What is a gravastar?

At the turn of the millennium an equally invisible, but potentially distinguishable alterative to black holes was proposed

A surface you would notice While you would fall into a black hole, a gravastar’s vacuum interior is wrapped inside a shell of quantum matter which you would definitely feel upon impact.

A black star

The strength of a gravastar’s gravitational field means no light coming from them would ever reach us.

Freed from the singularity Unlike classical black holes gravastars don’t contain a singularity, a point of infinite density that breaks our current laws of physics.

Making waves Supporters of the theory believe the merger of two gravastars could also have produced the gravitational waves recorded by LIGO.

A prediction 100 years in the making In 2015 Emil Mottola showed that much of the groundwork for his gravastar theory had been proposed 100 years earlier by physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild.