On the way to the Twilight Zone Options

[ustrax]

'A space telescope scheduled for launch in 2007 will be sensitive enough to detect theoretical miniature black holes lurking within our solar system.'

From here

Does anyone have more information regarding this issue?

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

if there was thousands of tiny black holes the mass of a small asteroid into the solar system, we should see them otherwise.

-they would occasionally pass through planets. at this occasion, they would brake in a way or another, so that they would end up to remain permanently into the planet, resulting in a collapse of the planet. So there would be planet-sized black holes into regular orbits into our system, what we don't see.

-further the sun itself would be, statistically, the most likely to be destroyed. If so, there would be in space many black holes the size of yellow dwarves of red dwarves stars. And nearby, so that we could detect them with the few gamma rays they emitt (when absorbing interstellar matter).

-the braking process does exist, from their gravitational influence which would create a channel of molten rock into the planet, or give them a circumstellar speed into a primordial nebulae. Otherwise these black holes would have galactic velocities (in the 250km/s range) or even more, from some early stage of the big bang where they formed. In this case they would only seldom pass through planets or stars.

The strangest case would be where the tiny black holes would be able to brake when passing through a planet, but still unable to absorb its matter at a significant rate. (from their very small size). If so, there would be swarms of tiny black holes into the cores of planets and stars, unable to absorb matter, and even unable to merge. Fascinating, but not testable. But there is a place where these swarms of tiny black holes may absob matter in a better rate: into neutron stars. If we find black holes of lower mass than the 3 solar mass maximum for neutron stars, we could ask why.

[Jeff7]

if there was thousands of tiny black holes the mass of a small asteroid into the solar system, we should see them otherwise.

But if they were the mass of a small asteroid, their gravity wells would be exactly the same as that of a small asteroid. Stephen Hawking's latest theories indicate that smaller black holes disintegrate the quickest. So a black hole with such a small amount of mass might disappear rather quickly.

[The Messenger]

One of the worst SI Fi nightmare scenarios is that an infintessimal black hole is accidently created in a particle accelerator, which immediatly starts consuming everything. Within a few hours, the entire solar system and all record of life as we know it is erased. Here's the kicker: If you assume intellegent life evolves easily; this has happened time after time in the past, with each intelligent life form erasing itself at a certain level of curiosity...

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Not the whole solar system: just the planet. At worse the bloated black hole cannot be larger than the planet, it will even be smaller, as, in the process, superheated matter may fly away. After, the resultant black hole continues on the former planet's orbit, and nothing is changed.

This senario was examined seriously: mini-black holes are supposed to already form into particle accelerator, but, if they were dangerous, the scenario above would have happened far before, as cosmic rays are much more numerous and much more powerful than particles in accelerators.

Of course it would be a simple, yet sinister solution to the Fermi paradox: after theories, civilizations should be numerous, when we observe just one.