Something that happens around black holes might be more fundamental...

New theoretical research by our consortium member Heino Falcke, together with Michael Wondrak and Walter van Suijlekom from the Radboud University gives a new angle to look at Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation shows that black holes will eventually evaporate - but in this process the event horizon might not be as crucial as has been believed: gravity and the curvature of spacetime can cause this radiation too. This means that all large objects in the universe, like the remnants of stars, have an event horizon and will eventually evaporate.