Can light escape a black hole? If it can't where does the light go once in the black hole?

Answer 1

Light can escape a black hole by doing one of two things: it can be far enough away to not be pulled in or it can move at a trajectory that would slingshot it around the event horizon. However, once caught in a black hole's gravity well, there is no escape.

Some scientists think that the intense gravity of a black hole can actually tear the fabric of our universe, creating a wormhole or white hole to another place and/or time, where the captured light would spew out. Unfortunately, we've seen black holes, but no white ones, which makes that theory extremely difficult to support.

The mainstream thought that the light is converted to energy used to help fuel the black hole.

Answer 2

Your question if it can't answered may mean that a black hole can't exist,and there are some good reasons why black holes can't exist
Any celestial body when viewed above the surface has it's mass and gravity concentrated at the center.
If you penetrate the surface some of the mass and gravity is now between you and the surface so orbital velocity gets less as you move away from the surface either up or down.
With a black hole when you penitrate the surface the mass and gravity is still concentrated at the center.
Orbital velocity above the surface would diminish as you moved up from the surface but would increase when you moved below the surface.
The escape velocity on the surface of a black hole is greater than the speed of light so if you penetrated the surface you would have to travel faster than light which cannot be.

Answer 3

The definition of a black hole is a singularity (not actually a hole) that has gravity and density so intense its escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. And since nothing can go faster than the speed of light then nothing can escape. A photon that "tries" would become infinitely redshifted, loose all its energy to the blackhole and disappear.

Answer 4

The reason a black hole is called a black hole is because light doesn't escape. The light waves attenuate as they lose energy colliding with mass.

Answer 5

Only objects traveling faster than the speed of light can escape the intense gravity of a black hole.
Light that goes in will get bent down into the singularity.
After that, no-one knows what happens to it!

Answer 6

Remember that a black hole bends space/time.
Light still, (probably), travels in "straight" lines however, to us outside the event horizon, the lines, if we could observe them, would appear to curve so that the light never escapes.