Dark energy is a substance that permeates space-time, causing it to expand outward. The difference between a black hole and a gravastar is that, instead of a singularity, the gravastar is filled with dark energy. It's such a theoretical concept that my spell checker didn't even recognize the word. So we're all set for now.Īnother attempt to eradicate the singularity - one that doesn't rely on untested theories of quantum gravity - is known as the gravastar. But because of the extreme time dilation effects around black holes, from our perspective in the outside universe it takes billions, even trillions, of years before they go boom. This resistance to continued compression eventually forces the material to un-collapse (i.e., explode), making black holes only temporary objects. Perfectly microscopic, but definitely not infinitely tiny. All the material that has ever fallen into the black hole gets compressed into a ball not much bigger than this.

The discreteness of space-time prevents matter from reaching anything smaller than the Planck length (around 1.68 times 10^-35 meters). And two, it makes it impossible for singularities to form inside black holes.Īs matter squishes down under the immense gravitational weight of a collapsing star, it meets resistance. One, it takes the dream of quantum mechanics to its ultimate conclusion, explaining gravity in a natural way. This theoretical chunkiness of space-time provides two benefits. In the world of loop quantum gravity, space and time are quantized - the universe around us is composed of tiny discrete chunks, but at such an incredibly tiny scale that our movements appear smooth and continuous. This is called a Planck star, and it's a theoretical possibility envisioned by loop quantum gravity, which is itself a highly hypothetical proposal for creating a quantum version of gravity.

The singularity is near