• Question: can you clone a black hole?

    Asked by anon-245771 to Sam, Samantha, Nicol, Lori-Ann, Liam, David on 10 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Lori-Ann Foley

      Lori-Ann Foley answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      I don’t think we can clone a black hole, because to clone something you need is DNA and cells and stuff to make copies of. Black holes are where there is so much matter that it has all squashed together so tightly that it takes up a tiny bit of space and nothing can escape, not even light. And anything that gets too close gets pulled in. So we probably couldn’t make a clone of that. But people do try and create tiny black holes in labs, so that is interesting! 🙂

    • Photo: Samantha Faircloth

      Samantha Faircloth answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      Hello Lucia, A black hole is a region in space where nothing (including light!) can escape from it. Scientists are still learning about black holes and may parts of them are not understood yet. It might be difficult to clone something so big and far heavier than our Sun (yes, odd to think that holes are heavy!) and are believed to be able to destroy passing stars! 🙂

    • Photo: David Sobral

      David Sobral answered on 10 Mar 2020: last edited 10 Mar 2020 12:39 pm

      In principle a black hole with the same mass and rotation is an exact clone of one another. So if you want to clone a black hole, just get a star that is exactly the same to begin with and it should produce a black hole that is a perfect clone. Not so easy to do in practice of course, but it should be easier to clone a black hole than a person 🙂

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