15 JANUARY 2021 For decades, scientists have wrestled with a complex mystery of physics: Could the immense amounts of energy theoretically produced by rotating black holes ever be tapped by human hands?
If future societies were somehow able to pull off this magnificent feat, the power supply of far-off galactic civilisations would seemingly be assured - and now scientists have a new explanation for how such an exotic extraction might one day be possible. "Black holes are commonly surrounded by a hot 'soup' of plasma particles that carry a magnetic field," explains astrophysicist Luca Comisso from Columbia University. "Our theory shows that when magnetic field lines disconnect and reconnect, in just the right way, they can accelerate plasma particles to negative energies and large amounts of black hole energy can be extracted."