The earliest black holes may be itsy-bitsy
Forget the middle child of black holes—what about the earliest ones that ever existed? Just earlier this month, astronomers found the oldest black hole yet, aged at over 13 billion years old. But a theorized type of black hole is thought to be even older, and considerably smaller. These “primordial black holes” are theorized to have popped into existence shortly after the Big Bang. But they are so small that they don’t accrete massive disks of material or lurk at galactic cores. Instead, primordial black holes are theorized to float through space, perhaps accounting for the dark matter that cannot be directly observed but whose presence is evident in the way it bends light.
