For half a century, black hole fireworks have lived mostly in theory. The standard picture holds that if black holes ever “explode,” it’s vanishingly rare – maybe once every 100,000 years somewhere in the universe – and far beyond our reach to witness.

A new analysis flips that expectation on its head. Physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst argue there’s better than a nine-in-ten chance that an observable black hole outburst will occur in the next ten years.

The team noted that our existing array of space- and ground-based telescopes is already capable of seeing it.

Black holes that can explode

The scenario hinges on a particular class of black hole first proposed by Stephen Hawking in 1970: primordial black holes (PBHs).

Unlike their heavyweight cousins born from the deaths of massive stars, PBHs could have formed in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang. During that time, extreme density ripples compressed pockets of the early universe.

Crucially, a PBH can be far lighter than a stellar black hole. And the lighter a black hole is, the hotter it becomes, slowly bleeding energy as particles via Hawking radiation.

As it shrinks, it heats up even more in a runaway process that ends in a final, brilliant outburst. This outburst is a flash of particles and high-energy light that, in principle, we can detect.

That last part has been the sticking point. If PBHs exist, why haven’t we seen one go off? The prevailing wisdom has been that the odds are simply too small on human timescales.

Small twist with big consequences

The UMass Amherst team revisited one of the field’s quiet assumptions: that primordial black holes carry no electric charge.

In their work, they explore a “dark QED” toy model – an analog of electromagnetism that includes a very heavy, hypothetical cousin of the electron, sometimes called a dark electron.

If PBHs formed with even a tiny amount of this dark electric charge, the researchers show, the charge could temporarily stabilize the black hole’s evaporation. That pause delays the finale, so more PBHs would be reaching their terminal phase now.

With all current experimental constraints folded in, their calculations shift the expected cadence of observable PBH explosions from “about once every hundred millennia” to “roughly once per decade.”

“We’re not claiming it’s guaranteed, but the probability may be as high as 90% that one occurs within the next ten years,” said Baker.

Catching an exploding black hole

If a PBH is in its endgame, it should spew a burst of Hawking radiation: a short-lived cascade of particles and photons across a broad energy range. That signature is exactly the kind of high-energy transient today’s observatories are built to chase.

Space telescopes sensitive to gamma rays and X-rays, wide-field optical surveyors scanning the sky nightly, and radio arrays listening for fleeting bursts could all contribute to catching – and confirming – the event.

Because only lightweight primordial black holes can explode today, detecting Hawking radiation would be tantamount to detecting a PBH.

The team’s message is simple: prepare the observing playbook now. Coordinated triggers, rapid follow-up, and cross-checks across wavelengths could turn a single flash into a definitive detection.

Detection would rewrite the textbooks

Seeing a PBH explode would do more than check a box next to Hawking’s most famous prediction. It would provide the first direct evidence that black holes radiate and evaporate, lifting a key idea out of the realm of theory and into observation.

It would also prove PBHs exist at all – and that the infant universe could seed gravitational monsters without stars. Perhaps most tantalizing, the debris of that final flash would act like a cosmic census.

In principle, the particle spray encodes every constituent of nature that couples to gravity and can be thermally produced. These include familiar residents like electrons and quarks, the Higgs boson, any dark matter particles if they exist, and potentially species we’ve never seen.

A single well-observed event could offer a once-only inventory of the universe’s building blocks, informing everything from particle physics to cosmology.

Bold claims, big stakes

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The group’s “dark QED” setup is intentionally simple, and the true microphysics of any dark sector – if it exists – could differ.

Still, the work highlights how modest changes to long-held assumptions can dramatically alter expectations for what we might observe.

It also underscores an opportunity: even if the odds are lower than the headline number, the payoff of a detection is so immense that it makes sense to plan for it.

We already know how to look. We already have the tools. If nature obliges, the next decade could deliver a brief, brilliant flash that confirms Hawking radiation, reveals primordial black holes, and hands physicists a ledger of the universe’s particles – all in one cosmic firework.

The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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