Primordial black holes

Hawking was the first to explore the theory behind primordial black holes in depth. It turns out they could have any mass – though really tiny ones would have ‘evaporated’ into nothing by now due to Hawking radiation. One possibility considered by Hawking is that primordial black holes might make up the mysterious dark matter that astronomers believe permeates the universe. But current observational evidence indicates this is unlikely. Either way, we currently don’t have observational tools to detect primordial black holes.