Black hole could be passage to another universe, theorizes Stephen Hawking - Popular physicist Stephen Hawking has proposed a new theory which says that humans could escape through black holes into another universe.

Addressing a conference in Stockholm, Hawking added that unfortunate space travellers won't be able to return to their own universe but they can escape somewhere else.

He noted that black holes are in fact not as "black" as people thought. "The existence of alternative histories with black holes suggests this might be possible," Hawking said, according to a report from Stockholm University.

"The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn't come back to our universe. So although I'm keen on space flight, I'm not going to try that."

We believe that nothing, not even light, can escape the gravitational point of no return known as an event horizon. But Hawking stresses that the fundamental "code" which ties the universe together escapes as a form of radiation. But it been transformed irrevocably.

"Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly come out in another universe," Hawkings said yesterday.

The idea is not new but Hawking has made yet another attempt to answer a physics quandary that has been an unexplained part of the groundbreaking theories about black holes he presented about 40 years ago. It's called the "information paradox".