News JVTech What would happen if the Earth was crossed by a small black hole?
As surprising as it may seem, the probability that our dear planet Earth will be crossed by a small black hole is non-zero. Worse, it is even quite high. Wait, we explain everything to you.
Yes, the Earth has a good chance of being crossed by a small black hole
Sohrab Rahvar, a prominent Iranian cosmologist, recently conducted a study that may scare the uninitiated. His conclusion is clear cut: the odds of a tiny black hole passing through the Earth are quite high. On average, such an event should occur approximately once per billion years. For information, the Earth is already 4.5 billion years old and our blue planet should not die for another 6 billion years or so.
The calculations are simple to make: during its existence, the Earth should therefore be crossed by a small black hole approximately ten times. Humanity has only a few hundred thousand years of existence, our species has little chance of observing this phenomenon before disappearing, but the risk 0 does not exist.
What is a black hole?
To popularize quickly, we can say that a black hole is an ultra-compact celestial object. The gravity exerted by these points in the universe is so great that all matter and radiation cannot escape. That’s why we talk about a hole black : Even light is absorbed.
Since the beginning of this article, we have clearly specified “small” black hole, but we should even say “micro black hole”. We are talking about cosmic objects that are microscopic and undetectable by modern science.. This object of the infinitely small world can still be qualified as a black hole, because it would have a mass equivalent to that of a large asteroid, approximately 1000 billion pounds… all the same.
The odds of colliding with a larger black hole disintegrating us all at once are pretty much non-existent.
The impact of a small black hole on the planet or… on a human
For Sohrab Rahvar, the Earth can only react in two different ways to the impact of a very small black hole.
- First scenario: the black hole manages to maintain a good speed despite the friction with all the matter it passes through. In this case, the Earth would simply be pierced right through. The impact would leave a huge cylindrical tunnel about 20 centimeters in diameter, which would eventually fill in naturally. According to physicist Sébastien Clesse, we will be entitled to a hole in the ground and a small earthquakenothing more.
- Second scenario: the black hole is a little too slowed down by the Earth’s mantle. And here is the drama. The microscopic cosmic object would spiral down towards the core of our planet. There, it would begin to absorb everything around it and…grow. You understood it, it would be the end for the Earth.
According to Sohrab Rahvar, the first scenario (the most reassuring) is by far the most likely. The micro black holes likely to cross our path travel through space at very high speed: 200 kilometers per second. Our big rock shouldn’t be able to stop this crazy race.
Fun fact: yes a human is in the path of a micro black hole as it passes through the earth, it will shrink several centimeters and end fully burned in 0.01 milliseconds. Suffice to say that we would not last long.
