Black hole week is in full swing, and to celebrate, NASA has explained how its next major astronomical instrument, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will hunt for tiny black holes that date back to the Big Bang.When we think of black holes, we tend to picture vast cosmic monsters like stellar-mass black holes with masses tens to hundreds of times that of the sun. We may even picture supermassive black holes with masses millions (or even billions) of times that of the sun sitting at the hearts of galaxies and dominating their surroundings.Yet, scientists theorize that the universe could also be populated with vastly less massive, relatively featherweight black holes with masses around that of Earth. These black hole, potentially, could have masses as low as that of a large asteroid. Scientists also suggest such black holes would have existed since the dawn of time, some 13.8 billion years ago.Aptly named “primordial black holes,” these black holes have remained purely theoretical, but Roman, which is set to launch in late 2026, could change that.Related: Tiny black holes left over from the Big Bang may be prime dark matter suspects”Detecting a population of Earth-mass primordial black holes would be an incredible step for both astronomy and particle physics because these objects can’t be formed by any known physical process,” William DeRocco, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz who led a team studying how Roman could reveal these ancient tiny black holes., said in a statement “If we find them, it will shake up the field of theoretical physics.”When it comes to event horizons, mass mattersThe smallest black holes ever confirmed to exist are stellar mass black holes, which are created when massive stars run out of the fuel needed for nuclear fusion in their cores. Once such fusion ceases, these stars collapse under the influence of their own gravity. Typically speaking, the minimum mass a star needs to leave behi …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnBlack hole week is in full swing, and to celebrate, NASA has explained how its next major astronomical instrument, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will hunt for tiny black holes that date back to the Big Bang.When we think of black holes, we tend to picture vast cosmic monsters like stellar-mass black holes with masses tens to hundreds of times that of the sun. We may even picture supermassive black holes with masses millions (or even billions) of times that of the sun sitting at the hearts of galaxies and dominating their surroundings.Yet, scientists theorize that the universe could also be populated with vastly less massive, relatively featherweight black holes with masses around that of Earth. These black hole, potentially, could have masses as low as that of a large asteroid. Scientists also suggest such black holes would have existed since the dawn of time, some 13.8 billion years ago.Aptly named “primordial black holes,” these black holes have remained purely theoretical, but Roman, which is set to launch in late 2026, could change that.Related: Tiny black holes left over from the Big Bang may be prime dark matter suspects”Detecting a population of Earth-mass primordial black holes would be an incredible step for both astronomy and particle physics because these objects can’t be formed by any known physical process,” William DeRocco, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz who led a team studying how Roman could reveal these ancient tiny black holes., said in a statement “If we find them, it will shake up the field of theoretical physics.”When it comes to event horizons, mass mattersThe smallest black holes ever confirmed to exist are stellar mass black holes, which are created when massive stars run out of the fuel needed for nuclear fusion in their cores. Once such fusion ceases, these stars collapse under the influence of their own gravity. Typically speaking, the minimum mass a star needs to leave behi …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
