Humans are quite rightly fascinated by black holes, but could we ever harness them as an energy source? New research poses this question in order to explore some of the most wonderous cosmic events.
Black holes are bounded by outer barriers called event horizons that prevent us from ever viewing their interiors or their hearts, singularities at which all known laws of physics collapse. This means black holes couldn't be more mysterious. Black holes are also unlike anything found on Earth or in the solar system in another respect: their sheer power.
"In an important article written in 1969, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose speculated on the possibility that an advanced civilization could extract energy from a rotating black hole," research author Jorge Pinochet of the Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences told Space.com. "In principle, extraction is possible, and it could be a clean and efficient solution to the complex energy problems we will likely face as a society in the distant future."
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