Supermassive Black Hole At the Centre of Galaxy May Be Wormhole In Disguise 293
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "There is growing evidence that the center of the Milky Way contains a mysterious object some 4 million times more massive than the Sun. Many astronomers believe that this object, called Sagittarius A*, is a supermassive black hole that was crucial in the galaxy's birth and formation. The thinking is that about 100 million years after the Big Bang, this supermassive object attracted the gas and dust that eventually became the Milky Way. But there is a problem with this theory--100 million years is not long enough for a black hole to grow so big. The alternative explanation is that Sagittarius A* is a wormhole that connects the Milky Way to another region of the universe or even a another multiverse. Cosmologists have long known that wormholes could have formed in the instants after the Big Bang and that these objects would have been preserved during inflation to appear today as supermassive objects hidden behind an event horizon, like black holes. It's easy to imagine that it would be impossible to tell these objects apart. But astronomers have now worked out that wormholes are smaller than black holes and so bend light from an object orbiting close to them, such as a plasma cloud, in a unique way that reveals their presence. They've even simulated what such a wormhole will look like. No telescope is yet capable of resolving images like these but that is set to change too. An infrared instrument called GRAVITY is currently being prepared for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile and should be in a position to spot the signature of a wormhole, if it is there, in the next few years."
Re:event horizon? (Score:5, Informative)
Wormholes involve extreme curvature of space-time. That means a large amount of energy. Energy is equivalent to mass, via E=mc^2, so a wormhole will have a large effective mass. That much mass in a small volume means an event horizon.
Or, if you prefer the geometric argument, extreme space-time curvature IS extremely strong gravity.
I don't really understand why a wormhole would have a smaller event horizon though. Perhaps something to do with the mass distribution. In a wormhole the mass would all be at the centre. In a black hole that grew through accretion it would be distributed throughout the volume.
Re:It is God. (Score:5, Informative)
Event Horizon Telescope? (Score:4, Informative)
I am surprised they don't mention the Event Horizon Telescope [eventhoriz...escope.org], which could resolve this.
Re:oh boy (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, actually we do. We know that supermassive objects exist... we know that they can bend light, and we know that space can be bent to such a degree by such objects that any light which travels too close to it travels a curved path that never leaves a bounded region of space near the object that we refer to as an event horizon, creating a region in space that is basically just "black" as it appears from outside of that region, It obviously obscures anything behind it, while its gravity still bends light in visible ways beyond its event horizon, allowing us to identify it's mass, position, and event horizon size.