Mysterious Monsters

In spite of the possibly large number of black holes lurking out there, however, these strange objects are far from easy to observe and study. Thorne admits, “Their darkness hides them from view. Astronomers have great difficulty finding them.” This elusiveness imparts to black holes an air of mystery. And indeed, one reason they are so fascinating to so many people is that they are exceedingly mysterious objects. Because even light is trapped inside them, cutting them off from the visible and tangible parts of the universe, they are dark, foreboding, and in some

Gas and rocky debris swirl around a black hole, creating a disk of material that will eventually be drawn inside the hole.

ways frightening. Most importantly, what lies inside black holes, no matter how hard humans try to theorize about it, is ultimately unknowable. As eminent scholar John Taylor, of King’s College, London, puts it:

Ever since humans began to think, we have worshiped that which we cannot understand. As millennia have passed, we have understood an ever-increasing amount about the world around us. . . . Yet we are now in a position of facing the ultimate unknowable, which can never be penetrated as long as we remain in our present physical form. The ultimate unknowable is the black hole. However hard we may struggle, we will never be able to get out of this most fearsome object of the heavens once inside it. Nor can we ever find out what is happening in its interior if we stay outside, fearing to make the one-way trip.