Scientists have collaborated to tackle one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. They plan to verify a prediction made by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s.
Scientists will test Stephen Hawking’s theory to unravel the mystery of dark matter. (Photo: GETTY)
The nature of dark matter has perplexed scientists for decades, even though it accounts for about 85% of the total matter in the universe. Scientists cannot see it, measure it, or interact with it in any way; however, they strongly suspect its existence due to the way our universe is structured. Simply put, without a primary gravitational source holding galaxies together, the motion of galaxies would tear them apart.
Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain dark matter, ranging from new theoretical particles to gravitational forces leaking into our world from another dimension. However, a group of researchers from the United States and Europe has taken a different approach, trying to determine whether dark matter and black holes are one and the same or similar.
Black holes are among the most mysterious stellar objects in the entire universe. First mentioned in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1915, they exist as points in time and space where the collapse of a massive star leads to matter being compressed into an infinitely small space. This singularity breaks all known laws of physics, and anything—even light—caught in its gravitational pull will disappear forever.
The team will use data from the James Webb Space Telescope. (Photo: ESA).
Recently, astronomers from the University of Miami, Yale University, and the European Space Agency (ESA) suggested that so-called primordial black holes could account for all the dark matter in the galaxy.
Unlike regular or supermassive black holes, these hypothetical objects formed shortly after the Big Bang, which is also the challenge because they would not have had enough time to develop. Therefore, scientists propose that primordial black holes have been present from the very beginning and may explain why we cannot detect dark matter.
The theory is presented in a paper awaiting publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Nico Cappelluti, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Miami, stated: “Our research predicts what the primordial universe would look like if dark matter were created by black holes formed in the Big Bang—just as Stephen Hawking proposed in the 1970s. This would have significant implications. First, we do not need ‘new physics’ theories to explain dark matter. Furthermore, this will help us answer one of the most intriguing questions in modern astrophysics: How could supermassive black holes in the primordial universe grow so rapidly? With the mechanisms we observe today in the modern universe, they would not have had enough time to form. This will also resolve the long-standing mystery of why the mass of a galaxy is always proportional to the mass of the supermassive black hole at its center.”
The researchers will test their theory with the support of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built. NASA and ESA’s telescope is scheduled to launch on Christmas Eve and will detect light from stars located about 13.5 billion light-years away—one of the earliest stars in the universe.
