Are tiny black holes hiding within giant stars? | Science | AAAS

Grunge music: a source of validation for a generation of disaffected youth. And a surprising source of scientific inspiration for Earl Bellinger of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. While listening to Soundgarden’s 1994 hit Black Hole Sun 2 years ago, he contemplated a curious question: Might itty-bitty black holes from the dawn of time be lurking in the hearts of giant stars? A new study by Bellinger and colleagues suggests the idea is not so far-fetched. Astronomers could detect these trapped black holes by the vibrations they cause on the star’s surface. And if there’s enough of them out there, they could function as the mysterious dark matter that holds the universe together. “It is speculative, but interesting,” says Juan García-Bellido, a theoretical physicist at the Autonomous University of Madrid who was not involved in the work, published today in The Astrophysical Journal. “It opens a new channel for the evolution of stars.” Ordinary black holes are born in the death

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