Naked singularity

In general relativity, a naked singularity is a gravitational singularity without an event horizon. The singularities inside black holes are always surrounded by an area which does not allow light to escape, and can therefore not be directly observed. A naked singularity, by contrast, is a point in space where the density is infinite and which is observable from the outside.

The theoretical existence of naked singularities is important because their existence would mean that it would be possible to observe the collapse of an object to infinite density.

Computer simulations of the collapse of a disk of dust have indicated that these objects can exist and thus the Cosmic censorship principle (stating that singularities are always hidden) does not hold. Stephen Hawking lost a bet about this question.