The Controversy over the Existence of Black Holes (Essay Sample)

The Controversy over the Existence of Black Holes Name: Institution: The Controversy over the Existence of Black Holes The debate over the existence of black holes has raged for decades now, with conflicting evidence emerging over time. As a result, much time and resources have been devoted on either side of the divide, with astrophysicists attempting to conclusively end the debate. According to scientists, black holes are formed whenever a star reaches the end of their life cycle. After forming, the black holes continue to grow through absorbing the mass from their surroundings. They absorb other stars and merge with other black holes forming super-massive black holes that are made up of millions of solar masses (Abraham, 2015). This paper examines the arguments disapproving the existence of black holes. It also examines the evidence that argues for the existence of black holes and critically looks at the points of departure between these two distinct arguments. The conventional knowledge on black holes holds that their gravitational pull is quite powerful so that there is nothing that can escape from them, including light. This boundary, past which there is no return, is referred to as the event zone. This conception of black holes argues that all the information about anything is destroyed whenever it ventures past the event horizon of the black hole. However, quantum physics counters this argument through suggesting that information cannot be destroyed even at the subatomic level. This supposition greatly conflicts with the theories that explain the existence of black holes. A 1974 study conducted by Stephen Hawkins established that black holes do not have any event horizons and, therefore, cannot destroy information. This absence of event horizons invariably means that there are no black holes (Choi, 2014). Benios (2014) argues that the reason why it is bizarre for black holes to exist is that this puts two fundamental theories of the universe into conflict. He notes that on one hand, the Einstein’s theory of gravity provides adequate premise for the formation of black holes; this, on the other hand, is questioned by the quantum theory, which states that there is no information from the universe that can be lost or destroyed (Benios, 2014). The efforts to combine these two theories have invariably resulted into mathematical nonsense and have come to be referred to as the information loss paradox. In disputing the existence of black holes, Benois cites Stephen Hawkins 1974 study that showed black holes emit radiations (Benios, 2014). He argues that since then scientists have gathered evidence on the fingerprints in the cosmos that are consistent with the radiation emitted from the said black holes (Benios, 2014). He further notes that before black hole forms, the collapsing star swell and then explodes. In this case, a “singularity never forms, and neither does an event horizon (Benios, 2014).” Therefore, black holes do not exist. The recent findings of Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton, demonstrate mathematical evidence for disapproving the existence of black holes. The study takes into account the previous knowledge about black holes where scientists believed that “stars much larger than the sun collapsed under their own gravity and formed black holes when they died (O’Callaghan, 2016).” In this process, these stars released the Hawking radiation. Professor Mersini-Houghton study contends this knowledge arguing that if that were the case, then the stars would invariably lose too much mass and would not be able to develop into a black hole. Besides, if the black hole theory was true, the argument that the universe began as a singularity that was followed by the Big Bang also collapses invariably (O’Callaghan, 2016). The existence of black holes is confirmed by the recent space observations made by NASA, where flares of X-rays were observed to be emanating from the black holes. This conflicted with the conventional knowledge about the black holes being compact particles with dense gravity that cannot be escaped even by light. NASA noted that the X-ray flair was triggered by the eruption of charged particles from the black hole (Abraham, 2015). Even though the observation contradicted the conventional knowledge about the nature of black holes, it still affirmed their existence. In fact, it confirmed Abhas Mitras previous theory that black holes are essentially made of ultra hot balls of fire just like the sun. Furthermore, scientist have faulted Hawking’s radiations and have gone ahead to prove that the radiations could kill a black hole through losing its mass into space until there was nothing left of it. Scientists such as Ethan Siegal have argued that if Hawking radiations evaporate mass into space for a black hole, it should do the same for a collapsing star just before it turns into a black hole (Orwig, 2014). According to Todd Thomson, an astronomy professor at the Ohio State University, there is enough evidence to support the existence of black holes (Kruesi, 2012). This evidence is derived from the orbits of stars that form around the super massive black hole at the center of the galaxy. These super massive black holes bend the light around them in accord...