Ask Ethan: Can Black Holes Ever Spit Anything Back Out?
A black hole’s event horizon is thought of as the point of no return. But perhaps there are ways back out, after all.
Black holes just might be the most extreme objects that exist in the entire Universe. While every quantum of matter or energy is affected by the gravitational force, there are other forces capable of overcoming gravity everywhere you go, except inside a black hole. The most important feature of a black hole is the existence of an event horizon; no other class of object has them. Although black holes have this region where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even if they move at the speed of light, perhaps there are loopholes to the inescapability of a black hole’s gravity, after all. That’s the subject of this week’s question, which comes from Noah, who asks,
Do black holes ever spit things out at any time?
And if they do, do they ever spit out light?
The answer must be yes. After all, the most surprising thing about black holes — both predicted theoretically and observed directly — is that they aren’t black at all.
