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The Question
(Submitted March 01, 1997)
If white holes eject matter so quickly, why do they exist ?
Wouldn't they destroy themselves?
Maybe they are at the other end of a black hole ?
The Answer
White holes are VERY hypothetical. They are, in fact, predicted as a
possible "other end" of a black hole that has punctured a
"worm hole" through
space, but black holes are most likely just a point in space without an
other side. The matter/energy coming out of white holes is supposedly the
matter falling into a black hole. I have only seen them discussed in
theoretical physics talks. At one point scientists speculated that quasars
may be white holes, but now we are fairly certain that quasars are powered
by supermassive black holes, in which case the light we see comes from matter
as it falls into the black hole. After it falls in, we assume the matter
just becomes part of the black hole and does not come out anywhere (see the
Basic or
Advanced discussions of active galactic nuclei in Imagine the
Universe! for more on this.)
Cheers,
Andy Ptak
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