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Dark Matter Black Holes Could Fly through the Solar System Once a Decade (www.scientificamerican.com)
submitted 17 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Black holes the size of an atom that contain the mass of an asteroid may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say. Theoretically created just after the big bang, these examples of so-called primordial black holes could explain the missing dark matter thought to dominate our universe. And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows.

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[-] [email protected] 17 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

If dark matter is fully explained by such black holes, their most likely mass, according to some theories, would range from 10^17^ to 10^23^ grams—or about that of a large asteroid.

In case this doesn't tell you a lot, 10^17^ grams is half the weight of Mount Everest, and 10^23^ grams is 4x the weight of the Antarctic ice shield.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

The earth is estimated to "weigh" 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. (That is weird when you think about it. The weight of the earth being based on what something weighs on earth, I mean.)

Mt. Everest is only about 357,000,000,000,000 pounds and is just a tiny fraction of the mass of the earth.

So. My point is that we need a better way to portray scale of things in the universe. AUs work to a point but then we have to quickly move to parsecs. Parsecs quickly give way to light years. (Or vice-versa, depending on how you visualize things better.) Light years kinda work, but only for between 14-26 billion years. Even after all of that, I can hardly still fathom the size of Mt. Everest. (This was a rant, but not an angry rant.)

[-] [email protected] 11 points 7 hours ago

The earth is estimated to "weigh" 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds.

Mt. Everest is only 357,000,000,000,000 pounds

My point is that we need a better way to portray scale of things in the universe.

Well, for a start, God uses the metric system.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago

Fuckin everyone uses the metric system

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Even aliens building the pyramids used the metric system

[-] [email protected] 14 points 16 hours ago

Hmmm how much would it be in football stadiums?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

I can only do Olympic swimming pools or bananas.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 15 hours ago

One, if it was a football stadium the size of Mount Everest.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 16 hours ago

I thought these were disproved by lack of gravitational microlensing?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

The main way you'd see that kind of microlensing is if they aggregated.

But given the way gravity works, they should aggregate, otherwise why call them black holes?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

If they were relatively evenly distributed would that counteract lensing?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

Yes, it would just be surprising because, gravity should make them not be evenly distributed.

The whole thing with dark matter is that it's this magic stuff that causes gravity but isn't affected by it, which... is not how gravity normally works.

Though there is still room for it, we just need a better framework other than "I added 3 and 5 and got 12, so obviously I must mean to add 3 and 5 and 4 too".

[-] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

You're mistaken. Dark matter, whatever it is, isn't affected by anything except gravity. It interacts with gravity just like "normal" matter.

The evidence is also significantly better than you're describing

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Then it should also coelescce, particularly since it doesn't have the em force to keep it repelled, the universe should be dominated by massive dark matter black holes.

Yes, there's math that explains part of the distribution, but also there is 0 force opposing any collapse we'd have a lot more neutron stars and other degenerate matter catalyzed by dark matter.

We have hypotheses like this when our observations don't make sense and we need to explain them, it's definitely a possibility but we still have room to understand the large scale physics at play.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

You don't need a force to prevent collapse if there's no drag force to slow things down. It would actually be almost impossible for a cloud of dark matter to collapse since any individual particle has momentum and no way to slow down, so they'll all be in some sort of mutual orbit

[-] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago

Cool, one more thing to keep me up at night

[-] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

What would happen if one of these tiny black holes hit Earth? The article doesn't really talk about it.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 16 hours ago

Absolutely nothing.

Also not sure why they wouldn't evaporate nearly instantaneously. Sounds to me like more dark matter bunk.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Would a regular asteroid be able to wobble the earth as described in this article? Or is it just black holes that should do so?

I seem to remember reading that primordial black holes weren't yet a proven phenomenon and I have trouble imagining them myself. Wouldn't they have hawking radiation too which we would be able to detect?

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago

The book, Seven Eves is about one of these hitting the moon.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago

The cause of the incident is never specified in the book.

this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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