Can gravity really distort empty space?
Space-time is an elastic membrane,mass grabs space-time telling it how to curve and space-time grabs mass telling it how to move! This is the assumption of gravity according to the general relativity,now in case of black holes having infinite gravity even capable of bending light and not radiating it back,it literally is ripping and creating holes in the fabric of space-time,not only distorting it and due to this there is a certain imbalance as a result of which anything approaching black holes are engulfed by the extreme force. What you are asking is beyond the exact explanation of 21st century physics but they have certainly theorized it in the forms of parallel universes.Black holes demand parallel universe as the hole created and anything passing through it need to end up somewhere,logically speaking,and therefore assumed that black holes could shorten the journey in space but anything passing through it will be in the form of energy traveling faster than the speed of light.Black h
