma-ray burst.

We should remind you here that white holes have only a hypothetical status at present, but we should at the same time recall that black holes were nothing but a mathematical fiction before their ultimate discovery.