
We Thought Black Holes Ended in Singularities. They Might End In a Frozen Big Bang.
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For a while back there we might be able to avoid the black hole. They’d been lurking as shadows in our theories of gravity forever. Enough mass crammed into a small enough space would lead to a gravitational field at the surface from which not even light could escape from a surrounding surface that we call the event horizon. The event horizon generates paradoxes that worry physicists, and the singularity of infinite density within the black hole worries them even more. And so many brave physicists have fought for centuries to prove that these monsters don’t exist. They hoped nature would step in to save us from the theoretical horror of ultimate gravitational collapse. One of our final hopes is the Planck star—a ball of energy at the heart of the black hole like frozen shards of the Big Bang. Let’s hope they’re real, for physics’ sake.
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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Richard Dyer & Matt O'Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Mike Martin
Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.
End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka
Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:
Big Bang
Alexander Tamas
Filip Rolenec
Juan Benet
Kenneth See
Mark Rosenthal
Matthew Ocko
Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Vinnie Falco
Daniel Muzquiz
Quasar
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Justin Lloyd
Mark Heising
Rad Antonov
Shaun Williams
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke
Hypernova
Alex Kern
Ben Delo
Chuck Zegar
Dean Galvin
Donal Botkin
Gregory Forfa
Jeff White
John R. Slavik
Massimiliano Pala
PAUL C PEDERSEN
Scott Gorlick
Scott Gray
Spencer Jones
Vlad Shipulin
Zachary Haberman
Антон Кочков
For a while back there we might be able to avoid the black hole. They’d been lurking as shadows in our theories of gravity forever. Enough mass crammed into a small enough space would lead to a gravitational field at the surface from which not even light could escape from a surrounding surface that we call the event horizon. The event horizon generates paradoxes that worry physicists, and the singularity of infinite density within the black hole worries them even more. And so many brave physicists have fought for centuries to prove that these monsters don’t exist. They hoped nature would step in to save us from the theoretical horror of ultimate gravitational collapse. One of our final hopes is the Planck star—a ball of energy at the heart of the black hole like frozen shards of the Big Bang. Let’s hope they’re real, for physics’ sake.
Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime
Check out the Space Time Merch Store
https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop
Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!
https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime
Search the Entire Space Time Library Here: https://search.pbsspacetime.com/
Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Richard Dyer & Matt O'Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Mike Martin
Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.
End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka
Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:
Big Bang
Alexander Tamas
Filip Rolenec
Juan Benet
Kenneth See
Mark Rosenthal
Matthew Ocko
Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Vinnie Falco
Daniel Muzquiz
Quasar
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Justin Lloyd
Mark Heising
Rad Antonov
Shaun Williams
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke
Hypernova
Alex Kern
Ben Delo
Chuck Zegar
Dean Galvin
Donal Botkin
Gregory Forfa
Jeff White
John R. Slavik
Massimiliano Pala
PAUL C PEDERSEN
Scott Gorlick
Scott Gray
Spencer Jones
Vlad Shipulin
Zachary Haberman
Антон Кочков
PBS Space Time
Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew O’Dowd.
Episodes released every Wednesday afternoon!
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