What If All the Black Holes Closed?
The universe has order thanks to gravity.
It’s what keeps the earth in a stable orbit
around the sun, and the sun in a stable orbit
around the galactic centre of the milky way.
And that mass in the galactic centre keeps
every star and planet in the galaxy rotating
in a spiral motion around it.
But what if the major source of that mass
suddenly disappeared?
This is Unveiled and today we’re answering
the extraordinary question; What if all the
black holes closed?
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Even though they’re tremendously destructive
forces of nature capable of devouring every
type of matter, black holes are actually incredibly
important structures in the universe.
Their discovery and study has greatly increased
our understanding of gravity, the most fundamental
aspects of existence, and has led to the formation
of theories on everything from wormholes to
time travel.
Despite their popularity in academic and sci-fi
circles and even after a century’s worth
of research, however, black holes are still
as mysterious as they are fascinating - there’s
just so much we still don’t know.
We do know it’s likely that every galaxy
has a supermassive black hole at its centre,
though, in some way governing the formation
of that particular system.
Black holes may not always be the single reason
for why galaxies behave as they do, but their
massive gravitational influence certainly
plays a large part in holding all of the stars
together.
If all the black holes suddenly closed, then,
the first question is; where would all that
energy go?
The conservation of mass says that matter
can’t be created or destroyed, while Einstein
showed with his famous equation E=Mc2 that
matter and energy are relative to each other
and interchangeable.
So, the black hole energy needs to go somewhere
or to do something.
These structures are extremely massive, and
therefore extremely energetic.
If they suddenly closed all across the universe,
we’d see some kind of spectacle to “balance
the books” - a gigantic surge of energy
released back out into the cosmos.
Space-time, which was bent or depressed under
the mass of the black hole, now rebounds back
and effectively “flattens” out… but
it wouldn’t likely be a quiet affair, with
massive explosions and torrents of radiation
to release an unimaginable amount of pressure.
It’d be as destructive as a supernova event,
and probably even more so.
As they are, it’s a seeming impossibility
that a black hole would explode, but there’s
actually a theory that black hole explosions
do sometimes happen as a result of matter
that’s unable to shrink into the infinite
singularity.
It’s a phenomenon known as a quantum bounce,
which transforms black holes into white holes,
which are essentially the exact opposite to
a black hole; repulsive structures that pour
tremendous amounts of energy out of themselves,
but which are impossible to get in to.
In fact, if you subscribe to the theory, it’s
believed that some cosmic events previously
thought of as plain supernova explosions could
even have been black holes transforming in
this way.
In either case, should every black hole close
as part of a hypothetical universal shake-up,
then perhaps this is what we’d see happening
across the sky… supermassive structures
switching to gargantuan voids that now eject
thousands or millions of planets and stars
out of every galaxy, rather than drawing them
in.
The balance of the cosmos would be disrupted,
even destroyed, beyond all recognition.
But wait.
Hold up.
The sudden, cataclysmic emergence of white
holes is by no means a given, particularly
because we’ve never actually identified
a white hole before.
The main concern should even a single black
hole close would still be the simple displacement
of energy, and the damage that that could
cause.
So, what of humans?
Would we be destined for a fiery grave were
our closest black hole to disappear?
Well, no, actually.
Mostly because we wouldn’t even be aware
of a change until thousands of years later.
The supermassive black hole at our centre
is twenty-six thousand light years away from
us, meaning when we “see” it, we’re
seeing twenty-six thousand years into the
past.
So, for all we know, our particular black
hole anchor might’ve closed, say, twenty-four
thousand years ago - and we’ll only truly
realise it in around the year 4,000.
It applies even more so to every other black
hole in the universe, as viewed by us.
The closest galaxy to our own, the Andromeda
galaxy, would appear the same for some 2.5
million years until the light reached us to
show what had happened when it’s black hole
closed up.
In that sense, we only ever know that any
black hole possibly existed at any given point
in the dim and distant past… they may all
have disappeared already, and we’re just
waiting for that information to get back to
us - monitoring the night sky, ready to notice
when something changes.
But, back to the supermassive black hole at
the centre of our galaxy.
It isn’t solely responsible for the orbit
of every star, but it does exert its pull
to some degree on every bit of matter within
its massive field.
Should that tremendous source of gravity disappear,
the celestial bodies that are closest to the
galactic centre would be the first to be thrown
out of order, before general order crumbles
in a domino effect of chaos extending outwards.
Over hundreds of thousands of years, every
star (and every star system - including the
solar system) in the Milky Way would be pushed,
pulled and realigned as though at random.
The galaxy at large would eventually stop
resembling a spiral at all, and would now
more closely mimic a massive and unpredictable
swarm… with every other galaxy facing a
similar fate.
The black holes that had served as lynchpins
for their stability would now have toppled
them - leaving behind a universe of randomness.
But all hope needn’t be lost, because that
same universe has ways of resetting itself.
Stellar black holes form from massive stars
collapsing in on themselves… so, given the
unparalleled upheaval in this extreme scenario,
we’d soon see black holes reappear all over
the place as thousands of stars died.
Scientists aren’t yet sure exactly how supermassive
black holes form, but various popular theories
say that they’re either stellar black holes
accreting enough mass, or they’re a group
of smaller black holes merging together.
Either way, there is a route for supermassive
black holes to also reappear even in the hypothetical
scenario that they’d all close.
It’d set off a sequence of events that could
feasibly rebuild shattered galaxies… and
while it would never reset exactly (or even
close to) what it once was, the universe could
resume some sort of order.
And that’s what would happen if all the
black holes closed.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
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