IS EARTH APPROACHING A BLACK HOLE? | Space Discoveries

 black holes have always amazed humanity  due to how different they behave from  other known astronomical objects  if you've seen our other space articles  you might be aware that black holes are  incredibly powerful  capable of pulling even light itself  once an object is past its event horizon  knowledge about gravitational fields and  planetary theory has made scientists  suspect that a massive  unseen black hole might be lurking right  around the outer solar system  a world known as planet nine the  evidence comes from the strange orbits  of some smaller objects past neptune  that all seem to be influenced by a  bulky  hidden planet far beyond pluto however  planet nine might be something much  different than what originally thought  investigations have shown that it's more  probable that the so-called planet nine  isn't even a planet at all guess what it  could be  harvard scientists have proposed that  planet nine is actually a primordial  black hole  and our solar system is home to one that  we're not even aware of  a number of far-flung objects all have  very similar points of closest approach  to the sun  leading scientists to suspect that a  massive object around five to ten times  the mass of earth  may be hiding in the outer solar system  the sun has a very big  influence on objects in the solar system  much further than what people give it  credit for  that's because the sun projects an  incredible expansive protective bubble  from extrasolar objects known as the  heliosphere  for example it took 36 years and about  12 billion miles for the first  human-made object voyager 1 to leave  our sun's heliosphere which is a  testament to its incredible length and  size at the end of 2018 for example  researchers announced the discovery of  the then most distance trans-newtonian  object known nicknaming it far out  just a few months later in 2019 the same  team trumpeted their discovery of an  even  more distant transnewtonian object  calling it far far  out yep it seems like nasa scientists  aren't exactly the most creative types  for naming stuff in space  however what intrigues scientists is  that far out's length is much  weirder compared to far far out despite  the latter being much further away than  the former  intermediate mass black holes and  supermassive black holes  each is more massive than our sun and  formed at least hundreds of thousands of  years after the big bang as our universe  grew and evolved  this all might sound very intriguing but  is there any plausible way to actually  prove if planet nine is a black hole or  not  harvard scientists have come up with a  method to do it specifically the new  method would scour the outer solar  system for evidence of telltale flares  that are emitted when a black hole  devours a comet or other distant object  such flares they say should be  detectable by the upcoming vera c  reuben observatory in chile which is  expected to begin a 10-year survey of  the southern sky within the next few  years  the truth is that finding black holes  probably because you know they're  invisible to the naked eye is  actually quite difficult dozens of black  holes in the galaxy have been spotted  feeding on nearby clouds of gas a  process that emits x-rays as the  material swirls around the edges of the  black hole  but the majority of the black holes in  our galaxy are invisible so the only way  to find them is by observing their  gravitational effects on surrounding  objects this is part of the oogle or  ogle  project astronomers monitor the sky in  search of gravitational micro lensing  effects which occur when a massive  foreground object  such as a black hole passes directly in  front of a background object such as a  star  if the alignment of the objects is  perfect the heavy foreground object acts  as a sort of lens distorting and  amplifying the light from the object  behind it  the results are fascinating scientists  didn't find just one strange  microlensing event they found  sick that seemed to have occurred when  objects roughly 0.5 to 20 times the mass  of earth acted as gravitational lenses  according to the paper these objects  located about 26 000 light years away  toward the milky way's galactic bulge  could just as easily correspond to an  unexpected population of primordial  black holes rather than free-floating  planets  that might be the actual answer to the  planet 9 question  if such a black hole were to be captured  by the sun and now roaming the solar  system then it would probably  influence the orbit of extrasolar  transnewtonian objects in the same way a  theoretical planet nine would  the main researcher behind these  theories has been constantine battigan  who has been  instrumental in the planet 9 hypothesis  but wasn't involved in the new study  a primordial black hole could possibly  replace planet 9 in the extrasolar model  but it's not  definite either a primordial black hole  sounds like something terrifying when  you first hear it but it's actually not  as strong  as a traditional black hole let alone a  supermassive one  primordial black holes have existed  since the dawn of the universe formed  during the big bang  and have remained there ever since  although the existence of primordial  black holes has not been confirmed some  scientists  think the universe is teeming with them  it was a long time before stars or  galaxies and other types of black holes  could exist but some theories predict  that primordial black holes should have  popped up onto the scene anyway  that's because in that fraction of a  second after the universe itself began  space was not completely homogeneous  instead there were some areas denser and  hotter than others and these dense  regions could have collapsed into black  holes  if they exist such black holes could  make up the 80 percent of the universe  that scientists can't see  there's only a small period of time  about one second following the big bang  when primordial black holes could have  formed  but in the extreme world of our  expanding early universe a lot could  happen in just one second  and the later in this window of time the  primordial black holes formed the more  massive they could be  it's even been theorized that these  could be related to dark matter as  gravity pulls on things throughout the  universe do to them  on average the mysterious body orbits  the sun at a distance 20 times farther  than neptune about 18.6 billion miles it  could take between 10  000 and 20 000 years for it to complete  one trip around the sun  researchers battigan and michael brown  further suggest that planet nine could  have formed in the same way as the gas  giants we all know well  jupiter saturn uranus and neptune  starting as an ice core then grabbing  all the gas around it  it was also suggested that planet nine  may have been close to jupiter or saturn  and then  flung out into the edges of the solar  system which is why it follows such an  eccentric orbit and also influences the  kuiper belt objects  it could take around 800 astronomical  units to actually search for the black  hole if it's real  on top of that if planet 9 is indeed a  black hole then comets residing outside  the solar system could even impact it  they would be destroyed by its strong  gravitational tide and within a second  of accreting onto the black hole would  produce a visible flare  for large enough comets this flare of  light would be detectable by the lsst's  8.4 meter optical telescope  that's taking into account the fact that  small cometary bodies would melt as a  result of heating from the background  accretion of disk from the interstellar  medium onto the black hole  authors believed that they would be able  to detect the first accretion flame a  few months after the lsst's operation  which had been set for first light in  2021  it'll be unique in its ability to survey  the entire sky about twice per week at  incredible levels of sensitivity  flares from the accretion of a small  body onto a planet nine black hole would  be the brightest near the optical band  where lsst  operates since planet nine's position is  unknown the lsst surveys the sky so  quickly it will maximize the chance of  catching a flare  the formation of primordial black holes  would definitely represent new  physics the process that made them in  the early universe is not predicted by  the standard model of particle physics  and cosmology  so it would redefine cosmology and the  knowledge of space as we all know it  on top of that if there's truly a  primordial black hole or a family of  them in there  there should be 50 quadrillion others  too just like it in the milky way alone  over the past four decades lab searches  for dark matter consume  tens of millions of dollars but this  time it could be a change as the lsst  will investigate dark matter at no  extra cost and thus shed some light no  pun intended on the real cause of the  strange gravity out there  so what are your thoughts on the  possibility of a primordial black hole  in our solar system let us know in the    comments