Einstein’s general theory of relativity has yielded more insight into the nature of objects of extraordinary mass. Such objects by modern understanding would be described in more modern terms as black holes.
During 1783 geologist John Michell wrote a long letter to Henry Cavendish outlining the expected properties of dark stars, published by The Royal Society in their 1784 volume. Michell calculated that when the escape velocity at the surface of a star was equal to or greater than lightspeed, the generated light would be gravitationally trapped, so that the star would not be visible to a distant astronomer.
If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun were to exceed that of the Sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it would have acquired at its surface greater velocity than that of light, and consequently supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertiae, with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it by its own proper gravity.
This assumes that light is influenced by gravity in the same way as massive objects.
Michell’s idea for calculating the number of such "invisible" stars anticipated 20th century astronomers' work: he suggested that since a certain proportion of double-star systems might be expected to contain at least one "dark" star, we could search for and catalogue as many double-star systems as possible, and identify cases where only a single circling star was visible. This would then provide some sort of statistical baseline for calculating the amount of other unseen stellar matter that might exist in addition to the visible stars.
[edit] Dark stars and gravitational shifts
Michell also suggested that future astronomers might be able to identify the surface gravity of a distant star by seeing how far the star’s light was shifted to the weaker end of the spectrum, a precursor of Einstein’s 1911 gravity-shift argument. However, Michell cited Newton as saying that blue light was less energetic than red (Newton thought that more massive particles were associated with bigger wavelengths), so Michell’s predicted spectral shifts were in the wrong direction. It is difficult to tell whether Michell’s careful citing of Newton’s position on this may have reflected a lack of conviction on Michell’s part over whether Newton was correct, or whether it was just academic thoroughness.
[edit] Laplace and dark stars
In 1796, the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace promoted the same idea in the first and second editions of his book Exposition du système du Monde, apparently independently of Michell (it was removed from later editions). Unlike a modern black hole, the object behind the horizon is assumed to be stable against collapse.
[edit] Wave theory
Later Laplace, and most researchers during the 19th century, generally ignored the idea of "dark stars", since light was then thought to be a massless wave and therefore not influenced by gravity.
[edit] Indirect radiation
Dark stars and black holes both have a surface escape velocity equal or greater than lightspeed, and a critical radius of r ≤ 2M.
However, the dark star is capable of emitting indirect radiation – outward-aimed light and matter can leave the r = 2M surface briefly before being recaptured, and whilst outside the critical surface, can interact with other matter, or be accelerated free from the star by a chance encounter with other matter. A dark star therefore has a rarefied atmosphere of “visiting particles”, and this ghostly halo of matter and light can radiate, albeit weakly.
In 2007 Douglas Spolyar, Katherine Freese and Paolo Gondolo published a paper in the journal Physical Review Letters on the behavior of dark matter in the form of neutralinos during star formation in the early universe within 80 million to 100 million years of the Big Bang. The theory predicts that neutralino / neutralino annihilations would heat up any condensing star and stop it entering the fusion state of a normal star. The star produced would be dark at visible light wavelengths but would emit radiation in the form of gamma rays, neutrinos and antimatter, such as positrons and antiprotons. The authors assigned the name dark star to this hypothetical body. [1]