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How Do Black Holes Die?
By DAVE MCQUILLING
Black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and explodes into a supernova, throwing its outer layers into space, collapsing in on itself, and compressing into an object of zero volume and infinite density. Due to the scale of the observable universe, scientists predict a new black hole is formed about once per second, but what happens when one dies?
A black hole decays when, due to its immense gravity, it separates and sucks in particles of antimatter that will chip away at its mass very slightly. Eventually, the black hole dissolves if it does not continuously absorb more material than it loses to rogue particles, so a black hole's lifespan is tied to its size: A supermassive black hole has more matter than a regular one.
An evaporating black hole is not expected to go quietly either, as it eventually reaches a point where it doesn't have enough mass left to sustain itself. Yale University's Priyamvada Natarajan explains that the force emitted by a black hole in its final moments could be similar to “a million nuclear fusion bombs going off in a very tiny region of space.”