How Black Holes Nearly Ruined Time

From Nautilus' archive: stories about the elusive and beguiling nature of black holes. EDITORS' CHOICE Newsletter brought to you by: June 19, 2022   Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here](. Dear Nautilus Reader, Seven years ago, astrophysicists made headlines when they detected gravitational waves, theorized by Einstein. Since then, scientists have been delighting in what gravitational wave sensors have been able to detect: black hole collisions, neutron star collisions, and combinations of both. In one of our most popular stories this week, “[Gravitational Waves Continue to Astound](,” physicist Sidney Perkowitz explains how the ripples in spacetime are opening new windows on the workings of the universe. Black holes themselves have been endless sources of fascination for Nautilus writers. Theoretical physicist Subodh Patil likes calling primordial black holes [the “black sheep” of black holes](. While Nobel Prize-winning physicist Rainer Weiss suspects they might have links to dark matter, astrophysicist Pedro Ferreira has wondered whether [black holes are simply made of dark matter](. And, have you ever imagined making a black hole at home? [You can—kind of](. But before you do that, ask yourself, [“What do I even mean by ‘black hole’”](? Then, take a moment to appreciate how [black holes nearly ruined time](. And don’t miss this week’s Behind the Scenes with novelist Nell Freudenberger. Experience the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [SUBSCRIBE TO NAUTILUS](       [ASTRONOMY]( [Gravitational Waves Continue to Astound]( BY SIDNEY PERKOWITZ When Galileo Galilei first pointed a small telescope at the heavens in 1609, he began a revolution in astronomy. [Continue reading →](   [Fighting Wildlife Extinction with Flatfile]( Scientists are in a race against time to catalog biodiversity on Earth as extinctions continue to occur. With more than 438,000 sightings in Wild Me's database, the organization is constantly uploading thousands of files and photos of animals. With [Flatfile]('s powerful data-onboarding platform, images are imported and metadata categorized in a tenth of the time it used to take before. Experience the [new standard of data onboarding.]( [Start Free Today](   [ASTRONOMY]( [The Black Sheep of Black Holes]( BY SUBODH PATIL The Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar once remarked that black holes, regions of spacetime whose gravitational field is so strong that not even light can escape its clutches, are the simplest, most perfect macroscopic objects in the universe. [Continue reading →](           [ASTRONOMY]( [Dark Matter May Be Trapped in All the Black Holes]( BY PEDRO FERREIRA When, on February the 11th, 2016, the spokesperson for the Advanced Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observer, or aLIGO, for short, announced the discovery of gravitational waves, I was stunned. [Continue reading →](   [PHYSICS]( [How to Get Close to a Black Hole]( BY GRACE LINDSAY Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe. [Continue reading →](           [PHYSICS]( [Think You Know the Definition of a Black Hole? Think Again]( BY BRIAN GALLAGHER When I was 12, I made the mistake of watching the Paul W. S. Anderson horror film, Event Horizon. [Continue reading →](   [PHYSICS]( [How Black Holes Nearly Ruined Time]( BY ANDREW TURNER & ALEX TINGUELY Black holes are mystifying objects that have captivated our imaginations since their existence was first proposed. [Continue reading →](       BEHIND THE SCENES [Who Are the Scientists Here?]( Earlier this year, [novelist Nell Freudenberger]( approached Nautilus with an article idea. During research for her new novel, she spoke to Hannah Stewart, a marine scientist who was setting up a class for UC Berkeley students at a research station on Mo’orea, an island near Tahiti. “We’re not just training scientists, because we maybe—probably—don’t need more scientists,” Stewart said. Freudenberger was determined to learn more. If ocean research, particularly into the coral reefs around Mo’orea, didn’t need scientists, what did it need? Freudenberger traveled to Mo’orea to find out. In her Nautilus article, “[Who Are the Scientists Here?](” Freudenberger meets the Indigenous people on the island who have their own traditions and methods for understanding and protecting the ocean from tourism, overfishing, and climate change. She also quickly sensed the tension between the locals and Western scientists. “Conflict is happening not just on MoÊ»orea but all over French Polynesia and the world over coastlines, and what they’re going to be used for,” Freudenberger told me [in our recent conversation]( about her article. “Are they going to belong to the people who’ve always lived there? Are they going to be for hotels? Or is climate science so urgent that we should just have scientists there setting up field experiments?” Freudenberger also discussed the legacy of French colonialism in MoÊ»orea as well as experiments scientists ran on the island, exploiting the lack of tourists during the pandemic to see how tourist activity shapes marine animal behavior. Plus, she hints at how the scientist working in MoÊ»orea, in her upcoming novel, will figure in the story, saying she wanted the character to be far away from New York during the pandemic and, in some sense, escape it altogether. “It’s kinda like those viral internet stories—the couple that was caught in Bora Bora during the pandemic and just had to stay in a hotel for their honeymoon,” Freudenberger said. “I was interested in what happened to scientists in that sort of predicament.” [Watch here](. –Brian Gallagher, associate editor   OCEAN [Explore New Depths With a Free Ocean Decade Issue]( Embark on a journey beneath the ocean’s surface with the new [Nautilus Ocean Decade magazine](. The Summer 2022 issue sheds new light on ocean exploration, conservation, and research through stories about the ocean waters and hauntingly beautiful narratives about the creatures that inhabit the waters. [Get a free copy of the Ocean Decade Issue]( when you subscribe to Nautilius Print + Digital. 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