---
title: "Scientists Just Took the Temperature of a Lab-Made Black Hole"
description: "Physicists created a sonic black hole in the lab and then took its temperature — and the measurement seems to confirm a prediction made by Stephen Hawking."
date: "2019-05-30"
modified: "2019-05-30"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/temperature-lab-made-black-hole"
categories:
  - "Astrophysics"
  - "Black Holes"
  - "Science & Energy"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "black hole"
  - "Hawking Radiation"
  - "sonic black hole"
  - "Stephen Hawking"
  - "the digest"
---

# Scientists Just Took the Temperature of a Lab-Made Black Hole

![Physicists created a sonic black hole in the lab and then took its temperature — and the measurement seems to confirm a prediction made by Stephen Hawking.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/temperature-lab-made-black-hole.png>)
*\<em\>Image: geralt/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Sonic Black Hole

When we talk about [black holes](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/black-hole-photo-amazing-zoom-out>), we're usually referring to the massive space phenomena with gravity so strong that they capture even light. However, in 2009, researchers managed to create a different kind of black hole — [one that absorbs sound](<https://futurism.com/lab-grown-black-hole-may-have-just-proven-that-hawking-radiation-exists>) — in the lab.

Since then, these sonic black holes have proven useful as analogs for the light-absorbing kind. And now, a team of physicists has managed to [take the temperature](<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-scientists-took-temperature-sonic-black-hole>) of one — a measurement that seems to confirm a prediction Stephen Hawking made about black holes 45 years ago.

## Hawking Radiation

In 1974, Hawking [proposed](<https://www.space.com/39988-black-hole-mysteries-stephen-hawking.html>) that black holes emit small streams of particles at their event horizons. These particles became know as "[Hawking radiation](<https://futurism.com/heres-what-hawkings-solution-to-the-black-hole-problem-means-for-physics>)," and based on the physicist's predictions, a black hole's mass should determine its temperature.

In a [study](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1241-0#author-information>) published in the journal *Nature* on Wednesday, researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology describe how they created a sonic black hole and measured the temperature of its Hawking radiation through an extremely technical process involving a fluid of ultracold atoms and multiple lasers.

Those measurements matched the temperature predicted by Hawking, suggesting that the late physicist was on to something — but we won't know for sure until we're able to test the theory on the light-absorbing black holes populating our universe.

**READ MORE:** [In a first, scientists took the temperature of a sonic black hole](<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-scientists-took-temperature-sonic-black-hole>) \[*Science News*\]

**More on Hawking radiation:** *[Here’s What Hawking’s 'Solution' to the Black Hole Problem Means for Physics](<https://futurism.com/heres-what-hawkings-solution-to-the-black-hole-problem-means-for-physics>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)