LONDON, July 15: Black holes, those fearsome galactic traps from which not even light can escape, may not be quite so terminally destructive after all , according to cosmologist Stephen Hawking.

The author of "A Brief History of Time" now believes some "information" sucked into black holes escapes over time, contradicting some of his most famous work on the phenomenon.

Stephen Hawking will present his latest findings at a scientific conference in Ireland next week, New Scientist magazine said, after asking at the last minute to speak.

Black holes are formed when massive stars collapse from their own gravity, the pull of which was thought so strong that nothing can escape. The idea has been fascinating astronomers since the late 18th century, suggesting images of unimaginably strong cosmic whirlpools sucking up space matter and consigning it to oblivion.

In the 1970s, Mr Hawking said that once a black hole formed it lost mass by radiating energy, known as "Hawking radiation", but it contained no information about the inside matter and once the hole evaporated, all information was lost.

This however, created a paradox, since the laws of quantum physics assert such information can never be completely wiped out. Mr Hawking responded that the gravitational pull of black holes was so strong, it unravelled the laws of quantum physics. But that argument failed to convince sceptics in the scientific community.

He will now argue that the black holes never quite shut themselves off completely and, as they emit more heat, they eventually open up and release information. The possible solution to the paradox has sent waves of excitement through the physics community.

"He sent a note saying: 'I have solved the black hole information paradox and I want to talk about it,'" organizer and physicist Curt Cutler told the New Scientist. "I haven't seen a preprint (of the paper).

To be quite honest I went on Hawking's reputation." Gary Gibbons, an expert on black holes, attended a recent seminar held by Mr Hawking at Cambridge University where he outlined his new findings. -Reuters