ELI5: Where does matter and energy go when it enters a black hole?

r/

According to conservation of energy, everything that was pulled into a black hole has to exist either in form of energy or mass right?

Comments

  1. mcoombes314 Avatar

    It would be added to the mass-energy of the black hole.

  2. Chandysauce Avatar

    Its just called a black hole, its not actually hole. All the stuff that gets sucked in is still there. It’s just unfathomably compressed.

  3. whiteb8917 Avatar

    Yes, the incoming matter has Mass, The Black hole has Mass. The small mass objects are attracted to larger, or MASSIVE masses, and the smaller masses become one with the larger mass.

  4. cipheron Avatar

    Uh yeah, you know the one defining thing about black holes is that they’re very massive, which is why they have such strong gravity.

    They suck in matter and energy, which just gets added to the existing mass, making it a more massive black hole with stronger gravity. The result of that is that the event horizon expands out.

  5. demanbmore Avatar

    We don’t really know. All we know is that that region of spacetime impacts surrounding regions as if it has all that matter and energy spread uniformly throughout it (which is the same as if it’s concentrated in a point in its center).

  6. Fun_East8985 Avatar

    It will become part of the black hole. It enters and then becomes compressed and all the matter is still in there.

  7. dirschau Avatar

    It goes into the black hole. And the black hole increases in mass. There’s no contradiction anywhere here.