| Khuutra said: I think black holes shrink over time thanks to Hawking Radiation, too. Eventually they all evaporate. DOn't they? Highwaystar probably has the answer. |
It's been a while since I've read about this.
Black holes do lose mass over time due to Hawking radiation, which is a type of thermal radiation. It is assuming that black holes have a finite temperature and we don't know exactly how gravity fits into this yet, so it is just making a prediction of what could happen to a black hole.
Anyway, the idea (if I remember correctly) is that particles are being formed by vacuum fluctuations around the perimeter of the event horizon of the black hole, When these particles are created there is both a matter and an antimatter version created simultaneously. (I get a bit hazy here) I think it is the anti matter particle that gets drawn into the black hole reducing the black holes overall mass and the matter particles are ejected away from the black hole.
