Black holes slowly evaporate over cosmic time
Black holes, once considered eternal, slowly evaporate through Hawking radiation, a quantum process that reveals a surprising link between gravity and quantum mechanics over cosmic timescales.
Black holes, once thought to be eternal cosmic traps, actually slowly shrink and disappear through a process called Hawking radiation. Predicted by Stephen Hawking in 1974, this radiation occurs when quantum fluctuations near the event horizon cause the black hole to lose tiny amounts of mass.