Do Stars Fall Quietly into Black Holes, or Crash into Something Utterly Unknown?

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University have put a basic principle of black holes to the test, showing that matter completely vanishes when pulled in. Their results constitute another successful test for Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Most scientists agree that black holes, cosmic entities of such great gravity that nothing can escape their grip, are surrounded by a so-called event horizon. Once matter ...