White Holes May Produce Gamma-Ray Bursts

A group of scientists proposes that the origin of a hybrid gamma-ray burst they observed some time ago may have been a white hole. There is no other way to explain why the event unfolded with the intensity and duration it did, they add.

In order to understand why the team made this proposition, we must first look at GRB classifications. There is the long-duration variety, and then there's the short-duration one. In order to qualify for inclusion in the first category, a GRB has to be longer than 2 seconds.

Some long-duration bursts can even last more than a minute. Astrophysicists have determined that the phenomenon originates in stellar nurseries – areas of intense stellar formation – and that they are associated with supernova explosions.

On the other hand, short GRB were found to originate in areas with little to no stellar formation, and are not associated with supernova blasts. But a particular event, called GRB 060614, did not respect these two categories, Universe Today reports.

Astronomers say that this is the first confirmed hybrid gamma-ray burst, given that it lasted for more than 102 seconds, even if experts could not find any associations with supernova explosions.

In a paper published in a recent issue of the top scientific journal Nature, experts wrote that this is the first time such a phenomenon has been observed, and that existing theories go a short way towards explaining why this is even possible,

Now, investigators propose that the source of GRB 060614 may have been a white hole, a construct that is theoretically the exact opposite of a black hole. While the latter draws matter in, and converts some of it into energy, a white hole theoretically spews out matter.

Nothing can enter a white hole, astrophysicists propose. Instead, light and matter can and do escape at will. According to theoretical physicists, black holes are essentially funnels (wormholes) in spacetime that feed material and light into other portions of the Universe.

At the other end of a black hole's wormhole is a white hole, the theory goes, that releases recycled matter and energy. This process might be accompanied by the release of hybrid GRB, experts now say.

Interestingly, theories also suggest that such a black hole-white hole connection may in fact be violating certain principles of physics. Experts say that matter and light entering a wormhole may travel back in time.

As such, a black hole in today's Universe may in fact be fueling the release of matter – and the creation of anisotropies – in the early Universe, before any galaxies formed.