For nearly half a century, scientists have grappled with a significant cosmic puzzle: The visible matter in the universe doesn’t account for its behavior. Stars, planets, and cosmic dust—everything we can see—fall short of explaining the universe’s dynamics.
According to NASA, there must be five times more matter than what we observe to make sense of it all. This elusive substance is known as Dark matter, and it remains invisible and unresponsive to light.
In the 1970s, American astronomers W. Kent Ford and Vera Rubin confirmed dark matter’s existence by studying stars orbiting at the edges of spiral galaxies. These stars moved too rapidly to be held together solely by the galaxy’s visible matter and gravity—they should have dispersed.
The only plausible explanation was an unseen mass, binding the galaxy: dark matter. As Rubin famously stated, “What you see in a spiral galaxy is not what you get.”
Since then, scientists have sought direct evidence of dark matter. They’ve constructed large detectors, but so far, their efforts have yielded no conclusive results. Enter renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking, who proposed that dark matter might reside within black holes formed during the big bang. His theory has recently regained attention.
A new study by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sheds light on this cosmic enigma. They’ve unveiled the composition of these Primordial black holes, which could potentially represent an entirely new class of exotic black holes.
These primordial black holes emerge as a byproduct of explaining dark matter, thanks to Stephen Hawking’s calculations regarding black holes and their radiation.
Coauthor Elba Alonso-Monsalve, an MIT graduate student, explains that Hawking’s black hole theory, once dismissed, is now gaining traction. The surprise lies in the fact that these exotic black holes might hold the key to understanding dark matter.
But what exactly are primordial black holes? They formed within the first quintillionth of a second after the big bang. Unlike the massive black holes found at the centers of galaxies, primordial black holes are minuscule—ranging from the size of a grain of sand to that of a mountain. Their elusiveness makes them challenging to detect, yet their existence could explain the missing dark matter.
The MIT researchers’ work opens up exciting possibilities. By studying these exotic black holes, we may finally unravel the universe’s greatest mystery. Dark matter, once concealed in cosmic shadows, could soon reveal itself through these unexpected cosmic byproducts.
