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Forgive my ignorance. If it's so relatively close, why wouldn't it be observed optically hiding some known objects? Mostly stars.
by playingalong 2y ago
Forgive my ignorance. If it's so relatively close, why wouldn't it be observed optically hiding some known objects? Mostly stars.
- stcredzero 2y agoIf it's so relatively close Relatively close is still frightfully far away. why wouldn't it be observed optically hiding some known objects? Mostly stars. It's angle subtended is still awfully teeny.
- ben_w 2y agoOne of the options is that it's a primordial black hole, which leads to my favourite "actual size" caption on a diagram, page 5: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.11090 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.11090
- squigz 2y agoI don't know why but that's... disconcerting. So small, but so powerful...
- stouset 2y agoHonestly finding such an object so close by would be incredible.
- jiggawatts 2y agoNothing would be more exciting for theoretical physicists than a small black hole in the solar system. It would allow “immediate” access to direct experimental evidence of quantum gravitational phenomena that would otherwise require a round trip journey measured in tens of millennia. Think about the funding this would unlock: long-duration deep space missions, particle accelerators in space, etc… It would be a new renaissance for science.