What happens to the matter black holes absorb?

Question

Matter is made of energy, which energy can't be destroyed, so what happens to the energy? Is a black hole like a dimensional pocket or something?

Answer 1

There are a lot of different theories, the more radical ones being less popular.

The most popular theory?  It becomes one with the singularity.

Most or all black holes have a singularity.  Small, young black holes may have an event horizon but not enough matter to achieve "singularity" densities.

However, for this discussion we can assume that all black holes have a singularity.  The reason it is called a singularity is primarily because the parameters to the equations used to predict what will happen there fall out of the domain of the functions.  What that means is, the formulas used to make the predictions don't work there.

But generally speaking, as more and more matter falls into a black hole, the densities at the center get greater.  This also contributes to the total gravity of the black hole, expanding the event horizon.  As more matter piles on the stuff at the center, the central mass goes through a series of stages of degenerate matter.

Degenerate gas - It doesn't take (relatively) that much pressure to create this.  It's even found at the center of stars.  Degenerate gas is pretty much electron soup with various nuclei floating around.  Inside a black hole, matter quickly reaches the next stage:

Neutron degeneracy - Under higher pressures, electrons and protons combine to form neutrons.  So pretty much everything turns into neutrons.  But it doesn't take long before even the neutron degenerate matter collapses into the next stage.

Quark degeneracy - No one is exactly sure what this would be.  It could be a sea of up and down quarks, or the baryonic quarks may combine to form heavier (such as strange) quarks.  Quark stars have been hypothesized, but none have ever been observed.

Singularity - This is even more speculative.  What is expected, though, is that eventually the intense pressure violates the Pauli exclusion principle, and you end up with fermions effectively sharing space (or quantum states).  Nowhere else in nature is this principle known to be violated, and scientists don't know what kind of pressures it would take for this to occur.

Most of the problems posed by the singularity are a result of this violation.  Because the singularity is point-like and has zero volume, you end up with things like infinite density and infinite gravitational pull (which is where ideas such as time travel and wormholes were born).

Scientists are hoping that quantum mechanics may one day solve the singularity problem.

In summation, all the matter and energy that flows into a black hole joins the rest of it either in the singularity, or in circling around it (since black holes spin).  Once anything crosses the even horizon, it can never come back out, regardless of at what angle or velocity it entered.

Answer 2

Hawking theorizes that quantum dynamics allows black holes to produce radiation, eventually evaporating. This unproven theory is called Hawking Radiation.

Bottom line, no one knows for sure.

Answer 3

From what has been seen most of the energy is given off as x-rays and gamma rays.

Answer 4

The matter a black hole takes in is added to its mass.  A black hole is not like some merciless cosmic vacuum cleaner in space, sometimes if far enough away it rejects matter and its gravity well flings it away.  A black hole is also a near perfect energy producer, while it takes in billions of tons of matter, some of that is converted into energy and is ejected in powerful jets of radiation.  

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001204.html

The matter added to a black hole is why there are "supermassive" black holes, or black holes that have the mass of a million or our suns.  It is usually surrounded by a solar system-sized accretion disk.

A black hole with the mass of Jupiter would be about three feet wide and if it moved toward the Earth, its gravity would bounce the Earth right out of its orbit like a ball on a pool table.

A black hole takes in energy, but it also spits it out as they are sloppy eaters.  A black hole is so weird because it's a collapsed star.  It's not like its gravity is so spectacular.  it's just that for an object so small yet it has the same mass and gravity as a star that used to be hundred times larger than our sun.

Answer 5

beyond the event horizon, we can only guess what happens to captured matter. general relativity says there are two kinds of black holes - ones that rotate and ones that dont. both have a different anatomy inside the event horizon.

non-rotating:

matter cannot avoid colliding with the singularity. it reaches the singularity within a few micro-seconds for a solar-massed black hole, and a few hours for a supermassive black hole. it is not possible to predict what happens at the singularity cuz the theory says we fall into "infinite gravitational force."

rotating:

the internal structure is more complex than non-rotating, and for some ingoing trajectories of matter, you could in principle avoid colliding with the singularity and possibly re-emerge from the black hole somewhere else, or at some very different future time, possibly billionsof years after you entered.

other theories say that you re-emerge in another universe, but physicists don't really believe that interpretation is correct. the problem is that the interior of a black hole is full of gravitational radiation which makes the geometry of space-time very unstable, preventing just these kinds of trips.

no one is 100% positive what occurs inside a black hole. it is a mystery that im sure you do not want to find out on your own!

Answer 6

it's like a vacuum cleaner it keeps sucking stuff in getting heavier and heavier...........tom

Answer 7

The energy stays trapped in the black hole until the black hole stops and dies.

Answer 8

No one actually knows, that's why black holes are presently the greatest mystery of physic

Answer 9

Black hole is a matter sink. No one really knows what form matter / or energy takes. Probably is a Byronic soup akin to what existed just after the big bang. Matter or energy is not destroyed  as gravity of the swallowed material still remains.

Answer 10

Things that go into a black hole are smashed by the gravity. The black hole has a mass of infinity and crushes everything to about the size of a few atoms. No energy lost just compacted .

Answer 11

Nothing, it just goes in and spins around the core of the hole at light speed.

We just can't see it, because no light escapes the hole.

Answer 12

People say that going through a black hole will cause you to go into another dimension or just ANOTHER part of the universe.Well to be excact scientists can never know what is on the other side of a black hole.For example if you go throgh a black hole it isnt nesseccary that there is going to be a black hole on the other side, you may fall from nowhere or the black hole vanishes after you go throgh it.BUT that IS NOT POSSIBLE because as soon as a living thing goes throgh a black hole and die it is impossible to know whats is on the other side of the hole. Many think that it is that the equipment you wear gets torn of you and you run out of O2 or the force force of the hole stops your heart or breaks your bones.People cant know what is on the other side of the hole.

If the thing is living is living then yes scientists do believe that you may a giant rock may get transported to another part of the universe because as you said energy sannot be destroyed.

Some other theories include that the matter stays inside the hole forever as the gravity in the hole is chaotic but this theory is not worthwhile as what happens to the matter insisde the hole when when the black holes are destroyed???