Planet Search Finds No Dark Matter Black Holes

Dark matter remains such a mystery that we’re still unsure whether it’s made of microscopic particles or macroscopic bodies. On the “macro” side, dark matter could consist of relatively small black holes that formed in the early Universe. We might detect one of these so-called primordial black holes as gravitational lenses of background stars. A new analysis of data from the Kepler mission’s search for Earth-sized planets finds no black hole lensing events. From this nondetection, the researchers, reporting in Physical Review Letters, rule out part of the mass range previously thought still available for dark matter black hole candidates.