Scientists Are SCARED By This New Black Hole Discovery

 we didn't know what to do with these  extra dimensions they were there  just to make the theory consistent and  we were hiding it away in tiny little  things  and then came the question about the  black holes and the black hole the  opposite problem  the problem with the black hole was  black holes are a lot like the giant  squid  of earth's oceans they're large  powerful and reside in the deep dark  places well beyond human exploration  in saying that they're much scarier in  the minds of sailors and space explorers  than they are in real life  even though they both have the capacity  to eat ships  but where do black holes fit into the  dark matter puzzle  and how important are they to finally  sneaking a peek  at the unseen universe today we're  seeing if one of the deadliest forces in  the galaxy  can help us understand the most  mysterious forces  in how black holes will enable  scientists  to finally crack dark matter  what's a black hole put simply a black  hole is the largest single structure in  the universe  well that we've been able to detect so  far they have an  almost unfathomable amount of mass  contained in their center  that concentrates into a singularity an  infinitely small  one-dimensional point the resulting  gravitational attraction is astounding  not only do gas dust plants and stars  get sucked into the vortex  but electromagnetic radiation as well  including  visible light the event horizon  is the threshold point around the black  hole where light can't travel fast  enough to escape what lies beyond is a  mystery  as scientific detectors rely on  radiation scattered back to get a  reading  it's literally a point of no return  where do they come from in short  a black hole forms when a star collapses  in on itself  if that sounds like it doesn't make  sense it's because it doesn't  things start getting a little bit freaky  when intense gravity comes into play  a point that becomes evident when you  realize that a black hole  technically does not take up any space  despite having insane mass  in a nutshell stars burn on hydrogen  fuel  the result of the nuclear fusion is the  production of helium gas  as the star gets to the end of its  lifespan it runs out of this hydrogen  fuel  instead burning helium fusing the atoms  into heavier and heavier elements  once iron begins forming the fusion can  no longer provide enough  energy to hold up the outer layers of  the star or  schwarz child envelope this catastrophic  collapse  and then subsequent bright explosion  outward is called a supernova  but there is something left behind  the star's remnant gravitational force  is overwhelming  and crushes the star's mass well beyond  physical limits  the mass has been converted from mata to  raw radiation  and the indestructible child envelope  has sprung back  like a released rubber band causing the  star's energy to become forever trapped  in an impossibly dense point what about  the little ones  as it turns out not all black holes are  born from stars  it was proposed by the late dr stephen  hawking that microscopic black holes  could exist just a tenth of a millimeter  in diameter  he dubbed these primordial black holes  and went further to state that due to  their small stature  they had to be a byproduct of the rapid  inflation  and expansion of the big bang small  patches of over density in the newly  forming space-time continuum  caused by quantum fluctuations resulted  in these primordial black holes  as mata was squished into an  infinitesimally small space  resulting in teeny tiny singularities  can we see them the answer the laser  interferometer gravitational wave  observatory  or ligo to its friends in essence  it's a gigantic detector set up to  assess changes in gravitational waves  like the kind given off by black holes  each ligo detector consists  of two arms four kilometers long  comprising of 1.2 meter wide steel  vacuum tubes  arranged in an l shape there are two  such detectors  positioned three thousand kilometers  away from each other they exploit the  physical properties of light and  space-time itself and look nothing like  the usual dish or dome shape you would  associate with a radio telescope  a four meter thick concrete shelter  protects the expensive sensor array from  the outside environment  it's blind in that it's not set up to  see any part of the electromagnetic  spectrum  how do we listen researchers are looking  for secondary gravitational waves which  are much weaker than the regular  gravitational waves produced by  colliding black holes  the secondary gravitational waves are  remnants of the same forces  that formed the primordial black holes  the signals are so  subtle that for a long time they were  inaudible to conventional detectors  then along came ligo we're now able to  detect and assess  black holes with increasingly better  accuracy and sensitivity  the secondary gravitational waves given  off by clusters of primordial black  holes  called swarms enabled researchers to  pinpoint galaxies with an especially  rich abundance  for further study are they the same as  dark matter  for a while it was theorised that  primordial black holes and dark matter  were one and the same  invisible things exerting gravitational  force on matter surrounding them  does sound like the definition of both  but not quite  for over 50 years we've known there has  to be something else  that the numbers don't add up and there  had to be some kind of  undetectable unseen matter making up the  remainder of the universe  some form of elementary particle sitting  beyond the veil  frustratingly primordial black holes  were expected to be much more prevalent  than what they actually are  to try to capture them multiple images  of the andromeda galaxy were taken  capturing brief flickers coming from its  stars  these slight flickers were an indication  that a primordial black hole had passed  by distorting the light  as it absorbed it andromeda was chosen  due to its large mass of dark matter  but interestingly the primordial black  holes detected  accounted for just 0.1 percent of the  expected dark matter mass  obviously something else was going on  the two  had to be different and dark matter was  indeed its own beast  but one thing was for sure primordial  black holes contribute to at least a  small part of dark matter density  in the universe what did we learn  in short that primordial black holes  make up some  if not all of dark matter mass if dark  matter which makes up most of the matter  in the universe  consists of mostly primordial black  holes then the possibilities are endless  where do we go from here the first  andromeda galaxy study  uncovered a promising candidate  primordial black hole for further study  despite its small stature the mass  contained inside  is similar to the mass of earth's moon  subsequent rounds of observation are  planned in order to take a closer look  at andromeda  and its unusually high concentration of  primordial black holes  the end game is to build up enough of a  database to quintessentially state  whether the pint-sized singularities  make up all of dark matter and if not  all then what percentage  the discovery raises more questions  though the biggest of which  is if primordial black holes don't make  up all of dark matter  and there is another fundamental  particle's gravity influencing matter  and space around it  then how do we prove it is it back to  the drawing board  hoping that a breakthrough detector  design as revolutionary as the ligo is  thought up  by our best and brightest