Black holes are regions in space where gravity is very strong—so strong that nothing that enters them can escape, including light. Theoretical predictions suggest that there is a radius surrounding black holes known as the event horizon. Once something passes the event horizon, it can no longer escape a black hole, as gravity becomes stronger as it approaches its center.
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking predicted that while nothing can escape from within them, black holes spontaneously emit a limited amount of light, which is known as Hawking radiation. According to his predictions, this radiation is spontaneous (i.e., it arises from nothing) and stationary (i.e., its intensity does not change much over time).
Researchers at Technion- Israel Institute of Technology have recently carried out a study aimed at testing Hawking’s theoretical predictions. More specifically, they examined whether the equivalent of Hawking radiation in an “artificial black hole” created in a laboratory setting was stationary.
“If you go inside the event horizon, there’s no way to get out, even for light,” Jeff Steinhauer, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “Hawking radiation starts just outside the event horizon, where light can barely escape. That is really weird because there’s nothing there; it’s empty space. Yet this radiation starts from nothing, comes out, and goes towards Earth.”
The artificial black hole created by Steinhauer and his colleagues was approximately 0.1 millimeters long and was made of a gas composed of 8000 rubidium atoms, which is a relatively low number of atoms. Every time the researchers took a picture of it, the black hole was destroyed. To observe its evolution over time, they thus had to produce the black hole, take a picture of it and then create another one. This process was repeated many times, for months.
The analog black hole created by the researchers. Credit: Kolobov et al.
The Hawking radiation emitted by this analog black hole is made of sound waves, rather than light waves. The rubidium atoms flow faster than the speed of sound, so sound waves cannot reach the event horizon and escape from the black hole. Outside of the event horizon, however, the gas flows slowly, so sound waves can move freely.
“The rubidium is flowing fast, faster than the speed of sound, and that means that sound cannot go against the flow,” Steinhauer explained. “Let’s say you were trying to swim against the current. If this current is going faster than you can swim, then you can’t move forward, you are pushed back because the flow is moving too fast and in the opposite direction, so you’re stuck. That’s what being stuck in a black hole and trying to reach the event horizon from inside would be like.”
According to Hawking’s predictions, the radiation emitted by black holes is spontaneous. In one of their previous studies, Steinhauer and his colleagues were able to confirm this prediction in their artificial black hole. In their new study, they set out to investigate whether the radiation emitted by their black hole is also stationary (i.e., if it remains constant over time).
“A black hole is supposed to radiate like a black body, which is essentially a warm object that emits a constant infrared radiation (i.e., black body radiation),” Steinhauer said. “Hawking suggested that black holes are just like regular stars, which radiate a certain type of radiation all the time, constantly. That’s what we wanted to confirm in our study, and we did.”
Hawking radiation is composed of pairs of photons (i.e., light particles): one emerging from a black hole and another falling back into it. When trying to identify the Hawking radiation emitted by the analog black hole they created, Steinhauer and his colleagues thus looked for similar pairs of sound waves, one coming out of the black hole and one moving into it. Once they identified these pairs of sound waves, the researchers tried to determine whether there were so-called correlations between them.
“We had to collect a lot of data to see these correlations,” Steinhauer said. “We thus took 97,000 repetitions of the experiment; a total of 124 days of continuous measurement.”
Overall, the findings appear to confirm that the radiation emitted by black holes is stationary, as predicted by Hawking. While these findings apply primarily to the analog black hole they created, theoretical studies could help to confirm if they can also be applied to real black holes.
“Our study also raises important questions, because we observed the entire lifetime of the analog black hole, which means that we also saw how the Hawking radiation started,” Steinhauer said. “In future studies, one could try to compare our results with predictions of what would happen in a real black hole, to see if ‘real’ Hawking radiation starts from nothing and then builds up, as we observed.”
At some point during the researchers’ experiments, the radiation surrounding their analog black hole became very strong, as the black hole formed what is known as an ‘inner horizon.” In addition to the event horizon, Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts the existence of an inner horizon, a radius inside black holes that delineates a further region closer to its center.
In the region inside the inner horizon the gravitational pull is far lower, thus objects are able to move around freely and are no longer pulled towards the center of the black hole. Yet they are still unable to leave the black hole, as they cannot pass through the inner horizon in the opposite direction (i.e., heading toward the event horizon).
“Essentially, the event horizon is a black hole’s outer sphere, and inside it, there’s a small sphere called the inner horizon,” Steinhauer said. “If you fall through the inner horizon, then you’re still stuck in the black hole, but at least you don’t feel the weird physics of being in a black hole. You’d be in a more ‘normal’ environment, as the pull of gravity would be lower, so you wouldn’t feel it anymore.”
Some physicists have predicted that when an analog black hole forms an inner horizon, the radiation it emits becomes stronger. Interestingly, this is exactly what happened in the analog black hole created by the researchers at Technion. This study could thus inspire other physicists to investigate the effect of the formation of an inner horizon on the intensity of a black hole’s Hawking radiation.
More information:
Observation of stationary spontaneous Hawking radiation and the time evolution of an analog black hole. Nature Physics(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01076-0
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Researchers observe stationary Hawking radiation in an analog black hole (2021, February 19)
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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
