Abhas Mitra, a theoretical physicist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, reported that he found out Black Holes were actually 'grey holes', long before Stephen Hawking did.
Mitra's research on Black Holes has been appearing in peer-reviewed journals since early 2000. However, his work has been largely ignored by the mainstream media. Here is a link to an abstract of his theory available in the Cornell University Library.
Hawking's recent paper, saying the idea that even light cannot pass through Black Holes might not be true, had generated a lot of media attention. The paper is yet to be peer-reviewed.
Mitra said that his research on the same topic had gone unnoticed. Mitra had got some media attention in 2004 for questioned the existence of Black Holes, with one news report calling him "the Indian who challenged Stephen Hawking".
Black Holes are not that black
According to theoretical physicists, a Black Hole arises from the death of a massive star. It is all vacuum , except for a dense point at its centre called "singularity". These holes have an event horizon, beyond which nothing can escape, not even light.
However, according to quantum physics, no information can be wiped out completely, leading to a paradox called "information loss paradox".
Then, there is the little wrinkle in the Event Horizon called the Firewall paradox proposed by theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and colleagues. The paradox claims that the horizon of the hole is actually a high-energy region that destroys any object near it.
In his latest paper, Hawking tried to resolve the quantum physics part of his theory, by saying that the Event Horizon is actually an Apparent Horizon.
Mitra has stated that true Black Holes cannot be formed. His earlier work on the subject has shown that the Black Holes that astronomers find are actually Eternally Collapsing Objects (ECOs).
"Since no event horizon is formed, there is no paradox at all in the first place," Mitra had said in an earlier interview, according to rediff.com.
