Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Black Hole Evaporation

An important question about Black Holes. Do they die? Hawking proposed Black hole evaporation, a theory in which Black Holes lose mass due to the separation of particle-antiparticle pairs. Vacuum fluctuations cause one particle to escape while its partner falls in. The negative particle falls in so the end equation is the Black Hole losing one particle. A massive Black Hole absorbs more Cosmic Background Radiation than it loses in mass because of Hawking Radiation. Because of this, until the Universe expands further and the Cosmic Radiation fades, a massive Black Hole will live forever. Eventually though, all Black Holes will evaporate. At the end of its life, a Black hole explodes with a temperature of over one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) degrees Fahrenheit with the force of over one billion atomic bombs.

No comments: