In a recent study published in the journal Physics of the Dark Universe (a badass name just begging to be on the cover of a sci-fi space opera series), cosmologists Dejan Stojkovic and De-Chang Dai hypothesized the existence of PBHs, or Primordial Black Holes, another very cool string of words.

These are tiny, extremely dense black holes that formed shortly after the Big Bang. They suspect these miniature black holes could exist not just in the deepest regions of space, but right here on Earth, passing through random objects all over our planet, including those in your home.

The pair theorized that these tiny black holes would function differently than traditional black holes, which form from dying stars. PBHs could have originated in the dense regions of space before stars even existed. Some theories suggest PBHs might be what makes up dark matter.

Stojkovic and Dai's theory, however, suggests that these small black holes bore microscopic tunnels through solid objects. They say that there's a chance PBHs shoot through solid bodies like planets or moons or asteroids with a liquid core and then get trapped inside and vacuum up its center. It would drain a celestial body of its liquid core until it was but a mere husk of its former self, and would only dislodge until an external impact shook loose.

Stojkovic and Dai know what you're thinking: if a PBH with a weight of 2.2 x 10^19 pounds can tunnel a 0.1 micron-wide hole into, say, solid rock, then surely it can shred apart the average fleshy human, right?

They say the chances of that happening are extremely low since a PBH's speed would prevent it from releasing too much kinetic energy, along with the fact that human tissue has such low tension that a PBH could pass through without causing damage.