Nearest Black Hole: Inside Pluto’s Orbit
Reading about a new satellite in New Scientist, set to launch in 2007, that could help us study the 4th dimension by analyzing gamma-ray bursts:
Charles Keeton, a physicist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, U.S., and colleague Arlie Petters at Duke University in North Carolina, U.S., have calculated how many of these tiny black holes should exist – and how they might be detected – according to an offshoot of string theory.
The theory they use, called the Randall-Sundrum braneworld model, proposes that the 3D universe we live in is floating within a larger universe with an extra spatial dimension.
They based their calculations on black holes that each contain only the mass of a small asteroid. Assuming these objects make up 1% of the mass of nearby dark matter – whose existence can only be detected through its gravitational effects on normal matter – the team says there could be several thousand black holes in the solar system. And not only that: "The nearest ones would lie well inside Pluto’s orbit," says Keeton.
Even NASA is calling this “extreme physics,” which has a nice ring to it.
We’ve covered this type of topic before – we like anything having to do with anti-gravity, anti-matter and the “theory of everything.”
