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Impact crater Clavius on the Moon. (Image: NASA/USGS)
According to Futurism, scientists who published their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society believe that these super-tiny black holes, sized at atomic levels, formed shortly after the Big Bang. As these densely-packed objects travel through the cosmos, they might have reached our solar system, causing dents on the Moon’s surface.
The authors of the study also suggest that these small black holes might have collided with other celestial bodies, including Earth. However, due to the Moon’s thin atmosphere, it lacks the same protection against impacts as our planet does.
Almog Yalinewich, a physicist at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and co-author of the paper, told CNET, “In principle, there’s nothing special about the Moon—the only reason we mentioned the Moon is that it has been studied carefully. Moons of Pluto and Saturn, or Titan and Triton, could also be strong candidates.”
The authors believe that evidence of these miniature black holes could also provide insights into dark matter, which many physicists believe constitutes a significant portion of the universe’s mass, despite being unobservable.
Some scientists speculate that dark matter is made up of “black holes formed from density fluctuations in the early universe,” according to the paper. Therefore, if tiny black holes from the early universe have caused collision pits on the Moon, they could leave behind evidence of dark matter.
Matt Caplan, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois and co-author of the study, said to CNET, “You might find debris from different kinds of quartz and silicates that you wouldn’t expect to be there. Rocks hitting each other wouldn’t get as hot.”
The researchers believe that manned missions to the Moon, such as NASA’s upcoming Artemis program, will enable them to locate and study these collision pits—and ultimately shed light on the enigmatic nature of dark matter.