White hole
hypothetical region of spacetime that serves as the opposite of a black hole

In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime and singularity that cannot be entered from the outside, although energy, matter, light and information can escape from it. In this sense, it is the opposite of a black hole, from which energy, matter, light and information cannot escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past. This region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, however, nor are there any observed physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are theoretically predicted to be at the center of every galaxy and may be essential for their formation. Stephen Hawking and others have proposed that these supermassive black holes could spawn supermassive white holes.
Overview
Like black holes, white holes have properties such as mass, charge, and angular momentum. They attract matter like any other mass, but objects falling towards a white hole would never actually reach the white hole's event horizon (though in the case of the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution, discussed below, the white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future, so any object falling towards it will eventually reach the black hole horizon). Imagine a gravitational field, without a surface.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “White hole” is hypothetical region of spacetime that serves as the opposite of a black hole. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through White, hole and hypothetical, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “hypothetical region of spacetime that serves as the opposite of a black hole” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q131468. The Library of Congress control number is sh85146481. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “White hole” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.