Black holes are massive, mostly invisible, and so powerful that even light cannot escape them. So what would happen if someone broke into us solar system?
It depends on many factors, including the size and distance of the black hole, experts told Live Science. But in many scenarios, not much would happen.”They are not, in themselves, destructive.” Karina Voggel, a postdoctoral researcher at the Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center in France, told Live Science. “It’s just mass. Very compressed mass, but mass. It’s not a cosmic vacuum cleaner.”
If one black hole if it wandered into our solar system, the biggest effects would be gravitational. And these effects would depend on the mass of the black hole.
“The black holes we believe exist are all much more massive than the sun.” Robert McNeese, an associate professor of physics at Loyola University Chicago, told Live Science. “And the sun’s gravity dominates the behavior of bodies in the solar system out to incredible distances, and so anything more massive than the sun wandering into our neighborhood on scales much larger than the solar system would have noticeable effects.”
The black holes we know are either stellar-mass black holes—that is, black holes that are a few to 100 times the mass of the Sun—or supermassive black holes, which are 100,000 to billions of times more. than the mass of the sun. and are generally found in the centers of galaxies. But there are other possibilities.
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For example, it may be possible to create mini black holes in a particle accelerator. These would range from a single gram to the mass of a human and would be microscopic in size. “Nothing would happen if this just passed, even if it passed right in front of my face, because they evaporate in less than a second,” Voggel said.
Then, there are primordial black holes, which may have formed as a result of mass and density fluctuations in the very early universe.
“It’s not entirely out of the question that there could be primordial black holes floating around in the universe with masses comparable to some Land masses“And something that’s a few Earth masses wouldn’t have the really drastic gravitational effects that an astrophysical black hole would have if it entered our solar system.”
Some astronomers have even considered whether Planet Nine, a hypothetical planet far out in the solar system that could be responsible for the irregularities seen in the orbits of our known planets, it could be a “baby” black hole. to the mass of what might be a primordial black hole.
But given that this object, if it exists, causes only minor irregularities in the planets of the solar system, a primordial black hole far out in the solar system would not have very large effects.
However, if a black hole of stellar mass or larger were to pass through our solar system, it could cause catastrophe, depending on how close and how fast it was. If it were to pass through the Oort cloud — the outermost region of the solar system — it could disturb comets and asteroids orbiting there and send them hurtling toward our planet, Voggel said.
If the black hole came a little closer—say, 100 AU, or just beyond Pluto’s orbit—it could alter the orbits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. “But it’s likely that Earth won’t be affected much yet,” Voggel said.
Only after the black hole passed between the orbits of Uranus and Pluto would Earth begin to feel its effects. “If Uranus and Pluto were to pass very close, they could be pulled away from the black hole dynamically enough that they are now in orbit around the black hole,” Voggel said. And now our orbit would be changed.”
This could change our seasons, plunging us into an ice age or raising temperatures so high that life on Earth disappeared.
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If the black hole were to pass within Saturn’s orbit, it would probably move us outside the habitable zone where liquid water can exist. If it passed within Jupiter’s orbit, we would begin to feel tidal effects as the Earth began to orbit the black hole.
“If you get even closer … between us and Mars or something, then Earth will reappear,” Voggel said. “Tidal effects would heat it up. You’d have magma; the oceans would evaporate; definitely no more life possible.”
But both Voggel and McNees said all of these scenarios are extremely unlikely. “We worry about asteroids occasionally hitting Earth, but that’s because there are so many of them,” McNees said. “So even though the odds for any one individual are pretty slim, the solar system is full of them.”
But black holes are much rarer in the universe, and the chance of one traveling through the solar system even once is low — much less colliding with one. “Of course, you could make a summer blockbuster out of it.” McNeese said.