If you’re interested in space, you probably already know what a black hole is. A black hole is a fascinating subject, it’s like the bathtub drain of the universe. Everything gets pulled into the center of it, similar to the water draining into a tub drain, except the stuff pulled in is stars, planets, and light, instead of water. The more large an object is, the greater the pull of gravity is on that object. Black holes are 100s of times larger than stars and suns, so their pull of gravity is impossible to escape. With tub drains the water pulled in goes through pipes and out to water treatment plants, but what happens to the things pulled into a black hole? Nothing that goes into a black hole ever comes out, and black holes eventually just… fade away. So what happens to the stuff that went into the black hole? That’s where a white hole comes in.

In theory, a white hole would be a region in space with a great density- tightly packed together- that pushes matter out. Any object that is ejected from the white hole would never be able to go back into the white hole’s center, different from a black hole, where anything that gets close enough gets sucked in. The white hole pushes out light, matter, and anything else stuck inside it. 

But where do they come from? Black holes are formed from the insanely large explosion from the death of a star, but if black holes are opposite to white holes, then are white holes formed in the birth of a star? Scientists wondered about this, but after some deliberation, the theory was dismissed. The creation of a white hole wouldn’t follow the exact opposite of a black hole, even though their functions are opposite. Instead, scientists began to wonder if white holes could be formed by the death of a Black hole. When a black hole fades, all the matter sucked inside seems to disappear, which is impossible by the laws of the universe. So what if when a black hole dies, all the matter inside is condensed into a white hole? The white hole emerges from the endless pit of darkness, and instead of pulling everything in and crushing it, it gives back, pushing everything out.

So, are white holes real? I know what you’re thinking, ‘You just talked all about them, of course, they’re real,’ but unfortunately, even though this is a really interesting and cool concept, there is no evidence that white holes actually exist. So why research something fake? In science, you’re constantly learning new things about the world and the universe, and there is never a bad subject. The more we research white holes, the more we learn about black holes. There is no such thing as an answer in science, only better questions. Some things don’t need to be real to be useful, as long as you learn from them.