Something baffling is currently going on in the scientific community. Researchers are in the middle of finding out if a blackhole the size of a grapefruit is actually lying around somewhere in the corners of our solar system.
What is This Black Hole?
In the past, astronomers have observed a peculiar cluster of multiple trans-neptunian celestial bodies far away, but still in our solar system. By cosmic standards, that is essentially our backyard. In a report published on Space.com, it was explained that some researchers argue that the path of these trans-neptunian objects has been changed by the gravitational pull of an extremely large object, perhaps five to 10 times the size of our planet.
According to various theories, this object would be Planet Nine, or even Planet X. However, new research seems to indicate that the object is actually a black hole that manages to pack all the mass over these in a small sphere, approximately the size of a grapefruit. Just imagine! That is much smaller than a watermelon!
Who Are the Scientists?
The research, which was performed by Dr Avi Loeb, who is a Professor of Science at Harvard, and an undergraduate student at Harvard, named Amir Siraj. This paper was then published in the academic journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
In Universe Today, it was explained that the authors of the original study believe that the region could host a black hole. Primordial black holes are very different from stellar black holes and from supermassive black holes. For example, primordial black holes are a lot smaller and they are formed a long time after the Big Bang due to fluctuations in density.
In a statement, Siraj said that small bodies melts due to heat when they are near a black hole. After the objects melt. They are subject to a phenomenon called tidal disruption by the black hole itself, then there is accretion from the body onto the black hole. That is how things get swallowed by the black hole.