Gravity doesn't always hide the heart of a dying star ⚡ экспресс
In theories of gravity with higher curvatures (Lovelock gravity), the collapse of a dust cloud doesn't always lead to a hidden black hole. Scientists have shown that adding such terms increases the likelihood of glimpsing the central singularity—defying the cosmic censorship hypothesis. The higher the order N of the theory, the wider the range of initial conditions that let light rays burst outward. In the critical case of odd dimension (D=2N+1), the event horizon can't form near the center, leaving the singularity exposed. It's like insulation that doesn't contain, only delays the leak—and eventually gives way.
Ordinary gravity is like soft rubber. A dying massive star bends it so deeply that it forms a black hole — a trap from which nothing, not even light, escapes. Physicist Roger Penrose suggested that nature always hides the core behind such 'cosmic censorship'.
However, in a new study, scientists considered a case where spacetime behaves like a very springy rubber. Adding stiffness to the equations of gravity, they found: the star still collapses, but the membrane doesn’t seal into an impenetrable sack. Light from the center bursts out. Imagine a trampoline: a heavy ball pushes it down, but if the trampoline is too tight, the edges don’t meet, and the ball remains visible.
Such 'naked' cores aren't just an abstraction. They could reveal themselves through bursts of gravitational waves or particles, allowing astronomers to peer into the world of quantum gravity. Strikingly, the mathematical additions that stiffen the rubber appear naturally in string theory — perhaps this is happening in the real Universe.
🎯 Penrose, a Nobel laureate, coined the term 'cosmic censorship' in 1969, but now his hypothesis is challenged in theories with extra spacetime stiffness.