Magnetic Beacons May Signal Invisible "Micro Black Holes" Throughout the Universe
Black holes are the most fascinating features of space time yet discovered, regions where mass is compacted so densely that the values literally go off the scales and physics breaks down. Now it seems that these galactic vacuum cleaners aren't just gravitationally attractive - they're magnetic too.
Magnetic fields are generated by moving electrical charges - this is one of the fundamental electromagnetic effects laid out in Maxwell's laws (and also why resting your credit card on top of your computer case after a shopaholic clicking frenzy is such a bad idea). While these ID-erasing charges you're used to are simply electrons driven along wires, the same effect applies to the significantly more serious effects around a black hole.
A rotating black hole is one of the most violently deforming things that can happen to space-time. In an effect known as "frame-dragging", the spinning singularity doesn't just pull objects, it drags spacetime itself (and everything in it) as it turns. This region contains material being pulled into the black hole, which has been heated and ionised by continual collisions and so is charged. Now you have your moving charges and hey presto, a magnetic field.
This is particularly interesting in application to micro black holes that are believed to be scattered throughout the galaxy, inconveniently remaining invisible because of their small size and that whole "even light cannot escape" thing, which will always make something hard to see. Whether radiation or other effects from the generated magnetic fields will make them more detectable remains to be seen - as a recently postulated advance, the effects (or even acceptance) of this model remain to be seen.
This research, by researchers of the Pakistan National University of Science and Technology, is an excellent demonstration of just how rich the subject of black holes is: a combination of highly advanced relativity and first year student electromagnetism leading to a new, and hopefully observable, effect.
So don't put your credit cards near a black hole - though if you find yourself in a position where you can, Starfleet will probably take care of replacing them for you.
Posted by Luke McKinney.
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