Small black holes may exist inside stars: a rock song from the '90s prompted scientists to a new theory

There may be hidden black holes inside massive stars. Their existence could explain why there are so many cold red giants in the Universe (stars that are in the last stage of their lives).

This is stated in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal. Interestingly, one of the authors of the study was prompted to think about the possibility of such a phenomenon by the 1994 song Black Hole Sun by the rock band Soundgarden.

Astrophysicist Earl Bellinger admitted that he was listening to the song when an interesting question came to him: what if tiny black holes could be hiding inside much more massive stars?

Thus, Bellinger and his team decided to explore this idea further. To do this, the scientists began studying vibrations on the surface of distant stars. They claim that they can detect the existence of trapped black holes.

"I thought it would be funny to put a black hole inside a star and just see what happens," Bellinger said.

It is traditionally believed that a black hole is formed as a result of the death of a massive star that collapses into itself under the influence of gravitational forces. As a result, an object the density of which makes even light be drawn inside is formed.

In their research, the scientists turned to the theory that the Universe is full of tiny, primary black holes. They could probably explain dark matter, which makes up about 85% of the matter in the universe.

As The Byte writes, it is believed that since these small black holes were abundant in the early universe, they could have been trapped in cloudy stellar nurseries and eventually ended up inside newly formed stars.

The study found that if these black holes were extremely dense, it would force them to drift into the core of the star, where they could be quite stable.

Bellinger estimates that it would take "longer than the life of the universe" for such a tiny black hole to eventually swallow a star.

However, more massive black holes could swallow the star they find themselves inside in about a few hundred million years, turning into what researchers have called a "Hawking star." Such objects rely on the power of the black hole rather than on the fusion of hydrogen atoms like ordinary stars.

If the theory about the existence of tiny black holes inside stars turns out to be correct, it could explain the discovery of hundreds of extremely cold red giants, which are a late phase of a star's evolution. Scientists believe that by studying the vibrations on the surface of such stars, it is possible to find out whether a black hole is hiding inside them.

"I've joked with some people that it would be the dumbest Nobel Prize to discover dark matter inspired by the rock song," Bellinger said.

Earlier, OBOZ.UA reported that a giant star flow ten times larger than the Milky Way was discovered in "dead" space.

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