18 Biggest Myths About Black Holes – That Have Been Debunked by Modern Science

Black hole with nebula over colorful stars

Black holes, the enigmatic dark objects shrouded in mystery, aren’t exactly what we like to believe them to be. As science advances, we learn more answers and ask new questions about space phenomena.

While we’ve barely started exploring outer space, we’ve learned some essential things about the mysterious black hole in recent years.

It’s essential to keep updating our knowledge as science uncovers more about what lies beyond our little flying rock.

1. Galaxies Orbit Their Central Black Holes

Black hole
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According to Texas A&M University, everything in our galaxy does not orbit the supermassive black hole at the center. While we often find black holes in the center, removing them would not change the orbital paths of the planets and galaxies around them.

This isn’t a sun-and-earth situation, as galaxies aren’t Keplerian systems.

2. Black Holes Suck In Everything Around Them

Spiral galaxy
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Contrary to popular belief, black holes don’t consume everything nearby. According to Forbes, black holes aren’t vacuum cleaners; instead, they only suck all the matter from inside their event horizons.

Astronomers also call these “giant cosmic Cookie Monsters” who only eat things in their vicinity (inside the event horizon).

3. Black Holes Have Very High Density

Black hole in space galaxy
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According to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, small and medium black holes are very dense. However, one size does not fit all. For example, a supermassive black hole with 100 million solar masses would have a density the same as water.

Those studies confirm that believing all black holes have incredibly high density is not valid.

4. Black Holes Are Circular

Supermassive Black Hole Surrounded by Accretion Disk of Glowing Plasma
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Well, not quite. According to Texas A&M University, black holes are not perfectly circular but are more of a sphere. On top of that, a rotating black hole is very close to being spherical but is slightly flattened along its rotational axis.

This feature of black holes makes a different shape called the oblate spheroid.

5. Light Can’t Escape a Black Hole

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With the internet plastered with people talking about how light can’t escape the black hole, no one mentions the entirety of the phenomenon.

According to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a black hole’s escape velocity is faster than the speed of light, preventing light from escaping. However, this is only limited to things inside the event horizon, which means that it isn’t trapping all the light surrounding it; it is just the ones that cross the boundary.

6. All Black Holes Are Black

Black hole in space
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According to Forbes, not every black hole is actually black because light can still be emitted from the region outside the event horizon.

While we tend to think of black holes as blobs of endless darkness floating in space, given the phenomenon’s name, that’s not always true.

7. All Stars Become Black Holes

Star
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Stars must be a specific size to end up as black holes. According to Chicago University, stars at least 1.4 times bigger than our sun become black holes.

This means our sun won’t randomly turn into a black hole and eat up the entire Milky Way. However, it can become a White Dwarf, a stable low-energy star.

8. Event Horizons Cause Spaghettification

Black hole absorbing light
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According to the Royal Museum, “spaghettification” refers to the tidal effect caused by gravitational solid fields, which means that things get stretched toward black holes.

However, some believe this always happens at the boundary of the black hole, which isn’t true. It really depends on the size of the black hole. You can pass through a supermassive black hole’s event horizon without being spaghettified.

9. Large Hadron Collider Can Create a Black Hole

Large Hadron Collider
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Experts at CERN state that the Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. However, that does not mean we can make a black hole in our basement.

We simply don’t have enough mass around us to make it happen. Sorry to let you down, but this is a season on The Flash, and we aren’t going to turn into metahumans anytime soon.

10. Black Holes Exist Forever

Black hole with nebula over colorful stars
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According to Scientific American, all black holes will “evaporate.” This is because they tend to lose matter and eventually cease to exist. Thank you, Hawkings Radiation.

However, it’s essential to mention that this is all theoretical at this point and hasn’t actually been seen or done.

11. Black Holes Are Huge

simulatin of a big black hole
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Black holes come in different sizes. While there are ginormous ones whose size is almost unfathomable, there are much smaller ones that also exist.

According to MIT Technology Review, back in 2019, astronomers found a black hole that was thought to be only 19 kilometers across, which isn’t much when you think about how colossal space really is.

12. You Can’t See a Black Hole

Black hole by NASA
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If you can’t directly see the black hole, it doesn’t mean it’s not there or that it’s invisible. Scientists spot black holes by looking at the way stars around them move.

In 2019, Science Focus reported that the Event Horizon Telescope captured an image of M87*, a supermassive black hole. This means that we can see a black hole by using telescopes.

13. Black Holes Are Holes in Spacetime

Astronaut in space
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Despite what the sci-fi movies said, black holes aren’t literal holes in spacetime.

They can be called holes because anything crossing the point of no return will fall inside. However, that’s not the same as a fracture within the fabric of space and time itself.

14. Black Holes Stay In One Place

Black hole in outer space
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According to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, black holes move through space like any other object in the universe. This mobility once caused two black holes to collide and merge, giving us the first gravitational waves detected in 2015.

The holes orbited each other, getting closer before eventually crashing.

15. Nothing Ever Comes Out of a Black Hole

Hawking Radiation
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Based on our intuition, it’s easy to conclude that nothing comes out of a black hole, but that’s not entirely true.

According to the Physics Forum, radiation called Hawking Radiation leaks from black holes, eventually causing them to evaporate.

16. The Black Hole Image Was Taken by One Telescope

Woman with telescope
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According to the BBC Sky At Night Magazine, the black hole isn’t just one image from one telescope. The image was actually taken by a worldwide network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope, and all the images were combined to form the image we see everywhere now.

Much of space photography is an amalgamation of images stacked together.

17. A Black Hole Is a Path to an Alternate Reality

Giant Black hole with Milky way galaxy
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This myth is popular because it forms the plots of several sci-fi thrillers. The truth is that an alternate reality through a black hole is not possible — or at least hasn’t been discovered.

Some mathematical models state that black holes could form a “bridge” between two locations in the universe, but such a bridge would just not survive. We may have to wait a few decades to see if this is viable.

18. Black Holes Are Empty

Supermassive black hole
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According to NASA, black holes aren’t actually holes, which means they aren’t empty. They have vast concentrations of matter packed into very tiny spaces, meaning they have a high density.

Just because the phenomenon can pull on objects inside the event horizon, that doesn’t mean they’re being sucked into a hole.

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