Astronomers have discovered six galaxies trapped in the cosmic “spider’s web” of a supermassive black hole immediately after the Big Bang, according to research published Thursday that could help explain the evolution of these mystical monsters.
The black holes that emerged early in the history of the universe are believed to have formed from the first stellar collapse, but astronomers have wondered how they expanded into giants.
The newly discovered black hole – a universe not even a billion years old – weighs 1 billion times the mass of our Sun and was discovered by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Scientists say the discovery helps explain how a supermassive black hole could develop in the center of our galaxy.
This is because astronomers believe that the fibers trapped in a cluster of galaxies carry enough gas to “feed” a black hole, enabling it to grow.
“Cosmic web filaments are like spider’s web threads,” said Marco Mignoli, an astronomer at the National Institute for Astrophysics (IAANF) in Bologna, who led the research, which was published in the journal. Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“The galaxies stand and grow where the fibers cross, and the flow of gas – which is available to fuel both the galaxies and the central supermassive black hole – can flow along the fibers.”
Mignoli said so far there has been “no good understanding” for the existence of such a huge initial black hole.
The location of the quasar (red circle) in the constellation Sextons. (ESO / IAU Sky and Telescope)
Iceberg help
The researchers said that the idea of attracting huge amounts of gas to the early universe – the formation of the web with the help of dark matter.
“Our findings support the idea that most distant and large black holes develop and grow in the formation of large black objects in large-scale structures, and the absence of previous investigations of such constructions may be due to observation limitations,” Co said. Colin Norman, Johns Hopkins University
An ESO statement states that the entire web is more than 300 times the size of the Milky Way galaxy.
But he says the galaxies are also somewhat obscure as current telescopes can detect, adding that the discovery was only possible using the largest optical telescope available, including ESO’s very large telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
“We believe we’ve seen the top of the iceberg, and some of the galaxies we’ve discovered so far around this supermassive black hole are just bright,” said Barbara Balamwarde, an IAANF astronomer co-author in Torino, Italy.
The research is the latest to try and illuminate the mysterious creation of these cosmic monsters, which is so ga ense that even light cannot escape their gravitational pull.
In September, two consortiums of about 1,500 scientists reported the discovery of GW190521, formed by the collision of two small black holes.
What scientists have observed is that gravitational waves originated seven billion years ago when they broke together, freeing eight solar masses from energy radiation and making them one of the most powerful phenomena in the universe since the Big Bang.
In 142 solar masses, GW 190521 observed the first “intermediate mass” black hole.
Scientists say the discovery challenges current theories about the formation of supermassive black holes, suggesting that they could be caused by repeated merging of bodies of this size.
ન્સી Agency France-Press
.
