Are tiny black holes zipping through our solar system? Scientists hope to find out. [View all]
A mind-bending hypothesis is gaining traction among scientists: The universe may be teeming with microscopic black holes the size of an atom, but with the mass of a city-sized asteroid.
Created just a split second after the Big Bang, these hypothetical black holes would whip quietly through the solar system roughly once every few years, traveling over a hundred times faster than a bullet.
Some have even argued that an immense explosion that flattened a Siberian forest in 1908 could have been the result of one of these micro black holes impacting Earth.
Now, researchers say they’ve figured out a way to test whether these cosmic bullets truly exist.
In a study published Tuesday in the journal Physical Review D, physicists at MIT say the presence of a tiny black hole speeding through the solar system could be identified by the gentle gravitational nudge it exerted on the Earth and other planets, which would alter their orbital paths by no more than a few feet.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-09-17/tiny-black-holes-zipping-through-the-solar-system
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