Exploding black holes (may) rain down on Earth

[Khephra]

Are mini black holes raining down through the Earth's atmosphere? It is possible, says a team of physicists. They think this could explain mysterious observations from mountain-top experiments over the past 30 years.

Ordinary black holes form when stars explode at the end of their lives. The heavy stellar core can collapse into a superdense "singularity" whose gravity is so strong that nothing - not even light - can escape.

If some of physicists' favourite theories about extra dimensions are correct, it would also be possible for high-energy cosmic-ray particles from space to create black holes when they collide with molecules in the Earth's atmosphere (New Scientist print edition, 29 September 2001).

These black holes would be invisibly small, with a mass of only 10 micrograms or so. And they would be so unstable that they would explode in a burst of particles within around a billion-billion-billionth of a second.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994446

[SmileyBoy]

1. Would they explode before they reach the atmosphere???

And exactly how tiny are they?? Are they sub-microscopic, or the size of sub-atomic particles???

[Swede]

2. Fascinating

Maybe this will help in explaining the string theory.

[SmileyBoy]

7. That's right. If they gain more info on these, they could finally test it.

The problem with String Theory is that it can't be tested, and that it requires 10 dimensions. This new discovery could open new doors in this issue.

[supernova]

3. Why all the clocks

in your house keep different times. :evilgrin:

[DBoon]

4. Old News...

Those of us on DU have long known about a terrestrial black hole at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, located precisely between the ears of one GWB

[acmavm]

5. True, so very, very true. (Great line, wish I had thought of it myself.)

.

[Wonk]

6. Oh, so that's what that thing that I never noticed was.

:silly: