Did We Just See a Black Hole Explode? Physicists at UMass Amherst Think So—and It Could Explain (Almost) Everything

https://www.umass.edu/news/article/did-we-just-see-black-hole-explode-physicists-umass-amherst-think-so-and-it-could

Share.

13 Comments

  1. That “could” is doing a lot of work with a theory aluded to by a single non-reproducible result. I think I’ll wait for at least a second measurement before throwing too much weight behind this idea.

  2. “it could explain (almost) everything” is a novel variation on the usual click bait headline.

  3. For those who haven’t made it through the article: It’s not at all about any observations of exploding black holes.

    In 2023 a high-energy neutrino was observed, so high-energy, in fact, that we have no current explanation for it.

    The researchers interviewed in this article propose a hypothesis that primordial black holes should be evaporating, and at a mass that can no longer maintain an event horizon would then “explode” back into regular space-time along with a plethora of elementary particles, including these high-energy neutrinos.

  4. Astronomer here! Take a huge grain of salt here. This is based on a single neutrino detection by one neutrino detector. For those who don’t know, neutrinos are fundamental particles, like how an electron is a fundamental particle, except they have no charge and virtually no mass. Neutrinos are very cool but neutrino physics is *hard* to do right, and the first people to tell you “don’t obsess too much about single cases we don’t understand” are those who do it. You can usually tell what is an *actual* result based on if the neutrino detector’s collaboration is on the paper- for this one they are not.

    So this is a single weird neutrino was spotted and the group came up with a complicated theory to explain it. Ok, good for them. Doesn’t mean it’s correct or real, and skepticism is warranted.

  5. Reminds me of the time CERN sent a particle backwards through time. Oops nope it was a sensor malfunction

  6. Blackjaquesshelaque on

    Ahhh, so that is why there is a fluid leak under my truck. Maybe explain that annoying tik, tik, tik noise as well.

  7. Headlines like this shriek “I’m sure you’re dumb enough to click this link”. 
    Nothing explains almost everything. And this type of slop editing and journalism is creating lazy readers and thinkers. 

  8. **Did We Just See a Black Hole Explode? Physicists at UMass Amherst Think So—and It Could Explain (Almost) Everything**

    So, it’s not “just” because it happened in 2023. It’s not a Black hole and it didn’t “explode”. And it doesn’t really explain anything – just creates more hypothesis.

    God, I love clickbaits. But not really. Reported and blocked.