A group of Japanese scientists have refuted Stephen Hawking's theory of the nature of dark matter. The study is reported by Science Alert.
According to Hawking's theory, there is a group of small black holes in the universe, formed just after the Big Bang, that make up dark matter. They have a small size, but a huge mass: a black hole with an event horizon of 0.1 millimeter should have a mass of 67 quintillion tons. Their existence could explain the mystery of the missing mass of the universe.
Using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii, scientists have tried to record the curvature of light from objects passing by black holes. For seven hours of attempts to fix the change in the brightness of the star due to the passage of the primordial black hole between the star and the observer, they took 190 pictures.
If Hawking's theory were correct, scientists would be able to observe the lens effect about a thousand times, but they were able to record only one event that fits the description. Thus, the fraction of primordial black holes can be no more than 0.1 percent of all dark matter, which refutes Hawking's 1971 paper.
