10 Craziest Facts You Didn't Know About Black Holes

7. Hawking Radiation

For the majority of people, Stephen Hawking is just the main character of The Theory of Everything but to scientists and space-nerds across the globe, he is an absolute hero. Though more widely known for his book A Brief History of Time, in which he tries to explain EVERYTHING, perhaps his biggest contribution to the world of science was his 1974 theory which described black holes actually losing energy.

As we've established, no-one has any idea what's happening inside a black hole, however Hawking came up with this idea that black holes were actually slowly evaporating, spewing out radiation at extremely low speeds and would eventually die out.

Trying to understand how this decay actually happens is about as easy as finding a needle in a haystack with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back. Virtual particles appear... one falls into the black whole, the other becomes... real..? What?!

So unless you want to turn your brain matter into porridge, just feel safe in the knowledge that even scary black holes will one day die.