Our galaxy may host strange black holes born just after the big bang

The closest black holes to Earth may date back to the first moments after the big bang. New models of how these so-called primordial black holes would orbit other cosmic objects seem to match the unusual properties of the nearest black holes we have ever seen.

Regular, or astrophysical, black holes form when massive stars collapse in on themselves. But before stars existed at all, in the very early universe, tiny black holes…