Physicists working at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, have produced what appears to be a black hole in their lab. They say it displays the same characteristics as the natural phenomenon found in space.

The hole is in the centre of a plasma fireball with a temperature approximately 300 times hotter than the suns surface. Beam collisions caused by gold nuclei being fired at near light speed are sucked into the black hole, allowing it to be measured.

The team were suprised when they found the rate of beam absorption to be ten times that of their calculations. It is believed that the particle beams are entering the core and reappearing as thermal radiation.

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