What would happen if a black hole popped into existence in my road then vanished after 10 seconds?

Question

I know the fundamental science behind a black hole, but I'm not sure what would happen in the above condition. This is a purely theoretical question, so don't bother pedantically pointing out that this could never happen because... or that black holes are permanent because... I'm not interested in that sort of answer. I'd like to hear what you think the outcome of the above condition would be. Destruction of Earth? Destruction of the solar system? Destruction of my road? What would happen to light and matter particles trapped and permanently falling on the event horizon once the hole winked out of existence? Would they be released? If so, what would be the nature of that release?

Answer 1

Because of its immense density it would fall towards the center of the earth. As it fell toward the center of the earth it would absorb more matter from the hole and grow, thus the hole would get bigger as it went deeper. At some point you would wind up with a black hole in the center of the earth.

This would happen very quickly so you will probably break an axle driving down the road when you hit that very deep pothole.

Answer 2

Like others are saying, it depends on the size. That's not a very precise answer though. You see, some scientists believe that atom-smashing in particle accelerators actually creates tiny black holes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1440631,00.html

On the other hand, they don't last anywhere near ten seconds. Way less than a nanosecond.

A black hole must have enough mass to trap light, and even a very small one would do serious damage. My guess is that if it's big and stable enough to exist for 10 seconds, it would at least destroy the solar system. I would guess it would have an event horizon big enough to encompass the whole system. But maybe it won't, let's think about that.

It would definitely destroy the Earth (and Moon). Regardless of how massive it is, it has enough mass to fall towards the Earth, and it would simply consume the Earth in the process. Because of that, it would destabilize the rest of the system so that the planets would crash into the Sun (and probably into each other before they got there).

Oh, and if it destroyed the Earth within say, 5 seconds, it would then shoot towards the sun really fast. So it might make it to the Sun and destroy the Sun too, assuming the Sun wasn't initially within its event horizon.

Your question about what would happen when it disappears is really up to you. That part of your question is imagined. Everything that gets pulled into the black hole becomes a part of the black hole. It depends on how it "disappears" whether or not they come back. A black hole, as far as we know, compresses matter into itself, and so when it disappears, I guess that matter goes with it? I mean, if you left that matter there, and only removed what came with the black hole initially, the leftover stuff would continue to be a black hole.

Answer 3

Some have said that the outcome would be the destruction of your road or possibly further - this is most likely true. I have a funny feeling however that for what it does not destroy will be left bent into a position of being sucked towards the black hole.

The reason I believe this is because I seem to remember reading somewhere that a black hole has the power to even bend the space around it! You could picture this by drawing a grid line onto space in your head. Where the black hole is, the nothingness around it curves towards it - the grid line curves.

I can't say I truly know what the answer is or if what I have said is completely correct as memory can sometimes be a deceiver. But take into consideration that I an only 13 and I have my whole life ahead of me to learn more about the nature of physics.

Answer 4

Only depends on its size (more precisely the size of its event horizon, since, by definition, a blackhole is a singularity).
If a few microns in diameter, it will quickly evaporate and would not have had the time to "swallow" anything around, except a bit of air...
The fact to remember is that if a black hole swallows something, IT GROWS. At the same time, it evaporates and SHRINKS. If it grows faster than it shinks, it grows forever. If it shrinks faster, it disappears. It can only grow if it TRAPS MATTER... (its food!)
If a few mm in diameter, while still evaporating, it will have enough gravitational pull to attract objects around it, that will start moving towards it. With luck, its life will be short enough to prevent anything to reach it. However, the objects around it (while it existed) will have acquired a serious velocity (comming from all directions), and a very large pile of cars, phone posts, phone boots, passer's by, roof tiles and garbage will collapse on itself where the BH was an instant before. Big kind of hurricane will swirl around as missing (swallowed) air is replaced by fresh air.
Bit bigger again, the consequences will be more drastic, wher the whole street (including earth under it) will have had time to be swallowed. Imagine a sphere of "nothing", or cut-out of the street, with the center at street level: a big hole, half spherical will be the remains.
Bit bigger?
Well, instead of evaporating (BH DO evaporate - but I would be pedantic explaining), it would start "feeding" with its surrounding, expanding at the same time. Its growth will NOT be stoppable, and it will continue growing until the whole of Earth has disappeared (with the consequences of the various crashes and crushes that implies).
Without doing calculations, my guess is that its volume (after eating Earth) would be sufficient to swallow the Moon.
The gravitational pull on the closest planets would change their path (orbits), and - I am not calulating again - It could, after a certain time, attract enough Venus and Mars to be able to create an acretion disk. As time goes by, Mars and Venus will be thorn to pieces and attracted to our little friend. (Friend????).
Its mass will continue to increase.
What happen next is your guess.
It could have enough gravitational pull to eat up the other planets and the sun, then go on and eat the galaxy!
It could just starve from lack of matter and start to evaporate.
After a while, it will just go "blip" and disappear. I say "blip" because, since we won't be around, we will not see or hear anything...
And when a BH "evaporates", don't ask what happen to the matter that fell into it before. We don't even know what happen to that matter once it passes the event horizon. Best guess is that it is converted into energy, but don't quote me...

Answer 5

Light travels at 299 792 458 m/s therefore multiply this by 10 seconds to give 2 997 924 580 m or 2,997,924.580 km everything within this range of the black hole within those 10 seconds would be absorbed/destroyed.

Answer 6

in brief, it depends on how big the black hole is.

let's assume it's the size of a football, 10 seconds would be enough for it to suck up most of your road, house etc. for atleast 100m in all directions with of course all the light in the area too, maybe leaving a giant crater as well.

Any bigger and there would be a huge wipeout, cities, countries you name it.

In terms of releasing, we cannot be sure what would happen when it ceases existing because it's never been tested.

But I would imagine the black hole would vanish and everything inside it too - it just doesn't make sense to me if it all comes back. However the aftermath wouldn't be too devastating - light would be back in a splitsecond but building up the area might take a while!

Answer 7

theoretically a black hole is a star that has collapsed on itself so your road would not exist because it would have been in the middle of a star and it would all be helium and you would speak with squeaky voice.
theoretically, that is.

Answer 8

42

Answer 9

When a car driver'd drive over it thinkin' it's a smmall hole, 'is car will soon go inside withou' even people realizin'.

Answer 10

unless you have a star collapsing on your road which was placed in a small area of the earth with no atmosphere or air in it then it wouldnt happen. if it did happen however, the whole earth would get sucked into it.