Black holes 'do not exist'

These mysterious objects are dark-energy stars, physicist claims.

"This strange behaviour, he says, is the signature of a 'quantum phase transition' of space-time. Chapline argues that a star doesn't simply collapse to form a black hole; instead, the space-time inside it becomes filled with dark energy and this has some intriguing gravitational effects.

Outside the 'surface' of a dark-energy star, it behaves much like a black hole, producing a strong gravitational tug. But inside, the 'negative' gravity of dark energy may cause matter to bounce back out again.

If the dark-energy star is big enough, Chapline predicts, any electrons bounced out will have been converted to positrons, which then annihilate other electrons in a burst of high-energy radiation. Chapline says that this could explain the radiation observed from the centre of our galaxy, previously interpreted as the signature of a huge black hole."

You know, I always sort of suspected that something like this would end up being the case. It just makes so much more sense that such strong gravity around a negative core would create enough kinetic force to keep the galaxies spinning. Like the void between electrons from which the virtual photon is formed that propels them apart. I imagine there's a little spot of nothing in the middle of most things, even in our own subtle energy centers, a microscopic void taking in the flux of particles and spitting it back out in some altered form, and binding the whole system together. Sartre might not have been quite wrong when he said consciousness was actually nothing.

[via posthuman blues]