As of: January 31, 2024, 8:48 a.m
By: Tanja Banner
Comments
Press
Split
The sun captured by NASA's SOHO solar telescope.
© IMAGO/piemags/Nasa
Black holes could actually exist in stars.
A research team has now gained surprising insights into these “Hawking stars”.
Garching – The world of research is sometimes full of strange thought experiments.
One such experiment was carried out by the late physicist Stephen Hawking in the 1970s.
He thought about stars that have a black hole in their interior - the “Hawking stars” named after him.
Although such stars have not yet been discovered, Hawking's theory continues to inspire scientists to think about it.
According to Hawking's theory, a "Hawking" star harbors a primordial black hole, a tiny black hole that formed shortly after the Big Bang.
One such could be captured by a newly forming star.
A team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Garching has modeled the evolution of “Hawking stars” and gained some fascinating insights.
Their work was published in the renowned
Astrophysical Journal
.
“Hawking stars” have not yet been detected
Selma de Mink, head of the star research department at the MPA, says: “Scientists sometimes ask crazy questions to deepen their knowledge.”
She adds: “We don’t even know whether such primordial black holes even exist, but we can still carry out an interesting thought experiment.”
If a newly formed star captured a black hole with the mass of an asteroid or small moon, it would become a “Hawking star.”
According to Hawking's theory, the black hole would only grow slowly because the outflowing luminosity of the star means that only a small amount of gas falls on the black hole.
The MPA team modeled the evolution of such a star, taking into account different initial masses for the black hole.
The astonishing result: If the black hole's mass is small, its presence would go unnoticed - the star would essentially be indistinguishable from a normal star.
Sun could host a Mercury-sized black hole
Earl Patrick Bellinger, the leader of the study, comments: “Stars that have a black hole at their center can live surprisingly long times.” Bellinger has made another interesting new discovery: “Our sun could even have a black hole at its center , which is as big as the planet Mercury without us noticing.”
My news
Read why the total solar eclipse in April could be particularly dramatic
When the next full moon will shine in the sky - read the list with all the dates for 2024
How high is the risk of earthquakes in Germany?
An expert calls the most vulnerable region reading
NASA and ESA: Hubble Space Telescope makes groundbreaking discoveryread
Alzheimer's can apparently be transmissible - under very rare circumstances
What would happen if the Earth stopped rotating?read
The main difference between an ordinary star and a “Hawking star” lies near the core: the gravitational pull of the black hole causes it to become convective.
However, this would not be visible on the surface of the star.
Only the relatively new field of astroseismology could prove this, according to a statement from the MPA.
Only in a later phase of the star's evolution, when it becomes a red giant, could the black hole inside lead to characteristic signatures.
However, according to the research team, further simulations are needed to determine the effects of a central black hole on different types of stars.
Search for “Hawking stars” could lead to primordial black holes
So far, neither “Hawking stars” nor primordial black holes have been discovered.
But the search for “Hawking stars” could lead to the detection of small black holes, the research team believes.
Matt Caplan, a co-author of the study, emphasizes: "Although the Sun was only used as an example here, there are good reasons to believe that 'Hawking stars' are common in globular clusters and very faint dwarf galaxies." He continues from: "This means that 'Hawking stars could be a tool to test both the existence of primordial black holes and their possible role in dark matter."
The oldest black hole known to date was recently discovered by a research team - but it is anything but small.
Meanwhile, a well-known mathematician is trying to prove that Stephen Hawking was wrong about the “inner workings” of black holes.
(tab)
The editor wrote this article and then used an AI language model for optimization at her own discretion. All information has been carefully checked.
Learn more about our AI principles here
.