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Where Does the Matter That a Black Hole Consumes Go?

-- | September 20, 2016

Question: I have heard that Black Hole would consume all the planets, light and other object in the space. I am interested to know where exactly the Black Hole would store or release all these consumed ones? Thanks in anticipation for your response. — Sarvagnya

Answer: Much of the matter that a black hole attracts forms an accretion disk of matter rotating around the black hole. The matter in this accretion disk gets heated-up due to friction between all of the matter in the disk, which ultimately results in the release of energy. As matter enters the event horizon of the black hole, we can only speculate as to what happens to it. Most scenarios involve matter merging with the singularity at the center of the black hole. For a very nice description of what would happen to you if you fell into a black hole, see the Scitable blog post on this subject.

Jeff Mangum

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