Everyone's talking about: White holes

White holes

You mean black holes?

The newest discoveries are actually white, but we can talk about both if you're keen.

I'm not sure 'keen' is quite the word I would have chosen.

No need to be shy. It's been a very exciting 18 months in the world of space holes.

Go on, then…

Last year physicists got a picture of Sagittarius A*.

How thrilling for them. What's that?

The black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Help! Are we doomed?

No. Galaxies are thought to be created by black holes. They're supposed to have them. They go together like...

Becks and Neville?

I know you're enjoying that Beckham documentary but I'm trying to raise your quantum physics game here. One assumes you know what a black hole is.

Absolutely – but just remind me.

An area of space with such strong gravitational pull that even light can't escape. Think of it as a cosmic hoover sucking in everything it meets.

What else? I'm throwing a dinner party tonight. A bit of galactic chat always goes down well.

In March this year an 'ultramassive' black hole was discovered in the centre of a galaxy called Abell 1201 BCG.

Is 'ultramassive' the biggest size you can get in space – like a size 18 in Zara?

It's the biggest scientists have found so far – with a mass around 30 billion times that of the sun.

I want to entertain my dinner guests, not fill them with existential dread.

Don't worry. It's 2.7 billion light years from Earth. The white holes, however, could be much closer.

Like, where?

Celebrated physicist Carlo Rovelli's new book White Holes: Inside the Horizon claims there could be one floating through your dining room right now.

Whoa! Ultramassive holes in other galaxies are one thing but you don't want them messing with your entrées.

They're pretty much everywhere. Probably.

What do you mean, 'probably'?

Rovelli hasn't yet proved they exist, but he believed in black holes before anybody proved those existed, so the smart money is on him being right.

And what will these white holes be doing?

They’d be virtually invisible: the mass of a hair 

The opposite of black holes. So, goes the theory, when a black hole finally collapses in on itself it forms countless white holes which spew out everything the black hole ever consumed.

Call me unobservant but wouldn't I have noticed huge, spewing white holes in my dining room?

They wouldn't be huge. In fact, they could be virtually invisible. Maybe the mass of a hair.

Limited spewing capacity, in other words?

According to The Times, if they exist, white holes are Tardis-like. Unassuming on the outside but apt to 'warp the fields of space and time' once you get inside.

A bit more like Primark than Zara, then?

I think the scientific scope of this story might be rather beyond you.

How did The Times readers get on with it?

It was rather beyond many of them, too. 'Isn't a white hole only a black hole that has already been filled in by the council?' asked N Macdonald while Mr Peter Cartledge opined: 'Telford is just a hole'.

Peter Cartledge makes a fair point. I live nearby, it's awful.

Well, if a black hole ever meets a white one, you won't need to worry about that.

Why? Is the West Midlands particularly at risk from cosmic hole-to-hole contact?

Only in that it will be instantly obliterated along with the rest of the space-time continuum.

On second thoughts then, I might scratch white holes from the dinner-party chat.

Probably best. Just stick to Golden Balls.