Odd black holes smaller than protons may have once littered the cosmos

The universe may have once been speckled with tiny black holes with a strange property called colour charge. These exotic objects, if they existed, would have formed in the instants after the big bang and evaporated just as quickly, but they could have upset the balance of elements that formed in the early universe.

Minuscule black holes formed right at the beginning of the cosmos are known as primordial black holes. Because of their…