Once information falls into a "black hole", will it really disappear into thin air?

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on January 29 that astronomers have discovered 18 black holes devouring nearby stars, and 18 new tidal disruption events have been confirmed. Tidal disruption events are extreme events when nearby stars are tidally drawn into black holes and torn apart. These findings confirm that the number of known tidal disruption events in the near universe has doubled. And not long ago, astronomers from Italy and Spain may have discovered the closest black holes to Earth, lurking near the Hyades star cluster, only 150 light-years from the sun. These black holes may have ejected from dense star clusters millions of years ago and then wandered alone in the galaxy.

Black holes are one of the most mysterious celestial bodies in the universe, and their properties and information conservation have always been the focus of debate among scientists. In recent years, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded four times to scientists related to astrophysics.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists. British scientist Roger Penrose won the prize for proving that black holes are a direct result of Einstein's general theory of relativity; German scientist Reinhard Genzel and American scientist Andrea Ghez won the prize for discovering supermassive objects in the center of the Milky Way. Among them, Roger Penrose's award is generally regarded as a tribute to his long-time partner, the late physicist Stephen Hawking, because Hawking made important contributions to the theoretical prediction of black hole formation.

Hawking studied the question of whether black holes have temperature for two years and finally proposed Hawking radiation, which means that black holes do have temperature and emit thermal radiation. But this also brings up a problem: if a black hole emits thermal radiation, it may evaporate completely, so will all the material information swallowed disappear forever? This question triggered a battle over whether information is conserved.

Deep in the universe, there exists a mysterious and powerful celestial body whose gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. This is a black hole. The formation of black holes originates from the evolution of stars. When a star burns out its nuclear fuel, it may undergo a violent gravitational collapse. The result of this process may be a supernova explosion or the formation of a black hole. A black hole is an extremely compact celestial body with an extremely strong gravitational field, so that everything around it, including light, cannot escape.

A black hole has a specific boundary, called the event horizon, through which objects cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole. Inside a black hole there is a point called a singularity, where the density is infinite and the laws of physics cannot explain it, which makes us full of speculation and confusion about the nature of the interior of a black hole.

Information conservation is an important basic principle in physics, which states that the information of matter cannot be permanently destroyed or destroyed. However, when matter enters a black hole, we seem to lose all information about it, which has sparked controversy among scientists as to whether black holes violate the law of information conservation.

The first photo of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way was released in May 2022. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

In 1974, Hawking proposed a theory about black hole radiation, namely Hawking radiation. According to this theory, black holes are not completely dark, but emit some weak radiation, which means that black holes will gradually lose mass and eventually evaporate. Hawking radiation provides a possible explanation for the problem of information conservation, but scientists are still exploring its authenticity.

With the advancement of science and technology and in-depth research on black holes, some new theories have gradually emerged to try to solve the problem of information conservation. Quantum gravity theory and string theory have provided us with new ideas, and these theories attempt to reveal the strangeness inside black holes at the quantum level and whether information is really permanently lost inside black holes.

Although research continues to deepen, we have learned more about black holes and have made some breakthroughs in the issue of information conservation, but this is still a complex and esoteric field, and future research will continue to advance our understanding of black holes and the universe itself. In this "great battle for information conservation", scientists are constantly working hard to try to reveal the truth about this fascinating mystery in the universe.

(The author is a science fiction writer)