White holes: Hunting the other side of a black hole


Forget black holes, weirder stuff happens in white ones (Image: Jen Stark, photograph: Harlan Erskine)


Black holes suck – but do they have mirror twins that blow? A far-flung space telescope is peering into galactic nuclei to spot one for the first time


PHYSICS is full of opposites. For every action, there's a reaction; every positive charge has a negative; every magnetic north pole has a south pole. Matter's opposite number is antimatter. And for black holes, meet white holes.


Black holes are notorious objects that suck in everything around them. Famously, not even light can escape their awesome gravity. White holes, in contrast, blow out a constant stream of matter and light – so much so that nothing can enter them. So why have so few people heard of them?


One reason is that white holes are exotic creatures whose existence is speculated by theorists, but ...


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