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It's managed to evade scientists ever since its existence was first proposed in the 1930s.

Dark matter, the substance crucial to explaining how the universe is expanding, has only ever been 'seen' through the gravitational effects it has on matter in the universe.

But now a pair of Russian astrophysicists claim they know where this elusive matter is hiding - and the answer could lie in another mysterious phenomenon: tiny black holes.

A pair of Russian astrophysicists claim they know where elusive dark matter is hiding - and the answer could lie in another mysterious substance: tiny black holes (pictured is an artist's impression). These microscopic black holes would have had an electric charge capable of attracted protons or electrons

Black holes are areas in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot escape.

Physicists have long believed that microscopic black holes must have existed in the early universe.

They argue that changes in the density of matter just after the Big Bang would have created regions of space dense enough to allow the formation of these tiny black holes.

Astrophysicists Vyacheslav Dokuchaev and Yury Eroshenko at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow argue that dark matter itself is made of tiny black hole 'atoms'.

The result would have been tiny black holes, that were dark, electrically neutral, non-interacting particles with properties similar to an atom. 'These properties are just one needs for the dark matter candidates,' Professor Dokuchaev and Professor Eroshenko write

WHAT IS DARK MATTER?

Dark matter surrounds galaxies across the universe, and is invisible because it does not reflect light.

It cannot be seen directly with telescopes, but astronomers know it to be out there because of the gravitational effects it has on the matter we can see.

The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.

'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.

'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'

Scientists are fairly sure it exists and is crucial to the universe, but they do not know what it looks like or where to find it.

According to the theory, these microscopic black holes would have had an electric charge capable of attracting protons or electrons.  

The result would have been tiny black holes, that were dark, electrically neutral, non-interacting particles with properties similar to an atom.

'These properties are just what one needs for the dark matter candidates,' Professor Dokuchaev and Professor Eroshenko write.

The black holes' interaction with ordinary matter would also be weak — much weaker than that of neutrinos, the researchers told Space.com.

Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles that make up the universe. They are similar to the electron,except they not carry electric charge.This means they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces which act on electrons.

Tiny black holes would also be unlike any other form of matter in the universe. The researchers calculate that an electron could orbit inside the black hole's horizon, meaning that it can never escape.

Finding a neutral black hole atom should be possible, the Russian researchers say, because the creation of these invisible objects might create a signal.

When an electron is drawn into a quantum black hole so that a black hole atom is formed, the process would release energy in the form of a flash of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

Also, electron jumps from one level to another would release photons, making black hole atoms 'observable in principle,' the researchers said.