Key Takeaways:
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New research suggests the radiation emitted by some black holes could be identical to wormholes, making them difficult to distinguish with current technology.
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They are theorized to connect different parts of the universe, potentially even bending spacetime.
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Both have a point of no return where matter gets sucked in. In a wormhole, it might then travel to another location.
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Scientists are looking for specific light signatures that could differentiate between black holes and wormholes.
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The immense gravity pulls everything in, and we currently lack the technology to survive such a trip.
Black holes could be hiding in plain sight as wormholes, which are hypothetical tunnels connecting one part of the universe to another, according to a team of physicists from Sofia University in Bulgaria, as reported by New Scientist.
Scientists have long been perplexed by black holes because they absorb matter and never allow it to escape.
But where does all of this matter go? Physicists have long toyed with the idea that these black holes could be leading to “white holes,” or wells that spew out streams of particles and radiation.
These two ends could together form a wormhole, or an Einstein-Rosen bridge to be specific, which some physicists believe could stretch any amount of time and space, a tantalizing theory that could rewrite the laws of spacetime as we understand them today.
According to recent research, the “throat” of a wormhole may resemble the black holes that have already been found, such as the enormous Sagittarius A* that is thought to be hiding at the galactic center.
“Ten years ago, wormholes were completely in the area of science fiction,” team lead Petya Nedkova at Sofia University told New Scientist. “Now, they are coming forward to the frontiers of science and people are actively searching.”
As described in a paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the team’s newly developed computer model implies that it may be nearly impossible to distinguish the radiation coming from the matter discs swirling around wormhole edges from those surrounding a black hole.
Actually, based on their model, the difference between the polarization of light emitted by a black hole and a wormhole would be less than four percent.
“With the current observations, you cannot distinguish a black hole or a wormhole — there may be a wormhole there, but we cannot tell the difference,” Nedkova told the publication. “So we were looking for something else up there in the sky that could be a way to distinguish black holes from wormholes.”
While Nedkova and her colleagues suggest there may be ways to distinguish between them with observations in the future. For instance, we could look for light that may be spilling in from the other end of the wormhole and emanating out of the black hole in the shape of small rings of light.
However, at this time, we lack the necessary technology to observe black holes in such a direct manner.
Naturally, the alternative would be to take a huge chance and throw yourself into a black hole.
Nedkova told the newspaper, “If you were nearby, you would find out too late.” “You’ll get to know the difference when you either die or you pass through.”
