Science, Technology & Health: September 2019 Archives

Is Planet 9 a Small Black Hole?

Some physicists are speculating that "Planet 9" might be a small black hole. I sure hope so.

For nearly 5 years, growing numbers of scientists have blamed the weird orbits of distant solar system objects on the gravitational effects of an as-yet-undiscovered "Planet Nine" that lies in the icy realm far beyond Neptune. But a pair of physicists is now floating an intriguing idea that could offer a new way to search for the object: What if that supposed planet is actually a small black hole? ...
But if the object is a planet-mass black hole, the physicists say, it would likely be surrounded by a halo of dark matter that could stretch up to 1 billion kilometers on every side. And interactions between dark matter particles in that halo--especially collisions between dark matter and dark antimatter--could release a flash of gamma rays that would betray the object's presence, the researchers propose in a forthcoming paper posted on the preprint server arXiv.

It would be absolutely amazing for humanity to have physical access to a black hole! Just imagine all the science we could do with it.