some of the most mysterious objects in the universe—might do the job of expensive particle colliders, and maybe even better.
A team of researchers, including scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford, has shown that massive black holes could naturally recreate the extreme conditions found in human-made particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, suggest that black holes might be able to generate particles at even higher energies than our most advanced machines.
The study’s co-author, astrophysicist Joseph Silk, explained that when gas swirls around and falls into a spinning black hole, it can create powerful particle jets.
Some particles fall into the black hole and vanish forever, but others shoot outward at incredible speeds.
According to Silk, some of these particles may reach Earth, carrying as much or even more energy than the particles created in the LHC.
Particle colliders like the LHC smash subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light.
These collisions allow scientists to study what matter is made of and search for new particles—such as dark matter, which makes up a large part of the universe but has never been directly detected.
But these projects are hugely expensive and take decades to build. A next-generation collider, for example, could cost $30 billion and take 40 years to complete.
Silk and his team suggest that we may not have to wait.
Black holes, particularly the fast-spinning ones found at the centers of galaxies, might already be producing these high-energy collisions naturally. In fact, massive black holes often produce dramatic outbursts of plasma and energy, likely powered by material spinning in their accretion disks.
The new study shows that gas flowing into the black hole can gain energy from the spin, triggering violent particle collisions.
The key difference between Earth-based colliders and black holes, of course, is distance. Black holes are far away, but their particles can still reach us.
Observatories like the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and the KM3NeT telescope under the Mediterranean Sea are already detecting ultra-energetic particles from space.
These tools might one day pick up signals from these cosmic collisions—possibly even evidence of new physics or dark matter.
Andrew Mummery, a theoretical physicist from Oxford and co-author of the study, believes this work could open a new chapter in our search to understand the universe. Black holes, long known for swallowing matter, may also be revealing its deepest secrets.
Source: Johns Hopkins University.
