I see, hear, and read about black holes and their consumption power often. They grow as they consume. Eventually, as they keep growing and consuming, wouldn’t they combine and continue the process until they become so large as to devour everything in existence?
In: Physics
No, for a number of reasons.
First, black holes are much, much, much, much smaller than the size of the universe. The universe is continually expanding in every direction, and black holes, despite being massively larger than anything we can conceptualize, are still orders of magnitude smaller than the size of the universe.
Second, black holes don’t grow forever. Steven Hawking’s research showed that black holes will actually slowly evaporate if they don’t have matter to consume. Black holes also don’t grow *that* quickly. Creating a black hole requires a relatively specific set of circumstances, so it’s not like they’re going to pop into exist everywhere.
We’re not really sure what might happen over trillions of years, but afaik the current understanding is that black holes can’t grow big enough to swallow the universe.
I’m sure there are plenty of astronomers with more knowledge than me that can add more detail and/or correct me in the comments haha
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