Astronomers Predict 90 Percent Chance of Spotting an Exploding Black Hole in Next Decade

Astronomers have a 90% chance of detecting an exploding black hole in the next ten years, according to a recent study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "Priordial" black holes, which are microscopic remnants of the early universe, are the subject of the prediction. Seeing one's last explosion would confirm Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes eventually evaporate and bombard detectors with a zoo of particles, including dark-matter candidates. Our cosmic narrative and physics would be completely altered by such a discovery.

Dark-Charged Primordial Black Holes

According to Space.com, it was assumed that primordial black holes (PBHs) would explode exceedingly rarely. The new UMass Amherst study instead proposes that these early-universe black holes might carry a slight “dark” electric charge under a hypothetical force.

The model includes a very heavy “dark electron” particle, which stabilizes a PBH and delays its collapse. Under this scenario, a PBH's final burst would happen roughly once every 10 years – vastly more often than the once-in-100,000-years estimated before. In fact, the authors calculate this boosts the detection odds to over 90% in the coming decade.

Observing the Final Explosion

Astronomers say existing telescopes should be ready. The team notes that today's space- and ground-based observatories could catch the brief flash of Hawking radiation from such an event. In practice, they will watch for a short burst of high-energy gamma rays, the signature of a PBH's final evaporation.

So far no such blast has been seen, but the researchers urge vigilance. As UMass physicist Joaquim Iguaz Juan explains, detecting one would be the first direct evidence of Hawking radiation (and of a primordial black hole), “completely revolutionizing physics” and helping rewrite the universe's history.

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Hubble Uncovers Multi-Age Stars in Ancient Cluster, Reshaping Galaxy Origins

Astronomers call ancient star clusters like NGC 1786 “time capsules” for their galaxy, preserving some of its oldest stars. A new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope offers an unprecedented close-up of this dense cluster 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Hubble's data show that NGC 1786 contains stars of different ages – a surprising find, since such clusters were once thought to hold a single stellar generation. This multi-age discovery is reshaping our view of how galaxies built their first stars, and suggests more complex early history. Mixed-Age Stars in a Galactic Time Capsule According to the official source, this Hubble image shows the globular cluster NGC 1786, a ball of densely packed stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers captured this picture as part of a program comparing ancient clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies (like the LMC) with clusters in our own Milky Way. The surprising discovery is th...

CSIRO Uses Quantum AI to Revolutionize Semiconductor Design

Researchers at Australia's CSIRO have achieved a world-first demonstration of quantum machine learning in semiconductor fabrication. The quantum-enhanced model outperformed conventional AI methods and could reshape how microchips are designed. The team focused on modeling a crucial—but hard to predict—property called “Ohmic contact” resistance, which measures how easily current flows where metal meets a semiconductor. They analysed 159 experimental samples from advanced gallium nitride (GaN) transistors (known for high power/high-frequency performance). By combining a quantum processing layer with a final classical regression step, the model extracted subtle patterns that traditional approaches had missed. Tackling a difficult design problem According to the study, the CSIRO researchers first encoded many fabrication variables (like gas mixtures and annealing times) per device and used principal component analysis (PCA) to shrink 37 parameters down to the five most important ones. ...

A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

Scientists have caught a planet with a death wish, which is an alien world, orbiting very near to its star, and so speedy that it is causing the star to go to its death with bursting explosions. HIP 67522 b is the planet, and it is of the same size as Jupiter with a seven-day orbit around its host star. These orbits are disturbing the magnetic field of the star and causing enormous blasting eruptions to blow back the planet and make it wrinkled. This is the first time that a planet is influencing the host star, as the astronomers reported in a study published on July 2, 2025, in the Journal Nature. A Planet with a Death Wish: HIP 67522 b's Fiery Orbit As per the study by NASA, Ekaterina Ilin, the first author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said that the planet was observed to trigger the energetic flares. It has been predicted by the scientists that the waves are setting off explosions that are going to happen. Magnetic Chaos: P...

Kartavya Kant Tiwari

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