Scientists May Have Spotted a Black Hole Exploding

Scientists think they may have witnessed something never seen before: a black hole exploding in a brilliant burst of energy.

The clue came from an incredibly powerful neutrino that collided with Earth in 2023. This tiny particle packed so much energy that physicists couldn't explain where it came from using any known cosmic process.

Now researchers at UMass Amherst have a wild but exciting theory. They believe this particle came from the explosion of a primordial black hole, a type of black hole formed just moments after the Big Bang itself.

Unlike the massive black holes created when stars die, primordial black holes could be as small as atoms. No one has ever confirmed they exist, but Stephen Hawking predicted them back in 1974, along with the idea that all black holes slowly leak energy over time through something called Hawking radiation.

Here's where it gets interesting. Smaller black holes burn hotter and faster than giant ones. As they shrink, they get even hotter, creating a runaway process that ends in an explosive finale.

"As primordial black holes evaporate, they become ever lighter, and so hotter, emitting even more radiation in a runaway process until explosion," explains Andrea Thamm, assistant professor of physics at UMass Amherst. That explosion could release exactly the kind of powerful particle that struck Earth.

The team's research, published in Physical Review Letters, goes even further. They suggest these primordial black holes might carry a "dark charge," a force similar to electricity but operating in the hidden realm of dark matter.

Why This Inspires

This discovery matters far beyond one strange particle. If the team is right, the cosmos could be filled with countless primordial black holes we've never detected.

These elusive objects might actually be dark matter, the mysterious invisible substance that makes up 85 percent of all mass in the universe. Scientists have searched for decades to understand what dark matter is, and the answer might have been hiding in plain sight all along.

"If our hypothesized dark charge is true, then we believe there could be a significant population of primordial black holes, which would be consistent with other astrophysical observations, and account for all the missing dark matter in the universe," says researcher Joaquim Iguaz Juan.

One puzzling particle could unlock two of cosmology's greatest mysteries: how black holes die and what dark matter really is.