A bomb made out of a black hole is a rather unsettling thought. The idea of a monstrous entity consuming everything that ventures too close is sinister enough. You wouldn't want one exploding in front of you in a searing flash of heat and light. Yet according to two astrophysicists in the US, something like that might actually have happened - not in today's cosmos, but way back in the fireball of the big bang. In fact, laser-powered black hole bombs may have been going off like firecrackers across the length and breadth of our infant universe. If so, they would give us a valuable new window on the exotic physics that went on in our universe's obscure first moments, and perhaps also help to explain one of its biggest contemporary mysteries - where most of its mass is hiding. A crazy idea? Perhaps - but the best thing is, we can test it right now.
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