This false-colour image released in April by the Event Horizon Telescope shows a black hole at the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy. Astronomers looking for the elusive Planet 9 in the far reaches of the solar system might want to widen their search to include something much smaller but incredibly dense - a primordial black hole. Science website Gizmodo is reporting the scientists behind the black hole proposal - Jakub Scholtz and James Unwin - still think a planet is the more likely explanation, but they made the black hole proposal because they wanted astronomers to be more creative in their search. Primordial black holes could only have formed in the first second following the Big Bang, according to Astronomy.com. A five-Earth mass black hole could fit into a person's hand, while one with the mass of 10 Earths would be the size of a bowling ball.

Source: Stuff September 30, 2019 03:45 UTC